Why don't more people use desktop Linux? I have a theory you might not like | Hacker News Reader

Why don't more people use desktop Linux? I have a theory you might not like

zdnet.com

6 pointsdevonnull10 comments

"You could try Ubuntu, Linux Mint, elementary OS, Zorin OS, or Ubuntu Budgie."

Long story short, desktop Linux is still focused at hobbyists. Messing around with different Linux distros and doing complete re-installs is what these Linux fans do for fun. They don't want to avoid the details of all the moving parts and pieces, they want to wallow in them.

To most people in the "real world", the computer is a tool, not their best friend. They just want to get some work done. Fiddling with different distros and resolving update conflicts is counter-productive to them.

There remains a huge gulf between these two world views that has yet to be successfully bridged.

> Why don't more people use desktop Linux?

It's because popular PC manufacturers don't bundle Linux (for the masses, so not counting developer machines). Your average Joe isn't going to care, or bother about installing an operating system on their device - they'll look at the brand, the looks of the device, and the price. They may not even know, what an "operating system" is in the first place.

The Steam Deck's popularity shows this, most people who bought the Deck bought it because it's a good handheld gaming device, and they don't care that it's running Linux (at least, prior to making the purchase decision).

Furthermore, the Steam Deck shows that Linux is accepted by the masses when it's marketed as a purpose-built device. Take Chromebooks for instance, which is basically a nerfed Linux - people still buy them in spite of all it's limitations.

Now imagine a big OEM marketing and championing a full-fledged distro, which is just as user friendly and secure as ChromeOS but allows you to do much more - with the right marketing, budget and polish, it could take off.

I really like what System76 is doing with their Pop_OS!, but unfortunately they're still just a niche brand, and without the right marketing and partnership, they will continue to remain a niche player. But imagine if they spent $$$ on marketing (including viral campaigns on new social media) and partnered up with the likes of Best Buy and Amazon etc to sell their PCs, they could really take off.

Even OpenSUSE, my favorite which isn't even mentioned in the article, is far from there. Even if you just install the defaults, let a few months pass and boot into it again, there's 3 million updates with tons of conflicts, not always resolvable. Every. Single. Time.

3 years ago I tried out a bunch of the pre-installed(!) KDE themes, and one left me with black text on a black background. It took me so much googling and swearing to find out what file I had to change or delete (don't recall which it was) to get back to something usable.

A distro that is made to be resilient and simple, that has wizards for everything, sensible defaults and sturdy guardrails, to the point Linux pros would turn up their nose, is certainly technically possible. I think it's a matter of hundreds of groups doing their own thing and being unable to come together to make it, because they can never agree how to implement $thing, nevermind hundreds of $things. Everybody knows better and in the end all go home empty-handed, left to roll their eyes at lusers using Windows or Apple. At least from the outside, that how it seems to me.

Prove me wrong, please. I beg of you.

One reason I like NixOS/guix is that they lay the groundwork for "Linux ecosystem"-wide integration testing. They (build-)architecturally tackle the problems of the highly asynchronous nature of Linux software development, which should eventually increase software (integration) quality.

In theory one could eventually build other distros on top of these. I think there's a lot to look forward to ;)

> A distro that is made to be resilient and simple, that has wizards for everything, sensible defaults and sturdy guardrails, to the point Linux pros would turn up their nose, is certainly technically possible

There are already distros like that - pretty much most immutable distros are aiming to be that way. Eg, SteamOS, or Fedora's Silverblue.

Thanks for that! Never heard of the phrase immutable distro before, excited to check a bunch of them out.

https://itsfoss.com/immutable-linux-distros/

We all build our own personal 'distro'. Yes, we may start from one of the 'big boys', but within hours or days, we start to build our own personal edifice.

We add in favorite apps, we add in favorite text-editors, or even GUI on-screen calculators that were not part of our 'base system installation'. After a little while, what I am using really bears no resemblance at all to the virginal LinuxMint distro that I started off with.

A 'representative version of Linux'? Hah! No such animal exists anywhere in the world.

You sit down at a restaurant and open the menu. There are 100 entrées and they all seem fairly appealing, but you're not really even sure what they are made of. So you ask the waitress for a recommendation, and she rattles off 12 gourmet specials, and exactly the quality, origin, and preparation of all ingredients, and the special touch the chef puts on each one. When she is done, you're baffled; you stand up and take your date to McDonald's for a Big Mac and fries.

My brother, who is literally an average Joe, got a system from Dell with Ubuntu installed and supported, and hasn't bitched about it in years.

Best of my memory. Why? Because he doesn't even talk about it. And isn't that the goal?

The problem in the writer's eyes? The "lack of a representative version of Linux"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com