Technology

He's right. If vendors offered Linux based machines people would try. Valve is helping Linux adoption more than all the big names like Dell, Lenovo, HP... combined.

Choice is both one of Linux's greatest strengths and weaknesses. There are so many distros that offer something great an unique, but that also leads to choice paralysis as well as fragmentation. I think Bazzite has been great for the Linux gaming space because it does offer a single user experience that reduces the knowledge barrier for those just getting into Linux.

I do a lot of work setting up computers and laptops for people, mostly getting software they need installed and setting up ad blocking so I don't need to come back later on and clean up a million viruses.

Lately, I've been offering a discount to people that allow me to get rid of windows entirely and install Linux, with the option to reinstall Windows for free later. I've had several people take me up on the offer, especially once I explain what Recall is to them. Only 1 has had me switch it back, and they needed to use some super niche piece of software that I just absolutely could not get running with wine no matter what I installed, and I suspect that it has something built in to make it not run on non-windows systems.

Basically, just explaining Microsoft's security nightmare in a way that your average person can understand (and I mean a real average person, not the average person as people on Linux forums see them) has gotten over 2 dozen clients to switch over to Linux with minimal issues.

Also windows borking like 5 peoples SSDs certainly helped!

Linux don’t need anything to challenge Windows. Windows is doing great on their own.

To Torvalds, Chromebooks “are the path toward the desktop.”

Please don't associate Linux with a close-source proprietary neutered web browser owned by an ad company.

Like mentioned in the article, another issue is that there are very few offerings of computers with Linux preinstalled in normal computer stores.

You know how a normal average persons buys new laptops? They go to such store and look at the prices and buy one according to how much they want to spend. The advanced buyers might consult their more tech-savvy acquaintances. Stuff like "Just install Linux", is beyond concept comprehension for a lot of people, even if they heard about Linux at all.

All to say is that it's not like they can't understand these concepts if you explain them (people are clever), but they should care about them in the first place.

Edit: typo

Preface: I am a Linux user

The Linux desktop needs to not require users to dig through config files to enable features that both windows and Mac have working by default. Fingerprint sensors, audio interfaces, broken bootloaders that you have to fix yourself. Requiring people to ever use a command line even once will keep people on Windows as the dominant platform.

Every time I have to look at a Linux forum to figure out why something isn't working and the answers are run these commands I am instantly reminded that this is the exact thing keeping Windows mainstream.

Driver support still isn't perfect. Software support as well. Linux needs to ship out of the box running exe files in compatibility layers. Linux needs to adopt executable installers for software packages that can be downloaded on the web. If Linux wants to be the way people use computers, Linux needs to fit the mould that windows has built for the people who have used it for the last 40 years.

Doing anything differently is enough of a deterrent for 90% of computer users. And of those 90%, 75% of them will give up immediately trying to fix anything that doesn't work and either call someone else or decide it's broken and do nothing.

Linux is incredibly powerful and I believe it should be the way we run computers, but I get exactly why it isn't.

To Torvalds, Chromebooks "are the path toward the desktop."

What does he mean by this?

I struggle to believe Chromebooks will meaningfully contribute to more people adopting Linux, because Google is more interested in getting people to adopt Google instead.

I'm not sure it's good for Linux to attract disgruntled windows users. It would be better to attract people who actually want to use an OS that is different to Windows, rather than ones that just want a Windows that works. Linux is not a version of Windows.

So Linux, "the free alternative to Windows", needs corporate backing to sell it and make it mainstream?

This has been tried before and a lot of Linux fans don't like it. The first time I'm aware was Lindows, which was offered on CD at Walmart and other retailers. Microsoft sued and they changed the name to Linspire. It was corporate Linux, and the best thing it had going for it was that it wasn't Windows. Beyond that, it was kind of garbage. I mean, I guess it was Linux, but it wasn't right somehow.

If you want a corporate backed alternative to Windows because you don't like certain things Microsoft stands for, get a Mac. Honestly, you can't do much better than a MacBook Air these days, but the $500 M4 Mac mini (down to $480 in some stores for the holidays) is pretty damn hard to beat. It doesn't run most games though, but beyond that it's fine. Just know that Apple stands for a lot of things Microsoft does. Regardless, it's a corporate-backed OS that is an alternative to Windows, with solid hardware support... and it's not really denting Microsoft's market share, despite being objectively better for everything but gaming and repairability (the latter of which does not extend to Microsoft's Surface machines, but PCs in general).

I think the best thing for Linux was the end of Windows 10's life. Computers with 7th gen Intel and older were able to run Linux perfectly, despite Microsoft drawing the line in the sand there. My last Wintel machine ran a 4th generation Xeon, and it ran Windows 11 just fine with hacks (though not recently, I've been a full fledged Mac user for 2 years since that rig died).

