this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 173 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

I think this has less to do with Microsoft and more to do with the average human has no interest in learning something that only passively helps them.

I only know a handful of things about working on an automobile, while my father could practically take one apart and put it back together wholesale.

I can take apart a computer and put it back together wholesale, but I'm lost on an internal combustion engine.

I pay someone with expertise to handle the engine, because I've spent my time learning other things.

Look, unless the people you're talking about are doing tech jobs, there isn't a reason for them to learn the depths of it, just like there isn't a reason for them to learn the depths of how their car works. Both a car and a computer are tools, and those tools are made to be used by people who may not know the depths of the internal workings of either.

This post feels like elitism and gatekeeping to me, as someone who thinks Windows sucks and prefers Linux. The idea that it's the OS that is "holding people back" and not that those people might have more important things to do with their time than dedicate half their life to an operating system is absurd. If someone spends 20 years becoming a doctor, I'm not going to act like they're a dumbass because they don't know everything about fucking computers.

People don't want to learn more because for most people not knowing more doesn't impact their fucking life. Just like me not knowing more about my car doesn't generally impact my fucking life. Because I've never had trouble finding someone to pay to fix it for me.

Surprise, we're the people who are paid to fix computers for the people who are just using them as simple tools. Maybe we shouldn't be so upset about that.

Also, last but not least, Android is a strain of Linux and it suffers from all the same issues listed above as Windows. Acting like you couldn't pull the same bullshit in Linux if you wanted to is kind of a joke, because it's already been done with Android.

All the ad infested bullshit we all hate about Windows 10 and 11? Blame Linux-based Android.


EDIT: Also, personal opinion, if we're talking about which CLI is easier to learn and use. Microsoft has made great strides with Powershell being easy and accessible to people who haven't faced a command line environment before. The things that make its command line better than Linux's are two things, and only two things. (I hate that it's object oriented instead of text oriented, Powershell has a lot of bad things, too)

First, human-readable commands whose names describe what the command does in a verb-noun format. This means instead of Linux with some very, very obscurely named commands that are not descriptive and you just have to sort of memorize, you can just sort of remember because the name is human readable.

Secondly, the get-command command is huge because it allows me to search these verb-noun names for the command I'm looking for. On Linux, if I don't know the specific command, I have to search the internet, because there isn't a built-in tool that will give me an idea of what each command does and allows me to search for them through a filter. Once you find a command you think might work, it has the get-help command which produces something similar to a Man page.

Linux has Man pages, but because there is no rhyme or reason to how any commands are named, it's not very easy to find the command you're looking for if you don't already know the command. On Windows, if I know what the command does I may already have enough information to find the command using get-command instead of having to turn to Google and be like "what command do I use if I am trying to do X?"

So if we're talking about the superiorly designed command line that's easier for first time users. Powershell is where it's at. Because Linux is a confusing fucking mess of 30 years of random decisions by lone programmers. Literally the only reason I know commands in Linux CLI is because I had to memorize them. I don't do so much memorizing Powershell commands. If Linux was being built from scratch today, I'd practically demand a similar naming convention system to make it easier to understand what the fuck commands do.

[–] snooggums@kbin.social 52 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As someone who knows how to take apart and put back together both computers a day cars, your post is 100% accurate in explaining why people might not want to spend the time to learn something they have no interest in and do rarely.

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[–] highduc@lemmy.ml 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Regarding the Android bit, it's so cancerous because everything is locked down and users have no control over the OS. They don't have admin rights on their own device. Nothing to do with Linux, that's jus the kernel. Android + GNU utils & root access would be completely different.
People shit on the GNU/Linux meme, but Android actually proves that just the Linux kernel can be put in an OS that's just as hostile to the user as anything proprietary.

[–] Skimmer@lemmy.zip 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Not having root is done on Android for some very good security reasons to be fair, it opens up a giant attack surface and risk for all kinds of malware and nasty stuff to take advantage of. I don't think it's done completely in malice as you think. Its a very important part of the app sandbox and Android's security model at large.

With that said, I do think that people should have the option to root if they want to, I'm not a fan of OEMs like Samsung and whoever else purposely preventing people from rooting at all costs. I think people should be able to do whatever they want with their own device, root just certainly shouldn't be the default, and users should be aware of the risks if they choose to use it. But I do think it should be a possibility for those who really do wish to do so.

