Okay I know this sounds like click bait but trust me switching over to linux requires you to first master the open source software that you will be replacing your windows/mac counterparts with. Doing it in an unfamiliar OS with no fallback to rely on is tough, frustrating and will turn you off of trying linux. DISCLAIMER: I know that some people cannot switch to linux because open source / Linux software is not good enough yet. But I urge you to keep track of them and when so you can know when they are good enough.
The Solution
So I suggest you keep using windows, switch all your apps to open or closed source software that is available on linux. Learn them, use them and if you are in a pinch and need to use your windows only software it will still be there. Once you are at a point where you never use the windows only software you can then think of switching over to linux.
The Alternatives
So to help you out I'll list my favorites for each use case.
MS Office -> Only Office
- Not for folks who use obscure macros and are deep into MS Office
- Has Collaboration and integration with almost all popular cloud services..
- Has a MS Office like UI and the best compatibility with MS Office.
Adobe Premiere -> Da Vinci Resolve
- It is closed source but available on linux
- Great UI, competitive features and a free version
Outlook -> Thunderbird
- Recently went through massive updates and now has a modern design.
- Templates, multi account management, content based filters, html signatures, it is all there.
Epic Games, GOG, PRIME -> Heroic
- Easy to use, 1 click install, no hassel
- Beautiful UI
- Automatically imports all the games you have bought
PDF Editor -> LibreOffice Draw
- Suprisingly good for text manipulation, moving around images and alot more.
- There might be slight incompatibilities (I haven't noticed anything huge)
- But hey, it's free
How do I pick a distro there are so many! NO
So finally after switching all the apps you think you are ready? Do not fall into the rabbit hole of changing your entire OS every two days, you will be in a toxic relationship with it.
I hate updates and my hardware is not that new
- Mint - UI looks a bit dated but it is rock solid
- Ubuntu - Yes, I know snaps are bad, but you can just ignore them
I have new hardware but I want sane updates
- Fedora
- Open Suse Tumbleweed
I live on the bleeding edge baby, both hardware and software
- Arch ... btw
Anyways what is more important is the DE than the distro for a beginner, trust me. Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon, etc. you can try them all in a VM and see which one you like.
SO TLDR: Don't switch to linux! Switch to linux apps.
I don't understand the difficulty. My kid who used Windows for at least 7 years installed Ubuntu and just started using it. Why is this difficult for people? I helped him boot the computer from a USB stick and that's it.
Here is the app store, install programs from here.
Ok.
I think some folk want to pretend using Linux is hard so that they can feel more... Uh... Technical for using it.
It's actually hilarious how disconnected some Linux folks are lmao
The average person
I know these things are changing, but anyone saying people are able to switch to Linux by themselves and its easy and doable for the average person is fucking delusional, this post is one of the most reasonable takes I've seen on the sub
If all you do is browse the web, as is the case for a a lot of people, the OS does not matter. Heck, my neighbor does not even have a computer, does everything on his phone.
Exactly, in reality people will use what's given to them. Just like windows, introduce it now and people would lose their fucking minds about how convoluted it is.
Transition costs are what we should be looking at, right now to install or use Linux you need someone with experience explaining it to you. Just like it was when PC's were becoming a thing. Don't have that person? Only alternative is MacOS or ChromeOS for them.
@uranibaba @kernelle , well, yes and no. Yes, visiting most websites will absolutely not matter. Streaming however, does matter. Streaming from services is either not supported for some services and only supports lower resolutions. I am not sure which are supported or not currently, I remember Max not working on Linux, it might have worked with OS spoofing.
Edit: I dropped Max a while ago and haven't tried to use it for a long time after it initially didn't work while I had the service.
SkyShowTime also seem to not work on Linux.
On streaming, a partial (but admittedly not full) replacement is a sufficiently well-stocked local library. Just get the Bluray libraries (libaacs, libbdplus, etc) set up, throw in a keydb.cfg, and you’ve at least got some stuff. For me, there’s a local that keeps a good collection of Trek stuff (all the way to Lower Decks season 4 and Prodigy Season 1 from 2023), which is almost all I care about.
The average old person perhaps. Young people are not afraid of change in most cases. They don't have that barrier of thinking learning something new is difficult. It just happens as they click around. And they have friends, and they ask their friends. Just like we did when we were young. I don't think you asked your dad how to use windows.. :)
I honestly think that if you would have Linux on laptops and you gave it to young people, they would have no problems finding out how to install programs and use the web browser. And that's the start of the learning experience.
Sure, give a somewhat intelligent person between 20 and 40 a PC with Linux on it and they’ll figure it out. However, that doesn’t mean they have the patience of finding out how to install Linux in the first place. And also, they‘ll figure out how to install apps, sure. Until they try to download the installer.exe for Microsoft Office because why would they know that it won’t work.
The problem isn’t, that they couldn’t figure it out, the problem is most people just want a working computer and not relearn what they already know or learn what an operating system is at all.
