A case for increasing computer literacy (but also a rant)
Preemtively this is not about Linux but it does serve as a basic example of a low effort, low cost switch that I personally consider ultimately beneficial long term. Not even necessarily for itself but how it captures the pre Windows 10 mindset of sw being the tool for the user.
The old joke of in Russia the television watches you is relevant here. On multiple levels.
Other and an even easier thing to do would be to switch from Chrome to Firefox as an unideal alternative still but with less default problems and better options to possibly switch to later.
These are only examples and are not important by themselves. What is important, is how these attitudes enable ever less effort and attention to be placed on the end user in mainstream sw.
A lot of the time whenever there is any mention of switching to Linux there is a lot of talk about how you cannot expect normal people to want to follow even the basic steps and possible but unlikely troubleshooting needed to get it to work. Where society is concerned opinion is reality. The sw and hw are magic black boxes that cannot be understood so the consensus is to avoid trying to understand even the superficial basics that would be considered trivial even a decade before.
Neither it is likely to change closer to the ideal of just working than it already is without further adoption. It is not a problem of Linux but of insufficient support by third parties creating edge cases.
I admit that it is unlikely this changes. There is no societal acceptance for it and arguably more important for the individual topics of financial literacy, basic involvement in governance or medical awareness have abysmally low knowledge levels generally.
Voting is the most basic, least effort way to have some effect and yet two thirds turn out is usually considered large.
Counter case: now's the best time ever for people to leave Windows
Recently, I helped my father go to ChromeOS. It's not straight and free Linux no, but honestly at this point he wouldn't care. It's a kiosk with a browser, and that's basically his only use case.
Same thing with my Steam Deck. I click on game and play game.
The average user doesn't want to interact with the OS: they just want stuff to work. As more and more can be done via browsers, it'll get easier.
The EU is leaving Teams, Zoom, Azure etc, and I would imagine Canada is not long behind. The academic and workplace office lock in is past it's monopoly prime as well. It'll come.
Also, average users won’t care about this, but with a Chromebook you can run Linux in a container, which provides a nice way in for people who want to learn about development tools. That’s a somewhat safer way to experiment with things like running a coding agent in yolo mode. If you screw it up somehow, the browser is unaffected.
Haha yeah I saw that option on Pop's Chromebook :) nice little sandbox and super not scary. I have faith in a lot of younger folks given Chromebooks and being curious when given the time. And maybe motivated by hiding pornography or something
On a deeper level, I think we're not as successful in fostering curiosity these days, or at least it's become easier to exist in the world without honing it.
The extrinsic motivations you describe can be useful to a limited degree, but pushing them can just as easily backfire and build resentment instead.
I think examining how we got here is key to this, and there's no simple explanation. For example you could point to the change in entertainment from actively choosing what to do (even which TV channel to watch) to having it decided for you by a company controlled algorithm. Or how it's easy to be ignorant about the inner workings of a computer if your primary device is a phone or tablet and you've never needed to open the file explorer. Individually they're technical and design achievements but together they create a darker mosaic.
And when you are interested in something, finding reliable information has gotten harder. As a younger millennial, I've seen the transition from: "Don't trust things on the Internet, use books", to "Some sources are good", to "Many seemingly good sources are just SEO", and now to "Was this written by an AI? Use books". I'm sure someone older than me will describe an even bigger transition.
So we're in a weird position where a kind of learned helplessness is seeping into general culture, fewer people see the long-term value of good, robust education for example, and it's becoming a battle in those specialist institutions to maintain trust and integrity against the external malaise.
I think there are conflicting incentives at play economically too, where it's easier to make money off passive people who don't have the curiosity and critical thinking to recognise what's happening, but at the same time you need smart and vapid people to build those exploitative systems in exchange for money.
I don't know how to foster curiosity in people other than to share what I find interesting and hope it inspires other people to do the same. I regularly share discoveries in Physics or Medicine or Cybersecurity with my family and friends (whether they read them is a different matter), and write to my representative about things I care about and believe myself to be genuinely knowledgeable in and hope it works in a small way.
Or I've just rambled for a while about something I'm utterly wrong about and I've just wasted your time :)
This observation may or may not fit this topic well...
In "the generic past" (what I have observed), people had access to things that they could be curious about and could experiment with. The computer was something that allowed ease of programming (with basic), could later on be easily constructed (assembling computer parts, installing an operating system of choice, installing programs of your choice, and doing it all over again), and was generally a thing that you could have as something you can experiment with. Curiosity means that you are able to just poke around and see what that thing is all about without fear of destroying it or harming it (or at least you were proceeding without the fear of harm or destruction of that thing). If given the opportunity to curiously explore, I feel that people will.
