I did. If you're a developer, for a personal machine it's both easy and straightforward (I have work provided machines that use other OS's but that's outside the scope of this post). Do a little research on HW that works well with Linux (I went all AMD). Purchase, wipe, install distro of your choice (I went with Manjaro, because of Arch, doesn't really matter). It's been about 2 years and I haven't had a single serious issue (serious as defined here is, can't boot or non-functional HW). I'm running most of the latest stuff, Sway on Wayland, pipewire, etc...
Better yet. Buy from a company that won't charge you for the Windows licence you don't want.
I'm a developer. I am also exclusively a nix/BSD user for about the past decade; my machines, servers, my wife's laptop, my work laptop etc, all nix/bsd.
When I bought my personal XPS 13 I contacted DELL customer support to buy a "Developer" version, it took 3 weeks to ship because they had to build it, rather than provide an off-the-shelf box with Windows pre-installed, but I saved something like £43.
It's not about the money, but I would rather have it in my pocket than give it to Microsoft for some software I _really_ don't want (or need).
Side note, I'm planning on buying a Framework next.
Not a good alternative for the big middle distribution of computer skills of the computer user base. Web browser only? Great. Highly skilled? Great. Everyone else? It can be a nightmare. Linus' Linux Challenge videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0506yDSgU7M) provide excellent insight into the typical user experience for anyone beyond web browser only requirements and beneath administrator level. If you find yourself saying "what an idiot, how did he not know that "do as I say" would mangle his OS," you're definitively in the highly skilled camp.
Linux UX convention relies on the terminal as a matter of course. Almost everything not in the package manager requires use of the terminal. Even many of the package managed applications require tweaks and configuration via terminal. It's an open secret that package managers are largely inferior to the terminal anyway, in every distribution. The almost universal response to "I am having an issue with the package manager" is "use terminal." Bottom line: terminal is far less user friendly than an object oriented environment, and is often much slower. Until a flavour of Linux exists which never ever, for any reason ever, requires the use of the terminal, Linux will remain in the low single digits in terms of consumer market share. I don't think this will change, because if you ask the average Linux developer what they think of the terminal convention, they love it, and they think users just need to stop sucking so much.
Whenever people mentioned Linux UX and computer knowledge I always feel like I should evangelize that Zorin OS is alive and well, now at Zorin Core 16.
I use it for my parents, after they got fed up with Windows warnings and pop-ups for Windows 10 upgrade.
I am not sure they full understand they are using Linux, they just assume it is a 'free' windows version.
Thanks for the suggestion. I've never used it so I'll boot up a VM and give it a go.
I will be honest with you: I don't expect Zorin to have solved the CLI problem. For example, Radarr is an extremely popular tool for managing movies. It connects to usenet and torrent clients, as well as indexers and movie databases. It makes maintaining a home movie collection seamless.
Radarr is not in major package managers, and requires the CLI for install (https://wiki.servarr.com/radarr/installation#linux). In Windows, I double click an .exe. On Zorin (I assume) I will have to follow a reasonably complicated and time consuming installation process, full of opportunities to misconfigure the install.
This is just one example of many. Radarr isn't a super hardcore 1337 program. It's a very common application aimed at everyone who runs Plex. Until Zorin has a .exe equivalent for all applications like this, it's just not going to be a competitor to Windows, for users who need more than just a web browser, and those who are not IT administrators.
Zorin 16 is based on Ubuntu 20.04.3, so everything you are used to is still there. The only difference is in the UI, with 'Windowish' looking widgets and a focus on usability for non-technical folks.
There are some more extra bells and whistles, as well as service support, in the pro version but I haven't used those in my family computers so I can't comment on that.
I don't want to be dismissive, Zorin is a massive effort but it is mostly a DE change, but it's a DE where they actually thought of the typical non-technical user and cater brilliantly to that.
This doesn't actually solve the problem, though. What's going on is that more systems are becoming reliant on "secure computing" to work properly, so (e.g.) Netflix won't stream full quality to your Linux PC.
On its own that may not seem like much, but the screws are being turned (albeit slowly). We'll reach a point where the only way to access any proprietary content on the web will also require running proprietary operating systems on DRM enabled hardware using secure boot. Banking sites won't work, video playback won't work, even access to textual content will eventually be restricted. This is because the browser vendors, the OS vendors, and the content distribution platforms are all colluding to create this future.
Linux on the desktop doesn't have enough users to push back in a meaningful way against this trend at this point (and I say that as a Linux user). 10 years ago, maybe, but now it's simply too late. Sure you'll still be able to run open source software on your Linux PC, and write your own code and run it, but you'll be prevented from accessing huge chunks of the Internet.
Fifteen minutes to get up and running with Ubuntu or Mint if you stay focused. A lot of people don’t realize that LibreOffice, Steam, and Discord are all fully usable on Linux these days.
Switched my family to Mint a while ago. It is genuinely seamless. They didn't notice, other than the background changed (and I slowed my haranguing them about virus safety).
Not all Steam games are available, but enough are to keep you busy.
The point was not that Linux is grandma-friendly as an OS, the point was that you do not necessarily have to delay installing it until you get a new computer, and may even negate the need for a new computer (certainly it's added years to various laptops in my orbit).
"Fifteen minutes to get up and running with Ubuntu or Mint if you stay focused."
This sounds to me like it is all easy and if it takes longer than 15 minutes, it is my fault for not being focused.
Well, as a matter of fact, I did install linux on various devices, dozen of times. And with my own customized manjaro install usb stick even in less than 15 minutes, with all my needed software up and running.
But I would never, ever tell anyone that he can expect a flawless install in 15 minutes. This is not realistic. It may happen, if you are lucky - but there are too many buggy drivers and compatibility issues and even official mainstream distros getting shipped with major open bugs, that this advise is just receipt for disapointement.
