this post was submitted on 27 May 2024
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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God i wish. And most everyone here could install a new operating system in about 20 minutes. But nobody else is going to because the learning curve for a regular user to install an os is basically perpendicular. Even if they had a linux installer already on a flash drive.
Oh just boot into the bios and find the option to boot for a flash drive and then boom installed.
Which requires a user to know, What a bios is
What booting means
What boot options mean
What the model of their flash drive is
What button on their keyboard they need to press to get to the bios
What secure boot is
Where they need to go to turn off secure boot
How and where to back up their important files
What a disk partition is
How to reverse the changes made to the bios so that it doesn't boot to usb by default.
And that's assuming they know why they want a different OS, why they care and that they know about Linux in the first place.
Most people dont and never will. All you can do is install Linux for the ones you like the most and say a prayer to your favorite deity for the rest.
I've said this multiple times in other comments, but what would be amazing is a
linux-installer.exethat shows the normal installer wizard with non-techie, beginner, and advanced options that allows installing linux from windows and booting right into it.The ultimate goal would be for the desktop environment to have a windows theme by default, have all the alternatives installed for previously installed software with desktop icons that look the same, and all files to be where they were previously. That way you could just say "go to https://windowsupgrade.com / https://linux.install and run the installer" to anybody non-technical and have them running linux in under an hour.
It should be so simple and unassuming that people don't even realise they installed linux. If they message back "I ran it, but I'm still on windows", that's a success.
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That would lower the barrier to entry significantly. It doesn't address the issues with the bios but someone mildly adventurous would have a much easier time going forward.
I think something like that would have to be sponsored by and maintained by a big distro though. I'm afraid if it was a community effort the amount of bikeshedding would stop it before it even began.
It would completely eliminate the bios issue, would it not? It would prevent them from ever needing to enter the bios at all.
They would most likely still have to disable secure boot.