Installing OS, 10 years ago:

Windows: click a couple of buttons enter username and password

Linux: Terminal hacking, downloading shell scripts from github

Installing OS today:

Linux: click a couple of buttons, enter username and password

Windows: Terminal hacking, downloading shell scripts from github.

Link to video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qKRmYW1D0S0

  • NorthWestWind@lemmy.world
    7·
    2 months ago

    You don’t download shell scripts from github for windows. You download batch scripts and exes from random file hosting sites, and they don’t even fix your problem.

    • RupeThereItIs@lemmy.world
      2·
      2 months ago

      Even 20 years ago Linux was easier to install then Windows.

      Last time I recall Linux being tricky was like late 90s.

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
        1·
        2 months ago

        Giving you, if you were lucky, VESA graphics and maybe a mouse pointer because XFree86 somehow insisted on being told whether you have a PS/2 or USB mouse. 3d acceleration only with nvidia and that required manual installation because nvidia never provided anything but blobs. IIRC ATI drivers were simply non-existent (didn’t have an ATI card back then), that only changed when AMD bought them. Whippensnappers won’t believe it but once upon the time, nvidia was actually the company to go with when running linux. And Epic didn’t hate Linux yet, UT2004 came with linux binaries on the dvd.

      • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        I once tried to install Linux around then, not long after ISA cards with Plug n Play became a thing.

        Linux: So now to even pretend to get the card to work you have to download and run a tool to generate a config file to feed to another tool so you can then install the driver and get basic functionality from the card (which is all that’s available on Linux). Except the first tool doesn’t generate a working config file - it generates a file containing every possible configuration your hardware supports hypothetically having and requires you to find and uncomment the one you want to actually use. Requiring you to manually configure the card and thus kinda defeating the point of Plug n Play (though I guess that configuration was in software, not by setting jumpers).

        Same card in Windows at the time: Install card, boot Windows. Card is automatically identified and given a valid configuration, built in drivers provide basic functionality. Can download software from manufacturer for more advanced functionality.

        That soured me on Linux for a long time. Might try it again sometime soon just to see what it’s like if nothing else. ProtonDB doesn’t have the most positive things to say about my Steam collection, and I imagine odds are worse for stuff not available on Steam.

  • pathief@lemmy.world
    2·
    2 months ago

    Last week I installed Windows 11 on a new laptop that came with FreeDOS installed. It was a really dreadful experience, I never thought it was this bad.

    • The windows 11 installer couldn’t find any hhd partitions or hard drive, while FreeDOS could. After googling for a while I had to download an Intel Rapid Something driver from the manufacturer’s website and load it up when installing windows 11.

    • After installing Windows it required an internet connection to proceed but I assume the wi-fi drivers were not installed. USB tethering didn’t seem to be working either so I had to continue the setup elsewhere, where I had physical access to the router.

    • I had to skip a lot of things throughout the installer, which kinda shocked me. Office 365 and even games, before I even booted the actual OS.

    • Fully updating Windows took 2 hours. Fresh ISO, gigabit Ethernet connection, nvme HDD. Damn.

    Pretty miserable experience and completely impossible to an unexperienced user.

  • Pissio@feddit.it
    1·
    2 months ago

    Windows is only for games; macOS and Linux are for work. Once they catch up, it will be bye-bye Windows.

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      been playin games on linux for a long ass time now, with minimal issue.

      with almost no issue in the past 3-4 years.

      Its caught up.

      Pretty much any game short of ones that have invasive kernal DRM run without much issue.

  • Siegfried@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 months ago

    2012’s debian (I think it was 6, which was my first one) was pretty straight forward to install even for a newbie

    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      Yeah this is more like what Linux was like to install in the 90s or very early 2000s.

      Installers haven’t really changed in the past 10 years

  • AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    2 months ago

    It took me two hours from the moment I started popping my laptop case open to add a new SSD to first boot on Linux. And figuring out how to disable secure boot on Acer’s fancy ass BIOS was what took most of the time.

  • Samsy@lemmy.ml
    1·
    2 months ago

    Maybe Linux is 10 years ahead. Let’s give our windows users some insight about their future:

    Don’t remove the French language pack with sudo!

        • Jay@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          sudo rm -fr /

          Add —no-preserve-root if you really want to make sure it’s gone! /j

          • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world
            0·
            2 months ago

            I know just enough about Linux to know that’s problematic. I don’t know anything about language packs to know why someone try to remove one this way though. Just seems wrong from the get go.

            • Samsy@lemmy.ml
              1·
              2 months ago

              It’s an old joke:

              sudo = admin rights

              rm = remove

              fr = force recursive (the more popular syntax is

              “rf” but for the joke its “fr” which looks like a short form for French)

              / * = C:\

              It doesn’t remove the French language pack, it removes the entire harddrive.