With Android, it all just comes down to the OEM and variant of it that you're stuck with. As a whole, I think its an amazing project and OS, though unfortunately Google, and especially OEMs, tend to make a lot of bad choices. It's similar to Linux as a whole in that aspect. You've got options like ChromeOS which are a nightmare for privacy and user freedom any way you look at them, but then you've got your traditional distros like Debian, Arch, Fedora, etc, which are the exact opposite. Its an important distinction.

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[–] seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This post feels like elitism and gatekeeping to me, as someone who thinks Windows sucks and prefers Linux.

I think it's the opposite. There are, of course, Linux elitists, but they don't want normies using Linux. They love to talk about how Linux isn't ready for mainstream usage, and it's so difficult and only super-smart people like them can use it. They're like those hipsters that don't want their favorite band to become popular because then they wouldn't be underground and cool to listen to anymore. If ordinary folks were using Linux, then they wouldn't feel so smart and special.

It is gatekeeping and elitist to say that Linux is hard to use, you wouldn't understand it, and you should stay on Windows.

People don’t want to learn more because for most people not knowing more doesn’t impact their fucking life. Just like me not knowing more about my car doesn’t generally impact my fucking life. Because I’ve never had trouble finding someone to pay to fix it for me.

Surprise, we’re the people who are paid to fix computers for the people who are just using them as simple tools. Maybe we shouldn’t be so upset about that.

It isn't about every computer user becoming a computer engineer. It's about learned helplessness. It's about being afraid to try anything new, even something that's only slightly different.

To use the car analogy, it's like somebody who will only drive Fords, and is terrified of the prospect of getting behind the wheel of a car made by any other manufacturer.

[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

EDIT: I gave you an upvote here because you don't deserve downvotes for your well stated opinion.


I have done computer work for a bunch of little old ladies, and when they couldn't afford to upgrade to new hardware, I would put a lightweight version of Linux on their computers for them.

Only one of them really struggled with the difference, and she wasn't against learning, she just struggled. The rest handled the transition fine and didn't do a lot of complaining that it wasn't what they were used to. (Probably partially because I made clear what apps were what and put shortcuts to each on their desktop, each shortcut well labeled.)

I don't think it's unusual for people to "get used to" how certain things work and expect that. In fact, I'd say that's pretty normal.

But I think there's far less fear of change from regular people than you seem to think. I see far less addiction to the "brand" of Windows than you might think.

To use the car analogy, it’s like somebody who will only drive Fords, and is terrified of the prospect of getting behind the wheel of a car made by any other manufacturer.

I mean, lots of people are scared as hell of driving a stick shift and refuse to learn.... soooo yeah. I'd say that's a closer approximation. Because a Ford and a Chevy both have steering wheels and pedals all in the same place. You add that extra pedal and some folks lose their minds. Which at least makes sense because it is different.

[–] cerement@slrpnk.net 11 points 1 year ago

throw in “wanting to do something” versus “having to do something” – I want to build my own keyboard so I spend the time to learn about them, I have to use Windows at work but as long as it doesn’t catastrophically break I’m not spending any more of my time on it than I have to – if it does break, there’s the paid IT department who’s going to be oh-so-thrilled that Amateur McJones decided he could fix it himself …

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[–] clyne@discuss.tchncs.de 103 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Why is this a screenshot? Couldn’t you have just copied the text?

[–] Armaell@kbin.social 64 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] metaStatic@kbin.social 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

at least it's not a photo of a screen

[–] cerement@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 year ago

just missing a scanline filter …

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[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Here's the text:

Sure, I'll explain. I must preface this by saying that the following is my own personal theory which I formed over the years I've spent in the higher education system, both as a student, a graduate student and a TA, mostly has. on my experience with promoting FOSS and helping people around computers. I am also a local LUG member, so I have some additional source of observations. So while I cannot quote some Horton McPronton as a mastermind behind this theory, I'm quite convinced in the whole validity of my idea.

So, first thing I noticed Is that MS products hide everything from the entl user in the most bullshit way. MS doesn't want to tell the user anything of value that would help to understand and fix the issue right away, but at the same time they don't want to hide malfunctions completely. That's where one gets the error messages like "ERROR WTF23 in 0x0454234 by 0x13245, please contact your local clergy". What they do is mystification of PC use. All that stuff does for an average user is forcing them think that the computer is some magic, antl there's snowball's chance in hell an average Joe like them would be able to figure that out.

