Believe it or not, not everyone is intersted in tech. Most people just live out their lives oblivious to how stuff works.
Like me for example, I have almost 0 interest in medicine. The human body is not exactly a black box to me, but I don’t usually remember deseases names and stuff like that, even though some people remember all those things without putting too much effort into it.
Medical stuff is not comparable to OS that you use on a daily basis. Everything just boils down that Windows was pre installed on such a huge amount of machines that “you have to be tech savvy” or whatever to use Linux. And the fact that no one wants to install anything that wasn’t installed the first time, makes it that much harder to switch to Linux. But I believe that we all are slowly spreading the word of Linux more and more with each year. We definitely will have a year of Linux for sure (eventually).
Everything just boils down that Windows was pre installed on such a huge amount of machines that “you have to be tech savvy” or whatever to use Linux.
Yes, I would agree that having Windows preinstalled on almost every brand name PC/laptop there is out there is the main reason why things are what they are.
But, I’d also argue that, from your everyday user’s stand point, Windows is a lot easier to get office work done. Everything is pretty much GUI based, there is no terminal in Windows (cmd and PowerShell are not the terminal, you can’t do everything you can in a GUI in the cmd or in PowerShell, and vice versa, so it’s not the same), so from a regular user’s perspective, things are simpler.
And the fact that no one wants to install anything that wasn’t installed the first time, makes it that much harder to switch to Linux.
Why bother changing something that works and gets the job done 🤷… plus, they gotta learn new things if they did that, why make their lives harder.
Not everyone cares about libre software… or even know it exists.
But I believe that we all are slowly spreading the word of Linux more and more with each year. We definitely will have a year of Linux for sure (eventually).
If this does happen, this won’t be within a year, it will be within several years (or a decade).
But, I do agree that there are changes in a positive direction. Most software products (slosed source ones) now have at least a Debian/Ubuntu .deb package (which wasn’t the case 10 years ago, which wasn’t that long ago) and even do customer support for Linux (but only limited to that particular flavor of Linux which they provide the packages for… not an ideal scenario, but it’s not bad either).
So, yeah, I’m optimistic, but not too much. It might eventually happen, but not in the near future IMO.
Windows is a lot easier to get office work done. Everything is pretty much GUI based
No, most popular Linux distros have every GUI app you need to do your office work. What do you need? Office suite, file manager and browser? Check, check, check. Moreover, you don’t have any office preinstalled on Windows and you even have to buy it (and the OS itself), or create a Microsoft account and use online, feature- and Internet-limited version. (With something like Fedora or Ubuntu you can run the live version from RAM from a USB drive, get done with your work, and you don’t even have to install the OS, let alone buy it.)
Why bother changing something that works and gets the job done 🤷… plus, they gotta learn new things if they did that, why make their lives harder.
The point is that it would work the other way around, if Linux was mainstream (I’m already wet) and Windows was in the minority.
Not everyone cares about libre software… or even know it exists.
Yes.
If this does happen, this won’t be within a year, it will be within several years (or a decade).
We can only dream if this will happen within a year. But decades already have passed and look where Linux is at: dominating server market share, all the IoT devices, government related stuff, developers, free-believers, FOSS enjoyers. We have SteamOS, Steamdeck, other handheld devices that are Linux-based, Proton, Lutris, Wine and other stuff. We have a lot of progress already. Desktop market share year by year does show that Linux and alike take a bigger and bigger cut. Withing a decade, everything will probably run on RISC-V architecture (something already does) and Linux will probably only become stronger and its community and market share will only grow.
Most software products […] now have at least a Debian/Ubuntu .deb package
Well, maybe not most, but definitely noticeable, if you search for/use it. I was very surprised to see Cisco Packet Tracer being available in a native .deb package (surprisingly, no one has created a comparable FOSS alternative thus far).
limited to that particular flavor of Linux which they provide the packages for
Side note. You don’t always need the support, and the packages themselves can and do become available on other platforms. AUR and Nix repositories are the largest ones that have community-created packages that only available on Ubuntu or Fedora, etc.
