… and I’m grateful for that but maybe we can finally decouple from OEM for OSes? Maybe could JUST buy a computer and not be forced an OS on it?
Sure I admit it feels nice to unwrap a new device, turn it on, set up few options and use it.
Yet, the alternative it to turn it on, plug a USB drive on it, turn it on, set up few options, wait for 15min tops for installation to proceed and use it.
It’s actually a ~15min difference but it could bring so many good practices.
You can buy computers without an operating system installed on it but most consumers barely understand what a computer is and would think that a computer without an operating system was broken. So there never was much of a market and then Microsoft came along and paid the OEMs to install Windows.
Quite a few website will let you untick the windows 11 licence if you want to go your own way.
Unfortunately the Linux market is so fragmented that your average user is overwhelmed. This is not helped by the Linux community who in a general rule are not particularly accommodating towards novices.
Unfortunately the Linux market is so fragmented that your average user is overwhelmed. This is not helped by the Linux community who in a general rule are not particularly accommodating towards novices.
Omg yes. I’m considering going to linux at home for my next system but when I look at my options I can look at 10 sources and get 10 different recommendations. There are a million flavors of linux now. Every time I look into the subject I see a new flavor has been released. I also don’t want to get comfortable with one version only to find out it isn’t supported or updated a few years from now and have to switch. My goal is to use it, not to be a sys admin in my spare time.
I’m tech savvier than most people so even talking about linux to the avg person is like talking about nuclear physics. Usually when I read a story about, say, someone’s mom using it, it is because some very skilled linux fan installed and set it up for them.
You get beaten up for just bringing these points up.
Applesoft was in ROM. The DOS was only for the disk controller. Without a disk drive I could still work the memory map, execute code, allocate memory, calls to locations, speaker calls, graphics control, load off of cassette, etc. That is the definition of an OS.
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
I like buying hardware, that I know is supported by an operating system. Although that doesn’t always have a good result either. I bought a small Linux netbook with an ARM chip, that never received a kernel update because of incompatible drivers.
You can buy computers without an operating system installed on it
AFAIR that hasn’t been the case in most places for a while precisely because Microsoft made partnerships with OEMs to avoid that situation.
I believe new laws were added, e.g. in Europe, but I would be curious were this was the case. In fact I remember the opposite, namely that most computers one would buy always came with an OS, Windows for PC and MacOS for Apple computers. Even computers that one would buy in part that would be assembled for them from non OEM would also have the options to have an OS. In fact I’d be curious about example of fully assemble PCs, not just parts nor SBCs, that could be purchased without an OS before the law in the places where its the case now, would prove an OS-free option. Can you please share examples?
Also, assuming you do find such examples (thanks in advance) I’d then be curious what’s the market share, namely is it significant, e.g. 10% or is it basically anecdotal, e.g. 0.01% and thus just enough to say “it’s possible” yet has no actual impact.
Right but Framework is basically new, founded just in 2020. Also I believe most people who go on their website is precisely because of this kind of options. I don’t think, sadly, they are representative of the broader market.
Learn about a tool that is basically in the middle of some of the most crucial interactions in their lives? From receiving an email to vote, to booking an appointment to get a passport, to working, to dating, to browsing an encyclopedia, to entertainment broadly, to creating music, to …?
I’ll stop there but yes, even though learning is scary I think if the safety net is clear enough (namely you just can’t mess up so badly your brand new computer won’t work) then it’s worth investing in.
You don’t need to convince me. I’m all for people having a basic understanding of the tools they use on a daily basis.
But my observation is that people seem predominantly opposed to the idea.
No. But everyone should have a basic understanding how electricity works, so they’re not surprised that they better switch it off when working on the wiring and can at least make a guess of how it’ll behave once powered.
They don’t need to get into the dynamics of capacitors, diodes, transistors or other electronic components, but having heard of them certainly wouldn’t hurt.
In my experience people who know a little about computers are more dangerous than the ones who know nothing.
I’ve had people come into the repair shop who’ve uninstalled programs they don’t recognise and then it turns out that the programs they don’t recognise was the graphics driver. A complete novice would just have not gone into the program list to begin with.
Do schools even teach basic computing anymore, when I was at school we got taught how to program and I feel like that’s not done anymore.
