Ease of use has been getting worse. And with the way enshittification has been hitting, the need for compatible software is likely to shift into a need for software that does what it says on the tin without 2 linked accounts and AI integration.
I know this thread is 10 years old, but still the steps “My laptop is a bit too warm” – “Scanning for temperature sensors broke my monitor” – “sudo i2cget -y 6 0x4f 176 [WTF?!] fixed it.” are really not unlikely to happen again today. I shot xOrg trying to get control over my fans just this year.
Yes, but that’s why I keep saying average user. Your average user mostly just browses the internet, casually plays games, and uses common software like word, with increasingly many apps/services being available online. Gamers who mess with drivers, the hardware, and bios settings and such are not really the norm. How many people in your life are afraid to touch the windows settings, if they even know where to find them?
Honestly most of the popularity of windows at home these days I’m willing to bet is because it’s what’s installed by default, and of course because of familiarity.
You’re right of course that professionally you can’t always replace windows, and while proton let’s you play almost anything there are certain games that aren’t available (usually because of anti-cheat). Most pc users however won’t notice as they aren’t gamers. I do also find that the settings and gui package managers on most distros are way more user-friendly than what you have on windows, which I think is another point in favour of using linux casually.
EDIT: Also most users don’t have high-end machines, and linux pc’s are nicer on the hardware and are less performance intensive which means their computers will be relevant for longer.
Bazzite kinda solves most of these issues though honestly. It’s immutable, so it protects you from doing things that might severely impact other systems. It also already has hardware support for things like fan control for a bunch of systems (Nvidia, Steam Deck, ASUS RoG handhelds).
Linux can absolutely replace windows for the average user.
I still don’t believe Linux needs to be pushed on people and it’s simply not for everyone.
It shouldn’t be pushed on people, but it should be talked about to give people more choice and agency in their home computing.
The problem is that people dont want freedom and privacy, they want ease of use and software compatibility.
Ease of use has been getting worse. And with the way enshittification has been hitting, the need for compatible software is likely to shift into a need for software that does what it says on the tin without 2 linked accounts and AI integration.
What are you talking about? If Arch is too hard just use Endeavor. /s
I know this thread is 10 years old, but still the steps “My laptop is a bit too warm” – “Scanning for temperature sensors broke my monitor” – “
sudo i2cget -y 6 0x4f 176[WTF?!] fixed it.” are really not unlikely to happen again today. I shot xOrg trying to get control over my fans just this year.Valid, but ultimately no average user is gonna try anything like that on their own.
I think it’s very common, particularly for gamers, to want to take control of their cooling.
Yes, but that’s why I keep saying average user. Your average user mostly just browses the internet, casually plays games, and uses common software like word, with increasingly many apps/services being available online. Gamers who mess with drivers, the hardware, and bios settings and such are not really the norm. How many people in your life are afraid to touch the windows settings, if they even know where to find them?
Honestly most of the popularity of windows at home these days I’m willing to bet is because it’s what’s installed by default, and of course because of familiarity.
You’re right of course that professionally you can’t always replace windows, and while proton let’s you play almost anything there are certain games that aren’t available (usually because of anti-cheat). Most pc users however won’t notice as they aren’t gamers. I do also find that the settings and gui package managers on most distros are way more user-friendly than what you have on windows, which I think is another point in favour of using linux casually.
EDIT: Also most users don’t have high-end machines, and linux pc’s are nicer on the hardware and are less performance intensive which means their computers will be relevant for longer.
Bazzite kinda solves most of these issues though honestly. It’s immutable, so it protects you from doing things that might severely impact other systems. It also already has hardware support for things like fan control for a bunch of systems (Nvidia, Steam Deck, ASUS RoG handhelds).