[zjp]

We would all do well to remember we make things for users. The system is complex so that the user doesn't have to deal with it, and if we want Linux to get more than its current (pathetic) desktop market share, this is the way things will go. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, and you can't make users care about this stuff when they just want to do their taxes, manage their businesses, talk to their friends, and look at their photos.

[midoridensha]

>and you can't make users care about this stuff when they just want to do their taxes, manage their businesses, talk to their friends, and look at their photos.

The thing is, you can easily do all that stuff right now on Linux, even if you're a casual computer user. Unlike 15 years ago, ALL that stuff is now done inside a web browser, so the OS is really nothing more than a platform to run Chrome (or better yet, Firefox). Any idiot who knows how to use a PC can start a web browser, and from there it's no different whether you're on MacOS, Windows, or Linux.

And Linux has the huge advantage that it won't suddenly do a forced update and reboot your computer while you're doing a presentation at work.

[zjp]

I agree, for most people the system is a bootloader for Chrome. But this article is about one guy's disappointment he can't hold the whole system in his head anymore, and I'm just saying the user never cared about that in the first place.

But also, if you've only used one operating system, there hasn't been any need to generalize what you've learned from that system interaction wise. We had to learn a bunch of computing conventions. Eventually you learn things like "most command line tools have -v,--verbose". Grandpa doesn't think computers work this way, he thinks Windows works this way and how should he know how Linux works.

'What games are like for someone who doesn't play games' is a pretty good video about a similar thing. It's easy for you, you know computing vernacular.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax7f3JZJHSw

[midoridensha]

Granpa doesn't need to use command line tools; he certainly doesn't on Windows, even though he's old enough that he might have used MS-DOS or Windows 95 and had to use command lines then. Grandpa just starts his PC, clicks on the Chrome (or Edge etc.) icon, and uses the web. It's really no different for a modern Linux distro like Ubuntu.

[JohnFen]

> if we want Linux to get more than its current (pathetic) desktop market share

I don't, and have never, wanted this -- exactly because of what doing that means for the direction of development for the OS.