What problems does Linux have to overcome to get more users
What problems does Linux have to overcome to get more users
Games on Linux are great now this is why I fully moved to Linux. Is the the work place Pc's market improving.
162 comments
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I think part of the problem is that while Linux software is constantly getting more user friendly, the average user is getting less knowledgeable about computers at just as fast of a rate. People even understanding the concept of files and folders doesn't seem to be a given anymore.
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Everything mainstream is a black box corporate ecosystem these days. Kids learn how to use specific programs and mobile apps, but don't learn anything about the OS or machine itself because everything is isolated and "just works".
It's a really weird spot to be in. We're used to the older generations being bad with tech, but now it's also the younger ones too.
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That's more depressing than I can handle
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Part of the problem there is that we don’t teach people how to actually use computers, we teach how to use specific programs instead usually.
A few months back I saw a post somewhere about how “kids these days don’t know how to read an analog clock”. And it’s the exact same thing, you have to teach people how to use them. You don’t just innately know how to use these things we created.
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I grew up in the 2000s and got taught how to read an analog clock in like the first year of school.
I remember me teacher made a clock face on paper with the two arms pinned on. I brought up my parents had a clock with 'lines instead of numbers' and she taught everyone roman numerals on the spot.
What are teachers doing nowadays?
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Yes, exactly. Phones and tablets have resulted in intro to comp sci instructors having to teach young people how a filesystem works.
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What was that famous saying again? Something about developers making things idiot -proof and the universe producing bigger idiots?
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You use an interesting example- personally, I feel like while files and folders have their place, I prefer they be part of the background and not presented to the user. Take photos, for example. If I'm looking for pictures of my dog, I don't want to go into the 2022 folder, then the August folder, then look through all those files, back out into 2022 then go into the September folder, etc. I just want to type 'dog'. Or pick from a dropdown list of common tags, or anything other than digging through files and folders.
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Yeah, I grew up in the 90s where schools and offices had physical filing cabinets full of folders and files. And in the late 90s when learning computers at school those same concepts were reinforced in the computer file system. So files and folders within the context of using a computer is ingrained and seems obvious to me.
But kids these days are born with iPads in their hand, they use Chromebooks in primary school, and all their files are automatically saved to the cloud and immediately available on all their devices. How would they ever learn the concepts of filesystems? It's not taught at school. It's not relevant to anything they do.
It used to make me so frustrated (it's a simple concept!) but now I get it. Maybe it's not as obvious a paradigm as we thought. Maybe there are better ways of organising files (eg, tagging, keywords, filtering) that are more human. Or using namespacing (ns prefixes, curies). Or even using non-local universal identifiers (ipfs locators). It makes me wonder if we might eventually even move away from hierarchical-directory based filesystems at the system level too.
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This is an unfortunate truth. I occasionally teach a short course on basic computer networking with a short segment on Unix/Linux to students ranging from ages 18-25 and only about 1 or 2 out of every class of 20 even knows what an "operating system" is.
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Be preinstalled on laptops/desktops.
everything else is ready unless you use niche software. Most people just use a browser and word or a pdf editor.
note the distro MUST be an immutable up to date kde flatpak using one for normal people, however
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Yeah a lot of people will complain about their OS but never try installing another one.
ChromeOS is best example. It doesn't have half the functionality linux or windows has but nobody is installing another OS on their chromebook.
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Well, it may be actually due to the fact that schools often lock down the Chromebooks so you simply cannot install another operating system on them, and if you do manage to it will be quite a headache and may even include fines (at least for my former high school). I couldn't even install real apps on my Chromebook (all I had was webapps and extensions), even though the feature was already technically out there (it was just locked down my school).
Also yes, as a Linux user, I really hated my Chromebook.
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I disagree on one thing. I think gnome is actually better for laptops and kde is better for desktops. A laptops with gnomes gesture navigation is just so much nicer to use with a trackpad. And with people already being used to phones i think gestures will come naturally to them.
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actually, MUST NOT. The moment I see "this is immutable, all things are flatpack/snap/etc.", I am out, and not because of being a dev myself
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This most difficult one is probably the fact that 99% of people do not install their operating system.
The device they purchase needs to have a clean and elegant out of box experience like the Mac. Regular folk who are willing to stray from windows don't consider any computer that doesn't come off the shelf with sane defaults. Everything else is arcane to them.
We are not those people. I have to remind myself that not everyone likes to build their own systems.
I do have a friend who wants to buy a framework laptop with Fedora on it because that's what they use in the Laboratory he works in but he doesn't want to assemble it himself he just wants it to come like that.
I think we're getting there finally.
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Two things:
- Obviously it needs to come pre-installed. This is a really tough hurdle to overcome and I'm not sure how it can be.
- Security needs a lot of work if Linux is going to lose the small-target advantage.
