‘The intuition was to take the complexity and push it onto the user,’ Moxie Marlinspike says at Black Hat. ‘We were just wrong.’

  • magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    Recommending an advanced Linux OS to a newbie isn’t empathetic.

    I agree, I don’t think everyone needs to know how to use niche CLI utilities or minimalistic tiling WMs. I do think you should be able to easily navigate a windows-like UX such as Mint.

    Expecting a user to know how to install an OS isn’t empathetic.

    No, I think that’s about where the average persons knowledge should end. The fact that the average person doesn’t know this is exactly the issue I’m getting at.

    Re-installing an OS is easy, It’s like knowing how to change a tire, or check your oil. Booting off of a USB stick and clicking next a dozen times isn’t hard.

    • onlinepersona@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 months ago

      Re-installing an OS is easy

      Hmmm, this is where our opinions diverge. It’s easy when things go right. UEFI and MBR changed that. And I’ve had a few linux installations fail for obscure reasons (mostly hardware support).

      Installers also say “backup your data” but if you’re coming from windows, what do you do when your stuff is on onedrive? What if you know nothing about partitioning and the installer just wipes the entire disk clean even though you expected your D:/ with your backup to be kept?
      Oh, an should you keep that windows recovery partition? What’s on there? How do you access the data to check?

      There are a bunch of things to consider when installing to prevent data-loss and IMO they aren’t as straightforward as they seem.

      Doing a regular system update or upgrading from one LTS release to another are comparable to oil-check and changing a tire. Installing an OS, IMO, not so much.

      Anti Commercial-AI license