Second thing I noticed that the ubiquity of GUI further obscures the processes going on in the computer. While in UNIX and older OSes one could convey their desires in text (and receive a meaningful answer), Microsoft forces some world of Comic Books unto a user, without telling them what's going on. The result is further mystification of the whole experience. People no longer even try to understand what they are actually doing, they cannot figure out the underlying logic and just memorize where and what to click, and in which sequence. Every small change in the environment can ruin that whole scheme, which makes such people pretty much useless with varying tasks and whenever a degree of autonomy is expected from the PC user.

Third thing I noticed is that "The MS ecosystem" discourages seeking and trying out something new. People get stuck in their established patterns of behavior and have a tremendous inertia against any changes. I struggle to find another sphere where user knowledge would be so limited. Cars? Everyone can name a dozen manufacturers, many models. Food? Same. Electronics? Obviously. But with MS, it's like there is nothing beyond MS Office (and its proprietary formats), Outlook, Explorer (well, this is changing now, but more like to "Google Chrome" and not to a variety of equal options), and other stuff. This is not surprising, obviously, since for any average Joe making something to work in this ecosystem is more like a magic trick, and they hold the results dear. But this also spreads out to other spheres. For example, I've seen people who cannot fathom there's statistical software beyond SPSS, because SPSS was "handed down" from generation to generation, along with other PC wizardry. The vendor lock-in in all the major corporations doesn't help that either. So MS promotes the mode of thinking as ridiculous as "There is no car but Ford, and no model but Taurus" would be.

Fourth thing I noticed is that people don't want to study the underlying principles, at all, even when they need it / would benefit from it. Since the whole thing has been streamlined for them in a series of magical mumbo-jumbo, and any attempt to figure things out Of any, of course) endtd with some fucked-up shit like registry editing or scrapping together a bunch of unrelated files to replace the existing ones, or downloading something cryptic and running it without any clue of what it does, they see the whole thing as a heavy, useless burden on them. They won't learn how to use Office products properly (first and foremost, how to use styles and stuff to get proper formatting), because they expect to be fucking with registry again or something. They don't want to try other statistical software because they fear they'll have to deal with some undocumented shit all over again. They won't move to open formats because they expect it to be a whole clusterfuck all over again, as when they changed from regular GUI to Ribbon or something. Programming, Fuck no, they've seen those "ERROR 233432235 IN MODULE fgdghdfkghdfkj, SHOOT YOURSELF AND REPORT TO THE AUTHORITIES" stuff all too often, and never had to interact with a computer in any way similar to programming on their own (like, say, bash users do).

So in my opinion, MS "ecosystem" makes computer use something mystical/magical and locks people in that line of thinking. Afterwards, people are nigh impossible to retrain, and instead of versatile political scientists we churn out vendor-locked zombies who barely managd to figure out SPSS and Excel. I am pretty certain that if people were brought up in a different manner, say, including communicating with the computer in text orders (imagine me telling you all this in pictures!), seeing the underlying mechanisms in plain form, being exposed to competing options, etc —then they'd behave quite differently, even considering an average person isn't, frankly speaking, quite smart. It's more or less like a language: once you learned the sounds of your mother tongue, you'll face great difficulties in producing the sounds of other languages correctly (thats why Russians or Italians speak English with a notoriously funny accent, for example). Same here: once you learn that PC is magic which is beyond you, you'll unlikely be able to de-mystify it later on.

[–] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For those that don't know there's a few websites that can easily grab text from images for you. It can be a big time saver.

[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago

Optical Character Recognition has only been around for like fifty years. You can't expect people to just know about it. /s

[–] RagingNerdoholic@lemmy.ca 57 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Microsoft errors be all like

Contact your administrator

Motherfucker, I am the admin.

[–] HumbleHobo 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Apple errors be all like

"Operation couldn't be completed (com.apple.mobilephone error 1035)"

What am I supposed to do with this?

Linux error be all like

"System program problem detected. Do you want to report it?"

Who am I reporting this to, Linus himself? He's just going to yell at me.

[–] Terevos@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This stuff isn't intentional. It's just that MS is really bad at handling errors. So they just gave up and put a generic message.

[–] RagingNerdoholic@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

They intentionally choose to handle errors poorly.

Just like they intentionally choose to handle updates poorly, DON'T YOU WANT TO REBOOT FOR THE FIFTHEENTH FUCKING TIME AND LOSE YOUR SESSION WITH 29 PROGRAMS OPEN ACROSS 8 DESKTOPS WHILE RUNNING A RENDERING PROCESS?