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People can’t be bothered to run better messaging apps. Expecting them to change OS is crazy
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Default install from box store systems
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Most of the comments here seem to be from the consumer perspective, but if you want broader adoption, you need to consider the corporate market too. Most corporate software these days is web-based, so the problem is less with the software and more with the people responsible for it.
The biggest hurdle is friction with the internal IT team. They like Windows because that's all they ever learnt and they're not interested in maintaining a diverse set of company laptops. They won't entertain Linux in a corporate environment unless it's mandated by management, and even if the bosses approve it, IT will want a way to lock you out of your laptop, force updates, do a remote wipe, etc.
There are (proprietary) tools to do some of this, but they generally suck and often clash with your package manager. Microsoft is just way ahead of Linux in the "bloatware that tours your hands" department.
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This is it. Exactly it. Internal IT management wants a good, centrally managed system to lock down and control corporate devices. Heck, corporations often even contract this task (and help desk) to management companies.
Let's assume the tools and the experts are there to perform these remote management shenanigans, after this it only comes to "money talks". Don't have to replace a 2-4yo laptop with a new one if the old one still performs fine for another 2-4 years. So then you have to weigh the cost of expertise against slower amortization.
My company disabled VPN access for anything but macOS and Win11. Because even though the VPN we use is mandated to be used with a closed source app, and the app has a Linux version, the IT dudes couldn't exit vim when asked to manually edit /etc/environment
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the IT dudes couldn't exit vim when asked to manually edit /etc/environment
Lol, my brother/sister in christ what kind of IT are they hiring these days? i cant, i just cant
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The vast majority of business apps and network admin apps are written for windows so you either can't run them on unix or they would require an additional layer of complexity that can't be justified "just to be on unix".
For dev and IT work I use a mix of windows and RHEL. Business apps in windows and terminal sessions on our linux servers. My db work is almost 100% linux.
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Multi-million dollar advertising budgets from apple and Microsoft. Coordinated campaigns to embed those systems in education institutions and workplaces.
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Consumerism.
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Unfortunately this is the case for a lot of the worlds problems
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*capitalism/colonialism
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No, it's consumerism.
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People who convince themselves they "just aren't good with computers."
In the early 2000s, it was widely thought that everyone who grew up with them would be reasonably competent with them. We now have 20-30 year olds who are still stumped with basic computing concepts like how to reset a forgotten password. I literally ran into this a couple of months ago: Really? You haven't had to do this a dozen times in your life by now? How did you finish college (this person was highly educated)?
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I had a similar problem with a couple of friends a few weeks back. They're a couple with a lot of debt, so they usually do everything they can to save money. Then the main water line started leaking.
I asked a few questions, and it turned out they could solder the pipes themselves and save hundreds on hiring a plumber. But the wife kept insisting that they were both too dumb to figure it out and by me saying it's easy to learn she just took it as me calling them stupid (which was a weird bit of gaslighting).
They didn't even look up a video on how to do it. I looked some up as a sanity check, and yeah it's fairly straightforward. Here's a really good video on it for those curious.
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just took it as me calling them stupid (which was a weird bit of gaslighting).
Glad I'm not the only one who notices this. It's not everyone I meet, but I know quite a few people who double down on their inability to do simple tasks or learn a basic skill... I mostly wonder where it started for these people.
Similar situation, had a buddy recently throw out a pair of $300 headphones because the cable broke.
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Personally for me its compatibility and support. Too many of programs and hardware I use daily aren't compatible or even have a Linux version or have little to no support officially or not.
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For an example I tried to use Mint on my main rig but i was having trouble with my two monitor. I wanted my right monitor to be the main display but i kept wanting to use the left one, issue with how i wanted them to be arranged virtually and a ghost third monitor showing up and it all reverting settings or just breaking when a program open in full screen
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OR when i messed with how drop down menus in settings and though steam was busted or something cuz i couldn't right click on my games in my library
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CAD software.
FreecCAD just released it's first full version and it's a pain to use. Back in 2018 somebody said FOSS CAD software was at least ten years behind the big windows commercial software. I think now it's about fifteen behind.
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I disagree. Majority of average office workers do not use CAD software. It's not a hurdle to widespread adoption.
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Majority of average office workers do not use CAD software.
That really depends on the office, doesn’t it? Project Managers, Detailers and Engineers should be familiar with CAD software.
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Even if for a moment we assume u r right, what about electricians? cnc ? 3D printing? etc.
Not a problem for u doesnt mean it isnt for someone else, and we aint even talkin about compatibility issues between cad software.
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Try bricsCAD closed source but native for linux https://www.bricsys.com/
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I think with any alternative to big tech the problem is most people are really unwilling to change their habits and make short term compromises. A lot of people know on a surface level that big tech is stealing their data etc. But actually changing their habits goes to far.
Another issue is that its more or less a systemic issue.
To many people aren't even awear of what FOSS even is. The state of Foss and is a bit complicated where you do have organizations and activists advocating for it but also gigantic corporations that use Foss technology and exploit the free labor that goes into it.
