wischi

I'm fairly certain that's not how it works 🤣

I rechecked the windows taskbar stuff and you are right there is no setting for that, the only way to change it would be to chnage the region date format which would change it everywhere not only in the taskbar

This line of thinking has a fault. You're punishing choice and options because they're alien.

I don't really have an issue with choice but people use computers to do specific tasks and what's important are solid defaults with the option to (in a simple manner) change some stuff later.

What kind of jeans should you buy? What kind of socks should you wear?

The ones that fit. I don't really have hugh demands for my socks. And I think that's a good example how regular people think about computers. They buy something and expect it to "just work" and not get in the way. Imagine entering a store asking for socks and instead of "they are over there" they start to ask you so many questions you never thought about and really aren't interested in. I don't want to answer questions about which yarn I like, and if I want different socks for left and right or the same ones. The exact ratio between length and width, etc. I don't care. Most people don't. Just give me "the black ones".

That doesn't mean there should only be one color and type of socks. If you are a sock enthusiast go for it. But that's exactly what happens with most Linux distros when you install them. Some ugly terminal user interface ask you about which package managers, desktop environments, while switching back and forth between fast running console log output and ugly TUI questions and everybody watching thinks you sre trying to enter the matrix.

Most people don't care. Just give me the stuff that work in 95% of the cases and has the best support or most stable, or whatever, so basically "black socks".

Easy to say of it would only be used to classify/grade data but because this is a CAPTCHA it somehow has to determine if you answer is "correct" and probably does that by checking if other people agreed with you on the majority of cases and then it gets tricky because one would not only have to take into account if the outline is correct but one thinks that other people would agree with that assessment if you don't want to get another set of images because the server couldn't tell of you are a human.

I'm pretty sure many of those are "AI" edits or suggestions.

Which one?

As far as I can remember Windows 11 only shows the time on default installations and there are GUI options to change the shown format on the taskbar.

"Some things are going to be different" basically means that they would have to learn to deal with manual config changes and command line stuff.

I personally don't expect the "end-user readyness" of Linux Distros to ever be a serious competition to OSes developed by huge teams driven by trillion dollar companies like Apple and Microsoft. Basically all Linux Distributions I'd consider "end-user ready" and polished are themselves developed by huge companies - like Android, ChromeOS, SteamOS.

I think the biggest issue Linux has on the desktop is the sheer amount of choice for practically everything. The ecosystem is so fractured.

So the choice is actually not between Windows, Mac and Linux, but between Windows, Mac and about thirty Linix distributions where not even experienced Linux Desktop users can agree on which they should suggest to the general public.

Which distro should I suggest to my neighbor? And are you sure other "Linux experts" would agree with your answer?

You know that, and I know that, but explain that to the person that asked that question.

Once I figured out it was Ubuntu with gnome I had to tell them to open the freaking terminal and spell them some commands over the phone. Not an environment I'd call "ready" for regular people.

The entire post in general is a bit weird, because it calls "Linux" "ready" as if Linux was something an end-user could install and use.

A question I got last week over the phone: "How do I show the day of the week next to the date in the desktop on Linux?" - what would you tell them?

Have you ever opened a word document that's more than just a single unformated paragraph on libre office. I know it's not a "Linux" issue, but people don't care. Of over 80% of the world uses Windows and Microsoft Office and the Word document somebody sent me looks completely messed up an the inlined table is all over the place or the line break happens on a different row than on the original document it's not ready. And don't say "pdf". People don't care. Karen could open it on her PC with a double click on her machine and on your machine it's completely broken, why should I sent you a pdf. I just sent the same document to Karen and it worked perfectly.

My point is that Linux Desktop is far from "ready" for regular people.

Ok here is a question someone recently asked me: "How to show the day of the week next to the date on my Desktop". Try to answer that for "Linux" and help that person on the phone.

Linux is a kernel and not an operating system. My phone is runs Android, two of my root servers run debian bookworm, my living room media center runs Ubuntu, so I guess I have used Linux at least a little bit. But no distro I've seen (tried even more on some VMs) is really enough for me to suggest it to anybody that isn't a "computer-person".

It might be nonsense to you, but that's the first thing people see. No matter how amazing you business is, if your business card is a handwritten phone number on a piece of toilet paper, nobody will call.