linuxmemes

Average people don't even use networked drives. What are you talking about?

They're happy with Chrome and Steam.

the average person doesnt know how to mount a drive on windows or even what that is or why you would want to, they just need to be able to open a browser

Meanwhile my experience with automounting network drives with dolphin is

Open Dolphin > Add Network Folder > Enter creds > Check automount box > done

I haven't had to use the terminal for anything in years. There's some things I do in the terminal, but that's because I like it better, not because there isn't an intuitive way to do it.

The reason guides tell people to use the terminal is because it's the same across DEs, not because there aren't DEs that make it more intuitive.

Would I throw a random non techy friend on Linux? No, because it's not what they're used to. If they had no computer experience at all though I absolutely would.

The average person does not mount network drives themselves.

I would hazard a guess that for the truly average user, booting to a desktop with Firefox and LibreOffice installed is like 90% of what they need.

I once wanted to change my mouse scrolling direction on Windows. In KDE it's a toggle in the mouse settings and on Windows it's some dubious registry editing (apparently). I think there are about as many things that are easier on Linux than on Windows as there are things that are easier on Windows than on Linux (assuming you're using a modern distribution with a beginner-friendly, sensible configuration).

I mean, I was able to figure out how MS-DOS worked as a child just be flailing on the keyboard and reading the errors. It was "easy" because now I know it while Macintoshes may as well have been alien technology. A "mouse"?, moving windows?, you have to find programs and click on them instead of just typing?

You're just used to Windows annoyances and not used to Linux annoyances, that's all.

For example:

Installing and updating a program on Windows is a horror show compared to using a package manager. It expects average users to find, download and run executable files from the Internet and conditions them to approve elevation for anything that asks.

If Windows breaks, how do you troubleshoot it? Maybe Google knows, maybe rebooting fixes it, if not then possibly re-installing the entire OS. It's so bad that if you work with Windows clients you probably already have an image of a Windows install because troubleshooting is so much of a pain it's easier to just completely re-image the machine.

Don't even get me started on how often Microsoft changes the layout of administration tools and system menus or their tendency to change the name of various system components for no logical reason.

I don't think Linux is for everyone, but only because most everyone already has years of Windows experience and forgets all of the frustration and learning.

If you used Linux for just as long as you've used Windows, then editing fstab would seem as trivial a task as pinning an item to the ~~start bar~~ taskbar, or ~~launching a program~~ starting an app from the ~~system tray~~ ~~notification area~~ system tray.

If my mother can't tell the difference between Firefox and the OS, but can use Linux mint just fine, then so can the average user.

Mounting a network share is beyond the usage scope of the DAU you describe. They need a functional default desktop environment, working standard drivers for their standard hardware, and a browser. That's pretty much it.

And let's not pretend there's anything intuitive about Windows distinguishing between accessing a network share, and mounting it as a virtual drive. This is just the staying power of "whatever I'm used to from an age when I had the curiosity and patience to figure stuff out".

The average person doesn't use network drives or know what they are.

The real problem is if people can't buy Linux laptops at Best Buy it literally doesn't matter how usable or not it is because the average person doesn't install an OS.

I work with windows for over 10 years, and use Linux daily for private stuff, including being a nerd and a gamer, and some side gigs for at least 8.

If something is weird, doesn't work or breaks in Linux, I can usually find the culprit and help fast. It's out there or it's so obscure I need to puzzle it myself.

If something like that happens on windows, pray someone already had that issue or Microsoft decided to write an article about it, because nobody will help, and most search results point to bot responses about scf scannow, dism at best, and straight up reseting your system to factory defaults.

Point being, I like figuring out stuff in Linux, and I dread opaque bullshit Microsoft gets away with.

Even your network drive example, in my experience is a coin toss. So many variables, hidden settings, weird registry keys with no documentation. Yeah.

Linux - Open Dolphin (or whatever) > Network > Add Network Folder/Find it > Enter creds > Does not automatically mount the drive when booting the computer back up > Must go into fstab to get it to automount > Stop, because that is ridiculous

I put into the dolphin path sftp://[email protected]. Then I give it my password, and check the box to save it. Then I right click any folder in the destination and do "add to places" and in the future I just navigate to it like a local folder.

I guess I'm supposed to do it a harder way? I've done essentially the same but with smb:// when forced to work with a samba share like an animal.

You are confusing the average user with the mids... average usage is equally easy to windows:

Open a file Edit a file Copy a file Open a browser

Most people i know does not care for anything else.

Why is automounting at boot without credentials a necessity and intuitive for you. No, I would expect it to mount exactly once and to require me to input username and password before I mount my porn collection so that my sister does not see it.

I don't get why you claim that windows does this correctly and Linux does not. It would be the opposite for me.

Besides, the important point in this example is to actually mount the folder to do your job. In your example, both systems do this equally well with an equally well UI, before your automounting nonsense.

It's simpler that all that. Turn on new computer, open browser, install steam, install games, play games. Anything more complex than that makes it unusable. People have zero time to deal with even a slight hiccup. It is annoying to watch as people are getting into steamOS on Steamdeck and every little thing is the end of the world. I have seen "oh, to get that one to run smooth you gotta set the FPS locked to 30" met with "nah, I ain't got time for all that, I'll play it on the Xbox".

I don't know what the fix is, outside cloning windows GUI and making an ultra safe and familiar entry Linux (the replies will be various lists of "just use x,y,z" and "get this one and technobabble the dilithium crystals into the frondulator" and that just pushes people away instantly....there has to be a tiktok-dumb entry level OS before any real migration happens.