There definitely needs to be more activism for FOSS technology and alternatives to big tech. And those alternatives should be open to everyone like Linux is. Of course there are always multiple reasons why something isn't used but I do think it is important to look at a bigger perspective than individual consumer/ in this case users
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This question comes up every other week. I reject the premise that "more users" is a commonly held objective.
For most linux / OSS projects the objective is to be the best the project can be. Having an active community is usually part of that but "more users" is a low priority.
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I remember when "the internet" was a bunch of older nerds and kids. My parents, aunts, uncles, etc didn't even know how to go online. It was great! More users made it much worse. Please don't become the mainstream OS.
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Adding my voice to the hardware compatibility issue. While most hardware just works, Linux usually lacks the ability to configure the device. Audio interfaces are a good example of this. They work but you can't set the sample rate or enable any custom features on ANY of them.
I believe government regulators should step in and require hardware manufacturers to provide Linux support equal to Windows or Mac. This could be relaxed for low volume or highly specialised devices, but mainstream consumer stuff should be more universal.
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They work but you can't set the sample rate or enable any custom features on ANY of them.
Not in my experience. I have a RME card that can be configured via alsamixer (which should work for most cards) and a Focusrite Saphire USB interface that someone wrote a little UI for in which you can even freely route audio to/from different channels and mix busses.
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Are either of those accessible from the GUI in a fresh default install? I know exactly where in Windows to find that control panel (granted they make it more convoluted to get to in every successive version), but I don't know how I would do it with just what the OS provides in either Mint or Kubuntu (the two distros I have the most familiarity with).
I have only been rocking Linux as a daily driver for a year or two now though, so it could just be a gap in my knowledge.
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It CAN be configured, but you have to go hunting for the tools to do so.
I've got an old 5.1 surround sound speaker setup attached to my main rig, and in both Cinnamon and KDE (the only two I've tried), you can't use the normal DE's audio control panel to put the thing in 5.1 mode without first installing an old, probably unmaintained tool called ALSAJackRetask. Once you've retasked the jacks, several options for surround appear in the DE's audio control panel. It knows but it can't do.
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In Enterprise: manageability. It's hard to overstate how powerful Windows Group Policy is. Being able to configure every single aspect of the OS and virtually all major applications, Microsoft or otherwise, using a single application that can apply rules dynamically based on user, device, user or device groups, time of day, location, battery level, form factor, etc, etc. Nothing on Linux comes close, especially when simplicity is a factor, and until it does most large organisations won't touch it with a barge pole.
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Came here to say this. My workplace used to offer a Linux workstation option (which I opted in for 9 years), but they had to remove that option to fulfill new security and management, compliance standards. They need to be able to manage exactly which applications are installed on a system, which binaries are allowed to run and when, the exact settings for every application, the exact version of the OS and the specific updates, and precisely when updates are installed. All of this needs to be applied based on the user, their organisational division, their security groups, clearance level, specific model of device, etc.
I know that using a combination of Selinux, Kerberos, and something like Puppet can get you close in the Linux world, but Microsoft group policy has been around for 30 years and is well understood and just works.
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Either:
- A smarter and wiser population able to discern and care enough that they're being cucked by Microsoft, overcoming the inertia to install Linux.
- Linux invents a game/feature that is so goddamn appealing that everyone wants in on the action.
- Preinstallation.
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A multi-billion dollars marketing budget, anti-competitive practices and confidential agreements, blacklisting hardware vendors if they dare proposing an alternative, and of course a legal department the size of a small city to sue all competition out of existence.
Oh wait that's Microsoft/Google/Apple/Meta/Amazon.
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There needs to a single “App Store” where regular people can find free and paid apps that will work on all distros.
Basically, we need Steam for non-gamers.
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what happened to flathub's goal of hosting paid apps?
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At a guess, the Venn diagram of people who would happily regularly pay for apps and people who have heard of flathub is teeny tiny.
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The nomenclature needs a bit of clarity as well for anybody that hasn't gone digging into the ecosystem.
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Linux has only become much more user friendly in about the past 5 years. Installing Linux Mint in my experience was actually easier than Windows. It comes down to education and the misconception that using Linux is somehow more difficult than Windows or iOS. The hard truth is if someone is using Windows or iOS they are probably just too lazy to switch as long as it does what they need they don't care if they're being burdened with bloatware or spied on.
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I'd agree with the: come preinstalled. Most people buy a device and never change the operating system. So it needs to be the preinstalled operating system on the average computer or laptop, wherever people buy those.
(And mind that Linux completely dominates the market on servers. So technically, a lot of people use Linux in a way... Just not on desktop computers.)
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I feel like we've been having the same conversation for 20 years. Meanwhile the linux family of operating systems is now the most widely deployed in the world.
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Tell me windows market share again pls
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27% with Android at 44.5%.
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Being able to do everything a "normie" would do without the need to use a terminal.
