99% of people just use their OS as a browser frontend. They don’t care about freedom, privacy, security, etc. They will just use whatever OS comes pre-installed. Thats why Linux’s greatest success on the desktop/laptop market as been ChromeOS. Not because it’s any better than Pop_OS!, Debian, etc. It’s literally just that ChromeOS comes preinstalled.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense. Still, I’ve had so many “last straw” moments with Windows that would make me consider Linux even if I was not familiar with it at all. It baffles me that there are relatively few people who give it a shot.
I suppose a lot of people just don’t want to or don’t have time to learn something new.
I’ve hit my last straw moment today trying to remove the setting forcing my password to change on a laptop that I fucking own. Windows 11 has disabled pretty much all user management features of local accounts now unless you’re signed into Microsoft and link your accounts.
Fucking bullshit.
I just need a spare weekend or two to make the swap now and throw wine on it for the games I play that refuse to run on Linux.
No need to figure out WINE. Steam will figure it out for you. Just click the Play button.
Linux today is VERY different from Linux 10 years ago. The switch won’t take a whole weekend like it did for me when I first tried Linux many years ago. Just install something like Linux Mint (the most user friendly and stable Linux distro) and the set up will be as easy as something like windows or macos. You never have to touch the terminal if you don’t want to.
I just need a spare weekend or two to make the swap now and throw wine on it for the games I play that refuse to run on Linux.
if your primary storefront is via steam, you likely won’t even need to manage wine, steam will do that for you as part of the install process. You can use something like protonup or something to get GE editions of proton but, honestly it mostly works right off the gate.
Just be aware that proton can have conflicts if you try to use it on NTFS drives, you’ll need to manually specify UID and GID for the drive (via fstab or however you manage mounting drives) or you’ll get permission errors that won’t actually say what they are unless you ran steam via the terminal.
It’s true that most people just want instant on functionality with no need for major changes beyond colors and backgrounds. Totally fine too, for many that’s all they need. But as a “power user”, which would mean anyone that needs more than a portable browser, I was very disappointed to find that’s all that ChromeOS is (twas a used one in the family). And then when I researched putting actual Linux on it so it could do more… good god they locked that shit down hard. Not even worth that rabbit hole. And that was the intent of Google.
The casual user uses ChromeOS (shitty Linux). Or preferably something like Pop_OS!, but I’m being unrealistic with this.
I see no problem here. You could replace pretty much everyone’s pre-installed OS with ChromeOS or Linux (or macOS I guess if they like MacBooks) and I don’t think most people would mind.
I have only ever seen someone use windows because they HAD to, not because they want to. Either they game, they use a software only on windows, it came pre-installed on their laptop and they don’t know or can’t bother to learn how to flash an ISO on a USB stick, etc.
I am completely fine with, and in fact am grateful for, the enshitification of windows 11. It will push more and more people to Linux. The enshitification of windows 8 is what made Steam shift from windows to SteamOS. I’m sure future enshitification will do just that: make people question why they are using windows in the first place.
The early ones were easier. The one I had needed to do some mess with a grounding screw and some other stuff that I forgot (there are websites dedicated to the procedure guidelines and which requires what), and like you say, it’s not going to be able to do much anyway. Such a contrast with throwing Kubuntu on an old MacBook, and 10 minutes later it was better than new.
99% of people just use their OS as a browser frontend. They don’t care about freedom, privacy, security, etc. They will just use whatever OS comes pre-installed. Thats why Linux’s greatest success on the desktop/laptop market as been ChromeOS. Not because it’s any better than Pop_OS!, Debian, etc. It’s literally just that ChromeOS comes preinstalled.
Unfortunately, very true.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense. Still, I’ve had so many “last straw” moments with Windows that would make me consider Linux even if I was not familiar with it at all. It baffles me that there are relatively few people who give it a shot.
I suppose a lot of people just don’t want to or don’t have time to learn something new.
I’ve hit my last straw moment today trying to remove the setting forcing my password to change on a laptop that I fucking own. Windows 11 has disabled pretty much all user management features of local accounts now unless you’re signed into Microsoft and link your accounts.
Fucking bullshit.
I just need a spare weekend or two to make the swap now and throw wine on it for the games I play that refuse to run on Linux.
No need to figure out WINE. Steam will figure it out for you. Just click the Play button.
Linux today is VERY different from Linux 10 years ago. The switch won’t take a whole weekend like it did for me when I first tried Linux many years ago. Just install something like Linux Mint (the most user friendly and stable Linux distro) and the set up will be as easy as something like windows or macos. You never have to touch the terminal if you don’t want to.
if your primary storefront is via steam, you likely won’t even need to manage wine, steam will do that for you as part of the install process. You can use something like protonup or something to get GE editions of proton but, honestly it mostly works right off the gate.
Just be aware that proton can have conflicts if you try to use it on NTFS drives, you’ll need to manually specify UID and GID for the drive (via fstab or however you manage mounting drives) or you’ll get permission errors that won’t actually say what they are unless you ran steam via the terminal.
It’s true that most people just want instant on functionality with no need for major changes beyond colors and backgrounds. Totally fine too, for many that’s all they need. But as a “power user”, which would mean anyone that needs more than a portable browser, I was very disappointed to find that’s all that ChromeOS is (twas a used one in the family). And then when I researched putting actual Linux on it so it could do more… good god they locked that shit down hard. Not even worth that rabbit hole. And that was the intent of Google.
So the power user uses Linux.
The casual user uses ChromeOS (shitty Linux). Or preferably something like Pop_OS!, but I’m being unrealistic with this.
I see no problem here. You could replace pretty much everyone’s pre-installed OS with ChromeOS or Linux (or macOS I guess if they like MacBooks) and I don’t think most people would mind.
I have only ever seen someone use windows because they HAD to, not because they want to. Either they game, they use a software only on windows, it came pre-installed on their laptop and they don’t know or can’t bother to learn how to flash an ISO on a USB stick, etc.
I am completely fine with, and in fact am grateful for, the enshitification of windows 11. It will push more and more people to Linux. The enshitification of windows 8 is what made Steam shift from windows to SteamOS. I’m sure future enshitification will do just that: make people question why they are using windows in the first place.
Most chromebooks can be put into a dev mode(which requires factory reset…) in order to install a new OS on it. I have done it a few times.
being said, with how low power they are, they can’t really do much but what chromeos can do.
The early ones were easier. The one I had needed to do some mess with a grounding screw and some other stuff that I forgot (there are websites dedicated to the procedure guidelines and which requires what), and like you say, it’s not going to be able to do much anyway. Such a contrast with throwing Kubuntu on an old MacBook, and 10 minutes later it was better than new.