Please understand that I'm doing this with considerable regret, but I have no choice but to declare my most recent & serious attempt to #SwitchToLinux a failure.
Blame me if you will, but for anyone with my non-trivial computer skills or less, "Just switch to #Linux" is utterly off the table.
I literally had ONE thing that needed to work & it just doesn't. For me. If it was me being unreasonable... but no, it's possible, just not for me. Which is just too random to be acceptable.
@jwcph I don't know what went wrong with your attempt (kudos for trying by yourself), and what was the single important thing you needed to work.
But I'm ready to bet heavily on
1) it is not your fault
2) it's not the fault of anyone contributing to linux to any degree (may it be by providing operating system parts, or applications, or documentation, or tutorials, or advocacy).
A common misconception (not sure this applies to your case) is thinking that "linux does not support some software/hardware": linux being open-source explicitly supports everything, no restrictions. It's the HW manufacturer/ application software developer that [does not ]support[s] some operating system.
There is no technical reason for HW/SW working in windows or MacOS to not work in linux: it's a (economic/monopoly) choice.
@jwcph my sympathies! A lot of things on Linux either "just work" like magic or turn out to be a tangle of intractable issues (generally not on its end, but that doesn't matter on the user end) that take outsize effort to debug with little hope of the effort being rewarded. That can actually be a feature for people with the time, inclination, and skills to go chasing down rabbit holes in search of a solution, but for the rest of us who just want things to work and don't have a bunch of spare computers to experiment and cobble with, just the one machine we have to earn a living on, it's a non-starter.
(For anyone inclined to rebut, I say this as someone who happily runs a 2015 model Macbook Air on Linux, Arch btw, as my daily driver. I love the experience and desktop usability for Linux has come a long way, but it's definitely not for everyone.)
@ljwrites Thank you, the way you describe it is exactly right! You could argue that in my own current situation, probably like 99.9% of trying to get Linux going works flawlessly - but that .1% that doesn't...?
That One Thing™️ won't always be a full-on dealbreaker like in my case, but it's pro'lly going to be a stone in your shoe (I've seen threads on things like wonky mouse operation, faulty screen resolution etc.) & sussing it out can quickly turn into a full-time job... 😱
@ljwrites @joe_vinegar None of that is wrong, but it entirely skirts the point of "Just switch to Linux", which is an almost unavoidable response when airing the slightest Win or Mac problems, especially in the fediverse.
The main reason Win/Mac works for most people is that *it was explicitly built to work for most people*. That was (!) an overarching strategy & somebody was responsible for it. This is not the case in FOSS & maybe can't be - but if so, most users are fundamentally excluded.
@jwcph @joe_vinegar Yeah, most people in my circumstances would have simply gotten a new Windows or Mac computer and I'd argue that's actually the reasonable thing for them to do. Many people *have* to have a Windows or Mac computer for work--I use a Windows computer myself for brief but critical work tasks even though I stay in my Linux setup as much as possible.
And this effective duopoly of commercial OSes gets serious because without effective competition/consumer oversight this overbearing market position becomes a means to exploit consumers, like Windows increasingly becoming becoming a wrapper for Copilot or both platforms leveraging their dominance to pressure users into buying cloud services. And this is just on desktop, I'm not even getting into the smartphone or other devices situation because ugh headache.
These practices are not going to get better unless more robust regulatory checks are made, because there's no money in someone buying a Windows or Mac computer and then using it for the next 10, 15 years. Users "have" to be turned into paying subscribers or milked for data for more profits. Linux is the biggest OS that doesn't do that, and as things currently stand is effectively unavailable to most users. Much as with the fediverse, some of the most privileged and savviest users can get excellent service and privacy but the bulk of users are left to fend for themselves and that's not acceptable to me.
Individual solutions that rely on individual privilege can't be systematic solutions that benefit everyone, hence the tl; dr: The solution is regulation of the commercial OSes and possibly hardware manufacturers, not just people switching to Linux. I wouldn't say no to better public support & funding of Linux, either.
@jwcph @ljwrites @joe_vinegar
Quite a lot of Windows, I think, was written to make it easy for your manager to have you do what they want, using MS Office etc.
Not all of it on the desktop.
IBM did a bit of that, Vs Lyons, of the Corner Houses and LEO, the electronic office.
Hey, that's okay, there's no need to apologize...
I am sorry that it didn't work out for you, and understand that maybe you have some application you absolutely had to have working, which wouldn't work for you in Linux...
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