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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • I meant it quite literally. Another multi-billion dollar company needs to be willing and able to spend the same level of resources and time. Wal-Mart or Costco itself would have to be willing to produce their own hardware.

    Yeah, I fully realize it’s never going to happen. It’s a hypothetical to illustrate just how high of a hurdle it is. It won’t happen organically, there needs to be a strong driving force with the financial backing that rivals that of the competition.


  • “Nobody cares” is how Linux will eventually win on the desktop. It becomes viable for most people when they no longer “need” whatever they were using before. As Linux is free, it will win when it becomes “good enough”.

    The largest barrier is the fact that the end user is expected to install the OS themselves. Having an OS work 100% of the time right out of the box with a default install is impossible. Windows and OSX have a huge advantage by being installed on the factory floor. The manufacturer guarantees that the drivers work for the hardware they decide to install and that the default applications on the OS work as they should.

    Linux needs an equivalent to Microsoft or Apple that can put Linux on shelves at WalMart for average people that buy $600 desktops.





  • Have you seen the Reddit Linux communities? People don’t care how many tools or useful information you present them. They will ask the SAME “which distro” questions day after day after day.

    There are 3 reasons you see repeat posts.

    1. They are extremely lazy and can’t be bothered to find their way through a maze of information.
    2. The maze of information is legitimately confusing and they need help. But they are bad at formulating good questions so it looks like point #1. I very rarely see people take the time to explain what they’ve tried and why they failed.
    3. They want a conversation and getting their question answered is only one half of it.

    Also one other thing I noticed is that if you do form a good question and create a wall of text, it can also scare people away. So people deliberately ask very vague questions and then slowly reveal more as they get asked for specifics. At that point you’ve hooked some people, they are a little more invested in helping and you can info dump on them.





  • moon_matter@kbin.socialtoLinux@lemmy.mlGamedev and linux
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    1 year ago

    It surprises me how many indie devs avoid some of the higher level / more popular engines for this reason alone. But I assume they just must enjoy that sort of stuff much more than I.

    The problem with indie devs is purely a lack of knowledge and resources. They don’t feel comfortable testing and packaging binaries for distribution on Linux. A decent number of them are also self-taught and actually have almost no exposure to desktop Linux at all. So it’s actually a much higher hurdle than you think.




  • It’s kind mind boggling how often you have to ask the OP to actually post the command they tried to run or the full error message and some of them will actually try to argue that it won’t help. The people that frequent the forums start to get a bit annoyed at having to beg for bread crumbs and they eventually either become toxic or burn out and leave the community.


  • moon_matter@kbin.socialtoLinux@lemmy.mlI feel called out
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    1 year ago

    Sometimes they can afford to not know because they have a relative who can manage the device for them. In which case they really wouldn’t be installing software on their own really.

    You would be surprised at how many people cannot even change the volume on their tablet.


  • Software is definitely at the top of the list in terms of reasons. But the UX/UI definitely leaves something to be desired. I sigh heavily every time an application asks me to edit a text-based config file instead of giving me a GUI. It’s an unnecessary, error-prone process and most importantly I have better things to do than read yet another page of documentation. That doesn’t mean I want the config file to go away, it’s still very useful for a variety of reasons. But I shouldn’t have to mess around with it just to remap keys or other common tasks. Editing a config file should be a last resort for an end user.

    You see similar problems when relying on the terminal. I don’t like this idea of the end user being allowed to mess around without a safety net or some sort of guidance.