Why don't more people use desktop Linux? I have a theory you might not like
Why don't more people use desktop Linux? I have a theory you might not like
There might be a very simple explanation for why the masses have yet to adopt Linux as their desktop operating system and it's one the open-source community won't like.
I'm curious to hear thoughts on this. I agree for the most part, I just wish people would see the benefit of choice and be brave enough to try it out.
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“When someone comes to me asking how to get into Linux, they do not need to hear a laundry list of distributions to choose from. When they ask, I don't want to have to say, something akin to, "You could try Ubuntu, Linux Mint, elementary OS, Zorin OS, or Ubuntu Budgie."”
Ok, so what if I need a car? People will give me a laundry list of car brands to choose from, so I don’t really see that as a valid point. What if I want to buy a pair of shoes? Is there another laundry list? Yes there is.
Just pick something popular, and try it out. If you don’t like it, you’ll have a better idea of the features you want or don’t want in the future.
You mean you DON'T drive a Car brand car, wear Shoes brand shoes and drink this delicious-looking beverage??
There’s also literal 15% food. Better not think about the remaining 85%. Just see what google translate says about “ruoka” (in Finnish) or “mat” (in Swedish).
75% no?
Wolfram aplha is probably just violating some fundamental axioms of mathematics to say the answer is 85. I’m not a mathematician, so who knows.
Well, it's all about expectations and alternatives. People don't expect to be overloaded with choices before the OS even boots.
Linux is the only OS on any platform where they have (to make) this choice.
Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone, all of these Systems don't give you a choice between wildly different versions.
Also, the issue extends to after the installation as well. If someone asks me about a Windows issue of medium intensity, I can tell them on the phone how to fix it without having a PC nearby.
Say they ask me how to do something as simple as to install a program from the repository.
Depending on the Linux they are using, they will (or will not) have any one of a few dozen package manager GUIs, which will work wildly different. Even if they don't use the GUI, they might be using apt, yum, pacman, snap or any other of a few dozen CLI package managers.
And depending on their distro, the package in question can have one of a few dozen different names, or might not be in the repo at all, so that I need to add a ppa or some other form of external repository.
That is a massive issue in everyday use. The only viable thing is for the local family/friend group admin to decide which distro to use and then everyone needs to use that distro or get educated themselves.
For example, I got a lot of experience (~10 years) on Debian-based OSes. Put me on Arch and I have no clue.
The same is not true for e.g. Windows, where I have used every single version extensively (except of Win11).
That description sounds a lot like fixing a car or trying to operate it.
How do I turn on the windshield wipers? Oh that depends on the brand. You need to find that thing that’s usually on the right, but in some cars it’s on the left. Then you need to press, pull, turn or twist it clockwise or counterclockwise depending on stuff…
How do I replace the left headlight? Could be easy, could be a nightmare. Depends on so many things.
That's kinda true, but because of that reason you need to take more than 40h of lessions (at least over here) and two tests before you are allowed to operate a car.
When you then buy a car, the salesman takes about an hour to show you everything you need to know about your car, and the car gets delivered with a pretty well-written 500+ page manual that tells you everything you need to know about operating and maintaining it.
The same is not true for operating systems in general and Linux distros specifically. There you get no course at all, nobody that shows you anything and all your resources are Google and toxic online communities where you get called names for asking questions. Makes it much harder for beginners to get into it.
What's crazy to me is that Linux was out way in front of this. Put me in front of windows back in the aughts and say 'go install a program' and you had to google it, hope you clicked the right download link, install it, hope you didn't get a virus. Ubuntu you just opened up synaptic and bam, there was a wealth of programs you could just install with a single click. It was mind-blowing, and way easier than what everyone else offered.
It's the typical opensource problem. The advantage of FOSS is that anyone who wants to can create a fork. The problem is that everyone does.
There are dozens of rivaling systems that do the exact same thing a slightly different way with a completely different user experience.