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Comment by ironmagma | Hacker News Reader

The Linux world generally seems devoid of product-thinking people, and that is probably the main reason it hasn't taken over the desktop space IMO. Plenty of focus on technical matters, but not much thought given to whole user stories or holistic coordination happening.

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I think the problem is just that almost all prebuilt machines come with Windows and nobody ever gets exposed to alternatives. And most people just dont care.

A lot of people are fine with Windows.

When you ask people to change something that they are fine with and used to,

* they think you’re making them do more work by relearning everything

* they’re quick to notice faults, and they’ll jump ship just as quickly as well

If the machine had linux with windows skin on, most people wouldnt notice since everything is done through web browser nowadays

Then Desktop Linux is a useless concept anyways, KDE and GNOME devs can all go home because Chromebooks are already everything 'most people' need or want, right?

Perhaps attitudes like this towards potential users are another reason Linux Desktop still doesn't have much buy in.

What attitude am i conveying? I really dont know, english is not my first language.

I just dont think that most people just care what the thing is running as long as it does the job. Computers are an appliance to many, just like a toaster. If the functionality is close to what theyre used to (windows or mac) then there shouldnt be big adaptility problems until they want to go deeper into the device than web browsing.

no, people care about having to change things. the average person on HN is not representative of the general population.

The keyword in your statement is "close" but normal people who use the computer as an appliance have extremely low tolerance for "close."

Youre right. But then again i dont believe many would care if they can get their basic things done.

I also understand there are people who just are not willing to learn new things.

I hope i dont sound like im trying to push linux to people. I want people to have choice of many instead of choice of two when they go buy a new PC. And maybe some would be curious enough to try something new.

You must have never tried this with a friend. I recommend it, you will be enlightened.

I tried it with my fiancee, although not with windows skin. Just default plasma. She opened internet browser and used it just fine.

Of course she cant move to linux due to adobe software, not that i need her to do anything like that. Anyone can use what they want, my point was that most people dont even know theres other choices than windows and mac.

Also ive been using windows all of my life, recently switched to kubuntu because i got tired of the updates. Didnt take me long to learn to use the pc.

> Of course she cant move to linux due to adobe software

In other words, she noticed.

Yup! The moment you start installing proprietary software you start noticing it. I had the same experience. I thought it was obvious so i didnt mention it.

But most people, from what ive seen, only use the internet browser and maybe some built in apps. Keep it there and the lines between OS' start to blur.

Edit: to add, this is usually why i tell anyone interested to use linux is to try the tools available first, then if you get used to them, make the switch. Luckily i had already used same tools on windows (gimp, krita, blender) that also work on linux.

I find this claim is overstated almost all the time. People are sensitive to the small details even if they can’t explain why. Something as simple as the downloads being moved to a different place is enough to throw my parents off. And that isn’t even to get started about form filling, browser extensions, or browser window management. The chrome matters more than software people think.

I agree with you there.

I've never encountered an issue on Windows related to two library versions conflicting. That's something that happens all the time on Linux. As a Windows user, you don't even have to know what libraries are. As a user of Linux you need to be aware of a ton of different shared libraries and research various compatibility workarounds to keep using them with the growing pile of software you've installed. This isn't something the typical desktop user is up for.

Cant say i have encountered this yet. But flatpak aims to solve this problem.

The thing is, who exactly in the "Linux world" should be doing this thinking? Unlike Microsoft or Apple it's not a single organisation with a single leadership, but a whole bunch of small projects and individuals with different goals, preferences, styles, etc. Quite a lot of people doing open source stuff aren't really in the business of "building a product" in the first place.

That said, at least both KDE and Gnome have offered fairly comprehensive and complete desktop environment about on-par with a standard Windows or macOS installation for many years now. There's also things like XFCE, LDE, Cinnamon, and probably others – but I don't really keep up.

There are plenty of issues with "Linux on the desktop", but I don't think this is one of them.

Even the well-thought-out desktop environments, however, have massive glaring holes in them, e.g. the wifi utility on Ubuntu and Mint is totally broken, almost all the time, occasionally even lending itself to stroboscopic behavior, and I've never found a distro where the wifi utility actually did everything it was supposed to.

Yes, it's distributed ownership, and while that explains why the problem exists, I don't feel it's an excuse. There is definitely room for someone to come in with good product sense plus technical excellence and work to make a really great desktop OS on Linux, it just hasn't happened yet.

That last sentence is a multiple 6 figure salary's worth of job description.

