qsl Fair enough, but I will say the whole process of chroot and whatnot is enough to scare many folks away from linux forever.
I'm not quite sure how my comment (which was intended to explain to @Kevinsotovalle that the process of creating new ISO's is complicated and time-consuming for the team) morphed into a discussion of the user-unfriendliness of Linux in general (if that is what you meant by "the whole process of chroot and what is enough to scare away many folks from Linux forever"), but if that is what you meant, I agree with you.
I have used Windows and Linux in parallel since I started using Linux in 2006, and I have coached a number of friends trying to adapt to Linux. All found it difficult, and many (most?) decided after a while that the rewards did not justify the effort, abandoned the effort, and returned to Windows. I am suggesting to most of the people who ask me about moving to Linux when Windows 10 reaches EOL in a couple of years (non-technical senior citizens for the most part) that they would be better off buying a new Windows computer rather than trying to adopt Linux on their existing computers.
I know that my view is heresy on a Linux forum, and I have been pounded around the head and ears for saying this on other forums, but Windows 11 is an excellent operating system, user-friendly, requiring almost no technical knowledge on the part of the user for the most part, and "just works" for most people. Linux remains less so despite years of development. I see no compelling reason for most computer users to move to Linux.
I've argued for years that Linux will not gain significant market share unless and until (1) the Linux community becomes more focused and disciplined (that is, heeds Torvald's 2014 advice to reduce the number of distros and apps dramatically and focus on quality rather than quantity/choice), (2) Linux can be installed, used and maintained without resort to the command line, (3) Linux architecture evolves in a more modular, "plug and play" direction, instead of tossing users into "dependency hell" requiring user intervention to get sorted, and (4) Linux gains enough market share that OEM's and manufacturers supply reliable Linux drivers as a matter of course. To gain market share, Linux has got to get to the point where Linux is as easy to install, use and maintain as Windows, Android, macOS, iOS and ChromeOS. I don't see that happening any time soon, if at all.
I think that Solus (focused as it is on ordinary desktop users, extremely well-designed and maintained by the team, and carefully curated) comes as close to meeting those criteria as any distro I know, but it is still a long way from entirely meeting those criteria. Solus, being Linux, gets stuck in "dependency hell" more often than it should, still depends on the command line for troubleshooting/repair, and too often requires user intervention to get proper drivers in place. Windows, Android, macOS, iOS and ChromeOS don't present those issues to users, for the most part.
qsl If there is a learning curve, it should be showingcasing how the linux approach is better than any other OS. Otherwise you are just being esoteric just because, which may be fine for a private club, but makes for a shitty OS.
Well said.
In the last week, I updated a friend's computer from Windows 10 to a clean install of Windows 11, did a clean reinstall of Solus Budgie (to remove any cruft as I moved from an private Edge eopkg to the Edge Flatpak) and spent several hours trying to figure out if I should move my railroad computer (Dell Latitude 7390, i5 with Intel onboard graphics and Intel wifi) from Windows 11 to Solus.
The experiences were instructive.
The Windows 11 installation took about an hour and 10 minutes, most of it consumed by automatic updates, the Solus reinstall took about 40 minutes, again most of it consumed by updates. Post-installation setup (user preferences and so on) were all handled through GUI, as was app installation except for installing the Edge Flatpak, which required CLI. Because my friend syncs her Windows instances through her MSA, her Windows preferences were set up automatically for the most part, and because I use Solus Budgie OOB for the most part, I had to change a half dozen settings and I was done. Easy as pie in both cases.
But then, to the laptop. As I thought about it, I was reminded of the limitations of Linux in several respects.
I didn't have to worry about basic drivers, of course, because the laptop is vanilla Intel, but I remembered the testing I did on that computer in April-May, testing power usage and battery life (about 70% of Windows, with outside case temperatures several degrees hotter than Windows) and thought, why do I want to do this?
The next thing I thought about was setting up the display (the laptop is 13.6" running 1920x1080 at 150% scaling in Windows), and 100% scaling on that laptop doesn't work for my aging eyes. I read forum discussions about how to do deal with this, decided against xander, and set my fonts to display at 150% on Solus Live, which was an acceptable, if not entirely satisfactory, solution. But again, I thought, why do I want to do this?
And finally, I thought about MyRadar, which is a simple weather radar app available on iOS, macOS, Android and Windows, but not Linux. There is no Linux alternative, and I have looked high and low. I decided that since I had the app on my iPhone, I didn't need in on the laptop, but again I thought, why do I want to do this?
In the end, I decided not to switch the laptop from Windows 11 to Solus Budgie. I wanted to, but it simply wasn't the right choice for me.
To me, those experiences encapsulate what I've been saying about Linux and market share. Solus Budgie is as good as it gets in Linux, but Linux needs to improve dramatically to become an OS for "Joe User".