Meanwhile, Linux: why yes, I'll update the kernel in-place without rebooting and keep your 784 day uptime.

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[–] russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.net 47 points 1 year ago

This feels like a bit of a sideways take. I'll preface this with that I love Linux, and its been my preferred operating system for years.

That being said, "helplessness" isn't Microsoft's fault. Most people do not want to know the ins-and-outs of how something works, and that's perfectly okay. I am a software developer, but despite the fact that I have an Android (Pixel) phone I generally do not care to root my phone, flash alternative ROMs, etc anymore. I use Linux on my PC, but I do not want to spend hours tinkering with my phone, only for it to most likely end up in a state that is less-than-par than what it came with. I am glad that Android is open enough (well, its not as cut-and-dry as that but its more open than iOS) for the people who do want to tinker around with it to be able to do so, but its not for me. If I'm out and trying to request an Uber, I don't want my phone to crash every time I open the app just because the ROM I'm using has a bug.

By the same token, there are times where I don't really want to mess around with going through a million settings on my PC when I just need it to allow me to do some work. That is a trade-off that you tend to make with Linux (though its certainly gotten a lot better over the years), and I can't fault people for not wanting to go through that. Sometimes, I wish I hadn't made that trade-off and had just stayed blind to the love/hate relationship I've come to form around Linux.

I do not want to tinker around with my keyboard, I just want it to allow me to type. I don't want to tinker around with my headphones, I just want to listen to music. I use my refrigerator every day, and while I have some rudimentary understanding of how it works, I really rather not tinker around with it - and if it stops working, you're not likely to find me trying to fix it myself (short of say, the light bulb going out).

A coworker of mine convinced another coworker to wipe their system and install Fedora, and use the Looking Glass + VFIO passthrough trick to have a Windows VM within Linux like he does. He spent both of his days off trying to get it to work (and facing weird issues that even I couldn't explain and find a solution for), and at the end of today he decided to reinstall Windows so that tomorrow he can have something reliable to use for work. This is exactly why I usually don't push people to use Linux. If they want to know more about it, sure I'm happy to show them the ropes - but selling it as a perfect solution is a bad idea and only makes Linux look bad.

If Microsoft didn't make an operating system that was simple enough for users who just want things to work, yet powerful enough for those who want to do more with it (such as making games, or using CAD software for engineering) then someone else would. I definitely get frustrated with Windows, but at the end of the day, it is what most of the world uses for a reason (just like Linux is used for most web servers around the world for a reason) - its the right tool for their job, whatever that job might be. Sure, the vague error codes that you get from Windows is frustrating at times, but Windows isn't open source and that is not likely to change. How is the old XP error code format of STOP CODE 0X003ABF VIOLATION OCCURRED AT KERNEL.DLL (along with the rest of the useless stack trace) going to help you anymore than the shorter ones that are generally found on Windows nowadays? You can't exactly go submit a pull request to fix the issue. In terms of the ability to search for the error, I've very rarely ever seen a Windows error code that didn't have a million and one causes (and ^2 the amount of potential "solutions" for the supposed cause). It's certainly not going someone whose just trying to do their homework for school, or edit their resume for job applications.

The same thing applies to the whole iOS vs Android debate. The same coworker who sold Linux to my other coworker uses an iPhone (actually, they both do as far as I'm aware), because its been reliable for him. He doesn't need to have the source code to iOS in order for it to do what he needs it to do. Quite frankly, the whole "sheeple" thing that you tend to hear people say, and this "Windows users are zombies" take being portrayed in this comment is incredibly childish. If you're not sharing the computer, the phone, etc and someone else owns it - why does it matter what they use?

I suppose you could argue that the majority of people these days don't want to troubleshoot anything, but can you really blame them? Imagine yourself before anything that you learnt about Linux, Windows, and computers in general - with the way things are built (think laptops and phones, with how their components tend to be soldered in) doing anything yourself to repair stuff is very difficult, and has a high chance of leaving you with a brick (which isn't a Microsoft invention). How many people have you seen try to fix a software related issue on their PC or phone, and ended up making the issue worse (which can be done just as easily, if not easier, on Linux)? Those stories are why a lot of people do not want to try to fix something and reach out to support, take it in for repair, replace it, etc.

