Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Free software scares normal people

danieldelaney.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

561–570 of 641 posts

Re: Free software scares normal people

#561

Post by tombert »

bruce511 wrote: post #538
tombert wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Linux won't arbitrarily irrevocably brick your computer because of an automatic update. In my opinion, having your computer bricked because of an automatic update is a very large change to adapt to. I feel the need to constantly reiterate this; if someone who works on Windows Update reads this, please consider a different career, because you are categorically terrible at your job. There are plenty of jobs out the…

I think (in general) the number of machines being bricked because of an update is about a rounding error from 0. The biggest brick event in recent times was Shockwave, not Windows. Personally I've never seen a bricked machine, not at home, not at work, not at family. Of course my anecdata is meaningless as is your annecdata. Ymmv.

I say this in particular because the automatic update to Windows 11 bricked my mom’s computer, or at least it required me to nuke the machine and reinstall everything from scratch. You can look at the linked post from a few levels up if you want details.

This is the second time this has happened to my family from Windows, on different computers.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#562

Post by helterskelter »

gspencley wrote: post #98

A lot of this type of stuff boils down to what you're used to. My wife is not particularly tech savvy. She is a Linux user, however. When we started a new business, we needed certain applications that only run on Windows and since she would be at the brick and mortar location full time, I figured we could multi-purpose a new laptop for her and have her switch to Windows. She hated it and begged for us to get a dedica…

Same story here. My wife is not tech savvy at all but she likes Linux because it mostly just gets out of her way and the desktop doesn't really change drastically between updates. I haven't had to help her do anything on it in over a decade except get an old PC game up with Wine.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#563

Post by galad87 »

eviks wrote: post #378
fschuett wrote: post #127

> Free audio editing software that requires hours of learning to be useful for simple tasks. To be fair, the Audacity UX designer made a massive video about the next UX redesign and how he tried to get rid of "modes" and the "Audacity says no" problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYM3TWf_G38 So this problem should get better in the future. Good UX (doesn't necessarily have to have a flashy UI, but just a good UX)…

the "modal disruption" is misguided - he cites as the challenge a very poor implementation in a MS app where the modes were barely visible!!! That's not a proof that modes are bad, just a statement that invisible information makes it hard for the users to adapt! Brushes (another mode he cites as great) are great precisly because their state is immediately visible in your focus area - your primary pointer changes Now…

But there is already a "1-button magicbrake" mode, or maybe two buttons:

1. Open a file; 2. Click the start button in the toolbar.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#564

Post by galad87 »

jrmg wrote: post #133

Handbrake scares me and I’m a big nerd! I’ve been ripping old DVDs recently. I just want something that feels simple from Handbrake: a video file I can play on my Apple TV that has subtitles that work (not burned in!) with video and audio quality indistinguishable from playing the DVD (don’t scale the video size or mess with the frame rate!), at as small a file size as is practical. I’m prepared for the process to be…

DVD-Video subtitles are often only bitmaps, and the AppleTV can handle only text subtitles. HandBrake can't OCR bitmaps at the moment.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#565

Post by melagonster »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #222
some_furry wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because programmers consent to programming for free. That fact does not, in any way, obligate anyone else to.

The question/skepticism is why the programmers are consenting to this but not the artists.

Open source/Free software communities are comprised of programmers. People love to help their communities. Sometimes a community contains some artists, but this condition is rare. e.g., Inkscape have some good picture when user open it.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#566

Post by Forgeties79 »

mvdtnz wrote: post #360
singhrac wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One summer in middle school our family computer failed. We bought a new motherboard from Microcenter but it didn’t come with a Windows license, so I proposed we just try Ubuntu for a while. My mom had no trouble adjusting to it. It was all just computer to her in some ways.

[flagged]

Try looking at this another way: people who are tech savvy may be more likely to have parents who are also tech savvy when compared to the average person.

If we don’t buy that theory: There are also a lot of people who visit and comment on this site, meaning there are tons of people who have parents who have not successfully switched over to Linux. The ones who have had success are the ones speaking up, which is currently in the single digits - nothing outlandish about that.

This is no different than somebody talking about a 35mm film camera and a bunch of people jumping in with their experience with 35mm film cameras. Are you as critical/skeptical of those conversations as well? You shouldn’t be and I would be surprised if so! So the logic is basically the same.

For the record my parents do not run Linux. I could maybe vaguely see my mom getting a handle on it, but unlikely and definitely not unless she made some big commitment to do it. However, I do have a friend whose mom is a gamer using a Linux laptop. This stuff does happen!

Re: Free software scares normal people

#567

Post by [deleted] »

helterskelter wrote: post #562
gspencley wrote: post #98

A lot of this type of stuff boils down to what you're used to. My wife is not particularly tech savvy. She is a Linux user, however. When we started a new business, we needed certain applications that only run on Windows and since she would be at the brick and mortar location full time, I figured we could multi-purpose a new laptop for her and have her switch to Windows. She hated it and begged for us to get a dedica…

Same story here. My wife is not tech savvy at all but she likes Linux because it mostly just gets out of her way and the desktop doesn't really change drastically between updates. I haven't had to help her do anything on it in over a decade except get an old PC game up with Wine.

[deleted]

Re: Free software scares normal people

#568

Post by amelius »

GTP wrote: post #559
amelius wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opinionated Apple seems to get away with it.

Well, I'm not familiar with their office suite, but I bet that, if I open their word processor, I will still find a ton of features that I will never use.

The question is more if they left out features because they were deemed too difficult for the average user.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#569

Post by Forgeties79 »

presbyterian wrote: post #547
latexr wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> too many people consider it "perfect" and don't even consider discussing issues and complaining about things. That is becoming less and less true. More and more of the most ardent Apple fans have been complaining about the direction of macOS for years. Developer sentiment is low.

I've been a huge Mac fan for a decade or more, at least, and not only is Tahoe the least popular release I've seen, it's the first one where the majority of people I hear from dislike it. It's bad enough that I haven't updated still, I'm waiting a few point releases at least to see how they fix it up, and I'm trying out Linux distros to see what I'll start using if I have to move away.

Mac->Linux swapper here (back in April). I left after they screwed me on a hardware situation.

Honestly I’ve really enjoyed the swap. But man I really miss having iMessages across my devices as well as the shared clipboard. By far the two things I missed the most. Everything else I’ve kind of moved on from and can’t even think of off the top of my head anymore

Re: Free software scares normal people

#570

Post by port11 »

dayvid wrote: post #14
squeedles wrote: post #10

Good article, but the reasoning is wrong. It isn't easy to make a simple interface in the same way that Pascal apologized for writing a long letter because he didn't have time to write a shorter one. Implementing the UI for one exact use case is not much trouble, but figuring out what that use case is difficult. And defending that use case from the line of people who want "that + this little extra thing", or the "I j…

The contributors of free software tend to be power users who want to ensure their use case works. I don't think they're investing a lot of thought into the 80/20 use case for normal/majority or users or would risk hurting their workflow to make it easier for others

After reading so many apologist comments dismissing the article's points with whataboutism, yours is the first comment that I think addresses the situation properly. As a developer, it's very hard to not mistake the forest for the trees, which is why I'm usually very happy to work with a good UX researcher.
Post reply on HN