In the same way that not everyone cares about how their car works and wants to tinker with it and modify it, but they use it every day - there are people who feel that way about computers, and Linux being viable for those people is a good thing, and we don’t need to “dumb down” the whole ecosystem to do it, since Linux is all about options.
What you just said is like “I forgot that changing your tire/oil in 2024 is akin to surgery”. Yeah, it’s not that hard, but do you know how to do it? How many Linux users who drive a car do you know that could do it themselves correctly? Everything’s easy when you already have a breadth of knowledge on it.
Opening up a text editor to copy and paste 2 lines and then saving the file on your desktop so you can double click is still not even remotely the same as changing your oil. It’s closer to putting air in your tires for your bicycle.
We’re already in the context of someone has installed Linux as their OS on their computer, I’m assuming they have the knowledge to create a shortcut on a desktop and copy 2 lines into it… Like you don’t even need to go into the CLI to do this.
Well, they’d need to add a shebang, they’d need to set the executable bit, and if it works, it works, but if it doesn’t open a terminal (some DEs do, some don’t), you don’t even know if it worked, it’s not really that straightforward.
Especially in a terminal, it absolutely sounds like it to them.
A lot of users associate the terminal with “hacking” due to movies.
You haven’t worked directly with users in an IT setting and it shows. You greatly overestimate the average user’s technical abilities and ability to care.
I walked in on a user holding a power bar in one hand and the USB end of a mouse in the other while responding to a “mouse not working” ticket.
I’ve witnessed a user waving a wired desk phone around in the air to get better signal because they were complaining of poor call quality.
I visited a user who was panicking that their outlook messages were all getting deleted before their own eyes, not noticing that their monitor mounted on arms had fallen on their laptop’s delete key, holding it down.
I’ve seen how deep the rabbit hole of user inability goes. It’s not pretty.
Also don’t forget that most terminals paste on Ctrl + Shift + V by default, which is an extra hurdle they have to get over if they’re used to the standard paste shortcut. They won’t think to right-click to paste, and they’ll get frustrated and think the terminal is broken.
Oh sorry I forgot that copy and pasting something on a computer in 2024 is akin to surgery. Got it. Thanks for that insight.
In the same way that not everyone cares about how their car works and wants to tinker with it and modify it, but they use it every day - there are people who feel that way about computers, and Linux being viable for those people is a good thing, and we don’t need to “dumb down” the whole ecosystem to do it, since Linux is all about options.
What you just said is like “I forgot that changing your tire/oil in 2024 is akin to surgery”. Yeah, it’s not that hard, but do you know how to do it? How many Linux users who drive a car do you know that could do it themselves correctly? Everything’s easy when you already have a breadth of knowledge on it.
That’s still a really dumb comparison.
Opening up a text editor to copy and paste 2 lines and then saving the file on your desktop so you can double click is still not even remotely the same as changing your oil. It’s closer to putting air in your tires for your bicycle.
We’re already in the context of someone has installed Linux as their OS on their computer, I’m assuming they have the knowledge to create a shortcut on a desktop and copy 2 lines into it… Like you don’t even need to go into the CLI to do this.
Well, they’d need to add a shebang, they’d need to set the executable bit, and if it works, it works, but if it doesn’t open a terminal (some DEs do, some don’t), you don’t even know if it worked, it’s not really that straightforward.
Especially in a terminal, it absolutely sounds like it to them.
A lot of users associate the terminal with “hacking” due to movies.
You haven’t worked directly with users in an IT setting and it shows. You greatly overestimate the average user’s technical abilities and ability to care.
I walked in on a user holding a power bar in one hand and the USB end of a mouse in the other while responding to a “mouse not working” ticket.
I’ve witnessed a user waving a wired desk phone around in the air to get better signal because they were complaining of poor call quality.
I visited a user who was panicking that their outlook messages were all getting deleted before their own eyes, not noticing that their monitor mounted on arms had fallen on their laptop’s delete key, holding it down.
I’ve seen how deep the rabbit hole of user inability goes. It’s not pretty.
Also don’t forget that most terminals paste on Ctrl + Shift + V by default, which is an extra hurdle they have to get over if they’re used to the standard paste shortcut. They won’t think to right-click to paste, and they’ll get frustrated and think the terminal is broken.
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Give them an iPhone, be done.
If using a terminal scares you then don’t use Linux. Back to the walled garden.
Don’t be a gatekeeper, open computing is for everyone.
It’s not though. I’m not saying they can’t try to use it, but they’re looking for “free Windows” not “Linux”.