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Comment by jahnu | Hacker News Reader

I'm a software engineer and have many software engineering friends and acquaintances and still even in this group of people who are almost all at least comfortable with Linux hardly any use it for anything except work or learning.

It's roughly a 50/50 split for the rest between Windows and macOS.

So how can it be remotely plausible that Linux will become a mainstream desktop/laptop OS?

Non IT workers also seem to favour a combo of phones and tablets too only using laptops for work not caring what it runs.

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I agree, but I've found it's more people doing what everyone else is doing, vs any real downside. I was screen sharing with someone recently who said 'thats cool, but I thought you used linux..'. They just thought linux was a terminal black screen I guess. Anyhow I showed them how I get around, work, some cool features, and they were sold enough to dual boot it.

I guess Desktop Linux's biggest hurdle is that most people have no idea it even exists, and there's zero advertising.

> So how can it be remotely plausible that Linux will become a mainstream desktop/laptop OS?

Because of time and inevitable changes happening to everything over time.

Remember when Windows was nothing and everyone was using something else? Remember when macOS was nothing and everyone was using something else? Same thing can happen with Linux, or some other operating system. Sure, might take 10, 50, 100 years, but eventually, Windows and macOS (and probably Linux) will be relics of the past.

I think platforms have gotten to a complexity where starting from a clean state isn't as easy anymore. Just look at fuschia, I know it's been in "early" development since at least 2013 and there's not much to show for it.

Things get A LOT more complicated when you add localisation, accessibility, UI and all the other things we take for granted.

It's still a long way off - have a look at the recent Linus Tech Tips challenge where he and Luke had to daily drive Linux for a month.

They're technical people, and yes, LTT is hammed up a bit (I call it the Top Gear of Tech), but the number of issues they ran into that you just don't on Windows (in most cases) was illuminating.

I have no troubles running a Linux home server, but I don't have time to fiddle around so my gaming desktop is Windows, and for work it's MacOS.

1) Luke didn't have any real problems and continues to use Linux now after the challenge because he likes it more. 2) Linus is the guy in a horror movie who suggests the group split up. He doesn't represent the average tech user, he represents the average tech user wannabe.

In my experience, Linux, Windows, and MacOS all have their own separate warts. When switching between desktops, you will be supremely frustrated dealing with issues you Just Didn't Have™ on your old OS. Stick with it for long enough before switching back, and you'll be just as frustrated with the annoyances you'd gotten used to working around and forgotten about in your old system.

I have switched to Linux completely for my own stuff but I honestly would be reluctant to recommend this to non-tech users. There are a lot of problems when you run Linux on a laptop like battery life , suspend/wake problems and others. A lot of consumer software isn't available on Linux either. With Apple you get pretty nice integration between phone and desktop/laptop. Sort of possible on Linux but requires tech skills and hard work.

Simple. You need wider pre-install base. That's the only barrier.

Desktop Linux is great for Grandma who only needs a web browser and it's great for greybeards who remember what config file to edit, but anyone in between is going to be doing a LOT of pasting incantations they don't understand into terminal windows.

Ironically modern Linux is trying to alienate the grey beards with uneditable config files, breaking decades of convention, etc.

Only those that never used UNIX commercial clones, which have deviated from System V long time ago.

What?

Systemd, netplan, and many other things.

I am not sure what UNIX clones have to do with this

The latest version of Ubuntu you can not even set the IP with standard etc config, you have to use netplan YAML configuration

systemd has replaced all kinds of things with non "grey beard" configurations,

the list is pretty extensive

Solaris and AIX had systemd like features eons ago.

OS X configuration files (plists) can be XML based or binary, many are binary and managed via plist CLI or app.

As someone who doesn't own a Windows machine and only uses Macs for work, this feels like an outdated perspective. It's been many years since using desktop Linux has required magical terminal incantations (for me at least). If it says Nvidia, don't touch it. Otherwise, everything seems to just work, and things at least don't get broken arbitrarily by companies whose goals don't match mine. Even all the games I've tried have run solidly with Steam's Proton support.

Maybe I've become numb to them, but I just don't see these painful interactions that get referenced, and don't see why their bogeyman would be worth giving up your freedom to use your machine.

I'm a retired software developer. I have my computer and my non-techie wife's computer running Linux Mint. For me, doing some hobby coding, yes, I paste some incantations, but for her, I don't have to do anything. A clean install just works fine as is.

> but anyone in between is going to be doing a LOT of pasting incantations they don't understand into terminal windows.

This thinking is really obsolete and couching everything as grandma or graybeards is really ageist, anyway. Last I looked, you have to do this on Mac more often than I'd like. On Windows, it's open up CMD as administrator and paste this command or download and install this little app and run it (that does God knows what as administrator).

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