Are distros just a big scam to keep people scared of Linux?
It's just a side effect of Linux's openness and community culture. You can make your own OS, great! Except now you're overwhelmed by choice, and if you're not a tech enthusiast you will despise Linux so much you'll make peace with how shit Windows is.
Do most people care to know what systemd is and why they should use OpenRC? No, they don't even know what the fuck smss.exe is and they don't need to because it works.
Do most people care to know what Wayland is and why they should use XLibre? No, they don't even know what the fuck dwm.exe is and they don't need to because it works.
Do most people care to know what GNOME is and why they should use LXDE? No, they don't even know what the fuck explorer.exe is and they don't need to because it works.
And the list goes on. Linux is inherently incompatible with the "people that are tired of Windows" target group because the Linux community is ideologically opposed to that group. The Linux community needs to know every cog in their OS and base their, and by extent everyone else's distro choices on that. Your average Windows user would be satisfied with Mint, but he won't hear "yeah just install Mint". He will hear why it's bad because of Canonical and Poettering and how he should use this other distro, and after that they'll go back to Windows and never consider Linux again. They don't care, they want to use their computer, not engage in some high school drama.
That's why so many people want Valve to release SteamOS for desktop. To them, that's a sane stable ground they can finally migrate to to ditch Windows forever. To them, it's the closest Linux can get to a sane Windows alternative. Created, owned and maintained by a reputable company and not a bunch of rabid ideologues like most distros are. Something that they can install and have it just work without having to worry why Lennart Poettering is a cunt, or why Debian/Canonical hires a convicted sadistic child rapist, or why Emmanuel Bassi is a toe sucking faggot. Nobody cares about that, and never does anyone who asks for a Linux distro recommendation gets one cohesive answer. If they won't get simultaneous suggestions for Mint, Manjaro, Arch, Artix, Debian, Devuan, Pop!_OS, Ubuntu and every other popular distro ever leaving them even more confused, they will hear all the Linux drama as the reasoning for why they should choose this distro over that. People are sick and tired of this happening every time they want to ditch Windows so they hope that Valve will finally put an end to this fuckery and offer one sane stable distro for people to use, because people trust Valve more than a horde of rabid autists.
So no, distros are not a big scam, they're the byproduct of the nature of Linux's openness, and what's truly making people scared of Linux is it's so-called community, which lacks any resemblance of one. Fragmented, constantly at war with each other, cannot agree on anything ever. If you can't even agree on
one universal beginner distro (Mint), then you can forget about overcoming Apple's OS share, let alone Microsoft's.
And let's not act like "that's not the entire community", it is the entire community. The entire Linux community is based on the ideological opposition to proprietary software. Linux desktop is free and open source, and what's the main opposition to that? Microsoft Windows. That's why no matter how much people in the Linux community state that they don't care about overtaking Windows do victory laps when Linux hits a staggering 5% OS share declaring victory over Windows. That's why no matter how much they say that they don't want Windows users to use Linux, they do their absolute best to get Windows users to switch to Linux by any means necessary. What people in the Linux community say always contradicts what they do.
In short, no. People are scared of Linux because they're not autists and want something that works and that they don't have to think about. Any sort of Linux migration requires thinking, which is why unless Valve actually releases SteamOS, you should stay on Windows and don't bother with Linux. Unless Mint fulfills your needs, then stay on Mint and don't worry about anything else. Mint is good and anyone that suggests anything else is a nigger.
That's all for the monthly "Slav Power has an autistic spergout in the Linux thread about how much he despises Linux". Feel free to rate it "Dumb", "Mad At The Internet", "Autistic" and "Lunacy".