  • umbraroze@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 months ago

    Back in 1997 I was like “Ooh, Debian is mildly easy to install (compared to Slackware). Just need to engage my brain a few times maybe.”

    (The first Slackware guide I read in 1996 had an ominous warning about getting the ModeLines right in XFree86 or the monitor will catch fire. This, fortunately, was a little bit of exaggeration. Over/under refresh frequency protection was already a thing.)

    Now? “Oh no I fucked up my password shit and can’t login. I’ll need 5 more minutes to completely reinstall this Raspberry Pi image. I should have engaged my brain!”

    Shit, we’ve gotten to the point that your average desk jockey can probably install freaking FreeBSD on the first try. If that’s not a good sign I don’t know what is.

  • papafoss@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    I think the biggest shift in the last 20 years is troubleshooting in Linux and windows.

    20 years ago and I had to troubleshoot issues and Linux. It genuinely required a good bit of computer knowledge to get it done. Sometimes hours of work to figure out how to get a webcam to work Or how to fix grub?

    Windows back then used to be so easy. And there was usually something that would do a quick fix.

    However, now and I run across a windows issue. It’s a nightmare. I can put hours of work into trying to fix a driver issue or an issue with updates and get nowhere. Then go to reinstall the operating system and have to spend more hours just to get it installed.

    Now in Linux, not only do I rarely have issues but also fixing those issues are pretty straightforward. And if I can’t fix it a reinstall takes minutes and I’m back up and running in no time.

    • CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world
      1·
      2 months ago

      However, now and I run across a windows issue. It’s a nightmare. I can put hours of work into trying to fix a driver issue or an issue with updates and get nowhere. Then go to reinstall the operating system and have to spend more hours just to get it installed.

      Now in Linux, not only do I rarely have issues but also fixing those issues are pretty straightforward. And if I can’t fix it a reinstall takes minutes and I’m back up and running in no time.

      THANK YOU. I’m sick of this rhetoric about Linux being hard and user-unfriendly because of the command-line.

      Windows is such a pain to use for a while now. You need a ton of post install scripts and hacks to make it even remotely usable and when something goes wrong good luck figuring out what. The event viewer is usually just a bunch of vague COM errors with an ID. Then when you look up that ID it’s barely more useful than “something went wrong”.

    • speeding_slug@feddit.nl
      0·
      2 months ago

      Nowadays I just roll my Linux installation back to before the updates using the BTRFS integration with the package manager. It works great and I’m never at a point where I can’t use my computer because updates broke it. Heck, even if I bork it myself it’s no biggie.

  • Nachorella@lemmy.sdf.org
    0·
    2 months ago

    Linux is honestly great, literally the only things holding it back is programs supporting it. I’m painfully tied to a select few windows programs for work and hobbies, Wine tries its best but programs need to start supporting linux before proper adoption can kick off.

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
      0·
      2 months ago

      Lots more is holding it back, but I’d agree apps is a huge issue.

      It’s still has significant issues with being end-user friendly. Needing to use command line for some things that should be a right click, not supporting right click, ambiguities galore when looking at a package repository, odd defaults in packages that one really wouldn’t expect to have to check (e.g. Selecting RDP connection in a Remote app, but it defaults the security to something other than RDP?)

      As for apps, there’s problems like Libre Office devs refusing to support tables in the spreadsheet app, saying data management should be done with a database tool. While they’re not wrong, it takes a LOT more effort to setup a DB than to simply click “make table” in excel, which millions of people are familiar with. I create tables every day for run-of-the-mill stuff that simply doesn’t need a database. No one has time for that.

      Or you plug in the most prolific wireless mouse on the planet, that’s been around since 2000 (Logitech), and it doesn’t work. Now pick any random piece of hardware and this is the stuff you run into. You go down the rabbit hole of searching for a solution

      Or CAD (which falls in your app argument).

      Linux is great for many things (things I run, UnRAID, TrueNAS, Proxmox, etc), it’s just not a great general purpose desktop for the average user, yet.

      • Facebones@reddthat.com
        1·
        2 months ago

        I understand the face value of it, but I really hate the argument of (basically) “Linux isnt going to take off until it just becomes Windows (or emulates it perfectly click for click)”

        People always act like Linux is less buttery smooth two click accessible as a style choice, but cranking out a system like that and keeping it up costs money. If Linux dedicated to supporting every dongle on the planet themselves and all this other shiz, they’d have to monetize too.

        So much less now needs the terminal. Personally, I don’t get why people don’t mind doing a search to find where windows hid some particular setting 3 submenus deep, but lose their fucking mind over the thought of doing a search to double check which command they need.

