• @someguy3
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    82 months ago

    Um is there anything special to use Linux? Click the GUI.

    • @emax_gomax
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      142 months ago

      Well installing it. That alone requires a challenge most folks probably couldn’t overcome easily. People are accustomed to just getting a computer with a working os on it. Changing that os would be pretty hard for them.

      • @[email protected]
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        72 months ago

        And let’s be real, you at least need a degree of tech savvy to deal with the inevitable issues that will come up. Even on the simplest distro.

        • @[email protected]
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          32 months ago

          IDK, only times when I broke things on Debian were when I made the unwise decisions to do things I don’t fully understand (that doesn’t really happen now). And my elderly mom uses Mint with less problems than she did Windows.

        • @emax_gomax
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          12 months ago

          I mean buying a usb, installing imaging software, not messing up the drive your try to create the installer on. That’s already a lot harder than most tech illiterate people that just need to buy a computer.

    • @[email protected]
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      42 months ago

      It’s a different paradigm for windows users. “Why won’t this exe/msi install on my computer?”

      But also, once you realize the unlimited potential to customize it’s pretty special. I, for one, hate using anything without a tiling windows manager.

      • @someguy3
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        22 months ago

        So how do you install things?

        • @[email protected]
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          52 months ago

          Red hat based? Install the RPM. Debian based? Install the deb, generally? Install from the repository. You can also install from source if you’d like

          • @someguy3
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            12 months ago

            I don’t know what any of that means.

            • @FourPacketsOfPeanuts
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              32 months ago

              You don’t generally download the file like you would an exe or MSI on windows. Rather you enter a command line that tells Linux to connect to the repository (like an app store) of that particular type of Linux, pull the latest installation file and install it.

              You can still download the file and install it directly, but it’s not a straightforward double click like on windows.

              • @someguy3
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                22 months ago

                It’s not a GUI?

                • @FourPacketsOfPeanuts
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                  2 months ago

                  There are GUI wrappers that issue the equivalent commands for you, but a lot of Linux users would just write something like this on the command line:

                  sudo apt install vlc

                  That’s how you would install VLC (media player) on Debian linux without any prior file download or browsing. It connects to the Debian repository for you, downloads and installs.

            • @[email protected]
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              12 months ago

              Look in the OS provided “App Store” first - GUI or not, your choice.

              Can’t find what you’re looking for? Look for a TRUSTED alternative App Store source. Then check the App Store again.

              Still can’t find it? Look to see if there is a package available that your OS can recognize (different based on what flavor of Linux you’re running)

              Still can’t find it? See if you can find the code to build the dang thing yourself.

            • @[email protected]
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              12 months ago

              Well yeah this is like asking an oboe player how they control pitch, and they respond “different embouchure is the universal way to do it, but adjusting the reed is the best way”

              Go look it up if you don’t know what the terms mean

        • imecth
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          12 months ago

          Installing things on linux is generally the same as phones. There’s a shop-like GUI where you can look up your applications and get them, they’ll also update automatically.

          If the software isn’t in your distribution repository, that’s when it starts to be like windows, you need to hunt it down and either get an appimage or something like that, or build and compile it yourself.