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This is great, but one UX issue I’ve always seen when trying to get regular Windows users to switch to Linux is the whole USB flash drive process and needing external tools like Rufus.

Take Ubuntu, for example. It’s one of the most popular and recommended distros for non-techy users, but just look at the install process: https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/install-ubuntu-desktop#1-overvi...

Let’s be honest, I don’t think most people would actually go through with that.

One idea to fix this and get more people to switch would be for Ubuntu to offer a Windows app that handles everything. It could download the ISO in the background, format the flash drive, install Ubuntu in dual boot with Windows by default, and clearly explain each step so users know how to start using Ubuntu or go back to Windows.

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Idk why we need separate media anyways. Just resize the existing partition and create a new Linux recovery partition in place, reboot from that to install m. Or just run the whole installer in a VM on windows and then reboot to a completely working Linux system.

EDIT: Beyond skill, just getting the external media is a substantial friction. I haven't used a thumb drive besides for Linux install media in 15 years; I'm good at computers but just finding / buying one of those things is its own roadblock.

Wubi runs on Windows and installs Ubuntu into a file: https://github.com/hakuna-m/wubiuefi

This sort of thing used to be more common. My first exposure to Linux was before CD-Rs were ubiquitous so there was often no possibility of using external media if you downloaded Linux. Partitioning the drive and installing there was typical.

It's the same model that both Apple and Microsoft use for their OS updates, especially when upgrading from "dark ages" version to the latest version. I just think that most Linux distro providers either don't have the resources or the passion for Windows programming to make & maintain the windows .exe part of the pathway. Wubi is neat, but living out of a file on an existing partition doesn't feel like a pathway to full-time Linux. But if it already exists and is maintained, why hasn't it become the standard approach for all distros?

You must have been in an interesting place if floppies was more limiting than bandwidth... Splitting the installer across multiple floppies would be more common for initial install I believe and you would only fill up to ∼2/h on great dialup.

> Idk why we need separate media anyways. Just resize the existing partition and create a new Linux recovery partition in place, reboot from that to install m. Or just run the whole installer in a VM on windows and then reboot to a completely working Linux system.

This is far from a simple solution (for the layman end-user) compared to the parent comment.

I mean InstallFedora.exe should do these operations automatically under the hood while showing a progress bar, and the user continues using their Windows desktop as normal until prompted to rebot, just like how InstallWindows11.exe works.

I never understood why it's so complicated. On Linux, you can make a liveusb as easily as `cat liveusb.iso > /dev/sdX`. I imagine there is a powershell equivalent. There is a risk of writing to the wrong drive, so some kind of utility is needed. But the actual write is trivial. Why not make a win32 executable with the iso embedded so users only need to download one thing and then run it to write the USB media?

IIRC Rufus can actually download the necessary ISOs so it isn't THAT complicated.

On the other hand, if someone finds that part too complicated to follow perhaps they may not be able to install Linux - or Windows for that matter - by themselves and come across other issues down the line. Ultimately replacing your OS with another one does require some minimum level of technical knowledge that you either need to have or be fine with learning during the process.

Yeah, the actual write is easy. The human part is the hard part.

Most people don’t want “tools” — they want a magic button with no guesswork, no fear of nuking the wrong drive, and no tutorial rabbit holes.

A win32 installer that bundles the ISO, sets up the USB, and gently walks you through the transition? That’s the move.

We don’t need smarter users. We need smoother defaults.

Windows PowerShell does not have a direct, native equivalent to this specific operation. You have to use some combination of Clear-Disk,New-Partition,Format-Volume,Mount-DiskImage, and xcopy to do that

> One idea to fix this and get more people to switch would be for Ubuntu to offer a Windows app that handles everything. It could download the ISO in the background, format the flash drive, install Ubuntu in dual boot with Windows by default, and clearly explain each step so users know how to start using Ubuntu or go back to Windows.

I am almost certain something like this existed 15-20 years ago from Canonical.

Likewise, I vividly remember running this and wondering "wow why did I spend so many late nights waiting for live CDs to install"

There were weird caveats compared to a live CD install. No clue what they were but I remember skipping over it for a reason like that.

I think it could also be worthwhile to figure out ways to:

- Avoid requiring the user to figure out how to get into BIOS/EFI and change boot order. Windows has APIs for manipulating EFI things, may be worth looking into that.