So, yeah, I’m optimistic, but not too much. It might eventually happen, but not in the near future IMO.
I’m sure the year of Linux will happen before I die, or at least the next generation after me will have it. The progress is really huge and kinda becomes faster with every few years.
No, most popular Linux distros have every GUI app you need to do your office work. What do you need? Office suite, file manager and browser? Check, check, check. Moreover, you don’t have any office preinstalled on Windows and you even have to buy it (and the OS itself), or create a Microsoft account and use online, feature- and Internet-limited version.
Yes, but have you looked at how LibreOffice looks? It looks like MS Office 1997-2003. Personally, I love that, but ask any MS Office user out there that’s not into tech and just wants to get the job done, you’ll always get the same answer, MS Office post 2007 with the ribbon interface is a lot better. People are used to that. If they’d have to chose between spending a little money and learning something new, guess what, they choose spending a little money. I know, it baffles me as well, but numbers don’t lie.
And they usually see the whole MS account tied with office stuff thing as a feature, not as a drawback. Sure, they don’t get to use all the tools that the sute can offer, but who needs calcs in spreadsheets or math equations in a text editor anyway, that’s for geeks 😒.
Basically, if they can write a few words and insert an image here and there, that’s more than enough for most people’s needs. Sure, they pay for that, which they can get for free, but you don’t see LibreOffice ads in Windows, do you 🤷.
Side note. You don’t always need the support, and the packages themselves can and do become available on other platforms. AUR and Nix repositories are the largest ones that have community-created packages that only available on Ubuntu or Fedora, etc.
Thay is what I actually meant, we kinda troubleshoot our own packages, even if they’re repackaged from a closed source deb/rpm. If the dependencies are there and compiled against whatever is needed for the package to run, I don’t really see a reason not to offer support for other distros, or at least make a subforum or whatever for those that want to repackage stuff for other distros, so they can at least gather in one place and discuss issues regarding repackaging, with some guidelines> from the support staff of the product. But unfortunatelly, that’s rarely the case, that was my point.
Except for the fact, that you do that to plenty of other disciplines of life. It is simply that some people need a computer to work, they don’t need one as a hobby. They don’t want to “learn a new thing” they want their machine to output some calculations in excel. Same as you don’t learn woodworking when ordering a table from Ikea, or learning medicine when going to a checkup.
Same as you don’t learn woodworking when ordering a table from Ikea, or learning medicine when going to a checkup.
Maybe I’m different than most, but I DO wonder how that table is made, and I do try to educate myself on how the medicines I take actually work. There’s been times I’ve wasted almost an entire day binging Wikipedia.
I’m not saying I have in depth knowledge of fields outside my own, but I do make an attempt. Like, I’m not a gearhead at all, and I only care about cars being able to take me to work and back. But I do know how internal combustion works, and I have a general understanding of the components of an engine.
You’re an inqusitive mind (so am I) and there is nothing wrong with that.
But, do understand that most people aren’t. Either because they didn’t have proper guidance when they were young or just have no interest in involving themselves in new things, doesn’t really matter, the fact is that, yes, most people don’t really care how stuff works.
You might surround yourself with people that are like you, so you don’t see the other ones. Trust me when I say this, most people are not like you. I’d say about 5 to 10% of people are like you, that’s it.
A day on wikipedia doesn’t get you “installed linux and is actively using it at work” level of knowledge. For cars, the better analogy would be “I can replace the transmission in my car”. Everyone knows how “computers work”. Not a lot of people know how to install a different OS.
Anyone who wants to install a different OS on a regular desktop is able to do it quite easily, if they can read instructions on a website and an hour or two. It’s similar to swapping tires, which is not difficult but it’s important to read up/get shown how to do it.
