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Comment by vikramkr | Hacker News Reader

Absolutely zero requirement or expectation to be technical is the biggest one IMO. For example you don't have to know or care what an operating system is or does to use macos, which is a lot less congnitive load. And some Linux based OSes solved this too, like ChromeOS and Android. One of the big value props for specialization in civilization is that you can just worry about your own thing - like idk how to fix a broken down NYC subway train and I don't really care as long as someone does. And Linux pretty handily wins in server land where the users have specialized into being technical and that's their job.

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I'm pretty sure a non-technical user can use Ubuntu or something, from start to finish, without ever touching a terminal.

To me, the main issue is that many preferred softwares are not offered on Linux because of its small market share. The market share doesn't grow because preferred softwares aren't there. It's a circular problem.

That issue is improving all the time though as new softwares tend to target Linux natively (ex. Discord, Zoom, Slack). Furthermore, the compatibility layers are getting better for non-native programs (ex. Steam deck).

I really don't see a universe where Linux stops taking over the world, including the desktop. Adobe and Excel probably can't hold Windows up forever.

Enable/disable disk encryption or reset a machine on Ubuntu via only the UI.

You've been able to do both on Windows and macOS for other a decade now without touching a terminal.

or repair a broken install etc

I think anyone who can find the right window and fix an install using just the UI has put a lot more work in than someone who could copy complete working answers from stack overflow and now GPT. Of course they have to train at it over and over since they can't use shell history so they no longer think it is a real skill to find these absurd boxes.

90%+ people will fail to edit a config if they are forced to use nano or vi.

But right now they'd have to install ubuntu or know to buy a machine with ubuntu pre-installed. Compare to a chromebook, where it already has a linux distro, chromeOS, installed. And at this point I don't think software compatibility (except for gaming) is the biggest issue since thanks to electron/browsers most things should just work.

And for zoom, in addition to asking you to select your 'linux type,' has this little gem: "Zoom's rpm packages are signed with a GPG key. Please run "rpm --import package-signing-key.pub" to import the key in case package management utility asks for a missing public key" - though I guess probably the auto-installer thing would run when you opened a zoom link and skip all that. I doubt it's the only time a linux user is assumed to know what a terminal is or expected to know how to use it.

On the other hand - for linux - WSL is pretty cool. That's definitely a lot of linux on a lot of people's desktops, whether or not they use it!

I hereby officially withdraw my comment about windows users not needing to understand technology after the everything with crowdstrike and the fix instructions involving booting into safe mode and deleting files with system32

All hail the year of the linux desktop!

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