Yeha, but you can ask for help without taking a shit on the effort of thousands of engineers.

I doubt OP thought, ‘I’m going to take a shit on thousands of engineers.’ It’s okay to not know what to do, including asking for help. If they don’t know what to do with “error 2,” they’re obviously lost. This unwelcoming attitude to newcomers is a big problem, and in my opinion, it’s probably best not to contribute to it.

You can rephrase what you’re saying and provide better help to someone who’s completely lost in a much more polite and informative way. It’s better for everyone.

Also, try searching web before crying on social media. If you can’t solve your problems by searching the web then GNU/Linux probably isn’t for you.

Sheesh, let them be frustrated already. Besides, asking for help is totally valid.

in my opinion, Linux has an edge on pretty much everything except for adoption. It’s stable, secure, and updated very often. There are a ton of very great libraries for it that make building and running programs very easy. It’s great on resource management, and the kernel makes great use of the hardware.

However, most pitfalls in Linux comes from it having less adoption than more popular OSes like Windows or Mac OS. Ultimately, this dampens the “friendliness” of Linux to the masses. If you buy a piece of hardware from the electronics store, there will often be no Linux support. The “mom and dad” folk might enjoy it, but won’t know how to install or update things, simply because it’s different. Vendors will often deliver shoddy binary blobs for common hardware like wireless cards.

With more adoption comes more pressure for support. We’re seeing this with the Steam Deck already: if a game company wants to sell their games on the Deck, then they need to add Linux support, even if that means ensuring that it runs on Wine. I’d love to see this kind of thing for everyday use, i.e. a scanner including Linux software and instructions (and hopefully isn’t a nasty “install.run” thing).

If it becomes more common, then friends will help other friends with their computer. “Mom and dad” can look up solutions to problems on the internet, and they’ll be able to fix it themselves. Your aunt will buy an iPod and she’ll be able to run iTunes in a first-party way. With enough adoption, it will even be weird to run operating systems other than Linux because hardly anyone runs Windows or Mac OS anymore.

I don’t think Linux will ever be in the majority, but I see it climbing a bit in the next ten years. Lots of kinks have been worked out, and with the right software, it’s even easy-to-use and pretty to look at. We need more devices like the Steam Deck to help pave the way for more adoption! Then after a while, people will use it cause that’s what they know.

A single good thing that a single billionaire has done? The Gates foundation fighting malaria. I think that’s good.