jason brown

Linux is a freaking nightmare.

Like Windows.

Whereas most criticism of Windows comes from security and privacy concerns – eg hacking and surveillance?

Linux is a user nightmare.

I've spent the last week trying to install high-security operating system Whonix on it's recommended platform, Debian.

Well known behind-the-scenes among system administrators, Debian also comes with a variety of public desktops.

Windows users are probably feeling lost already and even after a decade or more of distro-hopping that’s pretty much how I still feel too.

Compared with downloading an .exe or .msi file in Windows, double-clicking to start installing and saying yes to a security warning? Windows is simple as. Sure it doesn’t hurt to know a few commands in the terminal. But compared with Linux?

OMFG.

One example from, well, a few minutes ago was discovering that it was not enough to download and install and approve apps – one has to go into an app called “Sessions” and hand mark them to automatically run on the next restart.

Not mentioned in any of the Debian or Whonix files that I saw researching endless help pages, forum posts and sundry other detritus from the software industrial complex. Waded through literally hundreds of them, trying to get apps working like they should from the get-go.

Did the apps I installed earlier magically appear after adding them to sessions and rebooting?

No.

Am I any wiser about what changing sessions setting actually achieves?

Also, big sigh, no.

Linux philosophy of keeping things simple – apps should do one thing, and one thing only – is great from a technical and security viewpoint, but hideously complex for anyone new to Windows alternatives.

For Windows users, this is complexity bordering on insanity. Many users already resist Windows updates because they either don’t know they exist, or don’t want anyone to ‘change anything, because I know where everything is.’

Which is a lie, otherwise they’d know how and where to use their computer search function to search their own desktop, rather than searching manually, like most people still do.