Wait ... is there a perception (or reality?) that most Linux users are programmers?
I'm an introvert, but all programmers I know use v Windows (and badly in the sense they aren't power users).
That's a logical fallacy, all dogs are animals does not imply that all animals are dogs. Even if all programmers you know use Windows that could still mean that all Linux users are programmers.
That being said several relatives use Linux because I refused to help with IT unless they had Linux, and since then they mostly hadn't needed IT support. So it's not true that all Linux users are programmers, but a good percentage of us are.
I was not explaining my logic nor my beliefs, just describing my smol sample (introvert!), as a btw fun fact.
But I was under the impression that there is no distinguishable difference between which OSs use programmes vs non-programmers (and the other way around).
Perhaps bcs I fail to se any specific connection between the two. But yes, my logic would be that both types use and are used by both to roughly the same extent.
(Haha, exactly same experience with relatives - forced them on Linux, never had anything non-trivial to fix since then.)
There's some hardcore conflation going on that assumes that people with technical skills will tend to be good at everything, or that they'll gravitate towards the uber-geeky stuff.
In my experience it's a very wide spectrum. Lots of programmers are strictly focused on the language they use and don't care to know anything about the OS, or networking, even computers. They are definitely not jacks of all trades.
There are people who can do programming as well as system administration and build a PC and build some book shelves and so on. But that's a very specific type of person who's a tinkerer and happens to be into programming, it's not because they're a programmer.
In addition to the perception that you have to be "good at computers" (aka a programmer) to use Linux, in my experience a lot of Linux media outlets (websites, YT channels, podcasts, etc) tend to be heavy on advanced features and tools without much explanation in layman's terms and tend to be geared towards an IT professional/hobbyist audience, which can reinforce that stereotype among those (like me) who are not.
Linux use among devs is much higher than gen pop.
https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2023/#section-most-popular-technologies-operating-system
Keep in mind, this adds up to more than 100% because it wasn't an exclusive choice question, it was multiple.
Most of the programmers I know (including myself) use Linux or BSD, but that all depends on who you associate with. A lot of companies are purely Windows shops and others just throw their programmers mac books and call it a day. At my last company I was only briefly allowed to use Linux until they decided it was no good as I couldn't use whatever resource intensive corporate garbage security software of the year they bought.
I'm also not a programmer but here's why Linux is my daily driver:
I like it.
Gnome is so much more cozy than windows
KDE Plasma is so much more snappy and functional than Windows. Linux has lots of good options.
Linux, on the other hand, can easily boot up on a 10-year-old laptop with just 2GB of RAM, and work fine.
I'm not sure a modern day browser would be just fine with "only" 2GiB, unfortunately.
I've tried Firefox limited to 1 GB for a laugh. It's usable. It won't do many tabs at the same time but it's usable.
You can actually go lower than that but you'll start to run into limitations with YouTube videos etc.
There are also other browsers out there that are more light-weight but perhaps not as feature-full as Firefox. Giving up extensions alone reduces a lot of complexity. If you fire up the package installer on any Linux distro and search for "browser" you'll find a ton. There aren't many engines but there are a lot of browsers.
Im using a 4gb laptop with Xfce, and its definitely struggling sometimes. Even though it's usable, I doubt 2gb would be enough
I have 3GB of RAM on my PC running Linux Mint, using LibreWolf, it works pretty great for me, I mean I can't open 100 tabs, but 10-15 is possible
Lynx 4 Life!
I feel like Linux would be easier to pick up and use for a non power user starting from scratch like my mother-in-law. It's so much easier to download programs with the package manager and settings are so much easier to navigate
And to use the computer without being bombarded by ads
Helped my SO fix Sims 4 on her W11 laptop recently; lock screen ads, start menu ads, pre-installed bloatware begging for money
I even asked how she deals with all of that and she basically said “I dunno it just does that, if you can make it stop that'd be nice ig but just get Sims to worl for now”
Needless to say I got Sims 4 to work (removing cachedir did the trick) AND uninstalled the bloatware and turned off ad-related settings
I find it amazing that so many distros with volunteers manage to curate a vast software ecosystem, reasonably successfully and yet some of the largest companies on the planet, worth more than $1T each cannot manage to find the resources to do it efficiently.
