Stop Confusing Potential New Linux Users DistroTube
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Date: 2022-03-30
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Comments and reviews: 10
who
Hey DT, I want to point your attention to something I am concerned about and think you should look into it;
You got me to check out the EFF, which I believe (believed?) fights for the things I firmly stand for. I love listening to their podcasts as well. However I recently listened to episode 107 -algorithms for a just future- and am absolutely disgusted.
In it the EFF suggests algorithms should start to take race into account.
Below follows my comment on this episode, which I sent to the EFF. I hope it elaborates more clearly what I am trying to point to. I would love if you (together with other people) could also look into this and form an opinion, since my entire view of the organization has just been scattered.
-Comment I wrote to the Electronic Frontier Foundation:-
-Hi EFF, I have some questions on this episode since I do not understand the comments made and, based on my current understanding of the conversation, am scared the EFF has lost focus on its mission.
This episode talks a bunch about the racial inequality inside the algorithms used by many companies. It is suggested these companies do NOT collect data on race, but rather just data on income, house address, age and more financial data. Hence I do not see how a algorithm fed this data can be racist, since, to the algorithm, all people are exactly and precisely equal, other than the data given such as income (and the other variables I just mentioned). The algorithm does not even know people have a race. It is then suggested, at the 12:25 minute mark, that it should become legal (and normalized) for algorithms to start collecting data on race. The EFF is hereby suggesting we should embrace racism and implement it into our algorithms.
I repeat: The EFF is hereby suggesting we should embrace racism!
What is this? I stood so firmly behind what the EFF stood for. But you cannot and should not suggest we should collect data on race, so that algorithms can JUDGE BASED ON RACE. The EFF seems stuck in the 1800s. I would love if someone from the EFF could elaborate on this, since I cannot believe this was just suggested.
Everyone is equal, and no one should be judged on their race!-
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Hey DT, I want to point your attention to something I am concerned about and think you should look into it;
You got me to check out the EFF, which I believe (believed?) fights for the things I firmly stand for. I love listening to their podcasts as well. However I recently listened to episode 107 -algorithms for a just future- and am absolutely disgusted.
In it the EFF suggests algorithms should start to take race into account.
Below follows my comment on this episode, which I sent to the EFF. I hope it elaborates more clearly what I am trying to point to. I would love if you (together with other people) could also look into this and form an opinion, since my entire view of the organization has just been scattered.
-Comment I wrote to the Electronic Frontier Foundation:-
-Hi EFF, I have some questions on this episode since I do not understand the comments made and, based on my current understanding of the conversation, am scared the EFF has lost focus on its mission.
This episode talks a bunch about the racial inequality inside the algorithms used by many companies. It is suggested these companies do NOT collect data on race, but rather just data on income, house address, age and more financial data. Hence I do not see how a algorithm fed this data can be racist, since, to the algorithm, all people are exactly and precisely equal, other than the data given such as income (and the other variables I just mentioned). The algorithm does not even know people have a race. It is then suggested, at the 12:25 minute mark, that it should become legal (and normalized) for algorithms to start collecting data on race. The EFF is hereby suggesting we should embrace racism and implement it into our algorithms.
I repeat: The EFF is hereby suggesting we should embrace racism!
What is this? I stood so firmly behind what the EFF stood for. But you cannot and should not suggest we should collect data on race, so that algorithms can JUDGE BASED ON RACE. The EFF seems stuck in the 1800s. I would love if someone from the EFF could elaborate on this, since I cannot believe this was just suggested.
Everyone is equal, and no one should be judged on their race!-
reply
Alpha
I use Linux for about 20 years now. And I insist on the word : USER. I'm not an administrator, I'm not a geek, I'm not a programmer, I am a user. Meaning that I use my computer, or, more precisely I use software to do what ever I want to do, and I do a lot of things, from the basics internet surfing (Firefox), documents writing (Libre Office), mailing (Thunderbird), music listening (VLC) to some more complicated things as photo (Darktable, Gimp, etc.) or making music (Audacity, Hydrogen, Guitarix and many others) or furniture design (Blender, LibreCad). I do not play video games on my computer, I use a Playstation and I don't spend a lot of time on that.
