Comment by lukaslalinsky
5 days ago
Does your mother know how to install a device driver on Windows? None of the non-technical people I know can't fix anything on their computers.
I've been doing experiments over the last 10 or so years, I've been borrowing my Linux laptops to people, and to my surprise, they had absolutely no problem using it. Especially children, you just start using GNOME as if it's nothing. They are already used to different phones, different kinds of computers, it really makes no difference to them. Your mother is probably checking gmail, watching youtube, and maybe writing google docs, not much else.
> Your mother is probably checking gmail, watching youtube, and maybe writing google docs, not much else.
Condescending.
My mother shouldn't need to mess with udev rules to play music to her Bluetooth Speaker because she uses a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard.
She also doesn't want to hang about waiting for systemd to shutdown X out of Y retries when she turns off the desktop because the bluetooth speaker had gone awol.
She also uses a wacom tablet which requires more configuration. Windows provides Plug & Play, and then works. Linux provides Plug & Play with lumps requiring configuration outside of a USB stick.
Can we stop pretending that linux is perfect and in a state for non-techies to swap over? It's potential but still not suitable for the average user. Watching streaming services natively isn't possible without some sort of a hack.
I do it for a job, I don't want to be further support for her outside of. She's an 70-year old illustrator so Photoshop is a must. Her friends who are in their 50's are the same. Linux even after retraining wouldn't gel with them.
Krita, GIMP, are not alternatives for her. Heck, she even maintains her own website.
My father is a historian. He has archives of history stuff bottled away on applications that are not *nix. Yes Wine is suitable for that but that again another set of obstacles.