But maybe I overestimate the difficulty of replacing the transmission.
I don’t think I really do. I always want to be able to fix all of the things I own so I always like to understand how they work. I don’t always actually end up learning enough about them but it’s not from lack of curiosity
The same thing might apply to people that just don’t know how to install another OS.
I’ll take my wife as an example, she knows how to work on a computer (Windows) in her sleep. Spreadsheets, documents, media, you name it. But, does she know how to work the command line? Absolutely not. If her Windows license is about to expire, she calls me. Her files get mangled up, she calls me. It’s not her job to know these things, it’s mine, she’s a social worker, I work in IT.
I can’t imagine walking around and just assuming everything is a magic black box and not have the slightest curiosity about how something works.
Believe it or not, not everyone is intersted in tech. Most people just live out their lives oblivious to how stuff works.
Like me for example, I have almost 0 interest in medicine. The human body is not exactly a black box to me, but I don’t usually remember deseases names and stuff like that, even though some people remember all those things without putting too much effort into it.
Medical stuff is not comparable to OS that you use on a daily basis. Everything just boils down that Windows was pre installed on such a huge amount of machines that “you have to be tech savvy” or whatever to use Linux. And the fact that no one wants to install anything that wasn’t installed the first time, makes it that much harder to switch to Linux. But I believe that we all are slowly spreading the word of Linux more and more with each year. We definitely will have a year of Linux for sure (eventually).
Yes, I would agree that having Windows preinstalled on almost every brand name PC/laptop there is out there is the main reason why things are what they are.
But, I’d also argue that, from your everyday user’s stand point, Windows is a lot easier to get office work done. Everything is pretty much GUI based, there is no terminal in Windows (cmd and PowerShell are not the terminal, you can’t do everything you can in a GUI in the cmd or in PowerShell, and vice versa, so it’s not the same), so from a regular user’s perspective, things are simpler.
Why bother changing something that works and gets the job done 🤷… plus, they gotta learn new things if they did that, why make their lives harder.
Not everyone cares about libre software… or even know it exists.
If this does happen, this won’t be within a year, it will be within several years (or a decade).
But, I do agree that there are changes in a positive direction. Most software products (slosed source ones) now have at least a Debian/Ubuntu .deb package (which wasn’t the case 10 years ago, which wasn’t that long ago) and even do customer support for Linux (but only limited to that particular flavor of Linux which they provide the packages for… not an ideal scenario, but it’s not bad either).
So, yeah, I’m optimistic, but not too much. It might eventually happen, but not in the near future IMO.
No, most popular Linux distros have every GUI app you need to do your office work. What do you need? Office suite, file manager and browser? Check, check, check. Moreover, you don’t have any office preinstalled on Windows and you even have to buy it (and the OS itself), or create a Microsoft account and use online, feature- and Internet-limited version. (With something like Fedora or Ubuntu you can run the live version from RAM from a USB drive, get done with your work, and you don’t even have to install the OS, let alone buy it.)
The point is that it would work the other way around, if Linux was mainstream (I’m already wet) and Windows was in the minority.
Yes.
We can only dream if this will happen within a year. But decades already have passed and look where Linux is at: dominating server market share, all the IoT devices, government related stuff, developers, free-believers, FOSS enjoyers. We have SteamOS, Steamdeck, other handheld devices that are Linux-based, Proton, Lutris, Wine and other stuff. We have a lot of progress already. Desktop market share year by year does show that Linux and alike take a bigger and bigger cut. Withing a decade, everything will probably run on RISC-V architecture (something already does) and Linux will probably only become stronger and its community and market share will only grow.
Well, maybe not most, but definitely noticeable, if you search for/use it. I was very surprised to see Cisco Packet Tracer being available in a native .deb package (surprisingly, no one has created a comparable FOSS alternative thus far).
