I saw plenty of efforts that aim to create a Linux distribution for non-enthusiasts, for people who just want to use their computers, and not care about the details - A Desktop for All on the GNOME blog, most recently. While I commend the effort, my own experience is that these efforts are futile, and start off from a fundamentally wrong premise: that people are willing (let alone wanting) to manage their own operating systems.
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My family is using Linux because that’s the system I can maintain for them. Apart from my Dad, they never installed Linux, and never will. They don’t install software, they don’t upgrade, they don’t change settings either. All of that is something I do for them. And to do so effectively, I need a distribution I am familiar with, one that is also flexible enough to fine-tune for every member of the family, because they prefer fundamentally different things!
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The common pattern between all these three is that neither of them maintains their own systems. I do. As such, how beginner friendly the distribution is, is meaningless. The users of the system don’t care, they’ll never see those parts. They’ll have a preconfigured system maintained by someone else, and that’s exactly what they want. To make this work, I’m using distributions I am familiar with. For my parents, that’s Debian, because I was a Debian person when their systems were installed. For my Wife, it is NixOS, because I’m a NixOS person now. For the Twins, it will likely be NixOS too.
I can of agree the focus to make Linux easy to use is not exactly on the right things. There is a bit too much of a “make a GUI of everything”. Which is not wrong per say, but should not be the goal. More a mean to an end.
I disagree that users won’t do stuff on their own. They will, but they will allocate very little time to it, on average, especially when compared to a tech savy person. And that’s just because their computer is a tool.And if they cannot make their tool work for what they want to do, they’ll find another way. Or deem it impossible.
I think distro must make mundane tasks such as system maintenance hands off. As an opt-in option not to upset power user. But things such as updates, full system update, disk space reclaiming, … should have a single “do the right thing without being asked to” toggle. Things a bit more complicated such as printing/scanning document should be more context aware. A bit like on smartphone where, if you have a document open, you can select print and, if no printer is configured, you have the option to add one there and then.
Immutable distro have made good progress on that front IMO. But we still need better integration between applications and the Desktop Environment for things like printing, sharing and so on. I’m hopeful though. Generally speaking, things are moving in that direction. Even if we can argue flapak and snap are a step backward with regards to the integration of the DE, this is also an opportunity to formalize some form of protocol with the DE.
Imho, the best way to help a beginner should have happened many years before they put their hands on any Linux distro. It should have happened when they were still a small child, at school. In the way they were taught how to… learn and how to get better… aka, by expecting difficulties and by expecting to fail, often.
Failing should be expected as a beginner learning anything new. Like, say, we all learned to walk as toddlers. It was not by being told we walked perfectly but by falling on our diapered butt. Failing at outing one foot in front of the other and falling, over and over again.
That sounds obvious but, to my old eyes at the very least, it also sounds almost like an heresy when compared to what I see kids being taught nowadays. That things should be frictionless and that nobody should fail at anything, ever. That’s such a poor choice that doesn’t prepare them much. Well, imho.
When I switched (from 35+ years being an Apple user) to Linux, it was frustrating.
Even when where things went smooth, it could still be frustrating and it often was. If only, because it required me to change 35 years old habits. And when it wasn’t going smooth, even when I was using the best docs and guides, at times it could be incredibly and utterly frustrating, when not completely maddening. Either nothing on my machine was ever exactly like described in the doc, or the app version was different and some setting had changed, or my issue was a somewhat different, or the solution simply did not work, or I missed a tiny detail or a word somewhere in the guide. Whatever. Frustration was a constant.
That’s what people should be taught to expect and to be fine with. And not just with Linux, btw ;)
Long time Mac user here because of a steam deck. I’ve enjoyed KDE so much because of how much tweaking I can do. It basically feels like my Mac now, with the dock and the placement of the window management buttons, but also more colorful and “game-y”.
A week ago, I started tinkering a bit more with some other new options and it just wigged out, forcing me to reset it to default appearance in order to see anything again, and I spent and afternoon putting things back to how I liked them, albeit a bit different.
Also, now searching for global themes only results in an error and I have no idea why, nor how to fix it.
Nothing I do really makes it perfect, and I find myself a little put off by things such as my window styles not perfectly color matching the application styles because they were created by completely different artists with different goals in mind.
That said, my steam deck is a toy, and playing around is pretty much the only thing I’m doing with KDE and Linux at the moment. I am finding fun in it, ever if frustration is involved.
I use fedora atomic and I maintain nothing.
I use my computer once every week and I don’t have to care about anything. Fedora does everything.
If you take care of the systems of your kids or family, that’s up to you. You choose to do that.
Installing Linux is definitely not something, the average computer user ever wants to do. The same goes for Windows. Unfortunately you can’t just buy a Linux computer at your local electronics store. Until that changes, Linux will remain in a niche.
Even if you could, it would change nearly nothing. The average computer user doesn’t want to maintain their system either. They want a system they don’t need to care about, or at worst, a system their friends & family can help with. Thus, the best way for a Linux enthusiast to help their family use Linux is to install and maintain it for them. For that, you need a general purpose distro you’re familiar with, one that’s easy to maintain remotely.
