Let me repeat, a big part of the success of windows is due to piracy. In developing countries, poor people rely on it. Eventually they may become educated and well, they know how to use windows.
If windows/office becomes annoying with the ads then people will look for alternatives.
How is no one mentioning the abuse on r/conservative where spewing all kinds of falsehoods, and xenophobias and you are gold, but trying to provide factual information gets banned?
I think there are more things to worry about than the number of groups someone helps moderate.
And alsothere is no recourse against improper bans. I was banned from my corresponding country sub because a moderator misinterpreted something I said.
Oh. Smart and pedantic about an autoincorrect. I’m not going to say I know more about computers than you because… One never knows. I just started in 1982 and have only worked in IT my whole life in pretty much every role, in more than 30 languages and many different platforms plus contributing as a developer in a small distribution around 2006-2010 and ending up as a lead entreprise architect providing advise on the technological direction of 300+ systems. But again, maybe I don’t know much.
Your answer confirmed my original comment. You are commenting without fundament. “I used it 15 years ago” qualifies for speaking about Linux in past tense. Not in present tense.
By the way, I don’t know if you used virtualisation or WSL to run Ubuntu inside windows (I remember the Ubuntu cd had that executable) but it’s not the same as running a proper installation and back then WSL was lacking.
For me talking about WSL also qualifies as past tense as I haven’t used Windows at all since 2019.
Good for you that you like Apple. It doesn’t mean that Linux is not stable or is lacking though.
I said “you” generic as a knowledgeable person.
The people you are talking about didn’t install windows either. I’m talking about comparing apples and apples.
There is no more difficulty installing or using windows or Linux, but in Linux there are less problems.
You start with any mainstream distro. Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, Mint and the like.
The differencea between them aren’t relevant to a new user.
You install whatever you are comfortable with to be able to help them.
I put that in quotes because geeksquad sometime gets called to literally just connect cables and show the client where the power button is.
And my point is not to blame the clients. My car mechanic may be laughing about me taking the car to do things I can do my self in 5 minutes.
The point is that windows isn’t easier. It just has more readily available support and people who start using windows are OK calling someone.
People starting with Linux think that if they find an obstacle, “that’s it, Linux bad”, instead of paying someone to solve it.
Again. Have you used Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu?
Regular people get help with basic stuff in windows All the time. That’s why there is a Geek Squad in best buy. That’s probably the only thing missing for the non technical Linux users.
If people are paying someone to “install” their printer, why would it be different with Linux.
In fact, in Linux they’d need less tech support as many windows users calls are for slowness, virus and obsolescence.
Let’s not compare usability using different standards
Tell me you haven’t used a Linux desktop recently without telling me.
“I remember”. Using that phrase tells me it wasn’t recently enough. And “using it inside windows” tells me you tried to fit a round peg into a square hole or that you don’t know what you are talking about.
You may be a MAC fan and that’s OK if that works for you, but I haven’t needed to use anything else but Linux since 2004 (initially there were always pickups, though) and I’ve been runing it without issues since probably 2010.
“Microsoft testing new ways to lose customers”.
It’s well known that piracy was what made Word (.DOC) and Excel (.XLS) the de facto standard.
If the kids at home can’t use windows, they’ll find something different. And when enough of them find if, when they become decision makers they’ll stay away from Windows.
Imagine how different the landscape would be had MS cracked down on Piracy for their flagship programs.
I think for me the wave has more peaks and valleys.
I get to the last stage of good knowledge and decent confidence but then something new comes and I feel I’m ready for punishment again.
My first Valley of despair was Gentoo. 6 months of constantly compiling stuff and rarely using the computer for anything else. But a bit before that it was Fedora. In those early days, updates would continuously break my system.
In that first round I finally settled for Mint for years. After years of stable Linux Mint, I found my self with time and curious for Arch. And yes, that became the new l valley of despair. But eventually my stable instance.
But new things come and Wayland and new sound systems replaced what I had in my installation. Arch was again the valley of despair. And moved to Fedora, which is as stable as stable can be. I was traveling for the last two years so, no time to mess around.
Now back to arch trying to figure out the Wayland/Niri ecosystem. Let’s see where I land.
However, in my dual boots I always have a working installation I’m happy with and another which I mess up with.
In that thought experiment there are more scenarios. Remembering that stepping on a butterfly can change… This is, small input changes can have big repercussions down the line.
You cannot assume what Linux would be in that scenario.
Who knows if it would have been colored by a main corporation.
Capitalism would have found a way to leverage it and new computers would be sold.