cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/27756512
(Apologies if the link doesn’t work; Google are dicks)
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Damn who imagined that gaming would be the topic that made the FOSS OSes relevant. I don’t agree on all that steam does but, they really nail it with the Steam deck and Steam Os.
A lot of people have steam deck and it helps realize that GNU/Linux is an amazing OS.
On the other hand Microsoft and Apple are doing their best to try to give more reasons to switch.
Gaming has been the only pathway to mainstream desktop since forever. I’ve been around for a hot minute and I remember that consistently, the “real Linux users” for years repeated “we don’t need gaming this is an adult OS go back to Windows and play with your toys” and then turned around and whined that no one wanted to use desktop Linux. Valve stepped in and casually created the year of the Linux desktop as a side-effect of just wanting an escape hatch for their business model. Now the casuals and elitists alike will have a better experience via the magic of Marketshare, and all it really took is not listening to people that don’t know what’s good for them.
What do you mean by an escape hatch. Valve have been messing with hardware and Linux for way longer than the Steam Deck.
“Escape hatch” specifically refers to the speculation that Valve is positioning themselves in a way that they can’t be forced into paying fees for existing on the Windows platform, and that if push comes to shove they can say they only support Linux now. This hasn’t happened yet, but it’s a strategic stance which will likely prevent it from even beginning to happen. This doesn’t have to do with the Steam Deck specifically; it was also part of their intentions with the Steam Machine and etc.
Sometime around Windows 8 Microsoft started making noises about closing the Windows ecosystem and making people buy software through their store. This would have shut things like Steam out, so Valve said “Okay, we’re going to make a Linux-based gaming platform, because we think gamers will follow us and not you. Also we’re going to create console-like gaming PCs called Steam Machines and make our own controller, because we think we can win against Xbox, too.” Microsoft didn’t lock down the platform, Steam Machines didn’t really go anywhere, but it laid a lot of the groundwork for the Steam Deck.
always has been. the one complaint ive always heard for linux is that it didnt run games and photoshop.
most games run now, and photoshop is workable on wine if you are not a professional.
Try editing HDR photos.
I need you to understand 98% of windows users (and computer users in general) don’t need or use photoshop and advanced photo editing
This isn’t about being fancy with Photoshop layering together bracketed photos - modern flagship smartphones all shoot direct in HDR. Basic edits in stuff like Apple Photos on the Mac or Google Photos take this into account.
Again: According to Adobe itself, 98% of computer users don’t use photoshop AT ALL. That includes windows users. It’s a problem only a few people have.
I literally said it has nothing to do with Photoshop - if you shoot a photo on your iPhone or Google Pixel it shoots in HDR, and then you just use the built-in editor on your PHONE, it will edit in HDR. Linux is worse than Pixel and iOS stock photo apps at photo editing. I don’t know why you’re obsessed with Photoshop.
That’s because the thread is about photoshop
So wait, are we really saying it’s newsworthy every time one person switches to Linux?
When that person is a public figure I think it is news worthy. Because it won’t be one person but a handful. As I am betting alot of people who follow them will want to try it out as well.
This is advertising 101.
Downside is if the public figure has a bad experience it will discourage many people from not even trying.
Their rough new user experience is concerning though. From what they described I suspect many of their “problems” are not actually “real”, but it doesn’t really matter because they still ended up in a scenario where they thought there were problems. How did they end up thinking that everything must be done with terminal while using Ubuntu? I know in the last ~10 years there’s been a big focus on the new user experience, so what more can be done to prevent this? My gut says there are too many online resources that are confusing new users when they try to onboard themselves - especially resources that are old, written for other distros, or written for people who just want to find the command they can copy-paste to do something.
How did they end up thinking that everything must be done with terminal while using Ubuntu?
When asking for help in a Linux sub/forum/community, the answer will generally use the terminal because it works across desktops and even distros. It’s a lot easier to give one or two commands than it is to work out what distro, what desktop, and what settings the querier has, then describe the steps necessary in that particular GUI.
This may lead to the impression that the terminal is required for day to day use of Linux.
Maybe it needs to be more obvious that there are many ways to do things in Linux, and give new users a short “learning to learn” primer on how things operate differently in Linux-land, and where/how to look online for help. There are always first-boot popups but I imagine most people are conditioned to click out of them without even reading; forcing people to confirm a couple times that they want to skip “very helpful reading” may cut down on people that play the search engine lottery on what information they use for their first steps.
Also semi-related, I hope that mainstream Linux eventually “un-stupids” computers for regular people again. I get the distinct feeling that Microsoft and Apple have, at least somewhat intentionally, imposed ‘learned helplessness’ onto average computer users. “Oh computers are magic no one knows how they work. We are the only wizards that could possibly understand them and we will sell you the solution.” Windows/OSX/iOS/etc are so locked down that people have rightfully learned over time that if they run into a problem, there really is no solution. I suspect that’s permeating into the new user experience on Linux where people will encounter one problem and throw their hands up and say “fucking computers” instead of using basic problem solving to try another approach.
eventually “un-stupids” computers for regular people again
The problem isn’t that people are dumb or don’t want to learn or whatever, it’s that the vast vast majority of them simply do not care.
They do not care what OS runs Chrome, because it doesn’t matter. They don’t care about privacy, they don’t care about ads, they don’t care about AI, they don’t care about enshittification, they don’t care that Linux or OS X might be better, it doesn’t matter.
The computer is a screwdriver, and nobody gives a shit who makes your screwdriver. Hell, a lot of Windows users don’t even know who MAKES Windows, because it’s just “the computer”.
I’d wager that Dank Pods didn’t care all that much either - or, at least didn’t until the point that something happened that DID make him care, and the real incentive here should be making people actually care that their screwdriver is shoving ads at them and stealing their data and that’s somehow worth action from them - even though literally everything you do on a computer does that now.
How you do that I do not know, but the user has to have a solid, definable, clear reason for their change that’ll get them past the transition period, or it just plain won’t happen.
Some of my fav quotes:
“Ads in an operating system that you’ve paid for from a company that owns ridiculous amounts of money is so offensive.”
“data, it’s like the new gold to people”
“I got the confidence to really jump into Linux after the Steam Deck.”
[regarding the terminal] “You just see text going across the screen, they’re working at lightning speeds.”
“I’m kissing convenience goodbye, I just want control.”
“I got the confidence to really jump into Linux after the Steam Deck.”
I offered my son (16) to get him an “office” computer for his room so he can do homework and emails and junk. He said he felt so comfortable with Linux because of the Steam Deck and we could instead just get a nicer monitor and a docking station and he will use the Deck as a gaming machine AND office workstation whenever our main computer (also Linux) is busy
