What sends noobs running back to Windows?

[catweazel]

My parents being PC tech savages.... my mom is funnily enough much better than my dad.

Why is that funny?

funny

2. difficult to explain or understand; strange or curious.

A woman being smarter than a man is neither funny haha, strange or curious, nor difficult to explain or understand. It must be sexism.

[Pjotr]

It must be sexism.

Please no political correctness and SJW terror on this forum....

[ZakGordon]

Coming to Mint (a couple of years back now) from decades of Windows (since W98se) familiarity, I would say the command line is the most awkward aspect to deal with.

I was lucky in that Mint 17.1 installed without issue on my laptop (i had a couple of good website links in setting up my hardrive for that as well), and had some questions answered promptly on the forums here (thanks Pjotr!).

I expect that if i had some serious troubles, and then had to go inputting lots of 'weird stuff' into the command line and then copy/paste those details on the forums etc, i 'might' have ended back on Windows!

So the lesson here is it needs to work first time (in an ideal world). Or work far more often than not.

I had noticed with the release of Mint 19 there seems to be more people having issues, and that should be a concern for the Mint team? Maybe IF 19 is looking more problematic than previous recent versions we should recommend people start with the older versions (so from where? 17.3 or maybe one of the 18 versions?), if coming from Windows and looking to try Mint for the very first time?

But yeah that command line is a TERROR for habitual Windows users (that also have little or none programming experience). The less we get them ('us' as i was one of them!) to use that the better, until they have found their feet a little.

So put in CD/USB, install Mint, reboot and computer 'just works' = the best situation

[catweazel]

It must be sexism.

Please no political correctness and SJW terror on this forum....

lol - it isn't either. It's an observation.

[rambo919]

My parents being PC tech savages.... my mom is funnily enough much better than my dad.

Why is that funny?

Stereotypes (and strangely hypocritical offense-mongers) aside my dad can happily put together anything electrical and a third of anything electronic.... but software completely baffles him, my mom on the other hand cant understand either electrics or electronics but she can mostly manage GUI's. Obviously neither could ever handle a cli.... my biggest problems are my dad never deletes anything and my mom deletes everything foreign....

[Pjotr]

It must be sexism.

Please no political correctness and SJW terror on this forum....

lol - it isn't either. It's an observation.

It's not even that. It's jumping to conclusions. See the reaction of rambo919.

[Sir Charles]

It must be sexism.

That's rather a prevalent attitude not only in the society at large but also reflected in these forums. Many people refer in their posts to their wives as "the wife" as if they were things like the car, the house, the bike...

[Pjotr]

^ Madonn'....

[Sir Charles]

[Moem]

Why is that funny?

Stereotypes (and strangely hypocritical offense-mongers) aside my dad can happily put together anything electrical and a third of anything electronic.... but software completely baffles him, my mom on the other hand cant understand either electrics or electronics but she can mostly manage GUI's. Obviously neither could ever handle a cli.... my biggest problems are my dad never deletes anything and my mom deletes everything foreign....

I'm not seeing why it's funny that people have different abilities... that's just a fact. Not a big deal, I was merely curious. *shrug*

[rambo919]

This nonsense is why no one can have nice things any more...

[catweazel]

This nonsense is why no one can have nice things any more...

Nonsense. I have a nice car.

[Reaccion Raul]

You can't compete against Microsoft / Google. That's for sure. You need a lot of money, and there isn't.

In my mind the only way to get big is to actually sell pre-installed devices. In this way you can make sure everything works out of the box with no hassle, people would have a cheap medium that works, and that sells, look at Chromebooks. And most important, if you make good sells manufacturers will give better support for your system and what's even more important, software will look at you as everyones wants their marketshare. Anyway.. this is almost impossible.

The only other way to make it grow is to actually make a dumb install, just run the download on WINDOWS / MAC whatever, and let the device make magic. Just ask how many GB you want for Linux and language, anything else. Then hide the terminal as much as you can. It's the only way to get to real newbies. Someone that actually knows how to configure the computer to runs a pendrive / CD from the BIOS is a f***ing tech no matter what you think.

Either one of this steps needs to be done in order to get a real marketshare. The other thing is Linux is atomized, it's just difficult to know where to go: Ubuntu (and all it's desktops...), Linux Mint (the same..), Manjaro (the same...).... just to make this choice you need to have a lot of love for computers. A random person will get running when they see how many options there are and even "different flavors"!!. They just want the machine to work and look as cool as possible. For this reason, Linux needs a well designed page (not the ugly Distrowatch) on first spot in google. Just go in, enter your computer specs, get back some choices and list them by popularity and a single line comment. Download and install as in step 2. This of course, it's also an impossible mission. So everything will always be just as it is.

[Pjotr]

Nonsense. I have a nice car.

Yes, but that's a 1938 Jaguar. That doesn't count.
http://www.eurooldtimers.com/temp/stroj_zoom_16495.jpg

[catweazel]

Nonsense. I have a nice car.

Yes, but that's a 1938 Jaguar. That doesn't count.
http://www.eurooldtimers.com/temp/stroj_zoom_16495.jpg

lol

[MurphCID]

We've discussed elsewhere the impediments to getting people to try Linux.

There are three types of computer users:
1. Those who will never try Linux (for reasons in the 'what stops Linux becoming more mainstream' thread)
2. Those who try Linux and run away back to the 'safety' of Windows (or Mac)
3. Those who stick with Linux.

