My whole company moved out of windows during the pandemic. It was all forced.
And surprisingly, after a year, it was pretty smooth.
Push your IT folks to do the same everybody. The money saved is significant. And the learning curve is annoying, but not as annoying as managing Windows.
Well, yeah. I mean, help desk deals with users at their moment of peak incompetence. If 1 in 20 users can't figure out that "Office" is now "Libre office", help desk is going to be swamped.
The solution is to merge help desk and HR, so that something productive can be done about PEBCAK issues.
Think I'm gonna try to replace my gaming desktop again. Its the last machine of mine still on Windows. I just hurt myself years ago by buying a 2080 TI
You seem to be implying that most people CAN learn linux. I've tried for 10 years now, on 4 different ossasions.
I don't get it. I WANT TO get it.......I don't get it. But I also don't want Windows 8, Windows 10, or Windows 11 especially.
............so I just stay on Windows 7.
And before anyone gives me flack about security, I'm not even 100% sure my firewall is on. I tinkered with it about 8 years ago, I don't remember if I turned it back on, or left it off.
I THINK I might have AVG free anti-virus, from like 10 years ago.........I honestly can't tell you the last time I ran it.
People won't switch to linux until the Android of PC distros comes out. The one that you can install programs by downloading a file. If thats .apk, fine. If it's .exe, fine. Just as long as the process goes "go to website, download file, double click file, get gui for installation process..............terminal? What's terminal? Oh no, are you sick?"
Now on android, you CAN still use terminal, but I would guess that less than 1% of its userbase knows what that is.
Since a corporation wrote the first version of Android, and since Linux is something like 40 years old.....but has never even attempted this approach on pc, I'm left to believe that the people who write these distros for free are actively against the idea of linux being adopted by the masses.
So no......people won't "learn it now, or learn it next year". They'll just suffer through whatever bullshit microsoft says. And thats going to affect the world. Because now microsoft will have a worldwide network of spying on EVERYONE. (Except those on mac or linux, which is like 15% of the pc market)
I don't know what flatpack is.....so I assume before that? Last time I intensely tried to get into it, was about 4 years ago. I tried not so intensely last year to turn my raspberry pi's fan on. It is off, I want it on. Instead of a physical switch I could just flick, they decided to get fancy with it, and require terminal to turn it on. It USED TO work, but in order to fix an unrelated problem, I updated the system, and that broke everything. Now when you try to run the command it gives an error.
And the difference between Windows having an error, and Linux having an error, is if I have a problem on windows, I can type "Windows 7, (problem here), reddit". It will give me a detailed set of instructions that tell me what to do. But with linux, I can find a set of instructions on how to fix the problem, and it always goes "first update everything. Now, do these commands in terminal." The only problem is, linux is so fractured into so many different layouts and structures, and the help guides always assume your system is the exact same as their system, that you end up getting an error code. Now if you know linux, you know what commands to do to change/fix things. If you're like me, you see some bullshit like "partician not registried", and you have no idea what to do with that. So you google it, find 15 different answers. And with each one you try, you just make things worse and worse.
The difference between niave and stupid is that niave people haven't been taught things. Stupid people can't learn things. I'm linux stupid, and I would say the vast majority of people are linux stupid. However, despite how fractured Android is, I would say most people are either Android smart, or Android niave. With the difference being if they've ever used Android. I've never seen someone use Android for a day, and say "I can't figure out how to set the video driver above 320x240p". Or figure out why there's no sound. Or figure out why the whole screen is tinted blue. Or why they can't turn a fan on.
Linux users have this belief that "oh, everything is easy for me, so it must be easy for everyone". What they don't realize is how hard it is to get help running linux. Imagine a blind guy going to a french guys house, and asking where they keep their screwdriver. There's no standard place. Mine is in my silverware drawer behind the hammer. But if I speak french, and you do not, if you're blind how would you ever even know where my silverware drawer is, in a house you've never been? How would you even ask for help?
That's the linux experience for me. Nothing works. I can't fix anything. And the attempts at help I get just make things worse, because they expect my system to be like their system. And it's not.
Have you tried Linux Mint? That's pretty user-friendly. As long as it's a .deb, you can double-click install through a GUI, no terminal needed. There's an "app store" with most of your standard apps, like Discord, Slack, Teams, Skype or VLC, and it has an office suite pre-installed along with an email client. The first time you start, there's a welcome screen that helps you through setting up the firewall, appearance (you can make it look like XP if you want), backups, NVIDIA drivers, and update manager you can ignore or manually update or automatically update. I don't know your system, but it's pretty intuitive for Windows users (I use a Windows 10 theme). I'd encourage you to give it one more try, if you're still open to it.
I'll just add that nearly all linux distributions have a package manager you can access from the desktop. Simply open it up, find the software you want, and click to install. Not much different than going to the play store and installing an android app. The only time you need to do anything different is if you're trying to install some obscure software that isn't directly supported by your linux distribution, then you might have to resort to the command line.
An immutable distro that you install and it "just works". Applications come in via the onboard Software Manager (using Flatpack). It is almost impossible to break, as the system itself is read-only. If an update should break something, the OS rolls back itself. It can do this, because it's basically updating what you'll get after the next reboot, not the running system. If something goes wrong, it reboots to the working version.
You tried it 12 years ago. So before Windows 8 came out? Think of how much Windows has changed in that time. Linux distros have changed as well, but they have focused on usability with each change.
ninja edit: Hell, even a Chromebook will see you right with some of your other complaints in this thread about Taskbars etc. Unless of course you're averse to anything Corp / they spying on you in which case you're fucked anyhoo.