Of all the reasons to be like “Windows bad, Linux good!” This one doesn’t really hit.
Of all the actual differences, this is the one people think makes Linux superior? This is just a circle jerk lol.
You don’t love heading to the terminal to add the executable flag and run it?
Honestly: Yes. It’s an example that perfectly encapsulates how windows “as a concept” actively babies and dumbs down its users. I the 00’s, nobody had a problem with file extensions, but now that we’re working with users that have grown up with computers we suddenly need to remove them because they’re “too confusing”?
I’m literally trying to get into Linux and one of the first things was installing software, which involves copying and running random bits of code from whatever website has the highest search result. I would say a lot of software is running code you have no idea what it does.
Installing software on Linux almost never involves “copying and running random bits of code” unless you have a need for some really obscure program. Learn how to use your distribution’s package manager.
Learn how to use your distribution’s package manager.
Also
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
covers what, about 60% of Linux desktops?
And sudo apt full-upgrade when a new OS version is available.
full-upgrade is the same as upgrade except it’ll remove old packages if required. (e.g. programs that don’t support the new version and hold back the upgrade due to old dependencies). When upgrading Debian to a new release, I usually first run upgrade, then run full-upgrade and read the output very carefully before continuing.
if we’re being fair, it did involve a lot of that historically. Package managers weren’t always around and even after they became established, there was still a lot of fiddling with bad drivers and various distributions had policies which didn’t allow certain software with certain licenses to be setup through their package repository and so on and so forth. Sure nowadays this is less of an issue, but then windows security is also much better than it used to be. People here seem to want to compare the latest Ubuntu to windows 98
Those are just tutorials showing how to install something. Typing flatpak install firefox is one and the same as going into the app store, searching for Firefox and clicking “install”. Tutorial websites would just show terminal as it’s more universal.
If they ask you to actually download some file there is something very wrong.
I often see people overwhelmed by universality of some things. Instead of searching “How to install Firefox on Linux?” what should be learned is “How to install software on Linux?” and, unless met with something badly ported, never do the search again.
But what my meme is about is Windows-only style of having some file and by default having no idea if that’s going to run in some program or be a program.
While I totally agree with you about package managers, I still run into a lot of apps that the only install option is a .deb downloaded from a webpage. Which is comparable to running a .exe on windows.
In much the way I am aware of the Windows store: I avoid it and work to get the software directly from the source. I regularly run into the issue of software not being there or being of unknown version.
Perhaps that is some bias from Windows following me over.
In much the way I am aware of the Windows store: I avoid it and work to get the software directly from the source.
That is not the way things work on Linux - the repos essentially are the source. It is intended for apps to be packaged and distributed through official repos precisely to avoid the issues you listed, which are more often issues of downloading from sites. Package managers take care of incompatible versions and conflicts. That’s definitely a Windows bias my friend :P
Wait, are you setting up PPAs? If you’re using a user-friendly distro, either flathub should be enabled by default or the AUR is easily accessible with pamac or the chaotic-AUR. If software availability is a problem, I don’t know what to tell you; I think you started with a more difficult distribution than you intended to. PPAs suck.
He has a point tho. The amount of copy pasting random shit from the internet into the console is way too comon if you go down the rabbit hole on some issues with the system and find a solution on some abandoned by god itself linux forum. To be fair its usualy just a comand that does shit for you in 5 seconds so you dont have to use gui buuut it does happen and i can tell what this stuff does but the average user likley dosent . Alghtough it might be less common today. Its been quite a long time since i last broke my system.
I mean, I never do that without downloading the script and reading it. I also read makepkg files. It doesn’t take that much to validate these things
The OS designed to prime the population into bad cyber security practices so they are more easily able to exploit and scam later on.
takes off tinfoil hat
You have a point though. Why hide file types by default unless you believe the users are too dumb to ever learn what a few letters mean.
If they’re that dumb leave the extensions on and let their eyes glaze over it like they would anyway. Hiding the extensions doesn’t seem beneficial in any way.
Winget is their standard packaging solution
The rest is accurate but it’s user error
Winget wasn’t a thing until 2020, and they at least partially stole it from an open-source project AppGet
Are you saying any sort of majority of PC software is now delivered via winget?
‘Standard’ in this context is referring to the frequency/popularity of use, especially among the people for whom file extensions would be confusing.
I thought winget was the Linux cli tool for downloading from http. What tool am I thinking of?
winget doesn’t even work properly. I tried installing gcc with it and it installed some random chinese package.
where Linux?
