You just gave four options and an “etc.” and dude that’s not going to make anyone any more comfortable. If people don’t have friends who can help them, and a lot of people don’t, then how are they supposed to even know to ask for Linux, the set of OSs which have a reputation for being finnicky? They’re just supposed to grab a USB stick and learn what ISOs are, jump in the BIOS and mess with boot orders, and- do you not see the problem?
I agree that people should learn this shit. I’m not in IT but I deal with my computer myself, or a mechanic but I fix my own car, or a plumber but I have no problems dealing with certain issues here but a lot of people aren’t like that and are in fact actively discouraged from cracking into their electronics or their cars or their homes. It sucks, but you gotta deal with that before naming off distros when they don’t even know what a distro even is.
Well me and the other guy were talking about laymen, and that’s context this conversation is happening in.
And no they didn’t install Windows, but there’s also really on one “Windows” and spending more got you more but not different so even if you got ripped off at least you knew you weren’t missing something. That means they could just buy any old Windows laptop and call it a day. Now, if we just default to Ubuntu and ask that ASUS and HP and whoever else start selling laptops with that by default that’d certainly be a start but it would, nonetheless, be a hard sell. We should still try, but it’s still gunna be hard.
You start with any mainstream distro. Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, Mint and the like.
The differencea between them aren’t relevant to a new user.
You install whatever you are comfortable with to be able to help them.
You just gave four options and an “etc.” and dude that’s not going to make anyone any more comfortable. If people don’t have friends who can help them, and a lot of people don’t, then how are they supposed to even know to ask for Linux, the set of OSs which have a reputation for being finnicky? They’re just supposed to grab a USB stick and learn what ISOs are, jump in the BIOS and mess with boot orders, and- do you not see the problem?
I agree that people should learn this shit. I’m not in IT but I deal with my computer myself, or a mechanic but I fix my own car, or a plumber but I have no problems dealing with certain issues here but a lot of people aren’t like that and are in fact actively discouraged from cracking into their electronics or their cars or their homes. It sucks, but you gotta deal with that before naming off distros when they don’t even know what a distro even is.
I said “you” generic as a knowledgeable person.
The people you are talking about didn’t install windows either. I’m talking about comparing apples and apples.
There is no more difficulty installing or using windows or Linux, but in Linux there are less problems.
Well me and the other guy were talking about laymen, and that’s context this conversation is happening in.
And no they didn’t install Windows, but there’s also really on one “Windows” and spending more got you more but not different so even if you got ripped off at least you knew you weren’t missing something. That means they could just buy any old Windows laptop and call it a day. Now, if we just default to Ubuntu and ask that ASUS and HP and whoever else start selling laptops with that by default that’d certainly be a start but it would, nonetheless, be a hard sell. We should still try, but it’s still gunna be hard.