Heyho, recently asked for the silliest reasons, but as someone who has suggested linux to many people, I often encounter people having valid reasons for staying with Windows or switching back.
The most boring but valid one is “I have to use Windows for work. It is a requirement (of some software I have to use)”. But there are also other answers that fit. My sister for example tried Linux, but while installing software constantly encountered issues that I helped her solve and eventually switched back because she felt like she had less control than over windows. While I am aware that this is fundamentally wrong, it is valid that some amateur users do not want to invest enough time to get over the initial hurdles of relearning how to install software.
What are the best reasons people have given you for not wanting to try Linux?
They didn’t want to.
Honestly, I’m not here to badger people into using Linux. If they feel uncomfortable learning a new system, or they just don’t want to switch, that’s fine with me. To each their own, I got better things to do with my time than trying to peer pressure people into using a particular OS. And honestly, if you disagree with that, then whoever it is you’re pestering probably secretly thinks you’re super annoying.
“I don’t have time to learn it.”
Although it’s weird now, because we usually have this conversation while they wait for Windows to crash, restart, search up a patch, apply it, and reboot.
It’s awkward. But I still kind of get it. Who has time to try something new when the current thing barely works.
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Honestly, the very best i got from a client of mine, a veterinarian who is about 80, he runs his whole Praxis on a Commodore PET (i mean, its a natural choice for a veterinarian), which he bought somewhere around the time i was born. His reason: “I don’t need no Windows, i need no Linux or anything other than the computer i am accustomed to. It does what i need and it will do so till the day i die”.
Based.
And the Vet won’t get any AI Slop. Good for them. But the PET? Please update to the C64 or at least the VIC-20.
Why? The PET does what they need and has a crisp, clear built-in display.
This is the point. About twenty years ago when I first met this guy I thought I HAD to convince him to upgrade to something more modern because, well, “new is better” I guess. Luckily he declined my offers and stayed with this system.
Now, this man is for me what would call a living legend. He bought this system when the PET was brand new, state of the art tech and was perhaps the first veterinarian in a radius of 100 km with a computer. From this point on he wrote himself tons of software for his personal use, modified this software for changing circumstances (and still does so!) and kept this system running.
THAT is permacomputing!
mostly from my field of work but generally it’s either very niche software or adobe. I have no idea about anything CAD related but apparently there are a few very important CAD tools that don’t work on Linux. Again I dont’ know specifics but that’s just what I’ve been told.
And finally Adobe stuff which speaks for itself. This mainly boils down to graphic designers and what have you.
There seems to be very few CAD options on linux sadly. And despite the decades of marvelous work on GIMP, it’s still not on par with photoshop.
I need Microsoft Word for freelancing and I don’t want to pay $100/year for M365.
It’s really the only thing keeping a few of my friends and family members from switching.
Yeah, I could spin them up a VM and do some RDP trickery, but these aren’t super technical people - the friction would mean emergency tech support calls that I’m not ready to answer.
Yup. Friction is the number one answer. Things just aren’t quite exactly as they expect or there’s just this one weird niche app they have to have. For my mother it was a cobbled together from parts of visual basic java and a few other things. That wine CAN run. But between the different tools and toolkits. The menubar renders incorrectly.
The solution however was not to drop Linux. Fortunately, there was an Android version, which I couldn’t get running properly with waydroid because of poor integrated Intel graphics support, at least for non-XE cores. But a $200 tablet solved that problem. Nice big screen et cetera for her.
Adobe apps
They allowed Microsoft to control their means of production
…suckers
“My graphics programs.” Printmaster in particular. That was a long time ago and now she’s more open to Linux. We’ll see what happens next time Windows does some bullshit.
Not enough games for linux 🤣
It’s getting better; Proton has really advanced this.
What’s hurt this movement, is the lack of support of AntiCheat games, whether that being due to kernel level anticheat or games not supporting server side anticheat.
Quite frankly, the potential of server-side anti-cheats is nearly entirely untapped. In Minecraft (Java Edition), some anti-cheats have made cheating much less overpowered, going as far as to patch 99% of movement cheats, and many combat cheats are ML-based, at this point.
I’m waiting for when the current official SteamOS is available to be installed on any PC to give it a whirl again. I know there is Bazzite, but I’d like to see exactly what a Deck user experiences, but on my desktop. They said it’s coming, but with the recent announcement I’m wondering if they just meant this new Steam Machine and not like the old SteamOS which was kinda dookie but can be installed on any machine.
I’d like to see exactly what a Deck user experiences, but on my desktop.
Don’t they see Steam’s Big Picture mode?
Not only that, theres also an increasing number of anticheat’s that supports linux, however they have it intentionally disabled so when you run the game it either blocks you or in worse case bans your account as a whole
too hard