I was taught basic programming in school - by people who clearly had no clue. (it was clear to 11 year old me, and in hindsight I was far to kind in my evaluation of their knowledge) I was also taught on the then very modern apple IIgs - I wouldn’t be surprised if you have never heard of that, but all you need to know is nothing I was taught is relevant anyway - if you were taught on windows 7 a lot of what you learned has changed anyway.
Point is we need to teach people to teach themselves because things change.
I genuinely feel like there’s an appriciable percentage of the population that don’t even know that other operating systems exist. For whom Windows is “the computer” and for whom even Apple being a separate operating system is a difficult concept to grasp. If that’s truely the state technical literacy is in with a sizable slice of the population, then it’s quite the hurtle even explaining the basics of what Linux is. Let alone using it.
You could even ship the computer with the USB stick pre-installed.
And this wouldn’t be impossible with Apple hardware; it has a bootloader built in that can boot from any functional and signed OS; could be Apple supplied, or something like Asahi. Or, with such a rule in place, they may also be required to not get in the way of installing other OSes and have to fully document the boot process and driver registration process, preventing signature-based lockdown completely.
Linux for personal use can be undependable. I have a use case where I don’t mind configuring stuff, but once setup I need that shit to mf work every time all the time and it not working results in direct loss and depending on when potentially substantial loss. I say this as an avid linux user.
Its really a shame every desktop distro has that problem, then.
Sometimes, you install updates, even on your LTS branch distro, and stuff gets really broken. You can roll back, but can sometimes have to fiddle with the computer to get it working enough to where you can do that.
If you’ve got a mission critical workflow, you essentially need 2 computers, regardless of the OS you’re using.
Case in point: Typing from a spare Surface Pro that I installed Ubuntu and some support drivers on for the touchscreen. Some update broke the touchscreen drivers, and I needed a keyboard and a lot of googling to repair them.
If this had happened on Windows, someone likely could’ve taken it to their repair shop or to Microsoft. Sadly, these days even Microsoft might’ve dropped any user aid.
been running Debian trixie for the last year and had zero problems. previously on bookworm for two years still no problems.
before that I was on Almalinux for a year, zero problems.
and from 2014-2019 I was on Fedora, again no problems.
pre-2014 I was on some variant of distro just can’t remember that far back (probably some variant of redhat like centos).
sporadically I’ve used other distros like Mint, Ubuntu, Arch, BSD, Kali, Raspbian, etc. There were some stability issues with Mint and Ubuntu but everything else was rock solid.
For decades I have run and supported rhel, fedora, centos, debian, as servers.
like I said, it’s either the distro, or a skills issue. if you are having problems after updates, you have a package problem and should probably clean up your dependency tree/repos.
For most of us on Lemmy, buying a PC with no OS installed is like buying a car with an empty fuel tank and/or battery. It’s ready to preform at 100% in about 10 minutes.
For most other people, it feels more like buying a car that’s completely missing an engine/motor/battery. They don’t even know where to start, even though in the case of the PC the process is many orders of magnitude simpler.
Right, and to be clear I’m not suggesting to “just” buy a PC without an OS.
I’m suggesting both PC manufacturers and OS providers make an effort to facilitate that step.
One good example IMHO would be Raspberry Pi and its Imager. Yes you get your Pi but that’s not just it, you can get install Raspberry Pi OS … or Ubuntu, Apertis, RISC OS Pi, … but also media ones e.g. LibreELEC, OSMC, etc … or emulation with RetroPie, Batoccera.linux, … but still more with RaspAP, MoodleBox, … and countless others. You follow the steps thanks to a colorful GUI, put a microSD card in when prompted, wait, remove it, but in the SBC, boot and voila.
I’m not claiming it’s perfect or that anybody could do it but I believe it’s a good compromise ihelping people getting the OS they need if only they are genuinely ready to spend 10min for it.
In retrospect that whole value proposition is nuts.
The suggestion here is to spend 10min, let’s say 1h if the connection isn’t far and the USB stick (or microSD) is slow… for something you will then use for years onward. Typically one does NOT re-install an OS frequently unless they want to (e.g. tinkering quite a bit or distro-hoping).
… and I’m grateful for that but maybe we can finally decouple from OEM for OSes? Maybe could JUST buy a computer and not be forced an OS on it?
Sure I admit it feels nice to unwrap a new device, turn it on, set up few options and use it. Yet, the alternative it to turn it on, plug a USB drive on it, turn it on, set up few options, wait for 15min tops for installation to proceed and use it.
