[jemmyw]

Does it matter? Generally Linux desktop distributions are made for the people who use them, who would tend towards people who will fix things. You mention distros but there obviously are a lot of passionate distro makers because right now it seems like there are more distros than ever.

There are often comments on threads like this that go along the lines of "If only the people making Linux desktop did X then they'd get more people". But there there isn't really anyone making Linux on the desktop. It's not a product. Even the products within it are built on the work of people with very disparate interests. It's kind of amazing that we get a cobbled together working experience at all.

Apple and Microsoft can focus on particular things, like getting more users, or supporting hardware they want to sell, or trying to get you to sign up to Office 365. No Linux desktop environment can have that kind of focus. So when you say it's not fixable to most users I think: well it's not supposed to be. It's not supposed to be anything, it just kind of is. Like coming across a mountain instead of a theme park - it's not a curated experience, it's not going to be for everyone, you might get hurt, but it's far far more beautiful.

[tpmoney]

> Does it matter?

It does matter if you're selling someone on the idea of switching away from their mac or windows machine that they're complaining about something the OS vendor has done by highlighting that with Linux they could "fix it themselves". It misses the point that most people don't want to "fix it themselves" and even if they had the inclination to that, for many problems they don't have the time or the skills. If someone is upset that Apple forced a move to Liquid Glass with Tahoe and all the bad UX that comes along with it, it's possible that they could also have the skills to fix their OS if they were equally upset that their chosen linux distro switched to Wayland. But it's more likely than not that they don't have those skills and so for that user, Linux is theoretically an OS they can fix, and practically just as likely to force them to accept the march of technology as any other OS they use.

[jemmyw]

I personally wouldn't try to sell Linux to anyone and get them to switch. It is a futile game and I see no real reason for it. People will move if they have reason to (in any direction) and the best one can do is show and tell. I will tell people what I like using if they ask. I'm more likely to tell folks not to switch because I don't want to be technical support for anyone outside my household.

I don't think anyone will switch from MacOS to Linux because of rounded corners. If they're really into theming it would make sense.

Being able to fix things is also a bit of a vague statement. You can fix things in many different ways, and you can fix some things in every OS. Fixing might be writing your own code, or switching a theme, or an application, or a distro, or the whole OS. The level of lockdown then matters. MacOS has the greatest lockdown because you can't just get a new Macbook and fix it by installing something other than MacOS.

[lynndotpy]

Your comments really sound like you don't have experience with Linux. This sounds like you're repeating things others have heard.

> it's more likely than not that they don't have those skills

No, they absolutely do.

Even at the most basic level of interacting with the OS, Linux desktops usually offer more options in its Settings application than you'd get with MacOS.

If something annoys you on Linux, it probably annoyed someone else, and there's probably a toggle or switch for it.

If not, the barrier to fixing it is usually "sudo apt install cool_thing". Higher than "open the settings app", but it doesn't require compiling or coding. It only requires literacy (and, granted, not everyone is literate).

> Linux is ... practically just as likely to force them to accept the march of technology

For starters, let's not characterize Liquid Glass as "the march of technology". It's a symptom of dysfunction within Apple.

Second, no, this is just simply wrong. Many Linux distros offer LTS versions. Ubuntu 16.04 was released in 2016 and its support is ending this year, after a decade. (That's not counting the five more years of security maintenance.) Very importantly, these also don't have dark patterns to tick you to update like Apple did with Tahoe.

[tpmoney]

> Your comments really sound like you don't have experience with Linux. This sounds like you're repeating things others have heard.

It's really disappointing to me that so many people assume that just because you're not convinced that linux is the right solution for every computer user that you don't have experience with the system. As I mentioned in my other reply to you, I have plenty of experience with Linux, and those experiences are why I say that Linux is just as "unfixable" to your average computer user as MacOS or Windows is.