My Experience Transitioning from Windows to Linux

Nice. I appreciate your reaction to it, as well. :slightly_smiling_face:


What I want to say shortly about the whole Bluetooth thing:

Rest assured, you are not the only one with that problem. Let’s be clear: you ain’t stupid or anything like that. It’s a general problem, that situations like the one you describe, are faced by millions of Linux users every day. Sadly, it’s “normal” and they just have to go through it, because the tutorials are usually not that good and/or outdated and/or not existing in the first place.

Yes and no. They want it to be more accepted and popular in some sense, definitely. There is no doubt about that. Just look at the Linux Gaming community. They would sell their soul and kidneys, if they could go on a platform, like, for example, Steam and just pick any game they like, without looking and begging for half-acceptable Linux support.
Even the company being really nice to Linux users (Valve – the creators of Steam) with their whole Proton (Wine), Steam Deck, etc. situation are still not even close to support Linux users, as much as would be needed. And you can’t even blame them, because the Linux Gaming community is just so tiny and unprofitable.
So, for example, from that perspective, Linuxers definitely want Linux to become more popular. If Linux would be at least as popular as macOS, then they would be accepted as a serious target market and software producers would start producing software for Linux, too, without flipping every coin thrice, thinking about its profitability. (Though, often not even the market share of macOS is relevant enough, but that’s a different story…)

If Linux became more popular in this way, a positive spiral of success would begin. The opposite of a circulus vitiosus would begin.

  1. Linux would become more popular.
  2. More and better software would become available on Linux platforms.
  3. Linux would become more attractive, because it doesn’t have the issues that come with proprietary platforms, but at the same time delivers a comparable UX, having all the software and hardware opportunities at hand, that usually only Windows or at least macOS offer.
  4. Go back to point 1 and repeat the process.

So, from this perspective, Linuxers of course want it to get popular.

The downsides of getting popular are usually the whole, we get popular and once we are famous, we screw you over, thing. This is, for example, what Apple has done. Back in the PowerPC days etc. Apple made pretty much the highest quality end consumer PCs period. Look at them now, though.

This is just one of my favourite examples.

The thing with Linux is: it can’t really be destroyed in that way. Look at Ubuntu. It’s very commercial. For example, the whole Unity desktop thing was pretty much a lightweight Apple move. “Suck it, or leave.” Either you used their Unity thing the way they wanted you to use it or you had to use an older version or whatever.
Now here is the thing.
The people had a choice.
They could simply switch to Mint or whatever.
That’s one of the strongest points for Linux. You can always switch, if one does not fit.
That’s not the case with Windows and macOS. If you want to switch to a different platform with the same qualities of Windows – no can do.
If you want the same macOS stuff on a different OS – no can do.
They are monopolies in their own pool of upsides. You can’t get the same upsides in other operating systems. They just don’t exist. You always have to trade in good for bad and vice versa.

This is different with Linux.

You can switch to Mint and can pretty much have the whole Ubuntuness, without Canonical screwing you over, from your perspective.

Very good concise point. This is the summary of a huge problem in the whole Windows & Linux discussion.

You hit perhaps the biggest problem in the whole expecting a warm welcome discussion.

Windows is so “good”, because most things come from a single home.
Linux is so “good”, because almost nothing comes from a single home.

Windows is a whole operating system, which is controlled and offered by bajillion bucks company. They have documentation on it, they explain stuff and change stuff, in unison. It’s one operating system.

Linux is just a kernel. It’s literally just the heart of an operating system. (Emphasis on an.)
There is no the Linux OS. There are just operating systems using the same kernel, called Linux. On top of that, the OS creators put tons of 3rd party software and make it work together. This is how Linux based operatings systems are conceived.

This is the reason why it would be extremely hard, tedious and ungrateful to keep documentation up for entire Linux operatings systems. The maintainer would need to document hundreds of software packages, that he would never be able to understand fully in a single life time. Hundreds of people would need to put in their man hours, to not develop or maintain software, but just to understand 3rd party software and document it for that particular Linux distribution, only.
Oh and not only that. They would need to do that, every time there is a big update coming out for a package.
This is, at this moment, not feasible.

This is why Windows is so “good”.
This is why Linux is so “good”.
For the same reason,
Windows is so “bad” and
Linux is so “bad”.

They are fundamentally different platforms.

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