It’s actually a ~15min difference but it could bring so many good practices.
You can buy computers without an operating system installed on it but most consumers barely understand what a computer is and would think that a computer without an operating system was broken. So there never was much of a market and then Microsoft came along and paid the OEMs to install Windows.
Quite a few website will let you untick the windows 11 licence if you want to go your own way.
Unfortunately the Linux market is so fragmented that your average user is overwhelmed. This is not helped by the Linux community who in a general rule are not particularly accommodating towards novices.
Luckily this trend is shifting! More and more linux distros oriented towards users new to linux, and helpful communities.
Omg yes. I’m considering going to linux at home for my next system but when I look at my options I can look at 10 sources and get 10 different recommendations. There are a million flavors of linux now. Every time I look into the subject I see a new flavor has been released. I also don’t want to get comfortable with one version only to find out it isn’t supported or updated a few years from now and have to switch. My goal is to use it, not to be a sys admin in my spare time.
I’m tech savvier than most people so even talking about linux to the avg person is like talking about nuclear physics. Usually when I read a story about, say, someone’s mom using it, it is because some very skilled linux fan installed and set it up for them.
You get beaten up for just bringing these points up.
Apple IIs had the OS built into the ROMs.
Apple DOS was on a disk. There wasn’t really any OS, you operated the computer through the BASIC interpreter.
Applesoft was in ROM. The DOS was only for the disk controller. Without a disk drive I could still work the memory map, execute code, allocate memory, calls to locations, speaker calls, graphics control, load off of cassette, etc. That is the definition of an OS.
Yeah I probably wouldn’t recommend getting an Apple II
I like buying hardware, that I know is supported by an operating system. Although that doesn’t always have a good result either. I bought a small Linux netbook with an ARM chip, that never received a kernel update because of incompatible drivers.
AFAIR that hasn’t been the case in most places for a while precisely because Microsoft made partnerships with OEMs to avoid that situation.
I believe new laws were added, e.g. in Europe, but I would be curious were this was the case. In fact I remember the opposite, namely that most computers one would buy always came with an OS, Windows for PC and MacOS for Apple computers. Even computers that one would buy in part that would be assembled for them from non OEM would also have the options to have an OS. In fact I’d be curious about example of fully assemble PCs, not just parts nor SBCs, that could be purchased without an OS before the law in the places where its the case now, would prove an OS-free option. Can you please share examples?
Also, assuming you do find such examples (thanks in advance) I’d then be curious what’s the market share, namely is it significant, e.g. 10% or is it basically anecdotal, e.g. 0.01% and thus just enough to say “it’s possible” yet has no actual impact.
The last place I saw it as an option was on the framework website.
Right but Framework is basically new, founded just in 2020. Also I believe most people who go on their website is precisely because of this kind of options. I don’t think, sadly, they are representative of the broader market.
But then people would have to learn. That’s scawy 🥺
Learn about a tool that is basically in the middle of some of the most crucial interactions in their lives? From receiving an email to vote, to booking an appointment to get a passport, to working, to dating, to browsing an encyclopedia, to entertainment broadly, to creating music, to …?
I’ll stop there but yes, even though learning is scary I think if the safety net is clear enough (namely you just can’t mess up so badly your brand new computer won’t work) then it’s worth investing in.
You don’t need to convince me. I’m all for people having a basic understanding of the tools they use on a daily basis.
But my observation is that people seem predominantly opposed to the idea.
That’s like saying that everyone should become an electrician. It’s just not a practical expectation.
No. But everyone should have a basic understanding how electricity works, so they’re not surprised that they better switch it off when working on the wiring and can at least make a guess of how it’ll behave once powered.
They don’t need to get into the dynamics of capacitors, diodes, transistors or other electronic components, but having heard of them certainly wouldn’t hurt.
In my experience people who know a little about computers are more dangerous than the ones who know nothing.
I’ve had people come into the repair shop who’ve uninstalled programs they don’t recognise and then it turns out that the programs they don’t recognise was the graphics driver. A complete novice would just have not gone into the program list to begin with.
Do schools even teach basic computing anymore, when I was at school we got taught how to program and I feel like that’s not done anymore.
