Turns out, as ChromeOS and Android has proven, and now the Deck the best way to increase linux usage is to not immediately drop someone into the hot mess that are mainstream DEs for linux.
it's not designed to be installed on generic hardware
It's not an appliance, it's a full operating system. It's one of the best Linux based operating systems for consumers because the design of it actually cares about security and privacy compared to most other Linux based distros. For example on Arch you can download some random package from the AUR or just run something from a third party it can immediately start listening to your mic, steal your private keys / cookies / personal files, and add an alias for sudo to steal your root password.
>it's not designed to be installed on generic hardware
What do you mean by this? Android is built on Linux, so it can run on any hardware Linux has been ported to. It has an HAL to make it for different vendors to expose their drivers in the same way to higher levels of the system.
No, consumers (read: most common users) quite literally don't know and don't care about security or privacy.
Assuming you weren't doing neckbeard things and were just using an Android phone like a reasonable human being, when was the last time you had to dive into the terminal in Android? Probably never, not the least because there isn't even a terminal readily accessible anyway.
Android is one of the best Linux distros for the common user because Android actually cares about usability and practicality. Android succeeded where the rest of the Linux world failed (and continues to fail) because, just like Windows and MacOS and iOS, it put the common users' needs front and center.
Steam Deck is succeeding down the path Android took because, just like Android, it puts usability and practicality front and center. "Stop using Windows programs and use these Linux alternatives", you say? No, the common user wants Windows programs and Steam Deck is striving to answer that demand.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Linux world continues to argue about X and Wayland and Flatpak and Snap and apt and dnf and Debian and Red Hat and systemd and PulseAudio and GNOME and KDE and vi and emacs and GNU and copyleft and libre and the Holy Divinity of the All-Mighty Terminal, and the world at large cannot and will not care less about any of it.
Which is why it's so important that the operating system is built to be secure without requiring the user to secure it themselves. If the user's bank login is stored on the device it's important that other applications on it can't steal it. Consumers don't care about security, but the operating system can still protect them (and the bank).
>when was the last time you had to dive into the terminal in Android?
Today. I ssh into production and released a new update today from my phone. If you mean a shell on the phone itself, then yesterday. I used am to send some test broadcasts to an app I'm working on.
>Android is one of the best Linux distros for the common user because Android actually cares about usability and practicality.
I agree. I didn't mean to imply that the security and privacy benefits of Android were the only benefits that consumers get from it. And I wasn't explaining why it is popular. When I said best I said so with comparisons other operating systems like steamos which are user friendly and work well from the user's perspective.
>Meanwhile, the rest of the Linux world continues to argue...
I agree.
A Linux distro is simply a Linux kernel + someone else's mess on top. ChromeOS fits this.
Only these APIs are allowed for NDK users,