in reply to governorkeagan

lemmy - Link to source

Nibodhika

It's not, I've been using Linux for 20 years and it's been gradually getting more and more exposure on the main media. I think there was a huge push with Steam Machines and then another one with Proton, then every Windows screw up bumps it a little more. We're probably going to get another bump in popularity in a short while when Windows 11 enables the new feature that will take screenshots of everything you do (credit cards, passwords, etc) and use an AI to search through them.
in reply to Evil_Shrubbery

lemmy - Link to source

Nibodhika

That's a logical fallacy, all dogs are animals does not imply that all animals are dogs. Even if all programmers you know use Windows that could still mean that all Linux users are programmers.

That being said several relatives use Linux because I refused to help with IT unless they had Linux, and since then they mostly hadn't needed IT support. So it's not true that all Linux users are programmers, but a good percentage of us are.

in reply to Nibodhika

lemmy - Link to source

Evil_Shrubbery

I was not explaining my logic nor my beliefs, just describing my smol sample (introvert!), as a btw fun fact.

But I was under the impression that there is no distinguishable difference between which OSs use programmes vs non-programmers (and the other way around).
\
Perhaps bcs I fail to se any specific connection between the two. But yes, my logic would be that both types use and are used by both to roughly the same extent.

(Haha, exactly same experience with relatives - forced them on Linux, never had anything non-trivial to fix since then.)

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to Nibodhika

lemmy - Link to source

Dariusmiles2123

I would want to « force » my relatives to use Linux. My wife had an unsupported MacBook Pro from 2012, so I managed to convince her it would be safer to switch. Since then, she hasn’t used macOS, but she also hasn’t used Linux because she can use her work provided windows laptop 😅

I also proposed to my mom to provide IT support remotely to her via Linux, but she prefers using windows and relying on an old friend who is forcing her to buy a lot of Microsoft products otherwise he refuses to help her.

I hope I’ll at least be able to teach my kids that Linux ain’t scary 🙏

in reply to Evil_Shrubbery

lemmy - Link to source

lemmyvore

There's some hardcore conflation going on that assumes that people with technical skills will tend to be good at everything, or that they'll gravitate towards the uber-geeky stuff.

In my experience it's a very wide spectrum. Lots of programmers are strictly focused on the language they use and don't care to know anything about the OS, or networking, even computers. They are definitely not jacks of all trades.

There are people who can do programming as well as system administration and build a PC and build some book shelves and so on. But that's a very specific type of person who's a tinkerer and happens to be into programming, it's not because they're a programmer.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to Evil_Shrubbery

lemmy - Link to source

Grangle1

In addition to the perception that you have to be "good at computers" (aka a programmer) to use Linux, in my experience a lot of Linux media outlets (websites, YT channels, podcasts, etc) tend to be heavy on advanced features and tools without much explanation in layman's terms and tend to be geared towards an IT professional/hobbyist audience, which can reinforce that stereotype among those (like me) who are not.
in reply to Evil_Shrubbery

lemmy - Link to source

zod000

Most of the programmers I know (including myself) use Linux or BSD, but that all depends on who you associate with. A lot of companies are purely Windows shops and others just throw their programmers mac books and call it a day. At my last company I was only briefly allowed to use Linux until they decided it was no good as I couldn't use whatever resource intensive corporate garbage security software of the year they bought.
in reply to ikidd

lemmy - Link to source

EuroNutellaMan

note if you sum up the linux distros here (excluding ChromeOS) you get 58,4% for personal use and 54,54% for professional use (of course keep in mind that there's some godless bastards who dual boot 2 linux distros that could skew these statistics).

Also note how that implies Linux is the most popular OS for professional use.

Anyways, I wish these stats wouldn't split Linux into distros, at least not by default. Linux distros are mostly the same and you're still using (GNU*/)Linux splitting it makes it seem less popular tan it actually is.

*unless you're using something like Alpine ig

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to tombruzzo

lemmy - Link to source

The Ramen Dutchman

And to use the computer without being bombarded by ads

Helped my SO fix Sims 4 on her W11 laptop recently; lock screen ads, start menu ads, pre-installed bloatware begging for money

I even asked how she deals with all of that and she basically said “I dunno it just does that, if you can make it stop that'd be nice ig but just get Sims to worl for now”

Needless to say I got Sims 4 to work (removing cachedir did the trick) AND uninstalled the bloatware and turned off ad-related settings

in reply to The Ramen Dutchman

lemmy - Link to source

EuroNutellaMan

I'd honestly have proposed (if they don't need programs that only run on windows) "we could put linux on it and that should fix these issues" and put Linux Mint or Fedora on it (better if you choose not them unless they really want to deal with all the choices, most likely they won't wnt to tho) and just tell them the basics of how to install software and stuff.
in reply to The Ramen Dutchman

lemmy - Link to source

EuroNutellaMan

I'd say now's the time, by now I mean as soon as it's appropriate.

