Linux will never become more widespread untill they make it more plug-and-play

This isn't an unpopular opinion, just ignorance. You're used to other systems. Different systems are different, even among the various Linux distributions. Having used mostly Linux and Windows, I too briefly had some culture shock using OSX. Complaining here is like rocking in a rocking chair, it may feel good but it's not going to get you anywhere.

I just spent 45 minutes trying to install Standard Notes "the right way"

I'm curious what you mean by the "right" way, from a website? Linux does things differently at a fundamental level, that I won't deny. But I'll also say, if you're interested in Linux, you have to be willing to learn.

I'm not an expert, but as I understand it most Linux distributions rely on repositories, and expect you to install most of your software from there for both security and compatibility. Those errors were telling you what additional things needed to be downloaded before what you selected would work. And I guess I'm confused on that point. You said it pointed you to what you needed, did things not work after the downloads completed? I know Linux Mint does, and it's considered to be very user friendly. To use your analogy, if you turn the welder on and it says you need fuel, "please download this exact type" that should be it.

I know it's hard expecting everything in Linux to function exactly like Windows, but that's not how it works and that's by design. Regardless, as Windows adopts more spyware, ads, and anti-user features into their products I think Linux is the far better choice (plus free and open-source) and it's definitely worth learning... Good luck!

Ignorance isn't a opinion and Linux is more plug and play than windows for 99%of things.

I recall having issues like that when I tried to do things the wrong way. The forum posts just tell you wow to do something, but they rarely question if it’s the sensible thing to do in the first place. If Standard Notes isn’t in my repositories or if I can’t find a flatpack for it, I would just ditch the whole idea and switch to whatever note app is easily available. If something is not easily available, I just ignore those apps completely. Going through hours of trickery and hackery to build a wobbly tower that will collapse next week is not worth it.

Have you maybe time traveled 15 years into the future?

I think you're always going to have issues installing an OS yourself versus using a laptop (or other device) with an OS installed already. The hardware issues should be resolved for you which gets rid of some of the issues others have raised like missing wireless card drivers. Having said that, the issues you hit are pretty common to anyone moving to a new OS like "how do I install software?". I remember using macOS for the first time and finding the "mount a DMG file and drag it to the applications folder" completely unintuitive and someone had to tell me that was how it was done. There's always a barrier to entry and I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that Linux requires more from the user than other OSes. However I think we're seeing some solid efforts from companies like System76 and Tuxedo to make Linux more accessible. Hell the Steam Deck is fantastic and the fact it's Linux is almost completely hidden from you (until of course you come across a game you can't play, thanks Warhammer Vermintide 2).

In short I disagree with some of the other comments that imply some failing on your part or on tech illiterate people. Every OS has problems, and Linux's biggest problem is getting people past the painful stages of adoption which you just power through if you've bought a new device. I will agree with others saying their windows experiences are worse than modern Linux but then we're probably a bit biased!

Installing applications can be done in a few ways, typically you'll just download from your OS's software store. Ubuntu does sometimes require that you add new repositories, but to avoid that you can always give something like flatpak or appimage versions of the software you want a try. Appimages are similar to .exe files, you can just download them from the software's website - and you can get flatpak applications from flathub.org. The main downside with these is they come with all the stuff they depend on, so they tend to be a bigger file size, they can be a little slower but honestly it's barely noticable. I rarely use appimages because they won't show up in your desktop environment's application list by default and it can be a pain to set them up to show. A good default way to go is Software store -> Flatpak -> Appimage -> then finally if none of that works you could do it manually, but I don't recommend that. Ubuntu's software store tends to be behind on updates because as a distribution it's focused on stability. Once you're used to it, there's a lot of advantages to using a centralized software store instead of downloading .exe files off websites. Either way, don't let some growing pains totally discourage you! Not every distribution provides the same experience, and there's a lot of options out there!

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