The reason why the "year of the Linux desktop" has never happened is because nobody wants to work for free. As soon as you say the word "product" the word "salary" has to follow.

Most of the programming that happens in the Linux world would be compensated along those lines as well. The trick is that developers tend to be deeply aware of the value of contributing to open source and, well, product managers less so.

Disagreed; even if you get that person with a 6-figure salary they'll get bogged down in political and/or technical bikeshedding and won't be able to make any progress.

For the "year of the Linux desktop" to happen you'll need dozens/hundreds of these 6-figure employees at every level of the stack (from kernel to desktop environment to apps) to be able to build a coherent system from scratch and being able to ignore/work around all the BS and wastes of time that currently plagues the Linux distro world.

I do believe you'll be successful to an extent, though whether the result can still be called a "Linux desktop" as opposed to something more like Android (Linux kernel but non-standard GUI stack) will be up for debate.

Sounds like someone who does not use Linux.

Installing Linux is the easiest experience among operating systems on supported hardware.

Updating Linux software is the easiest as well.

Using a desktop environment like Gnome is straightforward too.

Nice attempt there. However, I've been a user of Linux since circa 2004. (I think it'd be hard to exist here on HN long without doing so.) No, using Linux is not straightforward. Nearly every user-facing element has something broken about it.

You sound like someone who hasn't used Linux in a capacity with any permanence, your remarks are off base with reality.

And you sound like someone who has used Linux far too much and lost touch with what most people's experience with it is. Your remarks are similarly off base with reality.

You got me, sport

You mean like the Metro UI, the frakenstein on DMT that's impossible to understand?

Yes, like that. Note that two wrongs don’t make a right.

Clearly you’ve never tried to update nvidia graphics card drivers, add a webcam, a printer, or run a 32-bit application on linux.

Compared to Windows/Mac these simple tasks are hellish — and for nontechnical users, nearly impossible.

I have done all those things. On Linux, Nvidia drivers are a royal pain, webcam and printer both worked without any effort other than hooking it up, and running a 32-bit application was not too difficult with instructions. On Windows, I've never messed with video drivers, but have had problems with the same webcam and printer requiring me to locate and install drivers, which were bundled with software I didn't want. 32-bit applications on Windows were of course a breeze.

So anecdotally, it's a mixed bag. Maybe if I had less Linux experience and more Windows, the story would be different.

I've had long experience with Linux, FreeBSD, and in the last 9 years with Windows too. On the whole I think you're right, it's always been a "mixed bag" when it comes to the gamut of installing, use, and upgrading an OS.

Don't know the vintage of Windows you referenced, but in recent experience (Win 10/11) installing a webcam was dead simple, just plug it into a USB port. Printers used to be a gigantic hassle, but at least for the 4 printers available to my Windows laptop little configuration and no added drivers were necessary. (No doubt certain webcams or printers out there could be a pain to install in Windows.)

One example: getting OBS Studio to work on Windows was pretty much a no brainer vs. Ubuntu which needed to have additional library support. While OBS works under Ubuntu using it is still a bit more of a hassle.

In any case Windows seems to have more bugs now than a few years back. I figure added "features" contribute to complexity. Who knows how many more LOC have been committed. I'd be a lot happier with simpler but more reliable systems. It's not the tradeoff Microsoft, and probably various Linux distributions, will be likely to accept.

OBS is packaged in Ubuntu, so I don't know what you are talking about.

https://packages.ubuntu.com/impish/obs-studio

You can install the package and the package manager will install all the dependencies. Nothing for you to do.

I am tired of all these fake tales of Linux hardship.

Yes, of course, 'apt install obs-studio' works.

However, on 20.04LTS apt installs OBS v25.0x, not the current version (27.2.x).

What I was talking about was installing v27.2.x on Ubuntu. FWIW the OBS site gives up-to-date installation info, so it's not really difficult for people familiar with unix/linux just some extra hassle. Also using OBS in Ubuntu requires entering a password each time, rather an annoyance. (Sure, ways to work around this exist but another minor hassle to deal with.)

No doubt all this would be a daunting task for users without experience with command-line admin.

nvidia drivers are not a pain. Most distributions package them.

And before you install the official driver, you at least get the noveau driver (community supported nvidia driver) by default, which is capable enough to do many, many things.

> Installing Linux is the easiest experience among operating systems on supported hardware.

> Updating Linux software is the easiest as well.

The ease of this stuff varies widely from one distro to another.

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