Now things are different. A Chromebook is generally the only computer someone has that is owned by the school, locked down so that you cannot do much with it, and any curiosity could lead to device harm and some angry folks (so you are likely strongly advised not to even try). This can extend to things like cell phones as well which are also "black boxes which you don't investigate too closely".
While a traditional computer could be a gateway towards curiosity, there are issues with this approach. For one, people generally do not have access to a traditional computer or at least they don't have access to one which they can just experiment with (they being children, adults likely do not see a reason to provide curiosity exploration hardware). Computers now tend to be laptops which are difficult/impossible to inspect the hardware of. Other operating systems can be explored (and some people do experiment around with that) and some people do that.
Barriers against curiosity and exploration likely dissuade many from making the attempt. The current computers and cell phones are pricey things that punish/resist curiosity. As such, they are just a "black box that does things". It likely feels safer and less stressful to not investigate those black boxes too much lest the box stop working and people get angry.
When games/websites were much simpler, it was also easier for a child to envision how to create one, even before they had the tools to do so.
That said, there are always suitable media to be curious about. It was Flash for many years. And if my nephews don't get a PC with Minecraft in a few years I'm scolding my brother!
I have friends and relatives from my age group (millennials) who reject engaging with technology, even when they had the chance to fiddle with computers in their youth, but everyone should at least have that chance, if money permits.
I think there's a lot of truth to this, and it speaks to the (at least initial) excitement of cheap, hackable computers like the Raspberry Pi.
I wasn't around for the BBC Micro or Commodore 64, but to your point hackable doesn't equal approachable. A Pi is vastly more intimidating thanks to the complexity of Linux (the kernel has over 40,000,000 lines of code, and god forbid you mess something up and get booted to the grub shell!) even without being a black box. I think those early learning computers had a good balance of basic commands but ability to make fairly complex and freeform programs.
I feel a lot of what you wrote.
I also remember our teachers and librarians telling us not to trust the internet and forbid them as sources. But even as a youngster, the information from physical books (on animals, eg) are often conflicting, and usually don't directly cite their own sources, nor would a school kid have access to primary / closer sources for verification. Professor Randy "Last Lecture" Pausch wrote in his memoir that one of his bucket list items was to author an entry in a physical, old school encyclopedia. He did it, and remarked that after going through the process, Wikipedia is just as good.
Aside from books being good again because of how bad the internet has become, you raised good points about curiousity. How did people become less curious? The attention economic is tight these days, but it's been a long time coming. We have to wrestle with several realities:
Some research funny business is happening, whether due to "publish or die" culture, or shinannigans; "Why most published research findings are false (pmc 2005)"
There's a sustained campaign by big money interest to disseminate false information (agree with your point, on conflicting economic interests )
There's money to be made by rage farming and engagement farming: people are too stressed out and surface level satiated by the firehose of slop to be bored/curious.
People are worried about survival in a way they didn't in the 60s. The learned helplessness and apathy partially stems from being too tired from the rat race / hustle culture to care. This includes a far reduced ability for parents to engage with the education of their kids, passively letting schools do all the work, especially after being told they should leave it to the professionals anyway
Sustained war on education -- spending on buildings, administration and tech gadgets while slashing teacher funding, crushing union job actions, maxing class sizes, and penalizing schools for taking the time to help students lagging behind
I guess overall what I'm saying is that it's hard to be engaged and curious, and have the energy to try new things when we're all so anxious and steps from poverty/homelessness/unemployment.
for number four being exahusted from work/school not having time is a thing also, the other day i had an idea to try and set up a dht node for my jami app to use, so i didnt have to use the default ones offered by saviore-faire linux, or use the phone with jami as one cause it kills the battery, and as someone who never set up a dht node before, it took me like 4 hours or maybe even longer before i got it working right, so like, not everyone can just spend 4 hours yelling into the void which is gnome terminal or w.e. terminal one uses
That article you linked is great. Hard agree also with your latter points, the way that "rage content" tires people out to the extent that they lose curiosity resonates a lot with me.
Idk, kinda is what it is? It seems less so that people are less tech literate, and more that a computer has gone from something that is niche and mainly bought by enthusiasts to something that everyone has.
The people who are not tech-literate today, would not have been tech-literate in the 80s, they simply would not have had a computer at all.
And that's OK. Not everyone is interested. Society is built off of specialization. Someone may not be interested in how linux works, but they may be very interested in how the body works. You may have to debug their iPad, but they'll debug you in the operating room!
i would argue the majority of people have never installed an operating system, so it feels like something you dont do, its something the manufacturer does
and ive myself never installed windows, but i imagine its mostly clicking yes, is that true? when someone installing linux gets to a screen that says , configure the lvm, configure luks, auto partion on one partition, separate /home and /var partitions, i could see them getting a little overwhelmed, ive myself confused the heck out of myself trying to manually set up partitions cause i wanted a /storage partition on the root
This is fairly distro specific. Installing Pop_OS!, Ubuntu, probably Linux Mint, largely follows that "mostly clicking yes" pathway. The last time I installed Debian, it also had a "mostly clicking yes" pathway. Gentoo is probably a pretty different experience, it's been over a decade since I tried that flavor of linux, but I have memories of it being a terrible time as a new-to-intermediate linux user.
