Transcript
Screenshot of Octopi Package Manager installed on CachyOS (previously the default before being replaced by Shelly). OP has searched for microsoft-edge. No results are returned.
OP has drawn a circle around a button in the image of an alien head with an arrow pointing to it. Under the arrow is “????”.
Caption at the bottom of the image reads: “Microsoft edge and google chrome don’t show up in neither of cachyos’ software stores out of the box. On octopi you can make it show up by pressing the weird alien head icon. “Mysteriously” firefox shows up on both stores immediately without clicking any obscure buttons. This is either extremely terrible i design or a deliberate sabotage attempt against microsoft and google from loonix devs, possibly sponsored by mozilla.”
Context:
OP is an idiot because these browsers would not be available due to restrictions required by Microsoft and Google to share their software, which is why nothing shows up when searching the installed repositories. Note that Chromium, the base for Edge and Chrome is available on the default repository.
The alien head icon searches the AUR (Arch User Repository) a place for users to add packages, often mirrored from GitHub, which would show Edge and Chrome as a user has ported it over unofficially. Because the AUR consists of unofficial packages, it is not part of the default repositories, and requires additional confirmation before installation.
Note that when installing from the AUR, it is always important to read what you are compiling as packages are not checked for malicious code. See recent news regarding compromised packages that weren’t maintained.
There's a nugget of truth here.
Linux distros require some understanding of underlying subsystems.
Windows... in theory, does not. From AverageUser9000's perspective, they can hit the Windows key, type "Google Chrome," and install it, while on linux it's not immediately obvious why it doesn't. You'd have to look up documentation on linux repos, 3rd party repos, containerized stores, and... now you've just lost the interest of 99% of the population.
I'm not saying AverageUser9000 isn't a moron, but I kind of sympathize too. We are effectively linux experts, and:
any distro that enables flatpak out of the box will let you install both of these browsers. fedora is one like that. if you are using a KDE based desktop, typing their name in the app launcher will offer to install them (after the flatpak database was downloaded once, that should happen some time after first boot)
when using a user friendly distro, this does not require much understanding I think. bot of course, without any understanding, there will be issues. like if someone doesn't know the computer is supposed to be shut down before cutting power to it.
Oh I definitely don’t disagree with you. There’s a learning curve to be had. Part of that is just the UX of Linux (and the differing UIs), but I think the other part is straight up education.
Apple early on adopted the strategy of giving computers to schools to get kids used to using their products, but at some point that shifted over to Microsoft as Office was the business standard. Many kids grew up knowing how to use Microsoft products and got used to using them. Shifting to a different unfamiliar platform is harder once you’re comfortable with something.
Of course then Google stepped in and started pushing cheap Chromebooks to schools and moving people off physical software and storage to cloud products. Now that is trending towards iPads with just apps continuing the online only software options.
So now you’ve got a generation of kids who don’t even know how to operate a PC let alone do something as basic as open a file.
It all comes down to education. If schools adopted Linux and introduced it to kids at an early age, I’m sure they’d be proficient with it.
You're right but I think that's a good thing
I don't think we really want Linux to be used my everybody. This higher barrier filters out some dummies which which will be only trouble and no benefit to the community. It's called tactical friction or something like this.
what do you think they should use? something that is requiring online registration, and is uploading their pictures and documents to its creator, against the user's best interest?