Side note. You don’t always need the support, and the packages themselves can and do become available on other platforms. AUR and Nix repositories are the largest ones that have community-created packages that only available on Ubuntu or Fedora, etc.
I’m sure the year of Linux will happen before I die, or at least the next generation after me will have it. The progress is really huge and kinda becomes faster with every few years.
Yes, but have you looked at how LibreOffice looks? It looks like MS Office 1997-2003. Personally, I love that, but ask any MS Office user out there that’s not into tech and just wants to get the job done, you’ll always get the same answer, MS Office post 2007 with the ribbon interface is a lot better. People are used to that. If they’d have to chose between spending a little money and learning something new, guess what, they choose spending a little money. I know, it baffles me as well, but numbers don’t lie.
And they usually see the whole MS account tied with office stuff thing as a feature, not as a drawback. Sure, they don’t get to use all the tools that the sute can offer, but who needs calcs in spreadsheets or math equations in a text editor anyway, that’s for geeks 😒.
Basically, if they can write a few words and insert an image here and there, that’s more than enough for most people’s needs. Sure, they pay for that, which they can get for free, but you don’t see LibreOffice ads in Windows, do you 🤷.
Thay is what I actually meant, we kinda troubleshoot our own packages, even if they’re repackaged from a closed source deb/rpm. If the dependencies are there and compiled against whatever is needed for the package to run, I don’t really see a reason not to offer support for other distros, or at least make a subforum or whatever for those that want to repackage stuff for other distros, so they can at least gather in one place and discuss issues regarding repackaging, with some guidelines> from the support staff of the product. But unfortunatelly, that’s rarely the case, that was my point.
I thought linux dominating server space was natural, after downfall of unix. Doesn’t it?
Except for the fact, that you do that to plenty of other disciplines of life. It is simply that some people need a computer to work, they don’t need one as a hobby. They don’t want to “learn a new thing” they want their machine to output some calculations in excel. Same as you don’t learn woodworking when ordering a table from Ikea, or learning medicine when going to a checkup.
Maybe I’m different than most, but I DO wonder how that table is made, and I do try to educate myself on how the medicines I take actually work. There’s been times I’ve wasted almost an entire day binging Wikipedia.
I’m not saying I have in depth knowledge of fields outside my own, but I do make an attempt. Like, I’m not a gearhead at all, and I only care about cars being able to take me to work and back. But I do know how internal combustion works, and I have a general understanding of the components of an engine.
You’re an inqusitive mind (so am I) and there is nothing wrong with that.
But, do understand that most people aren’t. Either because they didn’t have proper guidance when they were young or just have no interest in involving themselves in new things, doesn’t really matter, the fact is that, yes, most people don’t really care how stuff works.
You might surround yourself with people that are like you, so you don’t see the other ones. Trust me when I say this, most people are not like you. I’d say about 5 to 10% of people are like you, that’s it.
A day on wikipedia doesn’t get you “installed linux and is actively using it at work” level of knowledge. For cars, the better analogy would be “I can replace the transmission in my car”. Everyone knows how “computers work”. Not a lot of people know how to install a different OS.
Exactly, good analogy 👍.
Anyone who wants to install a different OS on a regular desktop is able to do it quite easily, if they can read instructions on a website and an hour or two. It’s similar to swapping tires, which is not difficult but it’s important to read up/get shown how to do it.
But maybe I overestimate the difficulty of replacing the transmission.
I don’t think I really do. I always want to be able to fix all of the things I own so I always like to understand how they work. I don’t always actually end up learning enough about them but it’s not from lack of curiosity
The same thing might apply to people that just don’t know how to install another OS.
I’ll take my wife as an example, she knows how to work on a computer (Windows) in her sleep. Spreadsheets, documents, media, you name it. But, does she know how to work the command line? Absolutely not. If her Windows license is about to expire, she calls me. Her files get mangled up, she calls me. It’s not her job to know these things, it’s mine, she’s a social worker, I work in IT.