Would it be possible to lower barrier to entry that low?
To the point where installing some Linux distro would be as easy as installing a game on Steam or installing an application on a phone?
There is existing software for installing Linux from Windows.
For example, old WUBI for installing Ubuntu, and linixify-gui (fork of abandoned tunic) apparently does this as well.
So question is, should there be some effort put into making a modern installer of this kind? Something that even the person with the smoothest brain can use to get Linux on their PC?
Are there any existing projects that try to make this happen?
I don’t think it matters so much. It’s possible to test Linux literally in seconds with nothing to install thanks to virtual machines on the Web. It’s risk free.
What prevents people from migrating isn’t technical, it’s mostly FUD and marketing (not to say lies) from MicroSlop.
Asahi linux does this, you run a script and it installs. No USB needed. That’s on apple silicon hardware though.
This used to exist. Anyone remember WUBI? https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wubi
That would a security risk. It would allow the micrsoft kernel to change what is written to disk.
There’s not a lot of ways to directly do what you are talking about. Closest I can come up with would be a small program that shrinks the windows partition, creates new partitions for the linux install, reboots into the new linux system, kicks off a migration tool that deletes all the data you don’t want to bring over, shrink the windows partition again, migrate data over in chunks to the home folder partition, resize and move more chunks, eventually deleting windows entirely and leaving a fragmented mess of a Linux install with a lot of chances for shit to go wrong.
It’s safer and cleaner to back up, wipe, start over.
Run it in a VM. That’s the only way you’re going to accomplish the workflow you are attempting.
There’s nothing easier than booting from a thumb drive and clicking “install”, IMO. Having to load Windows first is just adding an extra step.
Not for those who are not sure about Linux. Installing an app and launching it, is a familiar task and quick to do, to take a look. No need get a usb stick and do unfamiliar steps right just then.
Then if Linux looks good, and you want to keep it, now you have the motivation to sort out how to install it. It’s a different task.
Many people don’t do that, because they dont know what Linux looks and feels like. So they won’t install it.
WUBI did a good job of that.
The topic is specifically about installing Linux, so that’s what I was considering. If a person just wants to see what it’s like, then booting into a live image still seems easier than booting into Windows first and then running Linux in a vm or some other type of software that can run one OS inside another.
I have a hard time imagining a less rewarding user-facing software to be maintainer of. That’s probably why there isn’t one.
Thousands of hours and being blamed for dozens of people softbricking their PCs (which they now probably lack the USB route to recover from) - all because writing an ISO to USB and rebooting is too much friction?
You mean something like Operese ?
I heard that one is pretty recent.
there is and i also think there should be.
but i would never use one or recommend doing so.
I have seen distros that offer methods for installing Linux directly from Windows but I wouldn’t use them. Live CDs are a good way to test if that distro, or even Linux in general, will work properly on that computer. For example, if you installed Linux on a computer with a WiFi adapter that Linux doesn’t currently support, you wouldn’t have known this if you just installed Linux directly from Windows without testing it first and there is no simple solution to this problem.
Now, if you could install Linux onto an external hard drive from Windows, then this might be fine because you’d have a dual boot between the two OSs and can easily fallback to Windows if Linux doesn’t work properly. However, as far as I’m aware, you’d still need to boot into the bios and change the boot loader so that Linux can actually boot.
There does exist a tool that does it. The creator posted about it on the fediverse. It only supported ubuntu at the time but looked extremely promising.
I cannot remember it’s name. :/
Maybe it’s linixify? But I remember seeing a post on lemmy with a youtube demo?
I can swear Ubuntu was able to just do this out of the box years ago, as long as you were okay with the Ubuntu partition being FAT32…
This is how we did it before MS enshittified the boot loaders.
My question is: why do you want the “smoothest brains” on linux? That won’t happen until OEMs are selling hardware with linux preinstalled, which they do on chromeos and android btw.
IMO blind adoption for the sake of it brings no benefit
I find that live USB drives, like the Linux Mint installer are a fantastic way to show potential converts around. If they like it, all they had to do is click install.