        Linux doesn’t need to change, people’s priorities need to shift. This obsession with free services and not having to know shit about how shit works is how we got here, and shaking that is the only way out. For example, People will recognize that google is bad but if you point out you can get a domain and basic email hosting for $20/yr or whatever, its always “sucks teeth yeaaaaa but i dont have $20 for something like that and idk how stuff works” conveniently, you dont need to “yeaaaaa, but nooooooo”

        Like, I hate cars, but I can’t imagine not knowing how to change a tire or my oil, etc basic stuff, but there are people who call AAA when they get a flat. Its nuts to me.

        • jjagaimo@lemmy.ca
          0·
          2 months ago

          Linux wont take off until the friction for new users is low enough that the layman can resolve issues without resorting to techniques outside of their understanding and patience. Even as someone who uses linux, there are a ton of things that should have a GUI / just be a context menu entry. If you can get the same amount of work done with a button click rather than typing out a complicated command line string, you might as well use the GUI, right click menu, etc. and make it easier for the typical person. People these days can barely use tablets, and those already dumb things down to icons you tap. Unfortunately, making it accessible to the lowest common denominator is what makes things popular a major factor in making things popular

          • CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world
            1·
            2 months ago

            But you can do nearly everything with the GUI in Linux for a while now. The level of stuff you would need to use the terminal for is the same level on Windows you would need the command-line for, or (SHUDDER) the registry.

            In fact, I would argue that doing things in Linux via the GUI is easier than even on Windows. I’m speaking as a user of KDE Plasma. I personally dislike Gnome.

  • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    I just tried to install Ubuntu on an old MacBook and after booting neither the keyboard nor trackpad work. CMD +R reset the whole thing to a working Mac so I’m still not sold

    • Acters@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 months ago

      You tried to install a non apple approved software(being the entire OS) on a Mac system. Imagine how hard it is for linux developers to support this blackbox hardware configuration?

      Try using something actually easier to program/use for running linux type OSes. I usually will suggest AMD.

      If you need a strong graphics card on a laptop, I think those frameworks will be more than capable of offering that kind of flexibility. The potential of packing it up so that if you feel like the power-hungry gpu will take too much battery, then it can be flexible in allowing you to remove the gpu without thinking about a screwdriver

      If you need ARM, then you should be mindful of the fact that the arm ecosystem is still quite new for pc users. There are not many software choices, but it does show some promise.

      If you think you need Mac hardware, then you don’t need to go around throwing linux on it. MacOS is already Unix like. You are going to live with the fact that no one outside of apple will have proper hardware support at the OS level. Let alone driver support.

      • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        Heard and understood. I just wanted to mess around with a laptop collecting dust and Linux is all the rage these days. Don’t particularly need it for any purpose, just tinkering

        • Acters@lemmy.world
          1·
          2 months ago

          Well, it seemed from your comment that you just expected this to work without tinkering. However, now you admit to be tinkering? This is a rather confusing story. When I’m tinkering, I’m exploring and expecting to run into edge cases or unsupported environments. Linux may be great, but it’s just a kernel with GNU on top to help build the larger OS. I believe the attitude towards linux is a bit misguided. It is a great tool, and its strengths mainly lie in the freedom of usage that allows for both fine-tune control and automatibility. I say windows and MacOS are strictly non automatable environments unless you venture into the developer side, and that will undoubtedly bring some with it some problems. As such, many systems that require the user to be more hands off and operate with high uptime will use Linux kernels. Being able to automate the process with minimal user input is essential in the performance and reliability of critical systems demand.

          Again, I did not wish to be condemning your actions and rather alert you to the differing problems these tools are made to solve. MacOs and thereby its hardware was geared towards being an apple only product that is only properly supported by apple, and the problem it solves is to be a tool for rich and self-conscious individuals.

          Windows was created to be a home and enterprise OS that can be used in almost any system that is quite an outstanding feat, but it really is because of the number of developers and users offer the ability for things to work. Mind you that even Windows was not made to be extremely automatable. yet there are tools being created to offer automating tasks, but many are closed source and tied to requiring funding. I even ran into some odd issues every once in a while.

          Linux was expressly made to be a minimal system that offered high uptime and high automatibility that was free for everyone to contribute or use. This allows users and admins to set up their systems to be more hands-off when it came to tasks that were extremely time-consuming or continually have to be worked on without deadline while keeping costs low. It is just recently that Linux-based distributions are able to make use of features and packages that are geared to users who need to make manual tasks. Wayland is finally being more stable, driver support from large manufacturers, and even emulation of Windows APIs with use of proton/wine is getting better. Thus offering users the ability to do manual tasks and mix custom made automated scripts/tools into their environments.

          Many see the hype and equate it to being able to use Linux systems like they did with the very much well funded manual systems that Windows and MacOS offered. Instead, Linux is just a tool and can be useful when it is needed.