It’s the first step of installation, making a bootable usb/CD. Most non-technical people can’t be arsed to create a bootable drive, then go into the bios boot settings to run it. I haven’t used Windows in a long time so I don’t know how it’s installed these days, but the fact that it comes installed out-of-the-box when people buy a computer lets them skip the first and biggest step to running linux, which is getting it installed in the first place.
Distros have come a long way that a Windows user trying Linux Mint can hit the ground running. It’s no longer about the learning curve for USING linux, it’s INSTALLING linux that’s the problem.
Exactly. I’d argue that some supposedly mainstream distros are hard to install even for the competent. Last time I checked, Debian’s funnel for newbies consisted of a 90s-era website with “instructions” in the form of a rambling block of jargon-filled text with mentions of “CD-Roms” and a vague discussion of third-party apps for burning ISOs. I mean, on Linux flashing a USB stick is matter of a single dd command with some obscure switches, but even that was nowhere to be found and I had to search forums for it. Incredible! Hard to imagine how forbidding it must all seem to the average Windows user! No Debian for them!
IIRC Ubuntu’s process was much easier but still not as easy-peasy as it could have been.
The only hope for desktop Linux is a crystal-clear, bulletproof, 1-2-3-style onboarding funnel that takes the user from “this is the distro’s website” to “I have a bootable USB”. From that point on it’s plain sailing.
Yeah, it took me way too long to get Debian running on my pc, because for some reason the website assumed that everyone would have a Linux to install Debain with. I haven’t had that, and that one tool they had didn’t work.
This is exactly what I never get. Do they not know that when you buy a new computer it tends to have Windows and only Windows on it?! I can’t help concluding that the people who run Debian must be bearded nerds who live in PC-filled basements and assume that all their users are the same.
It’s the first step of installation, making a bootable usb/CD. Most non-technical people can’t be arsed to create a bootable drive, then go into the bios boot settings to run it. I haven’t used Windows in a long time so I don’t know how it’s installed these days, but the fact that it comes installed out-of-the-box when people buy a computer lets them skip the first and biggest step to running linux, which is getting it installed in the first place.
Distros have come a long way that a Windows user trying Linux Mint can hit the ground running. It’s no longer about the learning curve for USING linux, it’s INSTALLING linux that’s the problem.
Exactly. I’d argue that some supposedly mainstream distros are hard to install even for the competent. Last time I checked, Debian’s funnel for newbies consisted of a 90s-era website with “instructions” in the form of a rambling block of jargon-filled text with mentions of “CD-Roms” and a vague discussion of third-party apps for burning ISOs. I mean, on Linux flashing a USB stick is matter of a single
ddcommand with some obscure switches, but even that was nowhere to be found and I had to search forums for it. Incredible! Hard to imagine how forbidding it must all seem to the average Windows user! No Debian for them!IIRC Ubuntu’s process was much easier but still not as easy-peasy as it could have been.
The only hope for desktop Linux is a crystal-clear, bulletproof, 1-2-3-style onboarding funnel that takes the user from “this is the distro’s website” to “I have a bootable USB”. From that point on it’s plain sailing.
Whats nice about gnome is the disk util. included: select USB stick, click restore image and browse for the iso file. click OK.
Yeah but here we’re interested in how easy this is for a normie on Windows.
Yeah, it took me way too long to get Debian running on my pc, because for some reason the website assumed that everyone would have a Linux to install Debain with. I haven’t had that, and that one tool they had didn’t work.
This is exactly what I never get. Do they not know that when you buy a new computer it tends to have Windows and only Windows on it?! I can’t help concluding that the people who run Debian must be bearded nerds who live in PC-filled basements and assume that all their users are the same.