This image was created by /u/kuebic@discuss.tchncs.de for this comment here: https://discuss.tchncs.de/comment/21735989. I had encouraged them to post it somewhere, but as far as I can tell, they never did.
Panel 1: “Installing Windows 20 years ago” screenshot of install wizard with just a couple buttons
Panel 2: “Installing Linux 20 years ago” screenshot of a busy command line
Panel 3: “Installing Windows today” screenshot of a busy command line
Panel 4: “Installing Linux today” screenshot of install wizard with just a couple buttons
not very accurate, you can still install Windows graphically, and you could install Linux either on a console or with a GUI both in 2005 and now
Yes windows can be installed easily, but it’ll require a Microsoft login to do it- this meme is made for people who don’t want that.
I think Linux has progressed a lot since 2005. It’s mostly idiot proof these days - it asks about language/keyboard/timezone/wifi and unless you ask for an advanced install (to partition a hard drive or whatever) it just installs.
I don’t think installing Windows is any harder but it may stop to ask for a registration key. Windows also prefers to connect to wifi during installation to fetch patches whereas Linux tends to do it after the fact.
Seemed idiot proof already a couple years before 2005 in my experience. I hear for years prior already too. Rumours of Linux’s difficulty have been grossly exaggerated, like in the OP image.
… And reading the EULA for Windows may be non-idiot preventative. But who ever reads what that says. … I did, when I had read the GNU GPL. The difference… it’s worth the read… to experience that vivid constrast awareness, with one offering freedom, the other with it’s deal with the devil clause, that they can change the agreement after they make it, and do all manner of nasty to you. GPL’s easier to read only a few thousand words, compared to the proprietary license etc that are probably something like thousands of pages in their entirety. The BSD licenses are an even easier read. The WTFPL even shorter yet. Freedom’s brevity not trying to hide something nasty in either the license nor the software… unlike the scary stuff one can find hidden in proprietary software. ~ Anyhoo, I’ll stop rambling on your comment. It just sprang to mind.
My first Linux distro was Ubuntu in 2006, with a graphical installer from the boot CD. It was revolutionary in my eyes, because WinXP was still installed using a curses-like text interface at the time. As I remember, installing Ubuntu was significantly easier than installing WinXP (and then wireless Internet support was basically shit in either OS at the time).
When Ubuntu came along, I could not understand the fuss about it being easy to install… It seemed no easier than other distros years prior. Yes, 2004 04 (iirc~ or was it 10?), ubuntu’s easy to install… so are half a dozen others at the time, for years. Twas just marketing. If only we could have got the word out already before then… or even now… still people seem to think it was hard back then. It wasnt. A monkey pushing the button could install it. Did not have to install Arch, Gentoo, or LFS, the hard way. Could install debian, slackware [Edit: oh wait, slackware woulda been curses tui], redhat, suse, or whatever even easier respins (ubuntu wasnt the first debian respin). Some people still think it’s hard now. It’s not. It has not been difficult all this millennium so far. Oh to let other people have that awakening moment, have it be revolutionary in their eyes, still today, dispelling their notions of how life has to be, into how life can be. :)
Unless windows hates your computer then it’s powershell and regedit for you!
I’m not installing win 11 anyways, but if I did, there’s no way in hell I wouldn’t install it without spending half a day fucking with regedit and powershell.
Just FYI, ReviOS is a playbook (set of system changes) that strips all the crap out of Windows 11 while still being almost entirely functional (I believe it disables automatic driver downloads, but it still gets Windows security updates.) I use it in my VM.
It’s super easy—install Windows 11, run the ReviOS playbook, then a Ninite to install all the essentials (including Classic Shell I think? Although I prefer one called something like Start Back.)
It’s a meme, Karen.