I’m a life-long Windows user who nowdays has a MacBook as a daily driver and a gaming PC running Linux. I consider myself somewhat tech savvy but holy fuck Linux just makes me want to tear my head off. I just spent 45 minutes trying to install Standard Notes “the right way” and in the end I just gave up and downloaded it from the Ubuntu store instead. Error, you need to add this repository. Error, you need to enable this feature. Error, you need to install this tool first which you can use to install another tool and that tool helps you fix the issue preventing you to solve the first issue etc. I honestly can’t even imagine how you could make this any more difficult.
I guess Linux is like welding; it’s great when someone sets the welder up for you and you just press the trigger and start welding but you’re up for some absolute misery trying to figure that out on your own.
Also, a huge credit to chatGPT. I can just take picture of my terminal window and it gives me step-by-step instructions on how to troubleshoot most issues I’ve had. I’d be at complete loss without it.
On windows, you have to go to the software’s website, find the download page, click download, run the installer exe, then click through the installation wizard.
On Linux, you can either install it in one command in the terminal, or install in one click from a gui. You almost certainly have a gui app store preinstalled unless you choose a minimal distro like Arch.
If you want to update software on Windows, you go through that whole process again. On Linux, you just do a system update.
I’m not really sure what part of that is easier on Windows
If you know what to type into terminal which for the 99% of users means googling for instructions and in the end you’ve spent as much time and effort on it than you would on Windows. Assuming it works out without a hickup. If you put the right string of text in there but it returns an error, missing repository for example, you’re then stuck there with no clue what to do next.
I think that long time Linux users to who this is second nature underestimate how daunting this is for a novice.
Or you could use a gui that is probably already on your system, like I said. Maybe Ubuntu just sucks, I don’t have experience with it. But I have used flatpak on SteamOS, which is incredibly easy and smooth.
But the terminal can be super easy too, it’s not like you’re typing out complicated commands just to install software. I use yay, so it’s literally just ‘yay <software name>’ to search and install.
Just because you are already used to Windows doesn’t mean it’s simple. It’s actually more convoluted and difficult to learn if someone hasn’t used either.