And a way for companies to get flatpak as an alternative, i remember a friend of mine who tried to use 'buntu budgie for a while and he needed a software for cartographic stuff.
We got lucky the company of said software (and yes, it needed to be THAT specific software to avoid compat' issues, so no free alternatives were viable even if they were available) used to provide a .deb package, we got forced to change a lot of sys native binaries to make it work and ended up just breaking a lot of other stuff to do so. Flatpaks (fuck snaps) need to be the default option to be available across systems without caring about distros, so anyone can run it on "mandragora linux" if they want to
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I think the big thing that everyone is missing here is that schools and workplaces need to push it into people's lives. For that to happen Linux (or at least one of its distros backed by a hardware distributor) needs to develop killer features for those markets and successfully sell to them in large enough numbers that the average computer user - who does not care what their OS is because they only use it for email and work - will make sure that their at-home setup is compatible with their work machine.
That moment is when market forces will take over and drive real growth in desktop Linux, rather than the tiny little bumps we've seen the past few years thanks to the Steam Deck coming out and MS pissing its users off.
This is how Apple built its marketshare against the Microsoft domination of the 90s. For a long time it was the go-to "school computer", and then those kids grew up and now a huge piece of the tech industry and culture is more or less Apple only. It's unclear if this process can be repeated, since Apple's marketshare was carved out during a time of massive growth in the industry that is unlikely to repeat, but I wouldn't say it's impossible if the right conditions reveal themselves.
I will say that it is highly unlikely that the people here would like the change if it happens - imagine Google slinging fully locked down "linux" machines en masse and everybody else needing to download their kernel fork that's loaded with spyware ("for security reasons") in order to connect to Google Teams for work. Maybe I'm being pessimistic but I just don't see mass adoption of a new OS happening without some kind of fuckery like this that renders the version of Linux that gets mass adopted unrecognizable from the version we're all using now.
The other option is state intervention, as with NeoKylin in China, although the Chinese government seems to be limiting themselves to just government computers with that distro.
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While I think that could be really helpful it is worth pointing out that schools in the US have been shoving Chromebooks into the hands of kids for over a decade and the market share sits at about 4%. Now Google's planning to merge Chrome OS into Android.
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Yeah I was thinking about that, which is why I pointed out that Apple's plan only worked because of the massive growth in personal computing. Google was able to create marketshare for Android during the massive growth in smartphones, but those conditions haven't existed for anyone for a while.
Generally how these things go is that after the growth phase comes consolidation and monopoly - we're far more likely to see Apple and MS merge into one corporation than we are to see a third option emerge as a serious competitor.
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At work us devs and IT folks use both windows and RHEL Linux. I'd say I use windows for business apps and Linux for everything development related except for terminal apps and visual studio. My database work is pretty much 100% linux. Everyone else in the company is likely using windows.
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Workplace is a huge conveyor of technology, and capitalism loves capitalism. Public sector has a much higher Linux adoption rate
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They need to be able to buy accessory products that do more harm than good. It’s can’t be a proper alternative to windows without CCleaner support!
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Maybe you jest, maybe not, but scams and bad actors will be a required milestone for popularity
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Oh, heavens, I can only imagine what crapware OEMs would cook up with full access to the OS…
How would you like 11 gigabytes of junkware in your kernel? That only works on that version? Oh, and your computer won’t work without it.
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I think the gap between what the average Linux user thinks is ease of use and what the average non Linux user thinks is ease of use is probably much larger and many devs seem to understand.
I think it would be beneficial to have a completely idiot proof installer that doesn't ask you about partitions or formatting or basically anything just point it towards a drive and it will set up a default installation.
More GUI based means of doing basic stuff. A casual who wants to access some photos from his laptop does not want to figure out how to manually configure samba shares by editing config files in their terminal based text editor.
I think codecs are a much bigger pain in the ass than is ideal. As I understand that there are legal reasons for this but the first time some casual goes to play a video and gets an error message their first thought may not be "let me search Google and figure out what this error message means" their first thought maybe "Linux sucks and can't play videos".
The permission structure that makes Linux so secure makes it a little annoying for casuals. For example, you actively and intentionally go to the default software store, navigate to the updates tab, update a package you've already installed and clearly want, and do so from the official OS repository... This requires that you enter your password to protect you from what exactly? It's not a big deal it takes one second to type my password, but how would you explain this to a casual in a way that makes sense? Your OS is protecting you from potentially rogue acts of official patches to your default text editor.
I think the folder structures are pretty big challenge for converts. On Windows you can find most of the files associated with any given program in your program files folder. On Mac there's an applications folder. On Linux... it's somewhere, don't worry about it. That's not really a fixable one it just is what it is.
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Probably the best response here. I'd also add the moment the user has to deal with using the CLI that is it for them. I can't imagine the average consumer going into config files or even dealing with "chmod". It is like auto enthusiasts rolling their eyes at people who don't change their own spark plugs or oil.
