Me in an alternate timeline where Linux is proprietary and the defacto OS on the majority of computers:
“Why do people willingly use Windows?”
Because they are brainwashed into thinking it’s the easiest platform, and that any problems they encounter are because that’s just how computers are.
Sigh, please stop using that argument, it is an easy cop out, and you don’t actually help your cause by analyzing the real issue.
The real reason why people willingly use Windows is multifaceted and can be boiled down to a few points.
- It is the defacto standard. If you are going to use a desktop/laptop computer you will probably use Windows, especially at work.
- Most users know Windows in some capacity, this means that companies have an easier time finding staff than if they used something else, it wouldn’t be impossible but it would mean spending more time and money training the staff and causing them to be less productive for longer as they learn the system. This is slowly changing with the rise of web apps, chromebooks and Macs. But still, having IT support a fleet of Linux desktops/laptops when working in a non IT sector would be increadibly wasteful
- Software, like it or not, Windows has a huge amount of proprietary software dominance, organizations LOVE proprietary software and dislike FOSS for one reason. Liability. This means that they get a number to call, email to contact, a person to yell at, they can deflect complaints and seem like they are a strong decisive company by taking legal action against an external party, and not have the buck stop with themselves.
I am an IT technician, this is what I have seen in the corporate world.
By talking about “brainwashing” you remove most of the actual information that could help you figure out how Linux could be better suited for the masses, and to be frank, using a word like “brainwashing” makes the Linux community seem a bit unhinged/cultish.
Focus on facts, then you can use them to change the actual issue.
Also, there are not much cash to swing around to incite companies to use Linux, windows and all their bs 365 crap on the other hand …
It’s wild how just a guy showing up, for free, “explaining” all the benefits of some shitty soft or process gets everyone on board super easily.
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“They use Windows because they are used to Windows” is not an argument but a cop out.
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“They know Windows better because they use Windows” is not an argument because… guess what… people can learn. That’s how they got their (probably very basic) knowledge of Windows in the first place.
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Paid and externally supported Linux/Foss exists. Choosing Windows instead because that’s somehow magically the only one with support available is just a recursion to #1.
If you want to talk facts however, start with money spend on lobbying, on pushing it on education early, on forcing people to buy their hardware with Windows pre-installed etc…
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Or because work requires us to
Because what’s the alternative? Pay $1k for a disposable MacBook or suffer through making Linux work.
Yep, that’s the brainwashing!
Don’t forget about the disposable laptops with Windows 10 that are no longer supported because Windows 11 doesn’t like their TPM or CPU!
Sounds like someone who wants to hang onto their horse because it just works, but the mess that horses create on the road way affect everyone.
My 7 year old penguin can lap most peoples horses.
Why would i want to use a new horse that comes crippled, always watches me, supports genocide, keeps putting the saddle back on that I keep telling it I don’t want to use, prevents me from riding it the way i want, and tells me my horse and assless chaps are no good every few years?
More like slaughtering a perfectly healthy horse when all it needs is new horseshoes.
What do you mean “Making Linux work?”
I know people like to joke this, but there’s plenty of “I use distro X because it works well with Nvidia gpus”, “I had to use XYZ to make the drivers for my steering wheel work” and “I use software XYZ which doesn’t quite work (fast enough) through Wine/Proton”.
Windows entire shtick is that due to its market dominance, companies will make sure their product works with Windows, hence it’s a very plug-and-play OS.
Sure, Windows does shit users don’t always want or like. But it doesn’t generally outright break things these days. And if it does, the instructions online on how to fix it are generally a bit easier to follow than those for Linux.
Linux being a bit harder to set up isn’t really Linux’ fault. And these days the chance that your distro outright works without tweaks is fairly high. But it’s not at the same level as Windows is yet.
@ChairmanMeow @Garbagio this is a fair comment. But except for gaming and some niche software (Photoshop, Cubase), I don’t think windows is really better than Linux. Nowadays you can easily use windows software via winboat or Gnome Boxes, and this works well for 50% of the windows-only software. 90% of the activities are in the browser. Many software have valid and usable alternatives. In the end, anyone could use Linux with the same easiness if just it was pre installed, at least in dual boot.
Yeah but that’s precisely the thing isn’t it: you need to know Winboat, Gnome Boxes, VMs etc… exist, you need to know how to configure it and how to use it.
I’ve installed Bazzite a while ago for my sister after my old gaming PC didn’t support W11 which I donated to her. Took 2 reinstalls because apparently it’s very easy to mess with hard drive mounting in a way that bricks the OS into an unrecoverable boot loop. Then, I needed to get her games working through Lutris, which did eventually work but updating those games then became an issue. I know how to do it, but she still has difficulty getting the steps right. Had I left it to do it herself, she would’ve been far too intimidated to even get started properly (and she’s above-average when it comes to computers). And of course 90% of computer work happens in the browser, but people are unlikely to switch if that remaining 10% doesn’t also just work out of the box.
Arguably this all isn’t Linux’ fault, but that doesn’t magic the issues away. Windows is just a lot more familiar and harder to brick beyond repair. Of course it’s less powerful and more bloated, but managing to get a Linux install to that point is often still quite hard for many people. And the average person has very little patience to make something work.
Take a look where you are
Only nine now? That’s so much better than it used to be!
When I first tried Linux (Mandrake, many years ago), I could probably come up with 9 problems in just the first hour 😆
It’s easy to find nine problems in Windows too, so this is pretty good for a free OS, IMO. It’s great to see Linux gradually become more mainstream (aside from Android and servers)
The 9 problems were in Windows. He’s going from Linux to Windows. Title is a bit easy to misread.
That is a very deceptive title. These are problems he noticed in Windows 11, not Linux.
That’s how I read it first time, I don’t see how it’s misleading. I think everyone knows that Windows isn’t ready for the desktop.
On first glance, I understood the title as saying there were nine problems in Win11; it might be ambiguous but I don’t think it’s fair to label it as very deceptive.
It’s barely even ambiguous
I ditched A for B, and i found a few problems. Obviously the problems are with B.
That’s how I understood it, but you could read it as saying the author’s experience with Win11 revealed problems with his previous setup (i.e. Linux).
You could, but that’s obviously not the default way those sentences are to be read
The Mailbird issue isn’t really a Windows problem either.
But I’ll totally give him the OneDrive bullshit.
No, but he explained that the problem would have been easier to solve on Linux.
Not sure it would have been for a normal computer user though; I for one know how to SSH on my homeserver, but I don’t know how to do that on my desktop Linux.
