Repair goes mega mainstream with the launch of Lenovo’s new T-series business laptops, which earned our highest honor with a 10/10 repairability score.
IMO switching to Linux as a new user is no harder than switching from Windows to Mac, which I think is something more people can identify with and aren’t afraid of, for the most part.
what basic task have you run into that requires the command line? have you tried Mint? my 83 year old dad has been on mint for over a year with no complaints, and I don’t think he even knows how to open the terminal . . .
I’m just not interested in rehashing this conversation. Anyone who has used Linux already knows, even if they won’t admit it. Being dishonest about it isn’t helping anyone. I used Windows for 30 years and never touched any kind of CLI in that time. I did use it on MacOS but only for Homebrew because there’s no other GUI alternative.
OK, if your talking homebrew on Mac, then your not just doing “basic” things. yes, for power users on Linux, we need to use the CLI. For actual basic things (browsing, word processing, consuming media) you absolutely don’t need to touch it at all on many “noob” distros.
So claiming that there’s a steep learning curve for basic things is going to turn off new users, who would be perfectly fine never looking at a terminal to do what they need
i think it heavily depends on the person’s use case. if someone is doing web browsing and maybe making a couple word documents, the learning curve is negligible. also, you dont need to use BASH to do most things, it’s 2026. most anything you can think of, you can do via GUI.
It doesn’t matter what the usecase is if the Wifi or speakers or camera don’t work. Or if all the icons and text are so small as to be nearly impossible to read.
That Is almost always a hardware compatibility issue, if you get a machine that is specifically meant for Linux, even the jankiest of distros will not have all but the last issue, and for the last one if fractional scaling is causing issues just double your scale.
IMO switching to Linux as a new user is no harder than switching from Windows to Mac, which I think is something more people can identify with and aren’t afraid of, for the most part.
Couldn’t disagree more. Having to learn how to use a Mac is a huge learning curve.
Couldn’t disagree more. Having to learn how to use the command line to complete basic tasks is a huge learning curve.
what basic task have you run into that requires the command line? have you tried Mint? my 83 year old dad has been on mint for over a year with no complaints, and I don’t think he even knows how to open the terminal . . .
I’m just not interested in rehashing this conversation. Anyone who has used Linux already knows, even if they won’t admit it. Being dishonest about it isn’t helping anyone. I used Windows for 30 years and never touched any kind of CLI in that time. I did use it on MacOS but only for Homebrew because there’s no other GUI alternative.
OK, if your talking homebrew on Mac, then your not just doing “basic” things. yes, for power users on Linux, we need to use the CLI. For actual basic things (browsing, word processing, consuming media) you absolutely don’t need to touch it at all on many “noob” distros.
So claiming that there’s a steep learning curve for basic things is going to turn off new users, who would be perfectly fine never looking at a terminal to do what they need
i think it heavily depends on the person’s use case. if someone is doing web browsing and maybe making a couple word documents, the learning curve is negligible. also, you dont need to use BASH to do most things, it’s 2026. most anything you can think of, you can do via GUI.
It doesn’t matter what the usecase is if the Wifi or speakers or camera don’t work. Or if all the icons and text are so small as to be nearly impossible to read.
That Is almost always a hardware compatibility issue, if you get a machine that is specifically meant for Linux, even the jankiest of distros will not have all but the last issue, and for the last one if fractional scaling is causing issues just double your scale.