this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2025
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Sure -- but would they then respond to a prompt reading...
And then typing out that full exact phrase? I might do that, but only expecting/understanding that I may fuck my OS.
A layman would think: I am installing steam, I want to install steam. What do you mean potentially harmful? Steam ain't a virus. I have no clue what pop* is and what it does. -> do as I say.
While the prompt is perfectly adequate for those that are technically experienced enough to recognize it is about to uninstall your desktop environment, that isn't the case for someone who doesn't know what their desktop environment is. Especially since there is an expectation that installing software does not break things (but, because shared libraries are shared more often than not in Linux, it could!)
I will always think that if you type commands you don't understand, on an OS you don't understand, in the face of a scary warning that forces you to type a phrase like that, you are an idiot and you get what you get. The fact that pop os had that issue for a brief period isn't relevant. Linux and related free software has been developed for decades and despite software being one of the hardest things to get right, it's largely plug and play these days. Some idiot fucking his system up against fair warnings won't be changing that any time soon. Enjoy you win11 I guess though.
I don't disagree, but the fact is that these people exist (see Linux TT for proof). When things go wrong in Linux, people often end up being directed towards a terminal, even if they shouldn't be there for plenty of reasons. If you want to be accessible to a layman, largely plug and play is insufficient: it needs to be plug-and-play. I've had a wifi dongle not work, I had to compile a kernel module! Those kinds of experiences will cause people that try a flavour of Linux as a desktop os to go elsewhere. Furthermore, I have seen this warning pop up with colleagues when updating software. While they were smart enough to not continue, this stuff does throw up a massive roadblock when it does, especially if you are a layman. If the instructions tell you to install using apt - and this pops up, what would you do? You still want to install the software. It is just a massive source of frustration when something like this happens, even if rare. Doing something sensible (like installing or updating software) should never result in stuff like this popping up.
The moment you need to enter a terminal to fix something - the OS would be irreparably damaged for the average Joe. I would love an immutable distro that would be usable by these people without the risk of harming themselves.
You're failing to acknowledge that "these types of people exist" are largely a product of anti-educational resources like this particular LTT video. I've daily driven Ubuntu based oses for about 4 years solid now and never saw a warning like he saw. That is an extreme outlier, but his video presented it as common in the minds of probably a couple million people.
As for things being plug and play, Windows isn't either. I've used all versions of that OS except 8 and 11 and I've had problems as bad or worse than anything on Linux plenty of times. Updates have trashed my ability to boot on a few occasions. Yet to hear folks like you tell it, windows just works but Linux is only usable if you're willing to fix major problems all the time. That was probably true 15 years ago but it just flat out isn't anymore. You're not doing anyone any favors except Microsoft by continuing to spread the misinformation that windows is nearly flawless but Linux is unapproachable.
His specific instance was an outlier of what can happen yes, but it happened naturally during the creation of a video. While I can completely understand the annoyance - this was not faked for the video, and was something that happened. Calling it anti-educational is a rather conspiratorial take. Cutting it out would hide an issue that occurred! A rare issue may not be an issue for you when encountered, given your experience with Linux (we are on a linuxmemes community after all!), but can be problematic for the average Joe. Rather than being overly defensive and than waiving the issue because idiocy - improvements to avoid this from happening in the future are key in my view.
Thanks for putting words in my mouth: I haven't even named Windows, let alone called it better! I have had my fair share of problems with Windows, but technical issues have been rather unmemorable. Most recently the text selection cursor would be the wrong color for whatever reason. I've had an update fail once - but it did not mess up the machine, and the built-in system restore got it working again automatically. The biggest problem I have with Windows is with Microsoft: ads, telemetry, and the fact that updates are pushed without consent.
For Ubuntu I have seen my colleague stuck on the login screen after updating graphics drivers trying to get hardware acceleration to work (Nvidia, who else...) - took well over a day to resolve after things went wrong (colleague was considering a reinstall!), had an update of packages on my RPi mess up timezones resulting in database issues (took me a week to find the responsible package, luckily a hotfix had been released. but had to recover my database from a backup.). I've actually seen this prompt when I was trying to reproduce results from a scientific paper that used an older package (ended up having to do that in a container.). The WiFi dongle was just a more minor issue but one that could occur for the average Joe that would have been a major roadblock for most people.
All these examples occurred within the last 6 or so years. I love Linux on my servers & RPi, and would NOT want to use Windows there. But issues do occur, even when doing otherwise ordinary things, and that has ruined my day a few too many times.
I think LTT reveled in the chance to show "Linux bad". never would've had continued with that update otherwise.
To be honest I've had a lot more issues with windows than I have on Linux since I switched mostly to it.
Most times I boot my windows drive I end up spending an hour updating and seeing afterwards something broken, wsl for example. Docker has needed reinstalling several times to keep it functional.
Whereas on Linux only when I update do I see any issue (increasingly rarer all the time), which I choose to update btw. No popups forcing me to all the time. Then rarely even needs a reboot. Drivers almost never needed installed on Linux except for graphics cards for gaming, on windows drivers of all stripes have often been an issue, even today. Again I assert that if Linux came preinstalled, most people would have smoother experiences than on preinstalled windows.
There's a reason windows flatly refuses to do some things no matter how much you may want to. It's people that would do exactly that without any thought or hesitation.
I prefer a system that warms me but lets me do what I want with safeguards. But I don't buy for a second that many people would do this dumb shit. It requires too much effort for one.
I too prefer that. However, I also know there is a large subset of computer users that just want their magic box to work and I don't think it would be a bad thing if there was a Linux distro they could use.
Well it sounds like we want the same result, but I will submit there already are a few.
I have seen people struggle with install wizards on windows.. so basically if we set up some Ubuntu or a similar OS for many people, they'd be happy with it. People just aren't that great when any speed bump comes up and that's true on windows also.