(And also, I remember reading some study, that a lot of late Gen Z and younger (the ones that didn’t grow up with Windows XP or earlier anymore) are actually less tech savvy than older generations because they’re used to not really having to troubleshoot tech)
Couldn't have said it better, and I've seen the same article as well!
Funny story a coworker told me is his father kept breaking his windows install in the weirdest ways, so he asked him if he'd try Linux and was very reluctant. He showed him his laptop and he said "Oh yeah I used this at work for 30 years!"
Dunnily enough, I got into Linux through my grandfather (now in his 70s), who had been on and off using Linux since redhat. Although, by now, my tech and Linux knowledge surpassed his (at least in applications relevant in this century) because he’s scared of the internet
Truth be told, being gen Z myself, I think it’s less about what Windows version they used and more about the fact that most primarily use mobile phones these days. Funny enough, the two other gen Z Linux users I’ve met were Arch users, while I’m a Debian guy.
Your point is proven by the adaptation of chromebooks, kids have no issue using them and neither should anyone else. It's not a Linux thing, it's a "what did you use the most"-thing. Some distros are ready to be shipped to consumers, bought a laptop with Linux pre-installed in 2018 (XPS 13).
You'll see mainstream use if stores are selling them in-store to consumers. You're up against the likes of Google, Microsoft or Apple when you try to pull that off.
PS: I believe in mainstream Linux use because money has a tendency to ruin everything, just think it will be much slower than us enthusiasts would want.
We can all get smart and snarky about "average persons" but then again, who says the OP was for average person.
Your "average" person is not even on Reddit, let alone Lemmy, and if by chance they stumble along they are probably not clicking posts like this.
So when you stop laughing from "hilarious disconnected Linux folks", maybe sleep on it, then try thinking about this.
In context of this community and this thread, no, Linux is not all that horrible compared to Windows.
Nobody, the post is to aid us who are assisting other people to switch. I'm saying people here vastly overestimate the average persons ability AND willingness to actually switch, by themselves or assisted.
It is, in part because Linux is not beginner friendly but mostly because everyone is used to windows. Almost every program they've used is exclusive to it, which is why this post provides a path to eventually introduce them to Linux. Using Linux isn't hard, using it the same way people are used to is. As is troubleshooting and installing 3rd party applications.
So when you're done building strawmans, go touch some grass
Yup, I think a lot of people just use their web browser for everything, and they can definitely just switch. Outside of work, how many non-techies have set up their email to use a native program? Very few, in my experience.
I think documents are sometimes the exception, since there's a sizable (perhaps older) group that like to use Word for everything.
All the tech literacy programs for parents also basically ended up only teaching office software, for some reason.
My mom is 80 years old and I got her on Mint years ago - mostly because I was tired of fixing the mistakes Windows let her make.
My mom is a walking disaster with computers but she got used to it and now she can't mess up anything, and she doesn't worry about messing up anything anymore too. If she can do it, anyone can do it.
I also wonder the future of immutable Linux. Right now it has pain points but maybe someday it will work reliability
I switched as a kid too, but that makes it really easy because I never ended up depending on a bunch of proprietary Windows only apps. I never learned stuff like Photoshop and Illustrator and Premiere, not even on pirated versions like most kids do. Photoshop CS2 technically ran under wine but the experience was so miserable I learned GIMP instead. My last Windows was XP.
The older you get the more "serious" software you have too, like tax stuff, the whole Windows-centered workflow at work. The deeper you are into the ecosystem the worse it is.
The issue I see over and over and over is not that using Linux in itself is that hard, it's dealbreaker software and hardware. Oh your capture card isn't supported. Your audio mixer's not supported. It sucks. So basically what OP said: you have to switch to Linux friendly software first, then it's basically just swapping the OS and not flipping your entire computing experience over.
Luckily, I don’t depend on Adobe stuff, but knowing some professional photographers, you sort of can’t live without Photoshop. I feel like GIMP has severely stagnated - many of the features are there, but buried, while non-destructive editing integral to a modern workflow seems eons away. (I find this weird, especially considering how good and mostly intuitive a project like Inkscape is - I find a lot of things easier than Illustrator.) I kind of want to learn GPU shaders and GPU compute (I’m mostly a Python guy with up to Calculus II experience, some bezier curve know-how, and more math on the way, for reference, for reference) so I could create a fast open graphics editor as backlash for Adobe’s AI buffoonery, though my project management skills aren’t great at the moment.
Yes, hardware support for things like video capture, that is the danger zone. :)
The thing is alot of people who work really well in the windows environment and have been doing so for a while will now have to face both a new environment and new tools. Then there is the problem of time ... If you are trying to work while also troubleshooting your OS with none of the tools that you know how to troubleshoot with it could be frustrating.
Let's not pretend that most people know how to troubleshoot. ^only^ ^a^ ^little^ ^/s^
90% of people who say they cant switch really mean they don’t want to. It’s really not about application availability, capability, or otherwise. It’s about it not being the same as what they have always done. NOTE: 97% of statistics are made up anyway.