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For example, you actively and intentionally go to the default software store, navigate to the updates tab, update a package you've already installed and clearly want, and do so from the official OS repository... This requires that you enter your password to protect you from what exactly?
I have never had this happen before across 3 distros, and I really doubt any casual user will have this experience either
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I have a brother who is not into computers. But he has a shitty laptop (with only 3gb of ram) so windows stopped working on it (because Windows update). So I installed a Linux on it, and he is very happy with it.
He even managed to change the desktop by himself. Installing some stuff was not obvious (like making a scanner work), but I did it guiding him by phone and text.
Command line is in fact much easier in this case than any gui. In a gui, you must know it by heart to correctly guide the person. A command line you can fine tune it on your side, send it on discord, and he only has to copy/paste. That is much more powerful.
And the security is not less than downloading an executable on a dubious website.
It is true that specialist tend to overestimate the skill of unknowing people. But when it come to computer, people also forget that normal people always went for the help of specialist for their technical needs. Nothing changed.
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I think it is its image of lack of stability and features; I know there are out there stable distros and almost every well known program has a Linux version, but the image that Linux has had through the years is not that. If Linux overcomes this and gets a better reputation, it would be a great weight lifted for the road ahead of the OS. I hope Proton breaks through the mainstream public and Linux gets more exposed and known out there
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I've been dragging my feet on making the switch. Some of it is i just doing feel like doing another OS install and desktop setup. Some of it is distro paralysis. There's a lot and I dont really know what to choose.
I downloaded Mint Cinnamon a while back and was too lazy to install it. Is this still a good choice for gaming and school work? I already use libreoffice.
I'm comfortable enough with configuring and settings, but by no means a superuser.
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Linux mint is a good start becuase it does a lot of stuff for you but is also not immutable, so it gives you some more options
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Mint is a pretty solid choice for like 95% of people. If you're already using LibreOffice then you're halfway there, and I've been able to run all the games I want through Steam or Lutris (the Flatpak versions are better for compatibility IME). A lot of people use Bottles for games as well, but I've never been able to get it to work properly. I think I started using Linux full-time at about the level you seem to be at, and I didn't run into any major issues.
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There's quite a lot needed from peripheral manufacturers, regarding drivers and utilities. You still can't, for example, just buy any new printer or scanner - you have to check compatibility first.
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As my employer has turned to almost exclusive webcrap over software - I see no hurdles really. Webapps run shitty either way. Fucking Salesforce and Opus bullshit... refresh.. refresh...
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Native Adobe apps ports :(
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Do the same thing for CAD software engineers that was done for gamers and gaming. Quality CAD software would move companies to make the switch. Once people use it at work and school, they'll use it at home. I'm hoping the Chinese government's move to Linux will lead to their investing in FreeCAD.
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- Needs to come pre-installed on computers.
- Pre-installed distro needs to support one-click installation (like .app or .exe).
- Pre-installed distro needs to have be easily searchable (for problems, and e.g. searching "chrome DISTRO_NAME" needs to pop up with a link to the one-click installer).
- Pre-installed distro needs to run perfectly out-of-the-box, no fiddling with drivers, no needing to issue a random shell command for some random issue.
- UI needs to be intuitive. Probably something like KDE. Could maybe do Elementary or GNOME with dash-to-dock or something.
- Updates should be easy. Ideally apps can self-update or the apps will indicate if they need an update and have a button opening up an updater that can update all your apps/the OS.
- Updates for minor programs need to be hidden/rolled into OS updates. Most people aren't gonna want to see that glibc updated.
- Better management of stuff like VPNs (probably not important for the average user, but e.g. NetworkManager's GUI support is kinda shit).
- If using GNOME, need to have app indicator stuff pre-installed (if I'm being honest, the fact it's not built-in is absurd).
- Needs to come with good basic apps. Some of the default apps included with DEs are kinda shit. There is still no truly good mail client IMO (at least that doesn't look dated AF).
Probably more.
EDIT: Something like Lutris should probably be integrated into the OS. Installing non-Steam games is a minor hassle at the moment IMO.
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Pre-installed distro needs to support one-click installation (like .app or .exe).
This defeats a lot of what makes Linux secure. The main reason you don't get malware is because you never run untrusted binaries from the internet and you install everything from trusted sources like your package manager. A non tech savvy person doing this will inevitably hit one of the super rare Linux malware in the wild. Clueless person downloads the wrong installer is the model malware entry case. I also don't see a benefit of just having an app store, you can even show proprietary software by default as long as they can be turned off (I suspect the main reason for one click installation is for downloading proprietary software).
