Great work OP, really riled em up. Shitpost? More like successpost. Or successhit. We can work on the word later.
I don’t think about you at all
Creates and posts a meme depicting an imaginary interaction, because they don’t think about it.
Windows users think about Linux all the time. “Why is this web site down?” “Whats happening with Cloudflare?” etc. They just don’t realize it’s Linux and don’t notice it all unless it happens to stop working. Them not thinking about it isn’t lack of concern or interest, it’s complete ignorance of the reality they live in. In fact, they probably have a computer with a *nix derivative OS that they use every day, whether their smartphone is Android or iOS.
Everyone knows Temple OS is the superior OS. You. Would say its divine
The average Linux evangelist on Lemmy vastly overestimates the tech-saviness of the average person.
I know, the average person probably only knows 2, maybe 3 distros Max
And Mint
Yes, of course Mint
Then you find the average windows user doesn’t even know what Windows is.
You’re the relevant XKCD for that!
hey, i was just about to make Mint Tea. it’s the time of day i think about installing mint, change my mind, and gossip about it
over a cup of peppermint tea. it’s wonderful.
Oh, absolutely. They’ve never had to do family tech support, and it shows.
Whenever you try to explain anything the conveesation is totally uninteresting
Note to self: they dont care. They dont care that they dont care
This is true! Ignorance of Linux is the no1 reason people don’t adopt it. This is doubly hard for Window-brains because the concept of choosing an OS is foreign to them. From their perspective it’s your boss, your school, or your parents who choose your OS.
I think most of normal users don’t even know what an OS is, so they don’t think who is choosing it.
Having taught a computer science course on Operating Systems it’s even tough to teach a room full of CS undergrads what one is.
Even though I highly support Linux and what it’s thriving to be, but comments like this are why people don’t switch. Calling people names never is a good idea to get them to support your cause.
Exactly. If we want people to switch to Linux, we need to make sure they are going to have a good experience. That means to accept that there are still some use cases that Windows is better for, at least for some people. If all you use your gaming rig for is LoL or you spend 99% of your workday in Excel, it doesn’t make sense to switch. Linux will be there for them when they’re ready.
i mean, i used to spend 99% of my workday in excel. I could have jumped to libre but then making sure all my formulae worked for everyone else in the office on the sheets i shared would have been a pain. the other 1%, those programs don’t work on linux at all. not even on wine, last i checked (which was a while). so while i was technically in charge of all the computers in the office, it was not worth moving over there.
at home, dammit i just spent 8 hours doing two jobs and one of them was unpaid IT consultant you want me to figure out a new OS for free?
that’s why it took me so long.
Do we want the kind of people who are afraid of Linux to switch to Linux though? I feel like those people should stay on Windows until Linux adoption is just too overwhelming. Let the people who actually want to explore and try new things switch first, cause they’ll be more useful at providing feedback, and less likely to hurt the community.
Like, was it a good thing that Linus did his first Linux challenge? It was a lot of press, but a lot of it was bad. Maybe that is a good thing and I’m just wrong here. I feel like in his second challenge he was much more open to actually trying something new, and kind of realized that he doesn’t actually know anything about computers, but just Windows.
I’m not sure why you think people don’t switch to Linux because they’re afraid of it. People have incredible inertia twords changing something they’re familiar with. And Linux is very unfamiliar to the vast majority of people.
It also doesn’t help that people like you make Linux users look like pretentious pricks.
Because people are afraid of things they’re unfamiliar with, and like you said, they’re not familiar with Linux.
I don’t really care what Windows users think of Linux users. If someone wants to switch, good for them. If they don’t, good for them. But if they ask stupid questions online instead of reading the fucking manual, yeah, I’ll berate them. If they want nice hand holdy support staff, stay on Windows, where they literally pay for that. If they’re not afraid to be called an idiot when they’re being an idiot, then welcome to the herd.
Linux users have a reputation for being assholes because we’re not support staff. We’re not paid to help noobies, so we’ll help, because we’re nice, but we’ll be real about it, because we don’t like people wasting our time.
If someone is genuinely a noob, and is asking because they truly don’t know, then I’ll try to be nice, but we get a lot of people who are used to doing things on Windows, think they’re experts, and come in and be assholes themselves because Linux has the absolute gall to be different from Windows, something that was brand new when Linux was written as a clone of something that had been around for 20 years.
I don’t think being afraid is a big problem, if you are also motivated to try it. If you’re afraid and have a good experience anyway, that’s a good thing. If you were afraid and have a bad experience, you’ll likely not try it again for a long time, if ever. The key difference is what kind of experience you have. If the bad experience can be avoided in the first place, for example by telling that their game will not work, then nothing was lost. They may try again when they’re bored with that game.
If they have a community to help them make the right decision and choices along the way, they can have a good experience. I think the point I’m trying to emphasize is that the community should try hard to set them up for success rather than cheerleading: “go for it! it worked great for me!”
I hear your point about Linus (of LTT) and yes he gave Linux “bad press”, but I think it helps balance the hype with some realism of “it doesn’t work for everyone”.
I wouldn’t call Linus an average user though. I liked watching Switch and Click’s journey with Linux. She starts out knowing basically nothing, but with a can-do and eager-to-learn attitude. She worked through it and now has become quite the Linux power user. I think that that is more encouraging and relatable to the average computer user. I think it’s the way to go in general: be encouraging and positive, but also be honest about the rough edges.