In other words, distros that target the average computer user are futile, because the target audience is not interested in neither installing, nor maintaining their systems.
(And this is what the linked blog post is about, in more words.)
You can buy it online tho
But yeah I would not advise Linux to people unless they are at least a PC gamer or have somebody like that in their life who can figure it it out when something happens
But that goes for Windows as well.
True but people have some windows skills already
Most people I know have zero Windows skills that wouldn’t transfer to Linux. They can start a browser and click on a bookmark, but that’s as far as it goes.
The best way to help a non-enthusiast Linux user is teach them basic system maintenance.
You should have basic maintenance knowledge like checking tyre pressure and the fluid levels in your car.
By doing it all for them, you are perpetuating the learned helplessness encouraged by Microsoft and Apple over the last few decades and doing them no favours at all.
Consider what they would do if you were unavailable to help them.
Nope. That leads to frustration on both sides. If they want to learn - sure! I will teach them.
But if they aren’t into computers at all, trying to teach them sysadmin skills is a recipe for disaster.
You should not need to be a sysadmin to use a computer.
Not a sysadmin, but a capable user.
People shouldn’t just accept technology as magic. They should understand at least the basic principles of the technology around them. Corporations want us to be dumb and incapable. Look at cars, you seriously can’t expect a normal person to fix anything on them. But that’s not because of inherent complexity, but because corporations want us to just buy new parts when they think it’s time.
Sapere aude was true in the 19th century and it’s true today as well.
A capable user is already a willing one. A whole lot of them aren’t, and that is fine.
There is a huge difference between being able to use something, and being able to fix them, and being willing to fix them.
Case in point, if my car breaks down, I take it to a professional to fix it. Not because it is magic I have no hope of learning, but because I am absolutely uninterested in it.
If my pants rip, I take it to a professional, because that’s far more practical than trying to fix it myself.
Same goes for computers: my Dad is a very capable user. He spent 3 decades in IT, authored succesful books on subjects that interested him. He would be capable of learning how to maintain his system, but he simply doesn’t want to. It isn’t interesting, nor fun for him. So I help him by doing it myself.
My wife is also a very capable user, she can do everything on her computer that she wants. She hates computers, though, and would sooner divorce me than learning how to run apt update. She is a very capable user because I built a system she’s ok with.
Similarly, she is an amazing cook, and I am not. I am a disaster in the kitchen even if I try. So I simply don’t. The best I can do is throwing frozen pizza in the oven, amd I am not interested in becomimg more capable than that. Why should she become more familiar with computers then?
What I am trying to say is that people have wildly varying interests. We should not expect everyone to be competent at everything they may ever encounter.
I think you don’t distinguish enough between professionals and capables.
All your points are either “sysadmin” or “complete buffoon” and nothing in between. That’s not how reality works.
You absolutely are expected to be able to check your oil and just a few years ago, you were expected to be able to change your tires. That doesn’t make you a car mechanic, but a capable user.
I’m absolutely not a car guy, but I know how to change a tire. Why? Because it’s necessary knowledge. I also know how to file my taxes, even though I’m not an accountant or tax consultant. Again, because it’s necessary.
I don’t get this take… Mint is almost ready for mass market IMHO esp if it comes from a vendor with support
Ain’t this is what frmework doing?
The blog post is about people who don’t want to maintain their systems, and distros that try to cater to them. Mint isn’t in that set. Nor are people who’d buy a framework laptop.
this and also this sounds like a project ripe for teaching yourself configuration management with something like ansible &/or terraform; which will get you paid since they’re in such high demand right now.
Nix? Nah better stay away from that one.
The main goal of the author is to explain that the best way to help a non-enthusiast use Linux, is to maintain their system for them, so they don’t have to.
Use whatever distro you’re most comfortable with to do so. For the author (hi!) that’s NixOS. If it’s Debian, Fedora, Arch, or whatever for you, it makes very little difference for the end-user, they’ll see nothing of it.
the best way to help a non-enthusiast use Linux, is to maintain their system for them, so they don’t have to.
Uhh that’s a very unpopular approach. Nobody wants to do that.
The sentiment should rather be, that the system maintains itself. And that’s actually something I would get behind.
Tinkering around is cool, but I’m in my 30s and when my girlfriend’s build pipeline finishes, I’ll be a father, I can’t spend 4h every week fixing stuff, I need a reliable platform to work on. Currently that is indeed a mix of Debian and Nix for me.
At least the normal update process should work completely transparently for the user.
Indeed. But someone has to maintain a system, and those of us who know what we are doing are much better equipped than those who don’t.
The fact is that my family needs to use a computer. I have two options: let them try to do so on their own and deal with the fallout, or do it myself. I will choose the latter, not because I want to, but because the alternative is even worse: I can’t help with systems I have no clue about, even less when it is an OS I am not familiar with.
Thus, I developed a bunch of tooling that makes it almost trivial for me to maintain linux systems for the family. 15 minutes a week on average, I can sacrifice that to make them happy.
