Thanks, that is useful. Roughly what I was thinking.

Can someone do a quick explainer of what this move to ARM means for free computing? The prospects for hassle-free installation of alternative OSs? Is it good news or bad?

Completely agree. Training normies to click OK on warnings like this is a no-good terrible idea.

In rc.conf put map f shell -tf $SHELL ~/myscript.sh. When you press f it will launch myscript.sh in a new terminal with the selection as an argument.

man ranger and check shell command for appropriate flags. For example, skip the -t if your script is in turn going to launch a GUI application.

Shell commands can easily be integrated into ranger.

In contrast to those “many reviews”, this reviewer says that Ubuntu is fine and always has been.

Seriously, Ubuntu hate is mostly just Snap hate. The Snap problem is overstated and easily worked around if necessary. Ubuntu remains a very solid choice on desktop.

Indeed, this is the case with Revolut, a bank which literally requires iOS or Android spyware to sign up and use. But it’s rare. And a reason to NEVER USE that bank.

Alternative utopia: do online banking in a desktop web browser while seated comfortably at home, rather than on a street corner in the sun squinting at a tiny screen.

Crazy that you are getting hate for this perfectly reasonable and well-expressed opinion. No counter-arguments, just “muh i no like muh go away”.

Apparently this place is not so different from the R-site at all.

As I see it, there are two solutions to the trust problem.

The strong solution: read the source code.

The weak solution: trust as few actors as possible, if possible a single one - and download from their website.

I was advocating the second solution.

Wish I could agree with you on the underlying point.

My own anecdata is of normies who are absolutely resistant to the very idea of touching Linux because of its connotations of complexity. And really I don’t think they’re wrong.

My personal preference for GUI liveUSB tools is [etc]

Imagine what even this phrase must sound like to someone who has only ever used pre-installed Windows. Not being facetious.

My opinion remains that Linux could only benefit ifs distros would take hand-holding to its logical extreme and provide the actual Windows-Mac executables that make installing Linux a genuinely one-click experience. Last time I checked, Fedora did this. Pity it’s Fedora and not Debian.

Yes OK I do understand all that, I have used Linux for many years, which includes installing it from time to time.

I am just concerned that all this is beyond the capability of ordinary people, and we need those people if Linux is to thrive. Just the terms and vocab you use in your explanation will leave most of those people mystified. And the ones who decide to take the plunge anyway find themselves with choices that they should not have to face. I speak from experience. I am not a born geek myself, I was a history major.

Anyway, I’ve already had this debate with others here. My opinion does not seem very popular, I get it.

Linux distros are not going to distribute .exe files

One or two distros do. I believe Fedora offers an all-in-one installer executable.

As for the question of trust, the advantage of bundling the installer with the ISO is that you remove third parties. If I trust the distro and my TLS connection to the distro’s website, that’s good enough for me and should be good enough for most users.

Just my opinion.

But how trustworthy is Rufus? This is a pretty critical operation, after all.

Assuming you have a brand-new Windows laptop in front of you, how do you go about getting Linux on it? Genuinely interested to know. Last time I had to do this, I went via Windows Powershell or whatever it’s called, and used dd. Seemed like the option involving the least untrusted parties.

Personally I think that the distros should be taking charge of this themselves, and providing the .exe installer as well as the ISO.

Thanks for the tip. Not that I plan to read up on the matter and make the next cold installation even more anxiety-inducing that it already is. Sometimes Linux would really benefit if there were One Correct Way to do things, I find. Especially something so critical as this.

Given that this is the crucial first step in installing Linux on a new computer, the fact that there is so much mystery and arbitrariness around it seems to me pretty revealing and symptomatic of Linux’s general inability to reach ordinary folks.

Thanks for the information.

Interesting. Is this serious advice and if so, what’s the new canonical command to burn an ISO?

Less and less. At this point most internet users in the world have never been near a general-purpose computer of any kind.

Exactly.

As usual, the geeks in this forum are completely out of touch with reality. I say that as a Linux user of decades.

Desktop stats matter less than ever because ordinary people do not buy desktop computers any more and will do so even less in the future.

This is reminiscent of Flattr. As are other suggestions here.

The basic principle of Flattr still seems right to me. You pay a monthly sum for all your donations to a third party in escrow. Then the third party redistributes the money according to your instructions, either by means of a tipjar buttons on websites, or a browser add-on, or perhaps just a giant list of checkboxes and sliders.

The major advantage being that the third party deals with the plumbing of payments.

This is just a list. Why on earth is it hosted on Github? Terribly incoherent with its mission.