Debian is Debian made easy
To us it’s easy, but not to the computer illiterate. Debian is at least as difficult to a Linux illiterate newcomer as Fedora is. You want functional multimedia codecs? Thumbnails for video files? Drivers for your Nvidia card? Drivers for peripherals that aren’t directly supported by the kernel? Distributions that people like us avoid, mint, Ubuntu, etc, make all of that happen for you, or at least guide your hand. A newbie installing Debian for the first time isn’t even going to know what they don’t have and need to find.
I see this attitude a lot, and it does nothing for the Linux community. We’re about to be flooded with ex windows users in a few short months, and they arent RTFM certified Linux users like we are. Repeating the mantra of “read the documentation” and “it’s easy already, duh” is just going to leave those people begrudgingly buying new hardware that they don’t need when they hit those early Linux speed bumps and see comments like yours making them feel like idiots.
Computers are hard to the computer illiterate.
We’re about to be flooded with ex windows users in a few short months
No, we’re not.
So they’re all just going to spring for new machines when Microsoft pulls the plug on win10?
sadly, most likely yes.
No? Why would they?
Microsoft pulls the plug on Windows 10… Great, people won’t even notice it. Most will be glad to be less annoyed by reboots caused by Windows update.
“Oh but you shouldn’t use outdated software!”
You’re lucky if an user is even aware updates are important, let alone care about official support. People used Windows 7 years after support ended simply because they liked the visuals and didn’t feel the need to go about upgrading their computers.
Users don’t care. Never did. Microsoft officially sanctioning the product or not is irrelevant. Windows 10 was there when they bought the computer, Windows 10 will remain there until the day they upgrade.
It’s delusional to expect otherwise.
Maybe I’ve been hitting the hopium pipe too hard….
Exactly this. Most people will just keep using it. The people that do know updates are important are just going to buy a new laptop. Tiny % will ask a friend to install Linux on their laptop. Like 15 people will try to install Linux themselves on the day windows 10 dies.
…consider the question, what is Debian for?
It’s primarily a server OS. Not every distro needs to be good-to-go for desktop/workstation/gaming/mobile use cases out of the box in order for them to be “easy”. This is a big part of why there are a huge basket of distros to choose from, many are for different focuses or specific purposes.
And I didn’t say Debian is only a server OS…
Maybe I’m on one about it because the last time I was on this subject someone was suggesting Debian for a young kids first computer to play Minecraft on. Debian is good for a lot of things, but not that, and when someone says any Linux distro is “easy” I think “someone who knows nothing about Linux can run it just fine” easy.
I think Debian would be fine for that unless you’re expecting the kid to install, set up, and administrate the system. Would be a good learning opportunity for a teenager though
Yeah. But for a kid who’s not going to give a shit about the difference between snaps and flatpak, just install mint or Ubuntu and call it a day. Unless you’re popping the hood and rifling around breaking things, they basically install and administrate themselves.
A newbie installing Debian for the first time isn’t even going to know what they don’t have and need to find.
but they get the same error messages and symptoms like on Ubuntu and Linux Mint (and Elementary OS), they know how to google/duck/bing/whatever right?
They may be newcomers but it would be wrong to consider them computer illiterate.
I have a 5 year old niece and 73 year old father in law running Ubuntu. Everything is relative right? To me they’re Linux illiterate, if not computer illiterate. It’s not meant to be an insult, and I’m regularly amazed by some folks inability to get what they’re looking for out of a search engine.
All I’m getting at, is that Debian isn’t “easy” to everyone.
Setting engine timing when replacing a timing belt is easy to my brother in law who’s a car guy, but if I watched a YouTube video on it I’d probably still botch the job and blow my motor. It’s easy to him. Not to me.
I have a 5 year old niece and 73 year old father in law running Ubuntu. Everything is relative right?
of course :)
Debian is already easy out of the box.
Chromium instead of Firefox? The gate is wide open, but if that’s the first selling point, your mind is the prison.
Debian is already easy and stable as fuck, it doesn’t need any housekeeping. What the hell is this?
What’s difficult about Debian?
Linus Torvalds admitted he has not been able to install it. Somehow the installer looks like to be hard.
What??? Debian has an install wizard that literally walks you through it. You could do nothing but click “Next” and “Ok” over and over and end up with a working Debian system.
Debian’s install wizard has a few frustrations in it. Like here’s an example: https://moonpiedumplings.github.io/projects/build-server-3/#installing-debian
You cannot simply click next and get a working Debian system all the time.
There is also the root/user password thing (and no, “read the content” does not work if you just said click next + other installers don’t have this confusion) + a few other stuff.
He said that in 2007. Things have changed a lot since then, Debian is as easy to install as any other big distro (most of them, including Debian, use the Calamares installer nowadays)
Maybe not the right thread to ask, and you don’t need to answer, but how did install (on any distro) work pre Calamares? Even though I tried Linux the first time over 15 years ago, I think I never not used Calamares