[–] Nougat@kbin.social 35 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Most people who drive cars are not mechanics. Most computer users are not also computer engineers; they don't want to be and shouldn't have to be.

If you want to drive your car with spare parts and tools in the back, outfitted with gloves, goggles, a scarf, and an oilcoat; you can do that. That doesn't mean that everyone else should do that. It's not 1992 anymore.

[–] seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You don't have to be an engineer to use a CLI. This is exactly the mentality that's being called out here.

[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 23 points 1 year ago

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say for 80% of people, there is literally nothing they need to do on a computer that necessitates knowledge of the CLI.

Sure, they can use it if they want to. But most don't want to, especially when they can already do the same via GUI.

Switching them to Linux won't magically make them want to.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 year ago (8 children)

You don't have to use a CLI to use a computer. What's the benefit for most people? Why should they?

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[–] utopiah@lemmy.ml 29 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Nice, I made a wokrshop about that earlier this year for RightsCon :

"Can you host the metaverse? How learned helplessness from Big Tech made you believe you can't

BigTech seems expensive, complex, secure, new and basically the only way to use any modern tool. This is a blatant lie, repeated daily and orchestrated to limit emerging technology to very few for-profit corporations. Being a repeated lie is a problem because instead of at least trying to challenge the status quo we, all of us, can assume it is true and give up on trying, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Before digging into the technical aspects it is important to first prove it by running a short experiment then, only after, question how lie made us collectively and individually impotent. Learned helplessness itself will be used to identify extremely difficult situations most of us did encounter and might still encounter in the present.

This session will invite participants to simply try what is the state of the art of BigTech marketing at the moment, namely "the metaverse", and show that behind the abstract concept there is a technical reality that is not that complex and definitely not unachievable, even for a independent person with a very limited budget.

The workshop itself will rely on self-hosted open-source tools in order to both communicate and capture lessons learned, demonstrating by its own execution that synchronization and exploration of such a topic is possible today. "

If people here are interested I can record it again in a presentation format.

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[–] bleistift2@feddit.de 27 points 1 year ago (10 children)

I can’t relate at all to the GUI hate. A GUI you can explore. “What does this button do?” “What changes when I enter a value here?”

How does that compare to a command prompt? How would you even start guessing commands?

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[–] Primarily0617@kbin.social 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • Giving effective error codes is the opposite of unhelpful
  • Users who can't figure out the underlying logic behind a GUI aren't exactly going to thrive in a CLI environment
  • The dominance of Office is because it's better than its competitors, and because getting businesses to change literally anything they do is near impossible. SPSS isn't even a Microsoft product.
  • Troubleshooting on Linux certainly never involves "edit this root-owned file buried 6 layers deep in a cubby hole you never knew existed", and it never involves "run this .sh script lol".

This is an absolutely insane take

[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The dominance of Office is because it’s better than its competitors, and because getting businesses to change literally anything they do is near impossible. SPSS isn’t even a Microsoft product.

Also, because of the whole Open Office clusterfuck. People still download that shit not realizing it hasn't been supported in years and haven't heard of Libre Office. It leaves them thinking FOSS sucks because of a bad experience.

Most people who can't afford Microsoft Office just use Google Docs anyway.

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[–] cheezbread@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 year ago

Weird company to target, these days I feel like Windows PC users are on average far on the "knowledgeable" side of the spectrum, not as far as Unix system users of course.

Apple and mobile OS users are the ones who know nothing about their system.

[–] yum13241@lemm.ee 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] xengi@feddit.de 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Apple is just as bad in a different way. There is no perfect solution. People need to understand what they do, to do it well. That doesn't mean that the average Joe needs to learn C. He can continue to write down the process on some sticky notes but it would help if he does look beyond the horizon e g. understand what the buttons he clicks all day actually do.

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[–] offbyone@feddit.uk 23 points 1 year ago

Why have we posted a massive wall of text as a picture?

[–] SaltyIceteaMaker@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 year ago

Good argument. I definitely read that.👍

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I work with a lot of Windows admins who have to move over to Linux, and this post is extremely accurate. One additional thing I've noticed is that because Windows error messages are terrible the users have learned to simply ignore them as there's no useful information. Getting them to stop and read what's in front of them is one of the hardest things to do.

[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 year ago

Getting them to stop and read what’s in front of them is one of the hardest things to do.

Personal opinion, that's not because the errors aren't useful, it's because people refuse to fucking read signs. It's not about Windows/Linux, it's that most people can't be arsed to pay attention to much of anything.

