The misconception that you need to “know linux” to use a computer with linux.
You need to “know linux” to administer linux servers, or contribute to kernel development. My wife is a retired pharmacist, and she uses exclusively a computer with Linux since around 2008. She knows that’s Linux, because I told her so. If I had told her it was a different version of Windows, she’d be using it anyway - she was using win95 at work before, so any current windows would have been a big change anyway (granted, nothing like gnome, that’s why I gave her kubuntu).
This misconception is fed by “experienced” Linux users who like to be seen as “hackers” just because they “know Linux”.
Nobody uses the OS. You use programs that run on the OS. My wife doesn’t “use Linux”. She uses Chrome, the file manager (whatever that is in the ancient LTS Kubuntu release I have there and update only when LTS is over), LibreOffice Writer and Calc, a pdf reader (not adobe’s, whatever was in the distro), the HP scanner app. The closest she gets to “Linux” is occasionally accepting the popup asking for updates.
Users shouldn’t need to care about which OS (or which distro, for that matters) they’re running their apps on. The OS (and distro) should be as unobtrusive and transparent as possible.
Distro hopping cult. It’s ok to try a few distros when adopting Linux, or even flirt with new ones after you’ve already settled with one. Even keep doing it forever, on a secondary machine or live usbs, if you’re curious.
Doing it forever, on a primary machine is stupid; NO FSCK DISTRO WILL BE PERFECT. Windows users whine and cry every time Microsoft shoves a new and worse Windows version up their SSDs, but they stick with Windows anyway.
Distro hoppers hop often because they give up at the first inconvenience. They never feel at home or make it their home, because they never actually use their computers for long enough with any distro. They are more focused on the OS than in using the computer. Nothing wrong with that, but they’ll forever be “linux explorers”, not actual “linux users”.
There will always be some other that has that small thing that doesn’t come default on this one. There will always be compromises. It’s like marriage. Commit, negotiate, adapt. Settle down ffs.
The OS/distro shouldn’t be important for the average user; the OS/distro shouldn’t get in the way between the user and the apps, which is what the user uses.
Of course there are distros with specific usage in mind (pen test, gaming, video production, etc), as they conveniently have all main utilities packaged and integrated. But for real average user apps, the OS shouldn’t matter to the end user, let alone look like the user should know what window manager or packaging system they’re using.
Then when they are faced with dozens of “experts” discussing about which distro has the edge over the other, and the gory technical details of why, and comparing number of distros hopped, well, it sounds like Linux is a goal by itself, when all they wanted was to watch YouTube and access their messages and social media.
When my wife started using a Linux computer I didn’t tell her which distro was there (she probably knows the name kubuntu because it shows during boot). I didn’t give her a lecture about Gnome vs KDE, rpm vs deb, or the thousands of customizations she could have now. “You log in here, here’s the app menu, here’s chrome, this is the file manager, here’s the printer app”. Done, linux user since 2008.
Linux will never be mainstream while we make it look like “using Linux”, or “this distro”, matters, and that is an objective in itself. Most users don’t care. They want to use their apps.
This. You dont have to be a linux guru if you want to use Ubuntu or Mint. I’m not generalising, but in many linux user groups, there is a lot gatekeeping taking place, even when a new user asks a genuine question and provides all the necessary information.
Off the top of my head things that Ive run into over the years that would have caused 99% of computer users to throw Linux in the bin:
*Having to edit xorg.conf to set the graphics driver
*A typo in the sources list that prevented any packages from downloading (distro upgrade)
*A bug in systemd that resulted in the OS not booting (fresh install)
*The wrong graphics card driver being selected and not being installed correctly because Ubuntu kept back 5 packages necessary for it to function (fresh install)
*A bug in how Ubuntu handles the disk platter that causes hard drives to fail far more rapidly than they should (that bug has been there for years and probably ruined a few hard drives)
*Having to recompile the wifi driver after every upgrade (broadcomm chipset) before the driver was included in the kernel and having to reinstall the OS after the driver was included in the kernel because something went wrong during the upgrade. ie recompiling didnt fix anything and the native driver wasnt working either.
*failed drive encryption
*grub being installed incorrectly (no boot)
*dealing with UEFI to maintain a dual boot for programs that cannot be emulated or virtualized effectively (lag sensitive non-native games)
*Audio output defaults being incorrect (no sound, no mic)
But the one thing that above all else, will drive newbies away is how the general linux community tends to respond to things.