And zoom. I know Linux but I’m not a sys admin by any stretch. I’ve been using Linux as my personal laptop for 3 years now. It updates itself and has required hardly any manual intervention (just once I had to command line for an upgrade. Generally it’s justed worked.
The upgrader/installers are not perfect but it’s hardly so difficult that software developer would find it daunting.
Unfortunately there is no freedom under capitalism mon capitan, it's part and part of private ownership. American copyright law grants companies state like powers to remove your rights and freedoms.
The only way would be to either 1) revolt against capitalism or 2) try to reform copyright law.
But as we all know the US is the most worshipful of capitalist ideology.
Software coming under copyright allows companies to remove out rights because we never got any property rights for software and games. That allows them to encrypt binaries and make computers that obey them and not us.
So you could call the FTC and launch an anti-trust complaint. https://www.ftc.gov/
Because DRM is vendor lockin when you get down to it.
Anti-capitalism isn’t enough for you to sell as an alternative. We really don’t have a serviceable alternative ideology given the tendency for communism to fall under control of a few men same as capitalism. The Reddit subs can point out some of the problems with Capitalism but not alternatives.
At some point the only option will be to use something like an rPi with a Linux and only interact with the culture made from the next punk movement. Or, targeted violence somewhere. But where.
I think both 1 and 2 are ripe for action. The right person can explain that the assumptions we’ve been sold about capitalism no longer resemble truth and we need to change the rules so they do.
The real issue is company ownership is anti-democratic so we can't stop EA or activision from making games in fraudulent ways, so we'd need to have some ownership share over the company because it effects us politically.
There's no other way then private power being co-owned with the rest of society, aka there are certain things private individuals and companies can't engage in. That is the only explanation because corporations have state like powers at scale which all effect us. So capitalist ideology is still the root cause, there is no other alternative. AKA bobby kotick can say to his employee's "make games with drm" and the employee's must obey or be fired, that is the fundamnetal problem with capitalism in a nutshell. If someone who owns a powerful business is a giant dick there's no way to push back unless you give up the idea of owernship being in the hands of one or a small group of owners that can simply compel our obedience to their rules.
> The real issue is company ownership is anti-democratic
Wrong. Company ownership is perfectly democratic.
> need to have some ownership share over the company because it effects us politically
This happens now with share ownership.
> AKA bobby kotick can say to his employee's "make games with drm" and the employee's must obey or be fired, that is the fundamnetal problem with capitalism in a nutshell.
Every single time communism has been tried, it inevitably ends up that ultimate power rests in the hands of a few. It turns out way, way worse than capitalism, and belief that scrapping capitalism in favour of socialism (which Lenin stated is the path to communism) or jumping straight to communism, is always - always! - from either young idealistic but naive people, or believed by older people who never grew out of their earlier naive disgruntlement.
Besides which, I still believe now in my early 50's that what we have now isn't capitalism at all; it's more akin to corporatism. It's certainly not lassez-faire capitalism.
No it doesn't, you can not own shares in a company and still have it affect you. You can also own shares and have no voting rights, either.
Share ownership is, as it stands, undemocratic in the sense that there is no democratic decision making by all of those who are affected by a company. And a model where wealth decides how many votes you get isn't very democratic, either.
This is written from a position of ignorance on European companies. There are successful midpoints between US style capitalism and communism. In Germany, for example, company boards (for large firms) have worker representation: https://www.worker-participation.eu/National-Industrial-Rela...
Heck - even functioning trade unions (not crippled as they are in the UK and US) provide a form of democratic check on individual companies.
The mistake is to paint this as a black or white choice, which tendency in the US is driven by hysteria media reporting of any policy which doesn't suit the needs of big business and rich elites.
What Marx calls socialism and what Western Europeans style as socialism aren't the same thing. Western European nations practice social democracy which developed before and independently of Marx.
When discussed without stupid names and branding, most people are open to discussing some of the ideas you are presenting. But the moment you call it socialism you are going to lose people, especially Americans. Because a lot of people have been murdered in the name of socialism.
> Western European nations practice social democracy which developed before and independently of Marx.
When we look at Germany and their universal healthcare system, it was developed in the 1880's under Otto von Bismarck and their monarchy in a direct response to the fears of a Marx-inspired socialist uprising.
A lot of what developed in Europe was inspired by Marx and socialist organizing and developments on the continent.
> Wrong. Company ownership is perfectly democratic.
It's not because a lot of shares end up owned by one of the few large ETF/pension plan administrators: in 88% of the S&P 500 companies [1], Vanguard/BlackRock/State Street together own the majority of the shares, and at least the passive ETF-held parts usually do not participate in voting which means that tiny "activist" investors now have a lot more vote percentage than they should.
Not to mention corporates with different share classes where the ones with voting rights are to a large degree privately held and the ones traded publicly do not have vote rights, such as Tesla [2].
> Every single time communism has been tried, it inevitably ends up that ultimate power rests in the hands of a few.
So where's the difference to the current situation, where those with the "ultimate powers" in society are effectively under control of their party donors? At least in communism, everyone had a right to a home to live in and to a decent employment matching his skill (see e.g. Art 24 sec. 1 of the Constitution of the former GDR [3]).
Interestingly, this belief is never shared by people from Europe who've actually experienced communism.
The issue in many cases is _corruption_ which will exist whatever you do (there's always a snake in the garden) so the trick is to implement the right legislation to control it and ensure freedom...
> The only way would be to either 1) revolt against capitalism or 2) try to reform copyright law.
Since (2) precludes the need for (1) and, hence, shows (1) is irrelevant to the discussion, and to do (1) would be an immense act of self harm akin to sticking one's fingers in one's eyes, repeatedly, for all time, I'll take (2), thanks.