Imagine firing up a cmd or ps prompt in Windows and tying in: msiexec install adobe-hipster-app and it just works.
I’m not sure if this is part of the “frequency illusion”, but I’ve noticed a lot more mainstream media talking about Linux as a viable alternative.
Probably because you associate more with lemmy, I think most lemmy users use linux
I think Lemmy plays a part in it but also all the stuff with MS recently (and people getting tired of it).
I think most Lemmy users use Linux
I was thinking about this earlier today. I’d love to do a Lemmy wide survey to see how true this is or to what extent.
I highly doubt most do, just that the percentage of Linux users may be higher than on many other platforms.
The most used platform for Lemmy is likely still Windows or a mobile OS.
It's not, I've been using Linux for 20 years and it's been gradually getting more and more exposure on the main media. I think there was a huge push with Steam Machines and then another one with Proton, then every Windows screw up bumps it a little more. We're probably going to get another bump in popularity in a short while when Windows 11 enables the new feature that will take screenshots of everything you do (credit cards, passwords, etc) and use an AI to search through them.
And recent fumbling of msft with recall
Stephen Fry the comedian/tv presenter is also a huge linux advocate. Specifically Ubuntu. He's been using it for decades at this point.
As if I needed more reasons to love Stephen Fry!
I can't program, but I only use Linux on both my laptop and desktop. All I really do on my computers is browse the web, light photo/video editing, print the occasional document, organize my photos, and play A LOT of video games. I was dual booting windows for a bit there for the games that won't work on Linux, but I soon discovered that those games weren't really worth dealing with the annoyances I had with windows for how often I actually wanted to play them... except CoD, but I have an Xbox so I just play that there. Deleting my windows partition was a great choice.
I am so, so close to doing the same. Still have a small partition carved out for CoD and Windows. I just find myself booting in to it less and less.
Thank goodness MicroVision seems to be keen on continuing to flog that dead horse with a Warzone focus, means I can finally be free.
I don't even know how to write "hello world" in python but I use vanilla Arch XD
Same here, I work in the arts and can't code a thing, but I use Arch (btw) as my daily driver.
The most "programming" I can do is make a basic scratch project and print("Hello World!") in python, but linux is great
My wife has used Linux for over a decade. She primarily uses a web browser, office suite and a money management app.
Those have all been well-covered by Linux for years.
Why is it that people think Linux distros are for programmers or tech people only? This is the reason why we don't get many people on Linux distros.
Because installing a different operating system than the one that came pre installed is a non zero amount of effort.
I think this here is probably one of the larger reasons. A large portion of users barely know the difference between a browser and a search engine, let alone the operating system they are using, and nor do they care. People just use whatever their computer comes with out of the box. Most people probably couldn't tell you the difference between Windows 11 and a Linux distro customized to look exactly the same.
Always love to see article of non programmer people using Linux or Emacs!
Linux used to be for nerds, programmers and tech people.
Now, it's probably easier to use Linux than Windows.
I have my Boomer dad using Linux Mint on his laptop, but he was still using Windows on his desktop PC.
Then it updated to Windows 11 and he HATES it and asked me for help to put Linux Mint on his desktop as well.
This is a real estate agent in his 70s who needs help making scans and downloading email attachments.
I dislike the paradigm that there are "techy people/programmers" and "tech illiterates/non programmers". Anyone can develop the skills to properly use unix interfaces given proper training; and I know that's true because the whole world used to run (mostly) unix on the desktop before corporate took over. Unix doesn't need to be windowsified/macosified to get people to move over; people need to unlearn the interfaces corporate has brainwashed them with for generations. There are so many more interesting user interfaces than just what Windows and MacOS provide; graphical or otherwise.
@petsoi Beautifully written perspective; the KDE Activities bit of that was my favorite! Multiple workspaces on a single monitor is probably one of my most advocated features. I'm telling someone about it at least once a week, even if it's just showin em how to use the cut-down one on their windows machine.
I'm not a programmer and I've been dual booting for 25 years.
"Workflow". There it is.
God I hate what the modern Internet does to my brain. I had to double check if that laptop is AI generated
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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