I recently gave up on daily driving Pop OS. About 6 months ago I got a new laptop with Windows 11, which for various reasons I am not a fan of. I decided it would be a good time to try an experiment and install Linux. The biggest issue right off the bat was lack of hardware support, the fingerprint reader and the speaker amp are not supported. I spent a bunch of time researching and seeing if I could make them work but apparently it has to do with the kernel and isn’t really something I can fix. This didn’t seem like a big deal at first because I can get sound out of the headphone jack or via bluetooth, and while it was convenient to login via a fingerprint reader, it wasn’t something I really felt like I needed. Since then I’ve become much more reliant on biometric authentication, it’s just so much more convenient to be able to auth bitwarden with my finger instead of having to type in a password. More recently, I started using Proton VPN and the client is pretty crap in Linux. Switching over to Windows 11, I can login with my finger, all of my passwords are a finger print away, Proton VPN works natively with wireguard and is generally much more reliable and easier to use. It’s just a much better user experience, there’s nothing weird and janky to deal with, I don’t need to mess about in the command line to do basic things. I really loved Pop, and I’m sure I’ll boot back into it, but I’m daily driving Windows 11 until I can sort out the hardware issues and get Proton VPN working better, and I think both of those issues are out of my hands so all I can do is wait.
I could never be a wizard. Mess up code, get some error messages. Mess up a spell, get turned into a pile of goo, slaughtered by a demon, or transported to a hell dimension.
I don't know how anyone can say that Star Wars has more lore than Star Trek. They both have about the same number of movies and books, but Star Trek has hundreds more episodes of TV to expand the lore even further.
I imagine it’s because someone commented on it so it shows activity. Dunno how the first commenter found it though. Probably just scrolled all the way back lol.
No you’re thinking of ‘active’, which surfaces posts with recent comments. Just scroll a bit on ‘hot’ and you’ll see it dredges up some old posts, even without recent comments
To me, the big problem is still updates breaking things.
Everybody needs to update their system from time to time, but if doing so leaves your system in an unusable (for the average person, not a linux terminal guru) state, users aren't going to stay.
I think immutable/atomic OSes like Silverblue, VanillaOS and SteamOS are heading in the right direction to solve this issue. Particularly if they allow users to easily rollback a bad update. Otherwise maybe there is some way to detect and warn about potential compatibility issues before people update.
I’m a new user. How do I disable being prompted for a password every time I want change/install anything? I just want password requirement at logon and not when logged on.
Kind of, but to be fair UAC doesn’t prompt you for the account password unless you’re not an Administrator on the PC (in which case you have to enter the password of someone who is). If you’re on a single user PC, you’ll be an admin and it’ll only be a “Yes / No” prompt.
Now macOS on the other hand does require the password, unless you have an Apple Watch (if I heard correctly) in which you can confirm it by pressing a button on it. Or, using the fingerprint reader on the Macs with a TouchID sensor.
You will want to modify the sudoers file. In a terminal sudo nano /etc/sudoers. You will want to go down to the line %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL and comment it out by adding # in front of it. A few lines down should be a similar line # %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL. You will want to uncomment this by deleting the # at the beginning of the line. With nano, you can save by hitting ctrl+O then hitting ENTER to confirm. Hit ctrl+X to exit nano.
Thanks, I tried that before and I think it only worked until I re-logged (?). I’ll try that again, this time will use something else than vi editor to be sure.
vi is definitely different being a modal editor. If you are new to Linux, I would suggest nano. It is much easier to understand, even if it isnt as fast as vi can be. Many distros have it installed, and pretty much all of them should have it in their repos.
The program that asks for password graphically is polkit. As far as I’ve searched online it only supports bypassing password prompts if you’re admin on the system. It does not have a password less prompt like in Windows. I’m using this and this as source in case you want to disable it all together. I’m not a mint user my self so I cannot validate this without spinning up virtual machine. I would recommend the community just look at whatever I wrote for 24h and mention some issues that might occur. I’ll update it if someone points out any issues.
Open any terminal (sorry) and copy one line at a time into the terminal and hit enter. After the first line you’ll be asked to enter the password. For the consecutive commands password will not be asked. On the last command you’ll open a graphical text editor and make sure certain text is present.
You should now see a text editor appear with a file opened. Copy this and paste it in the file at the bottom. Then save, close and reboot.
<pre style="background-color:#ffffff;">
<span style="color:#323232;">/*
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> * https://lemmy.world/comment/1396602
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> * Allow members of the wheel group to execute any actions
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> * without password authentication, similar to "sudo NOPASSWD:"
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> */
</span><span style="color:#323232;">polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) {
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> if (subject.isInGroup("wheel")) {
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> return polkit.Result.YES;
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> }
</span><span style="color:#323232;">});
</span>
This is a security risk as you might understand, but it’s your computer and you can do whatever you want. If you have any issues just post them here and maybe we’ll figure something out.
It depends on your distro but there is a NOPASSWORD option in some that you can add to a sudoers file. Without knowing your system its probably best to use your search engine of choice to look for answers to that but be warned that it is a security risk.
Lack of patience and/or unwillingness to learn are what I see as the primary challenges to Linux adoption, and it can be addressed by leaving those kind of people to their own devices.
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