cabbage

Yeah, I think you’re right, and I think that’s exactly why it’s a blind spot for me.

On several occasions I’ve also lent an old laptop to friends when theirs broke, and all of them ended up using Linux for months no questions asked. They later went back to Windows because of the Word grammar check, but other than that it just worked for them.

But of course, if you can’t get your drivers to work it’ll be a completely different experience.

If you’re ok Arch I guess it at least signals a willingness to learn! I would never dare to go there haha.

Yeah. I’ve double checked that my last few laptops worked well with Linux before buying them. But I don’t buy very flashy technology, so it was never really any question.

My printer is from Brother, and it’s just plug and play. At work it’s all web print and has been since I started working for pay, really.

A test could be to start by using Libre software on Windows.

Switch to LibbreOffice or some other alternative instead of Word. Gimp, Inkscape, and Krita for graphical stuff. Whatever proprietary software you use, check if it exists for Linux; if not, see if you can find an alternative you’re happy with.

For the people I know, Word is the biggest deal breaker.

Dumb user here. I completely disagree with this.

I was using Ubuntu for a few years, now I’m on Fedora. I don’t really know how to do anything. For my needs it’s just very easy.

Maybe my needs just aren’t sophisticated enough for me to encounter all those problems I’m supposed to be having. But I’ve been using it for years and my experience is that it really just works.

Well, it’s expensive technology to develop, and there’s no other business model behind it than surveillance. So I think it’s fair to expect the surveillance part of it to be difficult to neutralise.

A Fairphone with /e/OS would do.

I don’t currently run /e/OS on mine - for now I’ve just disabled the Google app instead. But it’s a solid option, and last time I used it my banking apps and everything worked with no problem.

Sometimes it seems to know that the paths are not the best, and I really force it to take the path I choose instead of more convenient ones. So it only suggests the rugged paths when I insist it goes “there, but via there there and there”. Generally I can make it through, and how overgrown a path is can change by the season, so it’s a bit tricky. At one point in Italy though I ended up at a Via Ferrata, at which point I obviously had to turn back.

I have Street Complete installed, so I’ve started leaving notes using that whenever I notice any issues. And to make contributions now and then, of course. :)

Organic Maps is fantastic. I particularly use it for hiking, and it’s fantastic. It finds some amazing trails that I would otherwise never have gone to. Sometimes they can be challenging or overgrown, so you have to know what you’re doing and be prepared to turn back if necessary, but I owe a lot of truly incredible experiences to this app.

It originates as a fork of Maps.me, from when Maps.me changed to closed source. Since then Organic Maps has grown to become a lot better than the project it originates from, at least according to my preferences.