I was taught basic programming in school - by people who clearly had no clue. (it was clear to 11 year old me, and in hindsight I was far to kind in my evaluation of their knowledge) I was also taught on the then very modern apple IIgs - I wouldn’t be surprised if you have never heard of that, but all you need to know is nothing I was taught is relevant anyway - if you were taught on windows 7 a lot of what you learned has changed anyway.
Point is we need to teach people to teach themselves because things change.
And it’ll only accelerate.
This is beyond 99% of the population who just want it to work out of the box. This would be impossible with any apple hardware also.
I genuinely feel like there’s an appriciable percentage of the population that don’t even know that other operating systems exist. For whom Windows is “the computer” and for whom even Apple being a separate operating system is a difficult concept to grasp. If that’s truely the state technical literacy is in with a sizable slice of the population, then it’s quite the hurtle even explaining the basics of what Linux is. Let alone using it.
Well 100% in fact as that’s NOT the definition of “out of the box”.
Computers used to work this way.
You could even ship the computer with the USB stick pre-installed.
And this wouldn’t be impossible with Apple hardware; it has a bootloader built in that can boot from any functional and signed OS; could be Apple supplied, or something like Asahi. Or, with such a rule in place, they may also be required to not get in the way of installing other OSes and have to fully document the boot process and driver registration process, preventing signature-based lockdown completely.
Linux for personal use can be undependable. I have a use case where I don’t mind configuring stuff, but once setup I need that shit to mf work every time all the time and it not working results in direct loss and depending on when potentially substantial loss. I say this as an avid linux user.
Although in fairness Windows is not being particularly reliable in that regard as of late.
That describes every OS ever.
if you run into stability issues on Linux the problem is either your distro or you.
Its really a shame every desktop distro has that problem, then.
Sometimes, you install updates, even on your LTS branch distro, and stuff gets really broken. You can roll back, but can sometimes have to fiddle with the computer to get it working enough to where you can do that.
If you’ve got a mission critical workflow, you essentially need 2 computers, regardless of the OS you’re using.
Case in point: Typing from a spare Surface Pro that I installed Ubuntu and some support drivers on for the touchscreen. Some update broke the touchscreen drivers, and I needed a keyboard and a lot of googling to repair them.
If this had happened on Windows, someone likely could’ve taken it to their repair shop or to Microsoft. Sadly, these days even Microsoft might’ve dropped any user aid.
been running Debian trixie for the last year and had zero problems. previously on bookworm for two years still no problems.
before that I was on Almalinux for a year, zero problems.
and from 2014-2019 I was on Fedora, again no problems.
pre-2014 I was on some variant of distro just can’t remember that far back (probably some variant of redhat like centos).
sporadically I’ve used other distros like Mint, Ubuntu, Arch, BSD, Kali, Raspbian, etc. There were some stability issues with Mint and Ubuntu but everything else was rock solid.
For decades I have run and supported rhel, fedora, centos, debian, as servers.
like I said, it’s either the distro, or a skills issue. if you are having problems after updates, you have a package problem and should probably clean up your dependency tree/repos.
For most of us on Lemmy, buying a PC with no OS installed is like buying a car with an empty fuel tank and/or battery. It’s ready to preform at 100% in about 10 minutes.
For most other people, it feels more like buying a car that’s completely missing an engine/motor/battery. They don’t even know where to start, even though in the case of the PC the process is many orders of magnitude simpler.
Right, and to be clear I’m not suggesting to “just” buy a PC without an OS.
I’m suggesting both PC manufacturers and OS providers make an effort to facilitate that step.
One good example IMHO would be Raspberry Pi and its Imager. Yes you get your Pi but that’s not just it, you can get install Raspberry Pi OS … or Ubuntu, Apertis, RISC OS Pi, … but also media ones e.g. LibreELEC, OSMC, etc … or emulation with RetroPie, Batoccera.linux, … but still more with RaspAP, MoodleBox, … and countless others. You follow the steps thanks to a colorful GUI, put a microSD card in when prompted, wait, remove it, but in the SBC, boot and voila.
I’m not claiming it’s perfect or that anybody could do it but I believe it’s a good compromise ihelping people getting the OS they need if only they are genuinely ready to spend 10min for it.
In retrospect that whole value proposition is nuts.
The suggestion here is to spend 10min, let’s say 1h if the connection isn’t far and the USB stick (or microSD) is slow… for something you will then use for years onward. Typically one does NOT re-install an OS frequently unless they want to (e.g. tinkering quite a bit or distro-hoping).