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Personally, basically no one I know uses the app stores on windows or macos much. These app stores are actually functional in that they have proprietary apps and allow purchases. There is basically 0 chance Linux will become popular if you can only install things through an app store (especially those that make it hard/impossible to buy proprietary apps). Additionally, desktop Linux is not particularly secure anyway. Flatpaks are helpful here, but most require manual tuning of their sandbox to actually be secure, which the average user is 100% not gonna do. On top of this, what do you do when an app is not available in your curated app store? Do you download it directly online? Do you trust some random repository you find online that can be filled with who knows what at a later point? Or do you just say "oh well sucks to be you I guess?" If you download it directly online, then it may not even have dependency information. If it doesn't embed dependency information, then it's basically useless to your average person. It also has the problem you mentioned of someone downloading the wrong executable. Likewise, the other two options are IMO just not viable.
IMO, the only way for a package manager/app store solution to work is:
- The platform is built around it from day 1
- The platform has a large number of developers submitting their packages to it (as opposed to the distro maintainers having to track down changes themselves)
- The app store has payment methods
- The app store has proprietary apps
- The app store has a large number of reviewers that can check the apps submitted in a timely manner
- Probably bundling dependencies with the apps.
- The app store has a functional review system with users actually leaving reviews.
- Going along with the reviews, going through the app store (as opposed to using the package manager directly) may need to be a requirement to encourage reviews, at least at first.
Basically, it needs to be an iOS/Android situation, with a similarly large company backing it. I should also note that it's possible to install malware on iOS/Android, just harder, and the scope is usually less severe because of sandboxing.
EDIT: Also, it's entirely possible to do one-click installs in a "safe" way, by requiring that developers get their apps signed by whoever makes the distro (like macos gatekeeper or whatever it's called).
EDIT 2: I should also note that just being "different" is enough for people not to use something. If something basic, like the way to install apps, is different enough, people may just decide they don't like it. My relatives would likely do this, for instance.
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GLIBC
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if you know you know
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I think the big problem is no Ubuntu circa 2010 distro anymore that "just works" ala netbooks of the era. Only Fedora has Ubuntu in 2010-level hardware support for actual modern hardware, but no Broadcom wifi sans internet and you will need to google for and execute like 40 lines of random cli commands that seem to add the same 3 codecs 14 ways apiece to make HEVC work (more for VLC HEVC ironically). Ubuntu does Broadcom wifi out of the box, but has gotten bad and has poor hardware support overall for new hardware. Mint has the best printer support, but as of 22.1 no longer does Broadcom wifi out of the box... SteamOS is actually really great -- and has MARKEDLY better hardware support for dongles and such than Bazzite, no comparison, and Bazzite suffers from Fedora's shit HEVC situation PLUS immutable distro BS where it DOES use system .so's but is in denial -- but isn't a real distro...
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Games are still not perfect. Multiple screens can be really finicky if they have different resolutions and refresh rates.
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A universeal and thought out accessibility system. Best with kernel support.
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Some small but important taken-for-granted things functioning like screen and audio sharing/recording in wayland. Yes, I know sometimes with some apps/distros it works. But it needs to work all the time on all reasonably current hardware everywhere. Wayland is getting there, but we're still a ways off and X11 has its own issues. It feels like we're 80% of the way there for feature parity and stability vs Windows and MacOS, but this last 20% stretch is feeling like an eternity. The bugginess and lack of features stretches to multi-monitor support as well. Plus we've got a bunch of distros threatening off and on to remove 32bit libraries, which would really hamper software support that's already anemic to begin with... There's no one single blockbuster issue. It's just little everyday things that produce just enough friction to keep the unwashed masses away.
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For the vast majority of users Linux is just a worse deal. Only thing that really comes to mind that Linux does that users care about is that it will support that hardware that Windows 11 will leave behind, and even those users will happily just run Windows 10 without updates and if that bites them in the ass then maybe they’ll upgrade or just ask their IT friend to use a bypass to make Windows 11 at least work on their old hardware.
Otherwise, of the things users actually care about, Linux has worse app support to the point that even pro-Linux users would rather dual-boot that lose access to their games and worse hardware support. Linux also has a problem of not being well understood by a lot of tech folk so if you bring somebody onboard you better be ready to be their only point of support.
ChromeOS is probably the best example against this since it is basically just a browser, the laptops it sells on are substantially better value than their budget counterparts and realistically a lot of the people buying them are parents for their kids so the user’s preference is substantially pushed aside in favour of cost. The SteamDeck is another good counter-example since it essentially refuses to compete with the PC gaming market by calling itself a handheld.
Linux is stuck in the crappy position of needing more users to get more software and hardware support but users need better software and hardware support for Linux to make sense compared to Windows. It’s getting better and Valve’s efforts have steadily brought the Linux gaming percentage up but it’s still the enthusiast OS.
By all means encourage it’s usage though. Linux is a far more open and privacy-respecting option and the more tech folk and basic-usage users that adopt it the better!
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I think the hardware compatibility issues may be overstated. It seems (to me) that besides apple silicon, the support for most consumer hardware is pretty robust. this seems especially true of the kinds of hardware casuals use. Im not a tester, but havent seen a dell, hp, or Lenovo with a hardware issue in ages.