- Replace GRUB with something more modern like rEFInd or Clover with a nice looking theme.

For the latter point, while GRUB is technically functional, it looks scary and arcane to new users and has little resiliency to things like Windows updates mucking with boot entries. It makes for a bad first impression (“why is my computer showing hacker screens suddenly”) and when it breaks your average user doesn’t have a prayer of fixing it. Something that looks more modern and self-heals would be a big improvement.

> - Replace GRUB with something more modern like rEFInd or Clover with a nice looking theme.

Replace Grub with nothing. If you're not doing bootable snapshots like openSUSE, then there is virtually no benefit in a "boot loader". The linux kernel + cmdline (+other stuff like ucode or secure boot signing stuff) can easily be packed into a single bootable .efi file.

That efi file will then get an entry in your uefi boot device list just like windows already has/had. This way is better anyway, since windows will overwrite your uefi boot order with every significant update, meaning users will already need to know how to boot other os's.

rEFInd is more or less exactly that.

How do you anticipate users choosing Windows or Linux at boot time without a bootloader?

If the idea is they go cold turkey full Linux, good luck with that.

if the idea is they use their UEFI firmware boot menu, you're forgetting how unintuitive that is for most users with most uefi interfaces (spam hotkey at boot, wait for slow loading uefi, navigate to subscreen with boot order, find right menu item, either reorder and save or press F-key combo to "boot once now")

Regular Windows users are also not going to reinstall Windows. I'd say this page does the right thing putting the "Find someone to help you" as the first option. Most people want something that just works, and it's a great value proposition to say "I'll take your old computer and turn it into a new device that works better".

The biggest sticking point is the fear of losing what they do have, but we're at the point where even their previous generation computer could be made to run Linux.

Re-installing Windows is trivial these days. You just click the item in the Start menu, it does some work, then reboots to the existing recover partition to finish up, restores your account, and you drop back to windows desktop after logging in again. If you have OneDrive enabled, you still see all your files.

Does that actually completely blow away and reformat the filesystem? Meaning if you only have local files, they're then gone? From clicking an item on the Start menu?

I guess I'm not surprised with how frequently "reinstall Windows" is offered as a solution, that there is now some lighter version of that. But really I was talking about obtaining/creating installation media and reinstalling from scratch.

It's even more damning when you realize the Windows stage 1 installation process is essentially unchanged since Vista. The Linux people had nearly 20 years to straighten this out.

Installing Ubuntu bricked a Samsung laptop I had some years back. Never again.

Windows installation is only easier for non-technical users in that someone else (usually their laptop manufacturer) does it for them.

> Installing Ubuntu bricked a Samsung laptop I had some years back. Never again.

What? How? I've never seen an installation break the BIOS. I'm sure it's possible, but I wonder what went wrong here.

Some buggy uefis can actually get bricked when clearing or writing to the wrong efivars. But blaming anything but the hardware manufacturer for is misguided to say the least.

For me, at this point in my history of installing Linux, this is about as unsurprising as it gets. You've had an incredibly lucky history in this regard (or perhaps are younger than I am by 5-10 years).

Although I agree that it could be somewhat easier, I don't think it's possible to perform all necessary steps to create a working boot entry from within Windows, possibly any running OS.

I do think maybe it would be possible to improve the UX somewhat, what about having some app called "os changer" or some accessible user-friendly name, that shows a list of options with screenshots, short descriptions and perhaps some categorization/tagging/rating system (this one is good for gaming, this one has lots of support for old hardware, this one is user-friendly). Then if you select an option it starts to download the iso silently while it asks you to insert a usb-key, when you insert that key, it shows the contents if it's not empty along with a confirmation that it gets emptied. Hopefully after formatting the image has finished downloading, and it creates a bootable usb key from it. Possibly it could read system information to suggest a key to hold during boot, then reboot the system.

However you do it, I don't think there's any way around needing some intermediate to boot into. Come to think of it, maybe a live-distro where that intermediate basically is the eventual system seems very user friendly.

> and needing external tools like Rufus

Ubuntu and Linux Mint are now recommending balenaEtcher, which is easier to use than Rufus.

While so, you have to download a program from somewhere. If I gave this to my mother she would just totally click the wrong link, infect her windows machine and give up.

