Yup, that’s been my experience with getting people to at least consider Linux as well. The first thing they ask when I tell them it’s a different OS like Mac is, “so can it run XYZ?” Most people don’t actually care and just want something that runs the apps they use.
Interestingly, my mom (a Windows user her whole life) seemed just as alienated by macOS as by Linux. Her work gave her a Mac and she couldn’t understand anything after about a week so she just asked for a Windows system instead.
The problem would be that graphical UIs can look very different. Each distro with all their supported desktops would require documentation. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a short introductory documentation for people who have no clue about linux. Debian claims to be the "universal operating system", but new users are usually directed towards Mint/Ubuntu/PopOS, but why? There's a possibility here.
When I needed to use chrome (ugh) to run a program I just compiled I googled chromium.. which didn't work.. so I tried troubleshooting it. But I don't understand c. Or why it didn't work
I can't remember what happened next but it took hours.
I have ungooohlef. Chromium now though which is great.
No, we write a bash script to install whatever it is and put it in a software folder that is synced on our next new install. This script also has to be updated every time, but, you get it.
I typically end up installing chrome for the odd website that does require it. Firefox is still my daily driver on all platforms though, not sure what Mozilla is thinking with their future plans.
Chrome is literally the same shit as Chromium but with (more) spyware. Like, there are no other added features. And some people still choose to download Chrome. WHY!?!?!?
I'd rather click a button that installed everything to the right place than relying on myself to drag a single thing to a specific folder. Opening a folder first and having to drag is... a drag. That's my opinion.
Noob. Back in my day, I needed 7 (seven) days to compile my custom kernel (1.x without RLL and MFM support) and when I booted it, it often panic’d lol.
Dear god, just yesterday I had to wait pretty much an entire day just for ungoogled-chromium to compile, and I have 8 cores with 16GB of ram. I can't imagine having to do that with just 2GB of ram with 4 cores.
Now show how much trouble windows users need to go through to remove S-mode because Microsoft considers chrome to be a "potential security risk", which... Yeah, it kinda is!
Linux had package managers long before app stores were a thing. Package managers just mean that instead of downloading NotAVirus.exe from some sketchy web site and hoping it's the app you're looking for, you get your software from a (trusted) central source, that is community maintained so you can be sure that it's up to date and secure.
Of course, you can still manually install things. Or even build from source, giving you nearly unlimited options to tweak things as you like. But the good thing is, you don't have to.
It's an analogy to help people understand how easy it is to install stuff on linux (applications, libraries, services, etc.). App stores are just frontends to package managers. Package managers get their packages from package repositories. On linux, there are multiple package repositories and a plethora of package repositories.
On Android (a linux derivative) nearly each manufacturer has their own app store + Google App Store. There are also opensource app stores like the most known one: F-Droid. Which also has a default repository, but others can be easily added.
The iPhone famously only had sideloading and often what was installed was an app store pointing to the cracker's repository. Starting April 2024, Apple will have to allow installing other app stores (only 15 years after Android) thanks to EU regulation.
Linux allowed all that long before app stores were a thing.
Steam, GOG, the Epic Store, and a bunch of "stores" work on the same concept. Do you balk at those too?
Edit: huh, I'm old school I guess, this is from debian docs:
apt(8) for all interactive command line operations, including package installation, removal and dist-upgrades.
apt-get(8) for calling Debian package management system from scripts. It is also a fallback option when apt is not available (often with older Debian systems).
Because right now I don’t have the money to replace my NAS that died so for now I have to use streaming service and my kids will watch Netflix on my laptop sometimes and I need it to function and Firefox is always slower for me.
Every time I've ever been aware of a Gnome update is because they changed something they shouldn't have at all or some update caused it to be buggy and slow. A lot of those were recent updates.
I hate how installing or removing (or even updating) a flatpak causes the whole software center to completely refresh, and it doesn't keep its state so if you were in the middle of a search or scrolled down through a category... say goodbye to it.
