The indoctrination of windows is extreme. Windows is just as hard as linux, harder even with all the layers of obscurity.
And yet... linux is hard, and users decry RTFM as "not growing the userbase"
this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2025
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Windows users and Linux users are not seeking the same thing from their machines. The common mistake I often see from Linux advocates.
From personal experience, when I was a Windows user, I didn't care (or even know) about privacy, open-source software, nor owning my machine. I didn't care if I had to sign up for a Microsoft account, and I never changed defaults ever (except for my wallpaper). I just wanted the machine to turn-on, work, and play some games.
Why am I bringing this up? Because Linux requires the user care about their machine and defaults. You need to know your architecture, graphics card, and threat-model. You need to know what your apps are called and where they come from. You need to know what tools you need to troubleshoot (and devs will not help you). This is the biggest the pain-point of Linux. Do not succumb to the survivorship bias of RTFM or command-line.
This issue cannot be fixed from simplifying Linux interfaces (though we should do this anyway!). The soul of Linux is adventure, collaboration, and tinkering. To get the most from your machine, you're going to have to interact with several communities. This is what makes Linux great, and frankly I do not think we should kill this for the general public - this is how you get enshittification.
The general public needs to understand that incompetence (being brain-dead) will lead to misery. It is simply the rule of the land. You need to care and you need to collaborate. We should not welcome nor accommodate users that refuse to do this.
I switched to Linux mint because I don't want to think about those things. I barely know how to use the terminal, and probably won't anytime soon. I just pulled the apps I needed off the software manager. I'm as happy as a clam in shit.
An OS that just works, without the constant bullshit that capitalism breeds always encroaching. It does what I want when I want it, no more no less.
Linux Mint is a great distro, and I'm happy it works for you.
In terms of mass-adoption though, the fatal point is probably putting a Linux ISO on a thumb drive. Like I said prior, we must be aware of survivorship bias. You don't care much for the terminal - but you made it through.
The people that didn't make it through probably failed from the thumb drive step. I only say this from personal experience, because when I first installed Linux, I was very determined and came extremely close to giving up at this step. And I only got through because I happened to find an obscure forum about how Rufus needed a special setting for my machine.
P.S. I also was not tech savvy, but I wasn't completely lost either - and I still struggled really hard here.
I remember back when I was a kid, the only way I was even able to try Ubuntu was through "WUBI" which was pretty cool - it allowed you to "install" Ubuntu via Windows, by leveraging the VHD support in the Windows 7 bootloader. It could also be uninstalled via the Windows control panel as it was registered just like any other program.
As far as I understand, it was discontinued because of inherent technical issues with that system - but I always thought if it could be done again, then it'd help bridge the gap a bit. All you had to do was download the installer, and double click it like any other program.
I had no clue how to write an image to a flash drive, hell I doubt I even had a flash drive to use at the time. π
Ubuntu used to mail out free install CDs for a while. Nowadays many people don't have optical drives anymore though.
I did get one of those at one point! Definitely no longer have it anymore, but it was really cool that Canonical provided those for quite a while (from what I know).
You can also order USB flash drives with a linux iso already on it for ten bucks or so.
@russjr08 @green previously it used grub4dos that was lauched from windows xp bootloader. this is still useful on mbr-efi multi-os boot usb drives