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For the vast majority of users Linux is just a worse deal.
The vast majority of users only need an office suite, an internet browser, and maybe the ability to play games. Linux does these just fine, with less bullshit than Windows to boot.
The real problem is inertia. People tend to go with what they're familiar with, and most of them are familiar with Windows. And those that might be willing to try a new OS get turned away from Linux due to outdated stigmas about it being harder to use than Windows. While that stigma may still be true for enthusiast distros like Arch, new users are generally steered away from them
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I'm still seeing YouTube comments about having to use the terminal for everything. I mainly use it for btop
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I guess it would be reducing the need of terminal usage as much as possible. That's still the only thing a common user struggles with, in my opinion. The rest is just difference or has nothing to do with Linux.
With Linux gaming is rising currently, most common problem is kernel anti-cheat games and it's not Linux problem, for example. What are devs supposed to do? To develop literal Windows kernel compatibility layer or something? But Linux may do stuff on their end to make cheating difficult to keep game studio's happy but that would also mean to stray away from its philosophy. As a general platform, it would be hard to do this anyway. This would be possible per distro basis. Maybe Linux dev circles are already discussing this, maybe not, I don't know honestly.
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Deciding on what is the best distro
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offer less choice and have an official version of things.
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Ok, let's hereby declare that Debian + Gnome is the official Linux. Everyone who wants Linux to have more users must run Debian and Gnome. First, how do we convince everyone to not use their favorite distros?
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my point is thatfor us techie users (i use arch btw) having choice is good. But for the average user it's a big negative actually.
The linux ecosystem needs to standardize on more things to also allow linux development to be worthwile for devs.
Choosing one distro is not enough, when it can decide to rip out and replace half of its subsystems at will. The most stable api on linux for games is win32 ffs! I have linux native builds of games that simply don't run on linux anymore.
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I'd like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Debian...
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For non-enterprise users only two things:
- Zero reasonably priced options for support when things go wrong.
- Breaking changes caused by updates that make that support necessary.
If my neighbor's Windows or Apple machine breaks they can call Microsoft or Apple, the PC manufacturer or a bunch of different support providers. Microsoft provides free support if one of their updates causes problems.
I can't find any Linux support aimed at home users, only very expensive enterprise support options.
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Have u ever talked to tech support of microsoft as usual user? With such quality ofsupport it would be better that it would none,in the end all their support coming please reboot computer.
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Most of the people I know are computer illiterate. They know nothing about PC's and don't care to learn because they think of PCs as appliances. They want word processing, email, photos, and web, and don't give a damn what's going on under the hood. Microsoft support is generally pretty bad, but it's far better than none at all.
That lack of any support (except me) is the only reason I haven't moved friends and family to Linux.
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You can call Microsoft? I thought Microsoft called me
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Hello this is da virus techneetiian fwom da Microsoft.
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It's amazing how much damage those scammers cause.
Last year I ran into a retired neighbor at Staples buying a new laptop because her existing machine had been hacked. She came back after leaving it running to find someone was logged in remotely. They drained $8k from her retirement account. Turned out 6 months earlier she got a call from "Microsoft" asking to connect to her machine because they "noticed it had a problem."
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Reliance on terminal
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I’m gradually concluding that every decision in computer UI has been wrong. Peak UI happened in the 1990s; it’s been downhill ever since. People think terminals are scary, but come on—asking ChatGPT “how do I do this?” and getting three lines that have worked unchanged since 1989 is not harder than watching some tech-bro explain which menus to click… menus that get rearranged every six months so they can find new ways to wedge ads into your ribbon.
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I'm reminded of a video I saw of a woman talking about her dating prospects using M&Ms. She poured a bunch on the table as a metaphor for her dating pool, and slid away M&Ms as she ruled the people they represent out. "8 million people in the city. But half are women slides half of the M&Ms away of the remaining 4 million men, 20% are under 25, slides more M&Ms away" until she got to a point where she had one candy left, and then she shattered it with a meat tenderizer and continued sliding pieces of it away.
You can do that for potential adoptees of Linux, because there are a bunch of filters in series you have to pass through before successfully adopting Linux.
8 billion people on the planet.
Subtract the Sentinelese and Amish and North Koreans and everyone else who just outright doesn't have access to computers. Nothing we can really do about them and in some cases it would be unethical to try.
Now subtract out the people who only use a mobile device like a cell phone or tablet, which are locked to their OSes. Android or iOS is as much a part of the hardware as a microwave oven's firmware is to them. Linux on mobile devices (excluding Android) is in a severely rough state, there's basically no hardware and software combo that is ready for daily driving.
Now subtract out the people who do use a PC or other device, that won't ever install an operating system on a computer themselves. You'll get some of these folks by selling computers with Linux installed in stores and such, though I think you'll have to address a few other points later. I think SteamOS is demonstrating this.
