I think Linux has a sort of built-in failsafe for that, in that it’s so fragmented. I’m sure that if a critical mass of people start using it then enshittification and nonsense will start to creep in in places (as with everything, more people come > corporations follow trying to make a buck > they slowly poison and ruin everything) but there’s nothing to stop someone just spinning off a different distro that works only for nerds.
Moved the gf to linux a few months ago, I came back to it as a semi (now exclusively) daily driver a few months before her to ensure she would have a great experience. Everything we need to do is easily covered, though it is still not “ready” for everyone it is ready for a lot of us. She knows nothing about it, just uses it without being spied upon and data harvested. She is happier now than under windows (that she knew just as much about) and I am still her tech support. I will be checking out CachyOS in the next weeks to see if I can squeeze a bit more out of my new hardware. With more normies will come more streamlined usage.
When I started with linux back in 00ish the install took a lot of time and the setup was long, choosing which packages to install, took hundreds of clicks and a lot of time, now… Kubuntu can be installed with less than 15 clicks and 20 mins of your time. Bring on the normies, eventually linux could replace win/mac as the dominant os choice, more normies means support gets better
You know, back in the day, normies used DOS, Windows 3.1, and various Apple machines. (None of these were seamless) You’d be surprised now much non-enthusiasts can do when motivated. They did break stuff, but they tried to use it all.
By dumbing down the suite, are you talking about things like flatpak / atomic distros?
If so, I am also not a fan of those things - give me Debian stable and the software in the repos and I’m happy - but I also don’t think I will be harmed by others coming in and trying different approaches. From what I can tell, with each paradigm shift, the old approach doesn’t go away, but stays powered by the volunteers who care about it.
Linux aside, would it not benefit the world if people moved away from non-free software?
To me, this is a good reason to encourage people to switch, not discourage them.
I don’t want normies using Linux. They’ll ruin it lol.
Good thing that idiot Pewdiepie, recommended Arch to those 12 year olds.
I think Linux has a sort of built-in failsafe for that, in that it’s so fragmented. I’m sure that if a critical mass of people start using it then enshittification and nonsense will start to creep in in places (as with everything, more people come > corporations follow trying to make a buck > they slowly poison and ruin everything) but there’s nothing to stop someone just spinning off a different distro that works only for nerds.
Moved the gf to linux a few months ago, I came back to it as a semi (now exclusively) daily driver a few months before her to ensure she would have a great experience. Everything we need to do is easily covered, though it is still not “ready” for everyone it is ready for a lot of us. She knows nothing about it, just uses it without being spied upon and data harvested. She is happier now than under windows (that she knew just as much about) and I am still her tech support. I will be checking out CachyOS in the next weeks to see if I can squeeze a bit more out of my new hardware. With more normies will come more streamlined usage.
When I started with linux back in 00ish the install took a lot of time and the setup was long, choosing which packages to install, took hundreds of clicks and a lot of time, now… Kubuntu can be installed with less than 15 clicks and 20 mins of your time. Bring on the normies, eventually linux could replace win/mac as the dominant os choice, more normies means support gets better
Just ban them from Stack Overflow and forums. no nned to gatekeep the software.
Removed by mod
You know, back in the day, normies used DOS, Windows 3.1, and various Apple machines. (None of these were seamless) You’d be surprised now much non-enthusiasts can do when motivated. They did break stuff, but they tried to use it all.
By dumbing down the suite, are you talking about things like flatpak / atomic distros?
If so, I am also not a fan of those things - give me Debian stable and the software in the repos and I’m happy - but I also don’t think I will be harmed by others coming in and trying different approaches. From what I can tell, with each paradigm shift, the old approach doesn’t go away, but stays powered by the volunteers who care about it.
Imo GNOME is already pretty easy to use.
Give me Flatpak and atomic distros, I’m too old for maintenance. Give me some of that good dumbing down, cause I’m dumb.
I’m a one man dev/support/sysadmin I use Ublue’s and Nixos because why would I do the work that’s already been done,
the more people use linux, the better it is. don’t be a gatekeeper, it’s stupid.
Linux aside, would it not benefit the world if people moved away from non-free software? To me, this is a good reason to encourage people to switch, not discourage them.
This comment makes you sound like the 12 year old
If that happened, I’m sure there would be more motivation to clean up a lot of the rough edges, which would benefit the community as a whole.