What I need is a good computer with a good O.S. Just as my car, I can use it, but I am not able to repair it except for the basic maintenance and I want the same thing with my computer. Oh, and of course I want, just as my car, a computer that don't looses it's performance after a few months or weeks, that's why I stopped using Windows. People wouldn't accept a car with a top speed of 50 km/h after using it for a while, so, why do they accept computers that become slower and slower ?
As a user, I -converted- other people to Linux, my wife first, she finds Linux really nice, mostly because the computer still works when she looks at it... By the way she is the only person I know who prints 5 copies of a document and gets one of those with a different font than the 4 others...
Some friends have been converted too, and the best way I found to do that is to explain that it's about the same as Windows with better performance and let them use it after minimum explanations.
So, when a part of the so call -Linux community- will stop to say that you need to learn how it works, or you can do whatever you want but you need to learn bash, C, C++ and how to compile programs, or RTFM (FM that does not exists most of the time), I think that we should see more and more users (USERS, I insist).
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I use Linux for about 20 years now. And I insist on the word : USER. I'm not an administrator, I'm not a geek, I'm not a programmer, I am a user. Meaning that I use my computer, or, more precisely I use software to do what ever I want to do, and I do a lot of things, from the basics internet surfing (Firefox), documents writing (Libre Office), mailing (Thunderbird), music listening (VLC) to some more complicated things as photo (Darktable, Gimp, etc.) or making music (Audacity, Hydrogen, Guitarix and many others) or furniture design (Blender, LibreCad). I do not play video games on my computer, I use a Playstation and I don't spend a lot of time on that.
What I need is a good computer with a good O.S. Just as my car, I can use it, but I am not able to repair it except for the basic maintenance and I want the same thing with my computer. Oh, and of course I want, just as my car, a computer that don't looses it's performance after a few months or weeks, that's why I stopped using Windows. People wouldn't accept a car with a top speed of 50 km/h after using it for a while, so, why do they accept computers that become slower and slower ?
As a user, I -converted- other people to Linux, my wife first, she finds Linux really nice, mostly because the computer still works when she looks at it... By the way she is the only person I know who prints 5 copies of a document and gets one of those with a different font than the 4 others...
Some friends have been converted too, and the best way I found to do that is to explain that it's about the same as Windows with better performance and let them use it after minimum explanations.
So, when a part of the so call -Linux community- will stop to say that you need to learn how it works, or you can do whatever you want but you need to learn bash, C, C++ and how to compile programs, or RTFM (FM that does not exists most of the time), I think that we should see more and more users (USERS, I insist).
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Sok
agreed to a point. they are new users.. they need a degree of hand-holding, and encouragement. With that said, i'm one of those people that'll talk to them find out what they need out of their system. once done i'll image their drive, get a linux install going if they have no specific windows only application requirement, teach them how to use the -graphical- package manager, reimage the drive(they're gonna do something dumb eventually and will need to roll back) after the updates are done and needed apps are installed. after this... I step away and let them come to me when something breaks. 99% of the time they run into a problem, forget about me, along the backups entirely, and just reinstall windows and never say a word about it. As a result I just don't recommend anyone really to make that switch to linux anymore, even if they are a good fit for it on paper. people just don't have the time/energy to deal with even the most minor inconveniences, and most aren't willing to learn anything in the first place. If I'm putting in 100% of the effort, and they're not willing put forth 10% back, I'm done. It's okay to get frustrated when something goes wrong, it's not okay to not even try to fix it or get help from the one person who promised to be the IT guy for the experiment.
