Until people can buy a computer CHEAPLY and easily at Walmart with a distro preinstalled, Linux isn’t going to make a lot of headway very fast. They are too lazy to be bothered to download a distro, make a bootable iso, wipe and do a fresh install.
And yes, they are that lazy unless really pushed to do it.
For most of them it’s not “laziness” but ignorance. They don’t know it’s an option, they don’t know why you’d want to do it, and the don’t know how to do it.
Whatever comes with the thing is going to be most popular by default. Windows knows this. Apple knows this. Linux simply doesnt have the funds to buy out manufacturers
I guarantee if I sold a normie a KDE laptop theyd have no idea until they needed to run an exe, then theyd review bomb me for selling them a scam laptop
They dabbled with no commitment. And at that time people were always looking for the next faster machine. We could actually afford to. So low spec machines were not a viable sales point.
Even when I offered my father to do this for him, even picking Zorin OS (since it seems to be decently close to a Windows look and feel). He refused stating that he’s not techsavvy enough to use it.
Your father’s been using computers for some number of years. It’s possible he’s been using computers for longer than he will continue using computers. From his perspective, the current edition of Windows is better than anything that’s come before it, so it’s the rational choice to stick with it until the end.
To get around this, you would basically need to set up a second machine with Zorin so that he can get some context before making a decision. That way, in the very realistic scenario where he decides it’s not for him, he hasn’t lost anything.
My conspiracy theory/pattern recognition shows that anyone unironically using the words “Tech Savvy” in 2026 are either well meaning pirates or just straight up ignorant on purpose. Computers have been mainstream at the very least for 2 decades and you havent bothered to learn anything about them??
Until people can buy a computer CHEAPLY and easily at Walmart with a distro preinstalled, Linux isn’t going to make a lot of headway very fast. They are too lazy to be bothered to download a distro, make a bootable iso, wipe and do a fresh install.
And yes, they are that lazy unless really pushed to do it.
For most of them it’s not “laziness” but ignorance. They don’t know it’s an option, they don’t know why you’d want to do it, and the don’t know how to do it.
Oh, they are at least dimly aware they could do something else. But they choose not to because they resist learning.
We call this “monopolistic behavior”
Whatever comes with the thing is going to be most popular by default. Windows knows this. Apple knows this. Linux simply doesnt have the funds to buy out manufacturers
That’s the link you need to break. Until then, Linux is stuck as an also ran.
I guarantee if I sold a normie a KDE laptop theyd have no idea until they needed to run an exe, then theyd review bomb me for selling them a scam laptop
they used to sell them, but it was all shit-tier hardware and didn’t sell.
They dabbled with no commitment. And at that time people were always looking for the next faster machine. We could actually afford to. So low spec machines were not a viable sales point.
You mean headway… on the desktop.
Even when I offered my father to do this for him, even picking Zorin OS (since it seems to be decently close to a Windows look and feel). He refused stating that he’s not techsavvy enough to use it.
Do you know the Secretary Problem?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem
Your father’s been using computers for some number of years. It’s possible he’s been using computers for longer than he will continue using computers. From his perspective, the current edition of Windows is better than anything that’s come before it, so it’s the rational choice to stick with it until the end.
To get around this, you would basically need to set up a second machine with Zorin so that he can get some context before making a decision. That way, in the very realistic scenario where he decides it’s not for him, he hasn’t lost anything.
My conspiracy theory/pattern recognition shows that anyone unironically using the words “Tech Savvy” in 2026 are either well meaning pirates or just straight up ignorant on purpose. Computers have been mainstream at the very least for 2 decades and you havent bothered to learn anything about them??
Us old people are often adverse to learning new things. It’s not a surprising thing. You are getting the same way yourself about some knowledge.