[alexb_]

Even skipping the first step (which requires a second readme) the next step involves opening a terminal. Instant fail. The entire point of an operating system is to make computers usable without knowing how they work, what a file is, what a command is, or having to look up anything. If something needs to be done, it needs a GUI.

Linux is an important operating system, but anyone under the delusion that it is desktop ready right now needs to actually watch someone use it. I say this not because I hate linux, but because I love it. I want someone to make it usable for a desktop, and people claiming that it is usable right now are not helping that.

[fwip]

I may be showing my grey hair here, but that's emphatically not the point of an operating system.

[falcor84]

I disagree with the grandparent too, but still would argue that an OS's goal is to allow its users to manage their applications and work processes rather than their computer.

It's a hard question to figure out what's the proper level of abstraction for this is. And while I strongly resisted it originally, I am becoming more open to the argument that many people don't need to "know" what a file is, to benefit from their computers - that as long as they can "save" their work, and "send" it from one app to another, they'd be able to get all the productivity that they are looking for.

[harvey9]

It should be possible to get creative and business work done on a computer while knowing almost nothing about an os but I use Windows at work and the situation with the file save dialogue in office is a farce. I can't imagine how confusing it is for someone who has no conception of what a file is.

[bonoboTP]

Files and folders are already a helpful metaphor taken from paper based office work. You have container folders and you can put different files (pieces of paper) into different folders. The thing thats a bit conceptually hard for regular people is the nesting, that folders can contain folders can contain folders. The real world has some nesting too, like putting folders in drawers but it's more limited in number of levels. This tends to be the thing that supposedly "more user friendly" apps remove and only allow two levels or so. Basically collections or lists, eg playlists. Or tags. But once you understand nesting, files and folders are quite intuitive.

Without the helpful abstraction of files and folders, all we'd have are bytes stored at various addresses or sectors of the hardware.

[harvey9]

I was particularly referring to Office applications which have a first stage save dialogue with some folders shown but if you want to navigate to another location you need to browse which opens another window. In the physical office metaphor this would be having to change your shoes to look in a different file cabinet

[bonoboTP]

Oh I see, I hate the new UI of Office. I somewhat accept the ribbon, but this new full screen file menu replacement where they try to make you save stuff to the cloud makes me want to go back to the good old File > Save as... > Dialog popup of Office 2003.

[falcor84]

> Without the helpful abstraction of files and folders, all we'd have are bytes stored at various addresses or sectors of the hardware.

I agree with most everything else you said, but would slightly push back on that. I actually quite like the idea of non-hierarchical blob storage searchable via arbitrary indexed metadata, as well as the idea of content-addressable storage (e.g. with magnet links). While folders are an elegant abstraction, I really feel that we shouldn't be beholden to it.

[fwip]

Either way - the OS is, if anything, the thing that provides the file/metadata abstraction. It doesn't exist to hide it from you.

Without an OS, you've got a CPU and memory-mapped hardware devices. You certainly don't have files.

[falcor84]

This is actually an interesting example. To me it sounds like it actually should be less confusing to a person who has no preconceived notion of what a file should be, and only wants to save their work and reopen it later, not worried about what shape the saved object takes.

On that note, I remember how absolutely ecstatic I was when I first set up Sublime Text and discovered that unsaved editor tabs always reliably survive restarts; it essentially flips the script, whereby I've lost multiple saved files by accidentally deleting them, but I've never accidentally lost work in unsaved tabs, and I've never actually had any interest in figuring out where and how these tabs get persisted - it just works.

[hdb2]

I had commented this above, but the OS should be flexible enough to do whatever the user needs it to do. "What it needs to do" is pretty broad, but I think that's the point.

[mattkevan]

There’s a big difference between working on a computer and working with a computer.

The people doing the former use computers for ‘real work’. They are using a computer as an end in itself, care about operating systems and have strong opinions about systemd. The people doing the latter couldn’t give two shits about any of that and just want to get their presentation finished on time.

Problem is, both sets of people have to use the same machines. It’s also why software like GIMP will never become widely adopted in professional environments because it’s designed for a completely different userbase.

[hdb2]

> Even skipping the first step (which requires a second readme) the next step involves opening a terminal. Instant fail. The entire point of an operating system is to make computers usable without knowing how they work, what a file is, what a command is, or having to look up anything. If something needs to be done, it needs a GUI.

I strongly disagree with this; I believe that an OS should be whatever the user needs it to be. In my case, I am a power user that loves the command line, and while I agree that I may not represent the majority of users, I do not care for your assertion that my way of doing things is somehow invalid.

[hootz]

I agree that most users won't be able to follow Winapps' guide, but "The entire point of an operating system is to make computers usable without knowing how they work" is just false. That is the point of an OS for computer illiterates, not the "entire point of an operating system".

[lynx97]

Arguably, the vast majority of users are "computer illiterates", and an OS should cater to the majority. So in a sense, OP has a point.

[bonoboTP]

I agree on the facts but I think the gatekeeping effect is probably helpful for the current users.

If we had a giant influx of computing illiterate people, the platform would enshittify. They would move towards android-type lock downs and user hostile stuff. More and more binary-only proprietary software, they might fork systemd etc and make sure that the proprietary binaries only run under certain unmodified setups etc. Of course there would be escape routes to various other, nonpopular distros, so the skilled people would be fine again, but there would be a barrier again.

I think this is fundamental. Once the general public starts entering an arena, it won't stay the same. Eternal September etc.