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agreed to a point. they are new users.. they need a degree of hand-holding, and encouragement. With that said, i'm one of those people that'll talk to them find out what they need out of their system. once done i'll image their drive, get a linux install going if they have no specific windows only application requirement, teach them how to use the -graphical- package manager, reimage the drive(they're gonna do something dumb eventually and will need to roll back) after the updates are done and needed apps are installed. after this... I step away and let them come to me when something breaks. 99% of the time they run into a problem, forget about me, along the backups entirely, and just reinstall windows and never say a word about it. As a result I just don't recommend anyone really to make that switch to linux anymore, even if they are a good fit for it on paper. people just don't have the time/energy to deal with even the most minor inconveniences, and most aren't willing to learn anything in the first place. If I'm putting in 100% of the effort, and they're not willing put forth 10% back, I'm done. It's okay to get frustrated when something goes wrong, it's not okay to not even try to fix it or get help from the one person who promised to be the IT guy for the experiment.
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encycl07pedia
1. You're spot on with the current Linux users turning off others. When I was trying to use Linux, the distro I chose didn't include WiFi drivers for my NIC. That's a HUGE problem for a laptop. I was told to update it, but you can't really update anything without internet access. But the worst are the RTFM folks which seem fewer and farther between now, thankfully. Just a bunch of narcissists trolling help fora to feel superior, I guess.
2. Sorry, but installing Linux and not telling the user seems kind of scummy to me. I would think it would have to be someone INCREDIBLY dumb to not realize it's not Windows they're using assuming you didn't install a Windows theme on there. Even then, if they have specific software needs, especially gaming, that's definitely going to be a rude awakening if they try to run it and it's not working on Wine.
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1. You're spot on with the current Linux users turning off others. When I was trying to use Linux, the distro I chose didn't include WiFi drivers for my NIC. That's a HUGE problem for a laptop. I was told to update it, but you can't really update anything without internet access. But the worst are the RTFM folks which seem fewer and farther between now, thankfully. Just a bunch of narcissists trolling help fora to feel superior, I guess.
2. Sorry, but installing Linux and not telling the user seems kind of scummy to me. I would think it would have to be someone INCREDIBLY dumb to not realize it's not Windows they're using assuming you didn't install a Windows theme on there. Even then, if they have specific software needs, especially gaming, that's definitely going to be a rude awakening if they try to run it and it's not working on Wine.
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Outkast
the number 1 step to converting windows users back to windows is trying to convert them in the first place imo, i often avoid the cars the sales person in a car yard is talking about because they clearly want to upsell and i feel the same about linux distro's.. people often upsell the 1 they use while only discussing the cons of the alternative (from experience)
i like dt's approach, i would let them know that windows is not working and cannot work on that machine because microsoft wont allow it to safely so ive replaced it with an easy to use alternative that should work fine, and from that point on they will work out how to open a text document or find the app store on their own.. if they cant do that alone they might actually be better off on windows.
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the number 1 step to converting windows users back to windows is trying to convert them in the first place imo, i often avoid the cars the sales person in a car yard is talking about because they clearly want to upsell and i feel the same about linux distro's.. people often upsell the 1 they use while only discussing the cons of the alternative (from experience)
i like dt's approach, i would let them know that windows is not working and cannot work on that machine because microsoft wont allow it to safely so ive replaced it with an easy to use alternative that should work fine, and from that point on they will work out how to open a text document or find the app store on their own.. if they cant do that alone they might actually be better off on windows.
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Jules
Yeah absolutely. Especially for non tech savy person, it's the worst way of doing things. I've put Linux Mint Cinnamon on my dad's PC, just transfered his bookmarks to Firefox, all his files, put a shortcut of LibreOffice in the taskbar and configured the printer. The interface looks like Windows 7 and it's been like a year or two since he use it, I didn't even had to explain anything to him, just said -Windows was slow, I've installed Linux, it's works kinda the same way, call me if you have any question- never got a call about it, and he's 70.