It’s also about setting realistic expectations and not overselling the product. Tons of people install Linux on either bleeding edge hardware (no vendor support) or an older, secondary computer (well supported, but slow) and they experience that as “Linux is bad”.
They may expect their proprietary software to work and it doesn’t. Then they have to go back to Windows after they had finally worked up the courage to try Linux. I think it’s fine to say “I don’t think Linux will work well for you” before they get into that situation.
I, myself, despite having used Linux off and on since the mid-90s, didn’t fully commit to a Linux desktop until a year ago. I built a new PC for it, knowing it would run only Linux and with parts I knew would work. I knew exactly which programs I had to give up on and find alternatives for. I made an informed choice and I’ve never been happier with my PC after switching.
That’s what I mean though. Like, if Linus had asked me if he should switch to Linux, I would have said no. He’s not good with computers. He’s kind of an idiot. And he’s also not a big fan of reading.
Whereas I would say Switch and Click is a great candidate for switching to Linux because she clearly knew that she knew very little about it (at the time), and she wanted to learn. She didn’t go into it thinking all of her knowledge of Windows would translate to knowledge of Linux like Linus did.
So I guess what I mean is we shouldn’t be encouraging everyone to switch to Linux, like you said. Some people just want the easiest, least thought required solution, and that’s Windows. Everything “just works” (except when it doesn’t), because when it doesn’t work, Windows users just think “oh, computers can’t do that”. (Or they pay someone else to do it, eg Geek Squad.)
Yep I think we’re on the same page. Let’s take care of the Bettys and accept that the Linuses will be happier staying on Windows.
Ok, but, like, who cares? If someone wants to eat a pile of shit to stick it to the burger enjoyers, let them.
Apparently enough people to comment on that.
I talked to some colleagues some time ago and they had never heard of Linux. The very concept of different operating systems was news to them. We still have a long way to go.
yeah, i have a friend (who worked in film for a while for godssakes. Mac had way better video editing software for the longest time) who thought that Mac and Windows were just different brands and there was no functional difference except price.
Welcome to your daily post about how Linux users talk so much about themselves…
Surrounded by zero Linux users talking about themselves.
I use arch btw
how are your feet?
And a whole bunch of Windows users clearly thinking way more about Linux than they care to admit.
Honestly doesn’t come up much in my day to day
There is not a comment in this thread worthy of a shitpost, just lots of boasting how great Linux is. The Linux users don’t even get the irony of this. But, you’re technically correct.
MacOS users in this post:

Also BSD
macOS is for people who think people should earn for their work.
Linux is for people who believe NOBODY should EVER earn money for ANYTHING EVER.
Don’t believe me? Let’s talk about SuSE. Or Red Hat. Or IBM. All “evil” the second they started charging “money” for the “work” of the “laborers”.
lol
Open sources in awesome thing, but people should get paid for their labor
And you can debate the abominable labor practices of Apple Inc., but poor labor practices does not devalue their products, no matter how far you twist your logic or philosophy. nor how many childish tantrums you throw.
I’ve never seen a software freedom or open-source enthusiast make anything remotely like this argument. When we have criticisms of predominantly open-source-based companies, it’s usually because they’re adding some kind of proprietary scamware into their systems, not because they’re charging money for their services.
Plenty of people and companies have found ways to generate income - yes, even beyond donations - while still respecting other’s rights. You’re just repeating a lie that’s been debunked and dead for years.
I am a software engineer who believes software engineers should be paid for their work. I use Linux. Do I mean nothing to you??
I think most Linux users don’t have a problem with things like RHEL. I personally think it’s great. I don’t personally use it, but I have absolutely no problem with it.
The actual problem Linux users care about is when people use and modify the Linux kernel (or any other GPL project), distribute the binaries, but don’t distribute the source code. (I’m looking at you, Sony.)
Hated by both sides for different reasons but both are valid
TempleOS users in this post:

lol Who?
Well we wouldn’t want to commit sacrilege
You clearly do if you went out of your way to make this meme.
I assumed it was a Linux person making it. As someone who is a Windows user by trade, but a Linux user at heart, I found it quite funny.
Nah, Linux users don’t have this much self awareness.
awhatness?
It’s funny because without Linux, they wouldn’t have any of their modern luxuries, but they’re usually completely ignorant to that fact, like a bird eating fries off the ground thinking they’re really good at scavenging food.
You know people would just… Use other operating systems, right? The march of Technology doesn’t just halt because Linux never got invented, it likely would have just ended up with smaller machines using a stripped down form of windows
Yeah, I know that. It would probably be BSD though. Doesn’t change what I said. They’d be ignorant of whatever else it was. It definitely wouldn’t be Windows though. Proprietary systems would never work for things like server farms that have 500,000 servers.
BlueScreenofDeath is an operating system? how long was i high for?
What are you basing this off of? The alternate histories stock market history?
I promise you if Linux wasn’t invented we would have made another niche product or adapted what we have lol, the world doesn’t need to revolve around Linux
I’m basing off of the fact that Microsoft doesn’t even use Windows for their server fleets. Windows makes a terrible server.
WSL users: 🤪
Well, I wrote my own operating system using the Malbolge language. Suck it normies
is your OS usable by anyone that isn’t you? because i’ve written a few programs (for work) and made them intentionally obtuse to fuck over anyone who tried to steal my work.
WSL











