this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2025
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What are some bare minimum concepts beginner Linux users should understand? (reddthat.com)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by bpt11@reddthat.com to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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I'm talking about like your mom if she started using Linux, and just needs it to be able to open a web browser and check Facebook or her email or something. A student that just needs a laptop to do homework and take notes, or someone that just wants to play games on Steam and chat on discord.

I'm working on a Windows - > Linux guide targeting people like this and I want to make sure it can be understood by just about anybody. A problem that I've noticed is that most guides trying to do something like this seem to operate under the assumption that the viewer already knows what Linux is and has already made up their mind about switching, or that they're already pretty computer savvy. This guide won't be that, I'm writing a guide and keeping my parents in mind the whole time.

Because of this there's some things I probably won't talk about. Do these people really need to know that it's actually GNU+Linux? No, I don't think so. Should I explain how to install, use and configure hyprland, or compile a custom gaming kernel? I dont think that's really necessary. You get what I'm saying? I don't want to over complicate this and scare people off.

That being said I also want to make sure that I'm not over simplifying by skipping on key things they should know. So what are some key concepts or things that you think even the most basic of Linux users should understand? Bonus points if you can provide a solid entry level explanation of it too.

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[–] Obin@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

H.265 is a pretty major one. E-AC-3 for audio.

With regards to patents or not being free software? Because ffmpeg includes those and is definitely free software. You also need x265 for encoding I think, but that's also free software.

It’s not hard.

Sure. I was just surprised it's still a thing at all. None of the distros I use have this problem (Gentoo, Arch, Ubuntu, Libreelec).

[–] obsoleteacct@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

H.265 is royalty free for non-commercial use. It's ownership is kind of complicated with a bunch of patents and it is commercial licensing is controlled by a few groups.

If I understand correctly (and I'm no lawyer) FFMPEG is completely non-commercial so they don't have an issue. Although I think anyone using FFMPEG for commercial applications (streamers, professional productions, etc...) should be paying a license.

I guess some distros felt that was legally murky for them and others aren't comfortable with non-libre software.

I really wish Fedora would figure out a legal workaround and bundle in the codecs, but for now I just have to remember to set it up before I add any media.

[–] Obin@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I guess some distros felt that was legally murky for them and others aren’t comfortable with non-libre software.

Let's get something completely straight: ffmpeg is completely, 100%, no-restrictions, free as in libre software. This has nothing whatsoever to do with "not being comfortable with non-libre software". That's just FUD at best.

Legal considerations about patent/license trolls in corrupt neoliberal hell-holes might be justified for commercial projects. Most distros however seem to be getting away just fine by assuming end-users get their license for the codec/patents somewhere else if they even need one.

[–] obsoleteacct@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's not an attack on ffmpeg. It's 1,000% not fud. I'm not disputing its libre bonifides. H265 is not libre. It's also not part of the ffmpeg code. But they can be distributed together because it's non-commercial.

My apologies if I worded something in a way that wasn't clear about that.

Separate from that issue.

There are distros that do not want to incorporate any non-libre elements into their OS for ideological reasons. They won't have h265.

Then there are distros that have commercial elements, or for which their parent company has some kind of commercial interest in the distribution. If they don't want to pay for licensing they may have legal limitations on their ability to incorporate h265.

But any completely non-commercial software that wants to bundle h265 in has cart blanche to do so.

I hope that clears things up.

[–] Obin@feddit.org 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

H265 is not libre.

H.265 is also not software but a specification that ffmpeg implements, and the implementation is libre. Additionally there's also x265 a decoder/encoder that also implements it, that ffmpeg can use, but that is also FOSS.

But they can be distributed together because it’s non-commercial.

To be clear: ffmpeg does not ship any proprietary blobs in order to decode H.265. It's implementation of H.265 is fully FOSS as well.

They won’t have h265.

This is plain wrong and repeating it doesn't make it any better. A libre distro with only libre software can decode H.265 just fine. In multiple ways.

But any completely non-commercial software that wants to bundle h265 in has cart blanche to do so.

I'm trusting your claim here, that that's the case, but even then, it would be more like: Any completely non-commercial software can ship a FOSS H.265 implementation with a bundled royalty free license.

If you don't want to bundle a license, you don't have this problem to begin with, you can let the user worry about that, which the user can then just dismiss without legal consequences (in any sane legal system).

[–] obsoleteacct@lemmy.zip 1 points 21 hours ago

Okay this is officially getting too goddamn pedantic for me. I will trust that you're correct on all this.