My mom used it as well on her old MacBook with no issue, even tho she replaced it by a 6th gen Dell Latitude that works pretty fine on Windows with that NVMe SSD so I didn't felt the need to change that.
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Yeah absolutely. Especially for non tech savy person, it's the worst way of doing things. I've put Linux Mint Cinnamon on my dad's PC, just transfered his bookmarks to Firefox, all his files, put a shortcut of LibreOffice in the taskbar and configured the printer. The interface looks like Windows 7 and it's been like a year or two since he use it, I didn't even had to explain anything to him, just said -Windows was slow, I've installed Linux, it's works kinda the same way, call me if you have any question- never got a call about it, and he's 70.
My mom used it as well on her old MacBook with no issue, even tho she replaced it by a 6th gen Dell Latitude that works pretty fine on Windows with that NVMe SSD so I didn't felt the need to change that.
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woody-cool
I fairly recently (as in about 2 years ago) converted a non-IT person to Ubuntu Linux - I've never had a call for a technical fault or issue ever since, it now -just works- instead of the crazy amount of times I had to -dis-infect- their Windows install.
I gave them a very quick tour of where everything is, how to shut it down, how to get online, and that's it ........... they're happier now on Ubuntu than they've ever been on Windows. I didn't really tell them much, unless they asked, I didn't -go off on one- explaining all sorts of philosophies of Linux, I just said -try this, see how you get on- and the rest as they say, is history.
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I fairly recently (as in about 2 years ago) converted a non-IT person to Ubuntu Linux - I've never had a call for a technical fault or issue ever since, it now -just works- instead of the crazy amount of times I had to -dis-infect- their Windows install.
I gave them a very quick tour of where everything is, how to shut it down, how to get online, and that's it ........... they're happier now on Ubuntu than they've ever been on Windows. I didn't really tell them much, unless they asked, I didn't -go off on one- explaining all sorts of philosophies of Linux, I just said -try this, see how you get on- and the rest as they say, is history.
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Cyprian
I converted my mum to Linux. She didn't notice. She thinks she has Windows Gnome. It's been 3 years. She's building small websites for friends now. And editing family videos. And last year she figured out how to auto-backup new photos from her old Windows phone to her laptop when both connect to the same WiFi. I don't know how to do it. She does. Last week she complained dad's laptop doesn't have -apt-. He has Windows 10 on it.
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I converted my mum to Linux. She didn't notice. She thinks she has Windows Gnome. It's been 3 years. She's building small websites for friends now. And editing family videos. And last year she figured out how to auto-backup new photos from her old Windows phone to her laptop when both connect to the same WiFi. I don't know how to do it. She does. Last week she complained dad's laptop doesn't have -apt-. He has Windows 10 on it.
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CreeVal
I absolutely agree with you there. I'm going to test switching my wifes PC but the issue is she hardly uses it so it would probably just be me sitting around waiting for her to use it and forget it once she is using it. But getting friends and family to switch is all about presentation. And if you present something in a difficult way(like the example you provided) it's going to be off putting at best for most end users.
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I absolutely agree with you there. I'm going to test switching my wifes PC but the issue is she hardly uses it so it would probably just be me sitting around waiting for her to use it and forget it once she is using it. But getting friends and family to switch is all about presentation. And if you present something in a difficult way(like the example you provided) it's going to be off putting at best for most end users.
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Knut
New Linux users need to be able to configure their peripherals, add and modify users and groups, set the time, locale, start and stop services and other stuff that requires root access with a decent solid GUI like in BeOS, OS/2, NeXTSTEP, macOS, Windows, not spend weeks learning how to do bash scripting, edit configuration files and use tiling window managers.
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New Linux users need to be able to configure their peripherals, add and modify users and groups, set the time, locale, start and stop services and other stuff that requires root access with a decent solid GUI like in BeOS, OS/2, NeXTSTEP, macOS, Windows, not spend weeks learning how to do bash scripting, edit configuration files and use tiling window managers.
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