And I think the worst thing, the thing holding Linux back the most, is the divisiveness of the Linux community. It's not everyone, but the guys who run Arch (and some of the Debian guys) looking down their noses at the Mint and Ubuntu guys... like, suck it up princess! People gotta start somewhere, and if you show the Mint and Ubuntu guys you're willing to help, they're more likely to be Arch and Debian guys in the future. But for now, depending on what you like (KDE/Mint for Windows expats, and GNOME/Ubuntu for Mac users), those beginner Linux distros are just fine! It's a foot in the door. And if they're happy with it, more power to 'em. (And if they got a Mac? Hey, at least it's not Windows!)

The unfortunate thing is that OEMs don't really have an incentive to ship Linux-powered systems.

Have you ever noticed how vendors who ship computers with Linux often do so at the same or greater cost than Windows? I believe I have heard somewhere that Microsoft subsidizes OEMs for shipping with Windows, which is scummy but Linux can't really compete with this.

LESS CHOICE!

Choice is only exciting for us techheads. Too much of it actively harms adoption.

Plugging in a flash drive and having it just work would be a start. Linux beginners don't care about the plight with exfat support.

Personally, the issue is ease of installation and configuration of programs.

Some things (edit: admittedly, most of the "important basics", such as web browsers, Steam and Office-suite equivalents) are just as simple as they are on Windows and iOS with just clicking a button and using a wizard of sorts, but some things need you to parse a series of terminal prompts and figure out how to rewrite parts of the instructions to fit your particular machine and setup.

Often I end up missing or misunderstanding some step and it doesn't work and I have no idea why.

It's not impenetrable and it's not a problem exclusive to Linux, but it does make setting things up a bit more of a chore.

I got Ubuntu on a laptop now to test out how to use that as my daily OS before I commit to figuring out how to swap over my Windows 10 desktop sometime next year and it admittedly is MUCH EASIER now than when I last tried around 2008, but I still run into problems.

I'm currently trying to schedule a weekend where I can diagnose why my raspberry pi won't boot after a power outage when it's survived that in the past and another weekend to figure out why the self hosted tandoor app I got successfully running a few months ago suddenly stopped and cannot run now, even after what I thought was a clean install.

I wanna switch. I do. But so many steps of it are full on projects. I'm learning a lot and it gets easier every step of the way, but it's still at a state where I need to schedule time to address these things that "just work" on Windows.

Edit: I understand why this is the case. A lot of these things are free, open source projects made by teams who don't necessarily have the time and resources to make their program out-of-the-box ready for every conceivable software and hardware set up out there. And I understand why someone might think that a corporate backing of resources might be able to address that issue, but I agree it isn't really isn't in accordance with the goals of Linux or helpful to the point of moving away from these corporate structures.

Nothing is needed for me, I already replaced Windows. It's been a while actually.

Before big commercial companies can succeed with the mainstream, flatpak permission handling that is as smooth as Android and iOS. Not everything is going to be in the distros base package manager and devs need a way to distribute software that can be expected to work on any of these devices. No confusions over why they're system doesn't know what to do with a deb or rpm file. Flatpak is the closest thing right now to something with universal adoption. After that it's a slow and steady grind for market share. Like how Macs market share 20 years ago isn't very different from where Linux is today

I think a hardware company could succeed better by marketing the devices as creation devices. Focus on Blender, Krita, Ardour, Darktable, Kdenlive, etc. Pretty much the niche Macs were marketed as 25 years ago getting regular people interested with stuff like garageband and imovie

Also, software vendors need to be able to build and target one thing instead of 10 and many other packaging types, built types and test platforms. And people are still arguing, flatpak, appimage, snaps etc. Instead of shit just working well and reliably.

I've ran Linux since 10th grade. Now, at work, I use a MacBook. I can get my Dev shit done, I can get my business work done. I can get work done. I want to get my work done and move on with my life.

The way I run Linux nowadays is by having a second laptop for the love of the game.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. What Linux needs is a straight forward setup. Yes Mint is normally super easy to install but can also randomly just not work due to what is often a very simple issue but one obscure enough that the inexperienced (like me) will take hours or even days of trying different solutions until they find it. I love how light linux is but an extra half a gigabyte in the setup to just innately include solutions to the most common issues would pull in way more people than it would push away.

Adobe.

I've bought several Dell laptops over the last 20 years, the Windows install on them was strangled in it's crib every time, and it was still miles cheaper than these other vendors.

If anyone needs to have Linux preinstalled on their computer and can't click through the 3 steps in a typical Linux install nowadays, they probably should use something like a SpeakNSpell instead of a computer.