There will always be some percentage of users that Linux just isn’t for, and some users that fall in love.
In my opinion the motivations that convince them to try Linux are irrelevant. What’s important is that the general trend is more users sticking with it.
IMO I couldn’t care less if people dual boot, we’re still have a use case for Windows. I have a Windows machine myself.
I installed gcompris for my 5 year old. FOSS childrens educational software and games from KDE.
I also bought her a cheap, pink, 65% keyboard and mouse set that make it “her computer”.
There’s also a few free resources to teach typing once your kid can read and write enough to understand what they’re typing. I’ve heard good things about Typing.com and typingclub.com but we’re not ready to start typing yet so I haven’t used them.
Also, if my kids ask a question that’s a little tricky to explain I’ll show them how I use a computer (or phone) to look for answers. One of the few practical applications I’ve ever found for AI is “can you explain [abstract concept] in a way that a 5 year old can understand”. This isn’t explicitly teaching computer skills, but showing them a practical use case and how to dig into their curiosity.
I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone who loves their ISP since the early days of transitioning from 56K modems.
Okay this is officially getting too goddamn pedantic for me. I will trust that you’re correct on all this.
That’s not an attack on ffmpeg. It’s 1,000% not fud. I’m not disputing its libre bonifides. H265 is not libre. It’s also not part of the ffmpeg code. But they can be distributed together because it’s non-commercial.
My apologies if I worded something in a way that wasn’t clear about that.
Separate from that issue.
There are distros that do not want to incorporate any non-libre elements into their OS for ideological reasons. They won’t have h265.
Then there are distros that have commercial elements, or for which their parent company has some kind of commercial interest in the distribution. If they don’t want to pay for licensing they may have legal limitations on their ability to incorporate h265.
But any completely non-commercial software that wants to bundle h265 in has cart blanche to do so.
I hope that clears things up.
H.265 is royalty free for non-commercial use. It’s ownership is kind of complicated with a bunch of patents and it is commercial licensing is controlled by a few groups.
If I understand correctly (and I’m no lawyer) FFMPEG is completely non-commercial so they don’t have an issue. Although I think anyone using FFMPEG for commercial applications (streamers, professional productions, etc…) should be paying a license.
I guess some distros felt that was legally murky for them and others aren’t comfortable with non-libre software.
I really wish Fedora would figure out a legal workaround and bundle in the codecs, but for now I just have to remember to set it up before I add any media.
H.265 is a pretty major one. E-AC-3 for audio. Ideally, for a desktop user, you want to be able to play anything. So you need know if your distro includes those codecs. Then how to install them if it doesn’t. Then you need to delete your thumbnail cache to fix the thumbnails.
It’s not hard. You just have to know that that’s a task you need to do. Coming from windows, a user is likely to just assume linux doesn’t support video properly and it’s thumbnails are broken.
Little quality of life stuff.
For truly casual users (grandma or a student taking notes) there isn’t a lot to learn. Here’s your browser, here’s your office apps, this is like “notepad”. This is the software center for updates or any other applications, press the “windows key” to get your menu.
Came here to say drive letters. That’s a weird one for converts. A guide for noobies should explain that drive is mounted somewhere in the file structure. Cover how to find it, and how to mount it where you want.
Fair. I think most people start with the assumption that users are coming from a workflow they preferred in the first place.
Out of curiosity, if you hate Aqua, why did you get a Mac? Is it an industry thing or a specific software?
I’d say Mint or Fedora KDE for windows converts. They’re both good “just works” options, but KDE just by virtue of being more popular has excellent software and support that make it a great option.
Fedora w/ Gnome for Mac converts is a no brainer, and I’d add that you’re probably going to want the Dash2Dock Lite or Dash2Dock Animated extension for a Mac convert.
From a user perspective I don’t understand how wasting a bunch of screen space on an ugly, non-functional bar across every window is better. I get that from a software development perspective it’s basically one less thing to deal with. But I absolutely prefer to have a functional use for the space.
The title bars in KDE felt so antiquated, especially for such a foundational thing. For a while I removed the title bars and used a “move window” key and minimize/maximize/close shortcuts.
Eventually I just switched to Gnome.
For years I had no idea that Steven Crowder and Dave Rubin were different people. I found out when one of them got divorced from a woman and I was so confused cause I was sure that guy was gay.
Then I’d have nothing to gripe about. I thrive on my grievances.
Flirting can mean a lot of different things and it can be taken differently by different parties, it’s going to be tough for anyone here to diagnose it beyond the fact that you don’t seem to feel comfortable with it. That’s what’s important.
For future reference:
If you find out something about your partner/relationship that doesn’t comport with your original understanding, and you’re not OK with it, you need to re-evaluate the whole relationship.
Whether that’s infidelity, lifestyle changes, identity changes, secrets, lies, values, kinks, etc… You need to either leave or figure out some ground rules you can both live with.
Best of luck.
I gripe about having to restart my Fedora machine with updates, but you can’t knock the results. It’s as reliable as a swiss watch.
That’s just a remarkable level of talent and dedication. Mind blowing considering how much of it she did while working and studying.
I had a lot of problems when I’ve used Ubuntu in the past. To be fair that was 2009 - 2012 and it was a much less mature product. But whether it’s snaps, unity, or Ubuntu One integrations, they always seem to be doing their own thing in a way that’s not particularly helpful.
I’ve had a much more “just works” experience with Fedora and Mint.
Which is all well and good except for now it’s just a baseless paranoid fantasy. And if that was laid out up front I would have no notes.
Over here in reality, if Canonical deployed a closed source, paid, spyware laden version of it’s OS it might take a little while for some of the server business to disappear, but they’d loose almost all their market share overnight. They’d be a cautionary tale in the FOSS community and the software industry.
Or the feral cats? Does humanity deciding to cull a species not perfectly fit that model as you imagine it?