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Let's make Windows 10 the last version ever used!
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Let's make Windows 10 the last version ever used!
*Sat. 28 Dec. 11h* Stage YELL #KDEEco 's Call To Action against e-waste driven by #Windows10.
*Mon. 30 Dec. 13-15h* B&B habitat join the BoF to organize a global #FreeSoftware campaign to raise awareness of Windows 10's EoL in 2025, the role of software in #eWaste, and how independent, sustainable #FOSS is a solution to keep devices in use & out of the landfill.
https://fahrplan.alpaka.space/jugend-hackt-38c3-2024/talk/ST8NJA/
Let me clarify: I myself have used Linux as my only OS since the end of Win7 support, but I've used it via dualboot for anything not gaming even before. I'm fairly adept by now, so this whole conversation isn't about my personal learning.
It's about coaxing Windows users over to Linux. If you don't care about that, stop reading and stop replying, because that's what the whole thread was about and you clearly missed the point. If you do, we need to give people both a reason to switch and an easy transition.
Linux has a public image of "complicated" and will always have the hurdle of having to learn something different. The point is that we need to update the first (the public perception) and help people over the second as smoothly as possible. We need to project the impression that it's no longer complicated like it used to be, and if you need help with anything, there will be plenty of people willing to help you.
And that's where we get to the "RTFM" issue: People responding to questions with "You're on your own" harm that impression. A new user skimming a forum or googling some issue can't tell whether it's a simple question or a hard question, whether it's good documentation or bad documentation, all they see is someone asking for help and getting a "lol no". That reputation spreads, and it speaks to a self-centered culture where "figure it out yourself" isn't just acceptable, but the norm.
If you want to win people over, you have to welcome them in. That includes showing a willingness to help them.
Besides, isn't the whole point of FOSS to help each other out for free, to break the commercial cycle of enshittification and exploitation?
Sorry, I will use "a person" when trying to make examples not related with you.
I'm super obsessed with Linux, I always tell people to use Linux, I try even the older people to get into Linux, I tell friends to install it and I try to help them. I'm really obsessed with Linux system, I really love it, and it hurts me when people just gets scared when I mention Linux (because that happened to me, some people don't want to hear the "Linux" word).
I think that's what I was talking about Microsoft never going to allow to Linux be popular, they just want it to be a solution for programmers, they don't want people to see Linux for a daily OS. The marketing and mass media is the main issue, if more users uses Linux, more companies will focus their apps for Linux. Until then, we need to read git source pages to see if they made the app for us (anyway, Wine should be able to run it if the app doesn't have many requirements).
It is possible to buy computers with Linux OS already installed, so you can just open the browser and search what you want to know what to do on Linux, for example video editing, you can use Kdenlive and many YouTube tutorials for Linux and you would do it also if you had Windows OS, unless you paid for a teacher, but when someone never touched a Windows, normally they need to seek for tutorials or guides, Windows and Linux has, but Windows is limited and Linux allows you to do much more.
The "F" in FOSS stands for "Free" and refers to free as in freedom, not just "free as in no cost." You can commercialize your FOSS projects without problem, the whole point of FOSS is the freedom.
I think we're talking in circles here. My point is: Telling people to go read the docs contributes to the perception of the linux community as closed and unhelpful. That perception doesn't help with winning over more people. As you note:
But that cycle has to start somewhere, and until companies start picking up, we need to do it ourselves, for ideological reasons if not monetary ones. Telling people to start out with easy guides is good, but redirecting further questions to docs and git pages builds a wall.
Why should I do the reading for someone without pay? Because I can, I trust my understanding and I want to help them.
But there are hard and easy guides, just go to the easy guides. The times someone said to me to read the docs, they were right. Often when I want to start a post asking for help or reporting an issue I realize that issue has been reported already or documented before I finish writing it, because I do my searches while I write my issue adding context of it.
If your skills aren't good for that guide, start with something simple, I don't know what kind of issue happens that what you are explaining.
I do help anyone, no matter if they use Android, Linux, Windows, Apple... The best way to help them for me is to sit behind them and tell them what steps to take, often they ask me what to do, and then I tell them to read what is on the screen, the app window or the popup, and here I say, "just read, what does it say?" and the text they read is often the response to what they want to do.