Two main points:
- no one unified distro to keep things simple (thread OP)
VS
- people don’t care. Someone else needs to advocate, sell, migrate, and support (medium term) Linux (whichever distro they want) for the intermediate term (few months at least) - thread response).
I think a lot of the 97% desktop market share is like this, instead of the hands on 2-3%.
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If any of you are in a position like, teacher, professor, IT… make sure you explicitly support Linux usage. Try hard not to require software that doesn’t run on Linux. I think this would help a lot.
A pretty important point is that Linux doesn’t come installed on many devices. For most people, they buy a computer with Windows or Mac already installed and they’re satisfied with their experience. They don’t feel the need to find a distro, mount a USB stick, navigate through the BIOS, run an installer that wipes their hard drive, and relearn another operating system when Windows and Mac does everything that they want. When Linux comes pre installed on devices such as the Steam Deck or Chromebooks, Linux usage soars, though these devices have to use Linux because they need a heavily customized OS for their specific purpose. Laptops and desktops intended for casual use that come pre installed with Linux are far less common, so for the overwhelming majority of users, Windows or Mac is what they get and what they end up using. I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft switches from charging for Windows to paying manufacturers to put Windows on their computers to get users into the Microsoft eco system if Linux became an actual competitor one day
According to StatCounter, Android accounts for 39.2% of OS marketshare. Android is Linux. However, that is not what people think of when they advocate for “Linux.”
But, that’s what happens when you want Linux to get a majority of marketshare. You don’t get your free software friendly GNU desktop, you get a weird proprietary locked down thing.
So why do so many people seem to think Linux needs to become bigger on Desktop?
Personally I am not looking forward to the consequences: capitalism will make sure there will be something on Linux to make money off. They will try to conquer it, introduce walled gardens, stores you will have to pay for, by watching ads.
Android was Open Source once until Google decided to mainstream it.
This. People don’t understand that linux doesn’t want to replace your OS. The motivation needs to be intrinsic and therefore there will never be a widespread of linux users because 90% of all people “don’t care” about their OS. They want to turn on their computer and use any browser to surf the net or check their emails.
I used to argue about this from the position of “wider adoption means more support and a richer ecosystem”, until I eventually realised that it would include more predators.
I’ll need to make the time to contribute to it myself instead. If I want free software, I should provide free contributions too.
Ah yes, late stage capitalism. Communism was the answer all along. /S
Edit: I love how evryone ignored /S for sarcasm. Just to clarify, yes I know communism is ideal on paper but doesn’t work in real life and yes, capitalism while having its flaws is the only alternate we have.
I don’t have the answer to the best form of government, but communism doesn’t work. That has already been proven?
And capitalism is actually pretty good, until it turns everything into ads and destroys the planet :-/ I wish there was something better.
because of course, pointing out that capitalism will cause a specific problem can only be a disguised attempt to resuscitate Joseph Stalin.
Guess communism jokes are old now. Sad times.
actually I think the /s completely reversed the joke making it feel like you were mocking the other dude for potentially considering something else than capitalism
You don’t need a unified version, you need easily accessible linux hardware (desktop, laptop, phone, etc.). People do not give a swimming fuck about which OS they’re using. Whatever’s on their hardware will become their main OS.
https://puri.sm https://slimbook.es https://system76.com/ https://tuxedocomputers.com , they are all doing a good job of leading the charge and trying to occupy most segments, but what they lack is still QA, ease of use, and most importantly marketing and support from the linux community. They need to dump huge amounts of money into marketing (which they probably don’t have) and the linux community should altogether stop buying bullshit pseudo-supported linux laptops from Dell, Lenovo, and HP.
There are linux shops out there. Stop giving your money to other companies and wishing on linux dominance. It’s nonsensical.
People do not give a swimming fuck about which OS they’re using
Yep. I was an outlier and used to care. Now as long as it does what I want I really can’t give a shit. Due to the fact that it doesn’t come standard on many machines it’s an extra annoyance to set up. And you’d better do your homework to make sure what you bought is supported.
I have a whole life and a bunch of hobbies that are more interesting to me than religiously following which hardware might work, constantly tweaking flags, and running things in wine. It’s a fine hobby for those that love it but I don’t anymore. And most people never do.
Yep, if it looks slick, works, and comes standard, people will use it. Just like cars for me: I just want to use it, not understand how it works in order to use it.
You don’t need to learn Linux to use it.
Just download any mainstream distro and it will be fine!
Just download any mainstream distro and it will be fine!
That is already a step too far. If it doesn’t come pre-installed, the majority will not use nor know how to install it. I bet a bunch of people don’t even know what an OS is. If you replaced windows with some riced KDE desktop on the majority of user’s computers, most would think it’s an update and would go on with their lives.
Exactly my feelings. I understand, at a basic level, how both cars and computers work. I fix motorcycles as a hobby. I work in system reliability as a profession. I don’t have the inclination to tinker on cars or computers in my spare time. I want to turn it on, press the pedal, and vroom vroom off into the night.
I can see a future where it is not permitted to install only one OS. Either you have a micro os that lets you download a full one or you have to decide the OS before getting the pc. The idea of hardware default coming with a proprietary os is just crap imo.
I think it’ll be a long time before that’s true for the layperson. I also think that it’ll be an even longer time before that’s true for the hobbiest. But I do agree it’s coming and that it’s crap. I think it’ll be like game consoles (or like Mac is now) where you pick your flavor, buy your system, and it’ll take a team of dedicated crackers to get us access to our own stuff.
I’m not sure I understand you correctly. Pushing a certain OS (or browser, or anything for profit) is absolutely unacceptable. We want a pc, not a “windows pc” by default. The OS market is pretty much a monopoly up to this point and presumably for the last 5-10 years, MS has only made this much profit because it was forced on consumers.
@elouboub @GravelPieceOfSword has to work
Definitely. If it doesn’t or if a CLI has to be opened for a single thing, the majority will not use it.
I don’t think “one unified distro”, or even an “official distro”, is possible without taking critical parts of Linux private and closed-source. As long as the freedom exists people will make their own “versions” of (GNU/)Linux.
I think certified distro would go long way. Say this is what it takes to a certified workstation so that people can do basic things using the same tools and guides.
You’re basically describing the Linux Standard Base, which was abandoned back in 2015 and the way it was handled was somewhat controversial.
But there is a lot of informal standardization between Linuxes, nonetheless.
There isn’t one simple reason for it. There’s a fairly large set of complicated interrelated reasons some of which require going back over 40 years of history to explain. If things had gone differently we’d have had a different result. For instance, just off the top of my head here, if free software had arrived earlier the network effect where everyone wanted one particular operating system because it’s what everyone else was using and therefore all the software was written for it might not have happened. People would’ve been free to build and distribute things for whichever OS they preferred. If Bill Gates hadn’t been such a sharp business dealer, maybe his company wouldn’t have amassed the vast wealth and influence required to dominate things so thoroughly back in the 1980s. If American antitrust law hadn’t been defanged maybe it would’ve stopped him, because many of Microsoft’s business practices that allowed them to get the monopoly we’re still recovering from were quite despicable. If DRM (digital restrictions management) hadn’t caused problems for Linux such as preventing it playing DVDs for the first few years they were popular, maybe it would’ve got further by now. If education systems around the world did a better job encouraging more people to be curious about how the things they rely on actually work, maybe the switch to free software would be going faster.
Anyway, it’s one thing that is slowly going in the right direction for the most part.