Now subtract the people who might install Linux themselves, say PC builders who would have to install an OS anyway, but bounce off the process of choosing a distro and then installing. The big distributors like Canonical and Fedora tend toward marketing wankshit instead of human language. You can't tell their goddamn websites "I just want the normal end-user desktop version with KDE please." Does "Core" mean our main, central product, or the IoT embedded system version? You kind of have to know Fedora calls their Gnome edition "Workstation" and if you want "normal Fedora but with KDE" that's a "Spin." Then you get the Trendy Fork Of The Month, things like Bazzite and Nobara that pretty much are Fedora or Ubuntu with a theme applied, maybe some actual features in the OS, but often just a redone onboarding process, like I think it's Bazzite that offers a configurator on their website that lets you pick your desktop and such. Defuckulating the onboarding process of major distros might allow us to do away with the Trendy Fork Of The Month.
Now subtract the folks who get a Linux machine up and running and then bounce off of the unfamiliar UI. I'm pretty sure this is Gnome's fault more often than not, Gnome is deliberately hostile to both distro maintainers and end users to the point there are now four DEs that are "We can't do this anymore" forks of Gnome: MATE, Cinnamon, Unity and Cosmic. You'd probably see more people stick with Linux if it was less easy to stumble dick first into Gnome.
Now subtract the people who got this far and then said "My CAD/art/music/office/finance/whatever software doesn't run on this." and had to switch back. In a lot of cases, software like that exists in the FOSS ecosystem but it's significantly inferior, like FreeCAD or GIMP. These are often kept in a deliberately shitty state because some opinionated programmer likes how the code they wrote in 2004 looks in their IDE, so open software continues to be unadoptable and people continue to pay subscriptions to the Captain Planet villains in charge of Microsoft, Apple, Google and Adobe.
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Te community lmao
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I think it's more users need to realize that an OS that is easier to use in every way is not a more difficult OS to use.
But also, I'm okay gatekeeping Linux, as bringing the masses over just means enshitification and turning it into Windows again. Fuck that.
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lolwat. can you explain the reasoning in your second paragraph?
Also I'm not sure that your definition of Enshittification is correct.-
You need to dumb shit down for the majoirty. Jist look at the downward spiral of popular software, and how little the masses really care about ownership or ability to tinker and control what they use.
If you want the masses to use Linux, then you'll need a distro that is as useless as Windows. No technical errors, no forward-facing power user features.
Plus, you'll bring the big corps into Linux with a their shit ideas like rootkits, SaaS, etc. Because if the masses are in Linux, they'll be following the money.
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Linux doesn't need more users.
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But more users need Linux.
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Your response is short and quippy in a way that might be read as un-serious or dismissive, but its absolutely correct.
The users come first. The software is a tool and has no inherent "needs".
Your average user likely agrees with the statement " my device sending my data to big tech, and being cluttered with ads isn't nice", but they lack the time, knowledge, and interest to fix it.
Once installed, Linux (on supported hardware) is (to my best understanding and experience) no harder or easier than windows or Mac for most things.
I understand my tech expertise might give be blinders on the accuracy of that statement, but I have witnessed enough similar sentiment to begin believing it.
The challenge is getting over the installation hurdle, and putting users in the same mindset Mac users already instinctively have: "the instructions you find online might not apply to you because you are not in the majority".
Preinstalled by OEM is it. The final and ultimate hurdle to gain a loooot of traction.
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More users means more people growing up using it and wanting to be developers. More users means more companys making software that runs on Linux
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well we'll get downvoted into oblivion but i agree.
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Why would "Linux" want to get more users, whatever "Linux" is.
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It needs to shed the gamers and get more useful users.
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What? It already doesn't have most of the gamers.
Normies can use it easier than gamers. Linux on the right hardware is stable as fuck and Linux has always been good at running a web browser, which is like 99% of what normies do on computers these days.
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Come pre installed. As much as it pains me, LTT guy is probably right to a degree as well. Shit needs to work without tinkering. Personally I don't mind some tinkering - enjoy it even. But the average Joanne does not.
There are already computers that come with Linux right out of the box. It’s needs more than that.
You need to be able to walk into a big box store, get a Linux computer right off the shelf, and take it home. That’s what’s needed here.
Once you get people to userstabdnits a different kind of computer they would take to it fine. iPad and chromebooks sell just fine and they don’t run windows or macOS. I refuse to believe Microsoft and Apple are the only ones who can sell a computer.
They exist yes. Go ask the average person on the street the name more than one of them. At best some might know system 76. But can they buy them at the local best buy, apple store, or micro center? Lots of places don't have a micro center. Micro center at least sells Linux and BSD media. I haven't been in 8 months. But for the last 30 years they haven't sold a pre installed system. Much less best buy or apple store.
Correct, the average person just wants shit to work out of the box. This goes for computers, dishwashers, cars, coffee machines, everything.
by law in brazil every computer sold has to have alternatives to windows, which is usually linux. it DID drive some adoption, but past a certain point people are mostly choosing windows.