[wincy]

You still get weird gotchas. My wife wanted to install Microsoft Teams to talk to our doctor. She got the the Linux download page then asked “should I download the .rpm or the .deb?”. Luckily I was there to tell her. Then she installed it like a champ and got it working, so that was nice.

But there’s no way she’d have just “known” this, and it’s just another hurdle to non technical users. Why should you have to know that Ubuntu is a downstream distro of Debian to install a program?

[nmstoker]

I get your point that there's clearly further to go, but it's not that unusual to need to know something relevant like this if installing from a source that's not your OS app store. After all, we often expect Windows users to know their install option is "PC" (a historic piece of info that isn't "Windows") rather than than Mac.

It's also something that is answered effectively with the very first Google result for an obvious search: https://www.google.com/search?q=should+i+install+deb+or+rpm&...

There are a few ways round this but they would generally require action on the part of all the software suppliers who post packages via websites. In your example it wouldn't be hard for MS to figure out the Ubuntu users and send them just the right link and likewise several other Linux distros - I guess it's still not worth it.

Maybe this is an area where a JS library for websites would avoid each one rolling their own and thus make the experience better across the board?

[PossiblyKyle]

I mean, this is why snaps are a thing, despite their scrutiny

[mixmastamyk]

Why on earth would someone talk to their doctor with such a product?

[lowtolerance]

Because most doctor visits right now are “telehealth” visits and as a patient you have zero say as to what platform your doctor chooses to use.

[Sir_Substance]

My experience is that people will be happy to use other things if you just ask them to, and have a ready-to-go solution on hand.

Just say "teams doesn't work well on my computer, it's very poorly made. Can we use jitsimeet? It's much easier for me." and them drop them a jitsi link without waiting for their response.

Teams is the official video chat at my company, I've been successfully ignoring that for more than 2 months now. At this stage, jitsi usage is starting to spread to other teams.

[bdcravens]

My doctors are using Zoom (via MyChart, so I assume many are using the same); one of my wife's providers is using Google Duo.