Linux Rant Edition
Read an article today which stated that if you knew how to install Office, you could install Linux. That is just how simply it has become to install Linux.
I nearly shit myself laughing at this. But decided I could use more humour, so I read through it. And boy was I not disappointed. Linux fans sure do have their heads far up their own asses.
I don't want to say that things haven't improved over the years. They have. But one thing hasn't. Who is installing Linux and the general skills required.
I installed a crap ton of Linux VMs in the past week and here is what I will say; more Linux distros today install comparatively easily, and work, generally out of the box.
That being said, the best installs are really no more improved than they were 5, perhaps even 10 years ago. The average distro is simply up to that same bar now. So, let's tackle this hilarious myth.
The article starts by telling you to download an ISO. And you've lost! That's right! Step #1, downloading and it is already harder than Office. Why? Well, the article makes that clear by spending a paragraph explains WHAT AN ISO IS. When someone downloads the installer for Office, they DON'T NEED TO KNOW. They double click and it opens. You've lost.
But, let's continue this insanity. Well, you can't JUST USE AN ISO. You need to burn it to disk or make a bootable USB drive with the contents. At this point it recommends software for the latter. And you've double lost. You now need to install a separate piece of software, replete with instructions on usage already more complex than the Office install just to get your something you can boot the ISO off of. In other words, it can be easier than an office install because one of the steps is literally installing AND USING something else.
It doesn't end there of course. Then you need to reboot, which may involve changing the boot sequence. Especially if you used a USB drive. To be clear, I've never needed to reboot a PC and mess with the BIOS just to BEGIN an Office installation. In fact, in recent versions I don't even need a reboot at the end.
Let's say you got that far. Image boots. You start the installation. I think the current office install has maybe one prompt. Maybe? And you can basically click OK and not change anything. A Linux install, even the simplest ones have MANY screens, and almost all REQUIRE user input. One of those screens involves choosing how to PARTITION YOUR HARD DRIVE!?!?! And guess what? If you came into this expecting it to be as easy as installing Office, you probably have no usable partitions. So, if you choose the wrong thing... OOPS, you just nuked the install of the OS you actually know how to use. Again... zero chance of accidentally reformatting your hard drives during an Office install and no screens you NEED to mess with.
I've been building machines for years. I know how to shrink partitions in Windows. I have spare hard drives and I know how to answer all of the prompts. The prompts are general easy. But, the average person doesn't understand the lingo. The installers neither adequately explain it or can offer adequate default values. Even if the average person COULD fumble their way through the install (and I don't believe that they can), they would likely choose not to anyway.
But, if they did succeed. What then? In my experience, odds are fantastic that you have a usable OS but which is SUPER flawed. Aside from when running on 5-10+ year old hardware, I almost always encounter things which either totally don't work or mostly don't work out of the box. And unfortunately, one of those things is WiFi. Which means, if it didn't auto-configure, you don't even have what you need to help you track down the info to fix it. The other big one is graphics. They generally display a GUI successfully, but most distros don't default to including proprietary drivers, meaning unless you knew to tell it to include them AND know how to tell it use them after the fact you wind up with a machine dirt slow compared to what it should be.
And if you get through all of THAT. Then you have succeeded in installing Linux. You want to dual boot Windows and Linux now? AHAHAHAHAH!
Seriously, if the above passes for "as easy as installing Office" then you're already drinking the Linux Kool-Aid. And most people I know are afraid to install Office on their own, even though it practically installs itself.
As I said before, it is better than it was. More things work and work with no effort. Most distros boot to a graphical environment and can be configured to do so automatically. Mostly gone are the days of needing to compile a new build on your own and configure it or worry about installing a new graphics driver and totally hosing the whole system. For people like me, it is great. Installing Linux only takes a handful of minutes on top of the usual install times vs hours I could spend getting a distro running in the past.
I nearly shit myself laughing at this. But decided I could use more humour, so I read through it. And boy was I not disappointed. Linux fans sure do have their heads far up their own asses.
I don't want to say that things haven't improved over the years. They have. But one thing hasn't. Who is installing Linux and the general skills required.
I installed a crap ton of Linux VMs in the past week and here is what I will say; more Linux distros today install comparatively easily, and work, generally out of the box.
That being said, the best installs are really no more improved than they were 5, perhaps even 10 years ago. The average distro is simply up to that same bar now. So, let's tackle this hilarious myth.
The article starts by telling you to download an ISO. And you've lost! That's right! Step #1, downloading and it is already harder than Office. Why? Well, the article makes that clear by spending a paragraph explains WHAT AN ISO IS. When someone downloads the installer for Office, they DON'T NEED TO KNOW. They double click and it opens. You've lost.
But, let's continue this insanity. Well, you can't JUST USE AN ISO. You need to burn it to disk or make a bootable USB drive with the contents. At this point it recommends software for the latter. And you've double lost. You now need to install a separate piece of software, replete with instructions on usage already more complex than the Office install just to get your something you can boot the ISO off of. In other words, it can be easier than an office install because one of the steps is literally installing AND USING something else.
It doesn't end there of course. Then you need to reboot, which may involve changing the boot sequence. Especially if you used a USB drive. To be clear, I've never needed to reboot a PC and mess with the BIOS just to BEGIN an Office installation. In fact, in recent versions I don't even need a reboot at the end.
Let's say you got that far. Image boots. You start the installation. I think the current office install has maybe one prompt. Maybe? And you can basically click OK and not change anything. A Linux install, even the simplest ones have MANY screens, and almost all REQUIRE user input. One of those screens involves choosing how to PARTITION YOUR HARD DRIVE!?!?! And guess what? If you came into this expecting it to be as easy as installing Office, you probably have no usable partitions. So, if you choose the wrong thing... OOPS, you just nuked the install of the OS you actually know how to use. Again... zero chance of accidentally reformatting your hard drives during an Office install and no screens you NEED to mess with.
I've been building machines for years. I know how to shrink partitions in Windows. I have spare hard drives and I know how to answer all of the prompts. The prompts are general easy. But, the average person doesn't understand the lingo. The installers neither adequately explain it or can offer adequate default values. Even if the average person COULD fumble their way through the install (and I don't believe that they can), they would likely choose not to anyway.
But, if they did succeed. What then? In my experience, odds are fantastic that you have a usable OS but which is SUPER flawed. Aside from when running on 5-10+ year old hardware, I almost always encounter things which either totally don't work or mostly don't work out of the box. And unfortunately, one of those things is WiFi. Which means, if it didn't auto-configure, you don't even have what you need to help you track down the info to fix it. The other big one is graphics. They generally display a GUI successfully, but most distros don't default to including proprietary drivers, meaning unless you knew to tell it to include them AND know how to tell it use them after the fact you wind up with a machine dirt slow compared to what it should be.
And if you get through all of THAT. Then you have succeeded in installing Linux. You want to dual boot Windows and Linux now? AHAHAHAHAH!
Seriously, if the above passes for "as easy as installing Office" then you're already drinking the Linux Kool-Aid. And most people I know are afraid to install Office on their own, even though it practically installs itself.
As I said before, it is better than it was. More things work and work with no effort. Most distros boot to a graphical environment and can be configured to do so automatically. Mostly gone are the days of needing to compile a new build on your own and configure it or worry about installing a new graphics driver and totally hosing the whole system. For people like me, it is great. Installing Linux only takes a handful of minutes on top of the usual install times vs hours I could spend getting a distro running in the past.
And don't take it personally, a Windows installation is just as bad. In fact, if we're counting number of prompts it is worse. There is no OS install easy enough for an absolute beginner. Period. An absolute beginner can install Office.
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