But I agree, that installing an OS feels like something a manufacturer does, to most people. I think the mental barrier to entry is fairly high, but once you're in, it's really not that intimidating.
yeah i was thinking it was debian, it is mostly yes, but the partitioning gives you choices, the DE gives you choices and theres checkboxes for system tools and ssh
gentoo, while i never done it myself, i believe is compiling every single piece from source, or at least just compiling the kernel from source, and arch is an inbetween i think, not as click yes as other distros, but i belive its installer is unpacking tarballs under the hood or something? idk i never used arch either
I think at this point the installation process is pretty similar for both (at least when considering mainstream distros). They both usually have a simple "reformat the whole drive and set it up for me" option, it's just that more people installing Linux are doing so from an existing set up and need to care about dual booting or retaining data. The likelyhood of falling off the happy path just seems higher for Linux.
I think one of the key pieces holding back Linux adoption is the variety in set ups meaning that troubleshooting becomes a hassle of determining what information is relevant for you. The experience of running into an issue, finding a supposed fix, trying it, having things break further, and then being told "oh no, that only works on this other DE, you need to do..." isn't fun, and isn't something you're as likely to run into sticking with windows.
Unfortunately, that problem comes part and parcel with the freedom of choice Linux presents.
Most Linux distros that one would recommend to a newbie are mostly "just clicking yes" installations once you start the process. But booting into a bootable USB in order to do that is probably super intimidating to most people, even setting aside the fact that most non-tech-savvy people will have only ever bought computers that already have Windows installed.
It is slightly easier on Windows as there are fewer file system options like you say but for the most part it's the same difficulty.
On Windows it may even be slightly harder to get started because it's not obvious where is the correct place to download the ISO. Things have improved somewhat but even on the official page there are three different download buttons and a lot of technical jargon without much explanation as to what arm and x86 is. Though if you buy off the shelf I guess it's easier as it includes a burned USB already? (Assuming the USB works with every CPU architecture)
In both cases you need to figure out how to boot into UEFI which can be pretty daunting to do on your own if it's your first time as every motherboard manufacturer does things slightly differently even between motherboard models.
I think it’s important to note that there are aspects of installing and maintaining Linux that go beyond the scope of expected “basic knowledge” for commercial OSes, even going back to the 90s.
One example is installing drivers for hardware not supported by the kernel, say an Nvidia video card or Broadcom networking card. Even in the 90s, setting drivers up under Windows or Mac OS was a purely GUI installer wizard affair. No command line in sight, no tinkering with bootloaders. Just install and reboot.
In Linux this varies by distro. Some distros roll in Nvidia drivers which is great, but the user has to know to look for such a distro in the first place, and many installer ISOs won’t even display an image on machines with a Nvidia cards unless you configure GRUB correctly. Some might let you install Broadcom drivers through the package manager UI, but some don’t and require command line usage.
Of course some of this comes down to combative hardware companies and there’s an argument to be had that people should buy hardware that’s a better fit for Linux, but the reality is that almost nobody is going to buy a new computer for the sake of giving Linux a shake. This means that distros must strive to at least meet the 90s commercial OS standard of driver installation requiring zero CLI/bootloader/etc tinkering and preferably meet the late 2000s standard of the OS finding and installing the correct drivers for you in most circumstances (as Windows 7 did). Distros need to do everything they can to cope with whatever users install them on.
I would love it if everybody’s computer literacy increased a notch or three, but let’s not pretend that Linux doesn’t have some serious rough edges holding it back.
What about running Linux in a container? It seems like that would bypass a lot of hardware issues?
That would improve the rate of successfully booting (though VMs can bring problems of their own, e.g. “does the user’s machine have virtualization features enabled in BIOS?”) and smooth over most hardware issues, but the challenge of getting GPU acceleration working 100% of the time and reducing VM graphics latency to a minimum remains, because without those the desktop experience will be awful.
I suspect it’s easier on a Mac. Also, I just use Linux from the command line, which is all you really need as a developer. (Your browser and text editor can run outside the VM.)
Generally speaking, yeah virtualization is more straightforward on a Mac. No BIOS settings to flip, and now the OS provides both first party low level virtualization and higher level hypervisor frameworks for VM software to build upon. The biggest complication is that some guest operating systems might need VM graphics drivers to be installed.
And yeah, for a command line the bar is a lot lower. That’s not going to be enough for a less technical user who’s Linux-curious, though, and for that use case a good desktop experience is important.