Yeah, I know people won’t want the label of activist. It sounds negative or combative.
It’s just a by-product of their choices.
Like calling people “normies” because they always follow the norm and do as they’re told. Again, sounds negative, but unless we actually have something truly different to offer the world, and we are trying to do something outside the norm, then the comparison stands — at least in certain aspects of our lives. We’re all normies in some way or another.
It’s in the title of the question. We are talking about everyone. I am not measuring everyone by my own standards and I know better than to assume everybody shares my curiosity and willingness to understand how things work.
I see it around me all the time, people just wanting to get things done and glossing over the details and inner workings of things. And I think that is a good thing too: Everyone being different and people having different interest. This makes the world more interesting.
When talking about how one can make things more appealing to others one must see what others’ interest are and how those are being addressed by whatever one tries to make more appealing.
Maybe yes, but sometimes no. I started using Linux in 1998 as a way to avoid the issue of Windows malware prevalent at the time. I used OS/2 for most of the early to mid 90’s for the same reason. I also enjoyed playing with other alternatives like BeOS, QNX, and FreeBSD. When it was obvious that IBM had no intention of continuing the development of OS/2 for the consumer market, I started using Linux since it showed the most promise out of all the alternatives (BeOS was far better than anything available, but that ship sank in 2000). And to this day, Linux has been the best alternative. I don’t hate Windows and MacOS, but Linux satisfied my needs, and I adjusted my expectations accordingly (seek out compatible hardware and not demand of Linux what it is incapable of providing).
So someone who uses Linux because they have old hardware that Windows no longer supports but doesn’t care about open source, privacy or some other enthusiast reason is using Linux “incorrectly” or “for the wrong reasons”?
IMO, the reason someone chooses to use Linux shouldn’t make any difference.
Speaking of using old hardware for Linux BTW, I had an old laptop lying around with Win8.1 on it that I was about to take to the electronics recycling. Slapped Fedora on it and donated it to my company instead, now it’s being used as a workstation by my colleagues for ordering materials and such. For the use case, it’s not like it made much of a difference whether it was Windows or Linux, but frankly, it felt like it got a second chance at life. That’s kind of invaluable, even just from an electronics sustainability perspective.
P.S: thanks for the warm welcome to the forum guys!
Most people absolutely do not care, in any shape or form, what operating system they run. They get what comes with the device they buy. Linux in the classical sense is niche, - in this sense, as in downloading an ISO and installing it to your hardware, is niche.
Modern computing is all about apps, - that’s what the major corps care about, not users, not hardware, but apps, because apps = revenue, and revenue that’s repeatable by subscription. Shift the app to the cloud, standardise, homogenise, and you’re set. Whether we like to admit it or not, Microsoft are a massive contributor to kernel code, because the cloud runs on Linux. Convenience does always not equal popularity.
Yes linux does. However with more flexibility things tend to get more complicated and therefore less covenient.
Installing Arch the old school commandline way offers a heck of a lot of flexibility, but for most non-techies out there it is just too inconvenient and complicated for them to attempt.
Installing Windows (with the standard installer) is convenience galore, but not very flexible. There is not a lot for someone to opt out / opt in. Espescially with a new machine where windows is semi-completely installed at first boot.
Therefore with convenience comes less flexibility.
I think, Linux will get more convenient in the next years. But if it’s the same direction I want to go and install it?
Nobody lives forever, and maybe tomorrow there’s a meeting where RedHat, Ubuntu and Microsoft decide to put their power together, make a new fully-system-integrated package-format which allows users to use all the power of their graphic card, printer, scanner, software,… Every .exe, .rpm, .deb, snap written runs out of the box, every driver written for MS is only one “install now”-click in the new colorful software-center away, reboot and enjoy! Of course, you must agree to use this additional software, but, hey, it just works!
Linux is only a name, and not every distribution out there in the wild must include this hatty-snappy-reddy-package-system. But if you want your distro to be successful, you should include it, why not, it’s free (as in free beer), come over here, it’s easy, come on, your friends are also here, don’t let us wait too long, you make us feel bad if we can’t level up your user-experiences…
If this is the price for convenience, are you willing to pay it?
As you’ve been around for a while, it sounds like you didn’t grow up in a society where only Windows existed and Mac became known after 10–15 years of your life had already passed. That was my reality, so the idea of choice didn’t even exist.
It is after learning about Linux and 10 years of dual-booting that I finally made the choice that, “You know… I actually prefer Linux, and kinda dislike Windows. I’ll never buy an Apple device.”
The choices I had were HP with Windows or Dell with Windows.
Regardless, as I see all Linux users as either intentional or unintentional activists, the reason why they are using Linux only matters in how they interact with the community. So, it’s not about whether or not they are helping the community grow or spreading the word — if that’s what you mean by,
I actually highlighted that.
EDIT: So essentially, for reasons 2 and 3, I’m talking about users who were forced to use Linux. They had no choice, so they don’t actually want to be here.
For reason 1, some of them have made a choice to use Linux - kudos to them, but some of them were also forced. Whether it’s the game they are playing no longer works on their previous OS (usually older games) or the platform they use to play games told them that they can’t use it anymore on their previous OS (like Steam told Windows users for Windows 7, 8, and 10).
One of the big issues is really Support. While most of us have come accustomed to going to forums and chasing down answers to our issues most people don’t want to put that kind of effort into getting basic support. Depending on a community which may be knowledgeable or not, friendly or not, active or not. Many factors about Support that Linux fails as far as being a mainstream player. People want instant results and don’t want to have to wait for an answer.
TheFrog:
To elucidate (or add my own words as the case may be), people don’t want to think or learn. They (the masses) just want to be spoonfed.
I see this as a problem throughout, not just Linux.
System76 is very expensive Clevo laptops. Tuxedo is slightly less expensive. The lifetime support with System76 is pretty impressive though.
Linux should be more convenient if there is folks who would like to support consumer/user questions and is pushing/helping to get it more mainstream. But it’s gotta be cheap - since people will gravitate towards what they know (even if they don’t like it) if there’s something similar with Windows.
Whether or not linux SHOULD be more conveinent than it is today is more up to the distros than anything.
I think if you want to use it, the buy in is extremely low currently. I’m not sure how it can be more convenient (again) without being to drive down and buy one.
Installing the OS is not something most users have done. Maybe I’m over estimating most humans (I’m sure I am, as I know how dumb the average person is), but if they simply tried, it requres following very basic directions and it’s done.
But alas, “Think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize the other half are even stupider than that” - George Carlin
Nevermind, I stand corrected, you’re right, people are too dumb. I wouldn’t let the average person make me toast.
Like it or not, I chose to use something other than Windows 25 years ago. Something told me that if some entrepreneur aka corporate hack can come up with an operating system for a computer, other talented people collectively could do the same without becoming a behemoth software monopoly and charge everyone for that luxury. I didn’t care for Windows with it’s software bloat and or licensing fees for usage. Linux is to me is like a hobbyist platform tailored to world community needs to be developed by people not corporate shareholders looking to make profits holding everyone hostage. If I have to wait for customer service for issues I can’t resolve then so be it. Rome wasn’t created in one day.
thank you both for the sanity check was about to give up on this thread. once you seen this wretched absence of critical thought or effort all around you, you cannot unsee it.