For the tech, sure but for common people not so.

Why cannot Ubuntu just offer a download media creation tool like Windows does. Surely it's not that hard to couple dd with a batch gui.

I use it but I'm very careful about it since it just puts hard drives and usb sticks into the same category. Most of the time that's fine but if you have hard drives smaller than the usb stick in your system it'll autoselect the hard drive instead and if you're not carefull you're fucking your live system.

And having to go through this insanity each time is even worse

https://blog.balena.io/did-etcher-break-my-usb-sd-card/

I noticed no difference in ease of use

Maybe something like https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wubi again.

Oh wow memory lane. I loved wubi, it was a game changer back then

An easier alternative is Ventoy. https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html

Install Ventoy on a USB flash drive. Copy the ISO - copy as in cp. That's it.

You can add as many ISOs and select which one to boot with.

Ubuntu's Install medium supports secureboot. (As do many other Linux install mediums) I assume ventoy requires SB to be OFF, which does complicate things more, than just using Rufus.

Once when I was at FOSDEM I was checking out the OpenSUSE stand and one of the people at the stand gave me an OpenSUSE Leap DVD. Was pretty neat, though nowadays unfortunately many computers no longer have a DVD drive.

In all honesty, how do you install windows? Aside from pre installed ones.

Most people I know does exactly the same. Takes Rufus or similar and downloads official image from Microsoft

You are not wrong, however in a pot calling kettle black moment have you seen what it take to make a windows bootable usb drive.

if you are on windows it is possible but involves ether going the hard route and downloading special tools from microsoft (the media creation utility) or the easy route and getting rufus.

on linux it is bewildering, however there are tools you can find that do it.

on openbsd(that's me, the weirdo using openbsd on the desktop) you are out of luck, I mean partially it is my fault, who even used obsd on the desktop. but when every single linux distro is "just dump this dvd image to a usb drive" and openbsd itself is "here is a usb image to dump to a drive" you have to wonder why microsoft makes it so difficult.

I ended up getting it done but after 30 minutes chewing through the linux script trying to get it to work on obsd went "this is not worth it for a task I am only going to do once" so booted a linux usb and used the script from there.

You're right, and I could've sworn Ubuntu had this at some point.

At one point they even had a thing that would install Ubuntu inside Windows.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubi_(software)

I don’t find the process of making install media that onerous.

Here's one easy way to create the Windows USB stick installer in Linux:

https://atkdinosaurus.wordpress.com/2023/03/24/another-way-t...

Take a look at a default emacs and how long it has been this way and you can quickly generate 200 plausible theories why everything sucks do much around this ecosystem. Tried 5 times going to u ubuntu in last 15 years. Everytime switched back because it sucked. Spending godless amounts of times googling obsucure problems that apprear out of thin air. No thanks. And with wsl2 I never have to look back

I kind of had the same experience with all the ubuntu flavors, and other distros. Ubuntu kinda does too much. It tries to be a complete desktop replacement and as such comes with a lot of preconfigured software. If you have a non-standard wifi-chip or audio chip, or whatever component, it could be that any of those parts break, and you'll have a hell of a time finding out where it's coming from.

What worked for me was to try arch. With arch you basically start with nothing, and you build it up from there. It'll take a few hours reading the install process on the wiki, but it's otherwise very easy. In the end you'll have a full understanding of what is happening on your machine. When something happens you will know what program is causing it, because you installed and configured it yourself. Or at least it makes me feel like that, because nothing has ever actually broke or not worked on my current arch install that I'm using for over 8 years. My install seems to 'just work' and I can highly recommend it, even though the install process is a bit more involved.

The only problem with Arch is that it's not afraid to introduce breaking changes in their packages, so sometimes when updating, there could be some manual intervention involved. Best is to update at least once a week, and check the website once in a while.

> Take a look at a default emacs

Is that the default terminal editor on Ubuntu? I fully agree those text editors where typing doesn't enter text should never be the default. Something like nano should always be the default imo.

I had a couple failed starts moving to Ubuntu as well, years ago. Then I came across Zorin OS and that turned out to be a great bridge, followed by Kubuntu which I use to this day.

...what does Emacs have to do with any of this? And how does running Linux in a Hyper-V virtual machine magically make it better?