I was once asked if I could crack a password of a windows PC in an office cause the guy who used to work there no longer remembers it and they wanted to reuse the old PC. I asked if they need to recover any data, if they used any software that would be incompatible with Linux (not like this but directly mentioning software and asked for a list of stuff they use) and then told them it would simply be easier to install Linux on the thing, not only it's easier but since it's an old machine running windows 7 it's also more secure and the computer will perform well.

During the installation we found out that the computer is glorified junk, took ages to even attempt to format the disk to ext4. Still got to install Linux Mint on another one of their computers tho, big success.

in reply to tombruzzo

lemmy - Link to source

gerdesj

I find it amazing that so many distros with volunteers manage to curate a vast software ecosystem, reasonably successfully and yet some of the largest companies on the planet, worth more than $1T each cannot manage to find the resources to do it efficiently.

Imagine firing up a cmd or ps prompt in Windows and tying in: msiexec install adobe-hipster-app and it just works.

in reply to gerdesj

lemmy - Link to source

k4j8

Have you tried Chocolatey? chocolatey.org/. It's a package manager for Windows and works great, much like brew for Mac. Or, if you prefer portable installation of programs without requiring admin, try Scoop (scoop.sh/). Of course, I'd rather use paru or yay on Arch, but I'm glad these options exist.

I find it hilarious that Microsoft even suggests these tools on their own GitHub page for the Windows Terminal.

Chocolatey - The package manager for Windows

Chocolatey is software management automation for Windows that wraps installers, executables, zips, and scripts into compiled packages. Chocolatey integrates w/SCCM, Puppet, Chef, etc.
Chocolatey Software
in reply to petsoi

lemmy - Link to source

VoxBunn

I can't program, but I only use Linux on both my laptop and desktop. All I really do on my computers is browse the web, light photo/video editing, print the occasional document, organize my photos, and play A LOT of video games. I was dual booting windows for a bit there for the games that won't work on Linux, but I soon discovered that those games weren't really worth dealing with the annoyances I had with windows for how often I actually wanted to play them... except CoD, but I have an Xbox so I just play that there. Deleting my windows partition was a great choice.
in reply to ColdWater

lemmy - Link to source

zeroAhead

It was my first Linux distro after using Microsoft stuff for ages and let me tell you: it was a big mistake. It was absolutely confusing, had to use terminal for so many things with even msdos commands that I forgot that existed, broke it 3 times by just trying to automount the other drivers and a host of other things.

End up switching to Linux mint and the transition went much smoother after that. I'm going back to it eventually though. I actually like it a lot.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to tuhriel

lemmy - Link to source

EuroNutellaMan

Impressive, you look like a very skilled programmer, management has told me you are now tasked with building a hyper-realistic virtual simulation of a Large Hadron Collider including detailed simulations of the lives of the actual workers and their families, you have a week or you're fired by the firing squad, no you're not allowed to ask why we need it or who we are or why we chose you and it is especially forbidden to ask for more time (and no you can't ask why that is either). See you in a week, have a nice day :).
in reply to tuhriel

lemmy - Link to source

JasonDJ

This is bad practice.

More accurately it should look something like this:

# Load sys library for exiting with status code
import sys

def sayHelloWorld(outPhrase: str="Hello World"):
    # Main function, print a phrase and return NoneType
    print(outPhrase)
    return None

if __name__=="__main__":
    # Provide output and exit cleanly when run from shell
    sayHelloWorld()
    sys.exit(0)
else:
    # Exit with rc!=0 when not run from shell
    sys.exit(1)
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Unknown parent

lemmy - Link to source

The Bard in Green

I have my Boomer dad using Linux Mint on his laptop, but he was still using Windows on his desktop PC.

Then it updated to Windows 11 and he HATES it and asked me for help to put Linux Mint on his desktop as well.

This is a real estate agent in his 70s who needs help making scans and downloading email attachments.

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