I’ve got a Steam Deck, and just installed Bazzite onto it, and I’m currently wishing that installing everything was as simple as this. Back when I used Linux daily there wasn’t this whole idea of “rootless” and immutable and sandboxed environments, and just figuring out how to get yad installed for steamtinkerlaunch to work had me faffing about with Nix and Fleek and Distrobox, and they’re all neat if I had the time to learn them but long story short I wish everything was package managers with a simple GUI.
You choose to tinker with your device and are now annoyed that this tinkering isn't straight forward and easy to do? Did you also complain that the custom exhaust system for your car didn't just snap on automatically? ;)
Great, you can accomplish the bare essentials with Linux.
Now how do I install a program called chirp for programming 2 way radios?
Searched for a week and gave up as each set of instructions lead down a broken, redundant dependency rabbit hole with no solution in sight, Flatpack this, snap that, no explanation or even a searchable clue that could begin me a solution.
In windows I just unzip the nightly build to a directory of my choice, run the executable and it works.
Sure... Not everyone knows or needs to know about these edge case applications, but point stands, it works in windows, and everyone encounters an edge case sooner or later.
I'm keen to ditch the Microsoft hole, and I have no issue with making an effort to learn, but I can't afford to or my life in hold for hours or days at a time in order to accomplish things that already work in seconds.
I think my simple issue here is...
I'm not incompetent.
I can comfortably navigate a fine system in a shell, can mount and unmount, can tar -xvzf a tarball, can do most things up to writing a shell script from scratch (could cobble something
Huh. I’ve used chirp under Linux before and I just installed it with my package manager. Maybe it wasn’t available on your distro? Then it can get a lot more tricky. The other problem with these things can be permissions… once you have chirp installed maybe you need to add your user to the dial out group in order to be able to use the serial port to flash the radios.
No software is guaranteed to run on all platforms: the developers choose to make it available or not.
I did some quick googling, and it seems fairly easy to install it:
Use Ubuntu (if you're not familiar with, and don't want to be familiar with terminal basics), and install chirp from the Ubuntu App store. Snap is just a name of their package format, and their app store links to snap craft.
If you're not using Ubuntu, that's your choice, you'll either have to install snap, then do the same, but it's more work. Or play with the terminal just a bit to follow their instructions.
Supposing that you're asking in good faith, the answer appears to be to make a Lemmy post. There is a fair overlap with the HAM and *nix communities, especially the PubNixes. Chirp is fairly well-known so, package manager is likely the way to go.
Don't know why I could not see this repply until today.
It's been ascertained that chirp is not in the repo for Raspian Linux, so indeed that option never worked.
I've been using Linux for more than a decade now as my daily driver.
Count me as 'basic' and 'just starting', because I quite like the colorful, clicky and nicely animated version, where I don't have to remember anything and that works just as well.
And now out of my way, while I happily point, click and scroll to adjust my displays brightness, which is entirely possible through the terminal, but I'm not ridiculous or insecure enough for that.
"Granny" has evolved. In 1985 granny at the tender age of 60 was born when 65% of households didn't have electricity and she came of age when the height of sophistication was the typewriter.
In 2010 granny saw computers become a thing when she was 40 become usable by 55 and pervasive at work by the time she retired.
In 2024 granny saw computers become a thing right when she became an adult. Her kids had them. She used them. By the time she was 46 they were literally everywhere and unavoidable
By 2034 granny saw computers become a thing when she was a kid and they were everywhere by her early adulthood.
This isn't an argument against GUIs which are in fact useful but lets not pretend everyone is an idiot either. Honestly I don't find googles GUI for managing android apps even slightly usable as far as finding software either. I always end up searching on an actual search engine, finding the exact app I need and then installing it. Android with its mega millions of users doesn't have a better ux than apt.
okay Judge Dredd. Because you make the difference to the Linux world. piss off back to whatever OS you were using before you "discovered Linux" 6 months ago.
Did you read someone else's post, and decide to get on this bullshit "gatekeeping" bandwagon? You're a misinformed malcontent. spew you copypasta bullshit elsewhere.
Most Linux users like the benefits of having a single command/interface to search for, install, and update software. The problem is when the source(s) for those programs is locked down.