Source: Worked as a pool attendant with a gate. Gate had a sign with rules for the pool and instructions on how to open the gate latch. The number of people confused by the rules and the gate because they failed to look at the sign right in front of them was consistently higher than the number of people who stopped for two seconds to read the sign.

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[–] necrobius@lemm.ee 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The core problem is education and bad UX. People are taught how to do specific things (click here, type this word, press this button) without ever being told why. And the bad UX discourages exploration of different ways of doing things. So it never occurs to them that there might be a better way.

Personally, I think it's ok for people to not have a deep understanding of their computer, but if you use one for hours every day, it makes sense that you know how to use it. Just like I don't expect a driver to know how to take apart an engine but they should know how to change a flat or put in coolant.

[–] 20gramsWrench@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

they should know how to change a flat or put in coolant

and care design, just like ux, is evolving in a way where the service industry takes the role of the user in maintaining their tools

[–] Thorned_Rose@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I haven't read all the comments yet so forgive me if I'm repeating this.

This is not specific to Windows or Microsoft. There's been a general dumbing down and more hand holding going on for decades now.

People don't need to think for themselves more and more. A huge amount of technology and information dessert is allowing people to become increasingly stupid.

Driving for example, many would assume that technology like lane assist is there to keep people safe from mistakes. Which it is, certainly. But only because people are becoming lazier drivers.

It's not so much a chicken or egg issue as a horrible feedback loop of stupidity or downward spiral into dumbness.

I honestly worry for the human race with how increasingly lazy and idiotic we are collectively becoming.

At this rate, we don't have to worry about robots, aliens or AI obliterating us, we'll be too dense to recognise it and welcome our extinction with open arms and apathy.

[–] HumbleHobo 13 points 1 year ago

A lot of people in Linux subs seem to be ready and willing to unload their "everything is dumbed down" opinion, with all the ferver of a solider heading out to war. I'm a long time computer user, programmer and hacker, so I understand these points of view, but they come across as very gate-keepy around the idea of using a computer at all. Like... I think it's obscene that so many people would think you need to learn how to use the command-line in order to use a computer.

You guys have it wrong, I love smart GUIs that mean I don't have to spend my life writing complex command line statements, why are there so many people trying to hold back the wonder and marvel of computers from people who haven't spent their entire lives dedicated to learning about the computer? I mean seriously, I don't expect any of my friends or family to be as experienced at these things as I am, and that's okay. I want the computer to be an easy thing to use. Hell, I want the computer to be easy to use so that I can apply my skills to building things on the computer and have people pay money for them, I think that's a fairly reasonable trade.

[–] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel like a lot of this is also the case with Apple's ecosystem. People get used to having specific apps and get complacent. In that case though I feel like another driving factor is the financial investment when you have iOS and MacOS apps, an iPhone, an iPad, and so on that all mesh with each other.

[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

I would say it applies a lot harder to iOS than macOS which continues to be certified UNIX and you can go hog wild on the CLI if you really want to.

One of the biggest Linux nerds I know is a mac enthusiast because it is certified UNIX.

iOS is indeed pretty locked down.

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[–] Octopus1348@thelemmy.club 18 points 1 year ago

"If you try to hide the complexity of the system, you'll end up with a more complex system" - Aaron Griffin

[–] demystify@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Tldr: something something Microsoft bad

[–] Stuka@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Does this person think these are unique insights? It's not some big secret that manufacturers and software developers have continually tried to make their products easier to use so as to attract customers.

Learned helplessness lmao, what a load of shit.

[–] Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Do you realize that those two goals go hand in hand and are not mutually exclusive? For example, there's no benefit in OS usability to putting out a single line error code as opposed to even the slightest detail as to what went wrong. That's not "making their products easier to use to attract customers" as there's not a single person in existence that judges an OS on how little they have to know about an error.

That's mystificatiom of the system.

While it's true that an overall goal of a company like ms is to sell more operating systems, that doesn't mean that learned helplessness isn't in the syllabus somewhere.

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[–] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago

Great post, but I’d argue that the existence of a GUI can help in learning how the system works as long as it’s well designed, mostly because it allows a user to wonder around and turn knobs. That’s why I kinda like OpenSuse and yast and woukd like to see more programs like it spring up elsewhere in other distros

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 year ago

It pains me to have people complain about some large company who broke there workflow.

[–] blindbunny@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago

Just another American grift

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