Looking at user group 2 - what reasons do you think send new people running away from Linux?

I think this is the area most important to address, more so than trying to attract higher number of new users in the first instance, because:
- People who go back to another OS will tell their story and discourage others from trying Linux, and
- Higher conversion rates will get the "Linux IS worth it' message out there...


Anyway I think that one of the biggest problems is that someone may find their existing hardware (often expensive existing hardware) not compatible withy Linux. eg if they can't get on line because their wifi receiver isn't compatible.

1) Hardware support (Wifi and video drivers are a case in point)
2) "L33t" attitudes and refusal to allow Linux to be brought into the mainstream
3) Software (MS has a way better marketing team, as does Adobe, etc than the word of mouth Linux marketers)
4) Lack of time to really learn Linux. (Most of us have a life with wife, kids, job, dogs, etc)
5) Lack of good tutorials, and almost everyone insisting on command line. By this I mean give then the same graphical tools that MS/Apple have, and keep the command line there for those who really want to get under the hood. Esoteric commands in command line to get anything done scares people.
6) Perception that linux is not as polished due to look and feel (yucky fonts, and clunky icons) (Few people want to dig around for themes, etc to make it look better, they want it to look better right out of the box like Apple or MS).

[MurphCID]

Coming to Mint (a couple of years back now) from decades of Windows (since W98se) familiarity, I would say the command line is the most awkward aspect to deal with.

I was lucky in that Mint 17.1 installed without issue on my laptop (i had a couple of good website links in setting up my hardrive for that as well), and had some questions answered promptly on the forums here (thanks Pjotr!).

I expect that if i had some serious troubles, and then had to go inputting lots of 'weird stuff' into the command line and then copy/paste those details on the forums etc, i 'might' have ended back on Windows!

So the lesson here is it needs to work first time (in an ideal world). Or work far more often than not.

I had noticed with the release of Mint 19 there seems to be more people having issues, and that should be a concern for the Mint team? Maybe IF 19 is looking more problematic than previous recent versions we should recommend people start with the older versions (so from where? 17.3 or maybe one of the 18 versions?), if coming from Windows and looking to try Mint for the very first time?

But yeah that command line is a TERROR for habitual Windows users (that also have little or none programming experience). The less we get them ('us' as i was one of them!) to use that the better, until they have found their feet a little.

So put in CD/USB, install Mint, reboot and computer 'just works' = the best situation

ABSOLUTELY!! Could not have said it better.

[MurphCID]

These days there is the added problem of certain standards like inits, display managers, important packages being deprecated either fast or slow (unity and gksudo being the best examples) and LTS bases changing and most previous forums and tutorials being rather useless..... what common noob under the sun will be able to deal with that level of complexity let alone realize he will now have to limit all search engine results to younger than a year ago IF he makes it that far? I dread the day that the potential general switchover to wayland actually happens.

Then there is the fact that Microsoft has managed to solidly corner the portable segment even though half the time it takes up way too much space and other resources to run on such devices.... think about that for a minute. M$ can reach places that the global Linux community cannot because it actually has properly organized end goals nvm that half of those are moronic if you look at it on the surface.... you have to admire even a moron for actually getting done what he sets out to do and fear him if he was only pretending to be a moron but that's another discussion. Not everything M$ gets done it manages by being underhanded, that's the reactionary mindset of the sore looser at best and willfully deceiving at worst.

The only reason people stuck with M$ till now is mostly everything just worked without having to think too deeply about it.... telling these people to RTFM or google everything is EXACTLY the type of thing to keep them in the arms of the devil. The only thing that will get them to leave those arms is M$ completely alienating them winch win10 is being fabulously successful with, some of those would gladly flee to mac except they cannot afford it and some of those only went to M$ because it simply was cheaper. Most people are sheep, telling a sheep to think for himself will cause him to find the closest sheppard even if that sheppard wants to fleece him. He will also refuse to believe the sheepdog is in cahoots with the sheppard but that's also another discussion.

BTW there is also a fourth group, the subgroup of group 3 that gets irritated and ragequits Linux because it's too much effort and there is more to life than continually wrestling with your computer. Struggling to make a PC behave predictably is fun for some yes but gets old real fast for others who tend to view the former lot as strange at best and masochists at worst.

Brilliant post! Yes, I completely agree here. Windows just works. No command line tinkering, no going under the hood to tinker with something, no having to write a script to get your wifi working. Linux, take heed!

[MurphCID]

2. I guess Linux Mint 19 specifically made a lot of people run back to Windows. With the installer creating an unbootable system due to grub2 not installing from the originals isos, the near unbootable systems due to the revoked -24 kernel that Mint's updater nevertheless installed, the hoops you've got to jump through to successfully enable hibernation and sometimes even to just make suspend work, etc. made this release one of the more painful ones.

Teething troubles of a brand-new LTS series, plaguing some early adopters...

Two things here:

1) Thank you very much for all the help you have given to me in the past. I'd love to buy you a beer and some Texas BBQ someday.

2) My LM 19 installation on my HP Spectre is really having issues. Enough to the point that I am probably going back to LM 18.3 this weekend. It started off with Windows instead of minimizing, vanishing, but still being in memory. After a complete reload of the system, now there are more nagging issues. With Windows, you can usually find the "techie" relative or friend who can help get something working. On Linux, not so much.

[MurphCID]

No iTunes.

Yes. This. It is important.