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Comment by drcube | Hacker News Reader

One of these companies needs to put their weight into getting OEMs to pre-install Linux.

Imagine if you had to install the OS onto a Playstation or Xbox before you could play a game? No wonder nobody makes money on Linux.

Notice that nobody has a problem with Linux on their phone, because it comes pre-installed. If Valve can strong arm a few OEMs to preinstall Linux on desktops and laptops (against strong MS opposition), they stand to make a lot of money and simultaneously establish the fabled "year of the Linux desktop".

That there are very few preinstalled Linux options is the reason it hasn't taken off commercially. It's the reason Linux drivers are a huge problem. It is why "grandma" can't use Linux. And it's why John Carmack can't make money.

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> One of these companies needs to put their weight into getting OEMs to pre-install Linux.

One option would be for Valve to buy an OEM. Many of them are not doing very well and things are only going to get worse with Microsoft Surface.

This would give Valve hardware talent for designing the Steam Box as well. The Steam Box could easily be just a set-top PC running Ubuntu. Game makers will no doubt see the appeal of that, and start porting games to run on the Steam Box, and therefore Linux.

I like this idea. Only they ought to market it as console and not as linux box.

> One of these companies needs to put their weight into getting OEMs to pre-install Linux.

Several OEM's do just that, but nobody is buying.

> Notice that nobody has a problem with Linux on their phone, because it comes pre-installed.

No, nobody has a problem with these because Android has a good UI on top of Linux. Desktop Linux never came close to achieving that goal, hence its repeated failure to break into the mainstream.

>Several OEM's do just that, but nobody is buying.

Who? Dell has one 11" Ubuntu laptop on their website, and you have to try really hard to find it. System 76 has no marketing budget whatsoever. Anybody else? Have you ever seen a Linux machine in stores? Ever?

And the Android UI is okay for a phone, but I greatly prefer Awesome on my laptop. Mint, in my experience, has been really great for newbies. I just don't buy the UI argument. Windows baffles all the newbies I know. The "UI" problems with Linux have to do with driver support, and lack of a few big name pieces of software, that's about it.

Well, that and way too much choice. There's no "Linux UI", unless you're talking about bash or something. There's Gnome, KDE, etc. But one or a few OEMs settling on a standard desktop environment would go a long way towards standardizing the user experience, while still allowing us nerds to geek out on different window managers.

> That there are very few preinstalled Linux options is the reason it hasn't taken off commercially.

There's a lot of truth in there, but also some complex reasons why that hasn't yet come about. A fairly large part of the problem is that Linux has attracted a lot of miserly people. They want free (as in beer) stuff, and are running on older hardware. The idea of paying for software is anathema to them because they're hoping someone will give it to them for free instead, and they're willing to hold out for that. There are others who pick Linux for technical reasons, or for free (as in speech) issues, but there are enough of the cheap bastards to skew the market, unfortunately.

If you could magically move the market so that OEMs offered Linux, and companies provided Linux versions of their software, then I think a lot of what you say would be spot on. But getting there from where things are currently, now that's tricky.

You're right that the current Linux market is quite different from the market as a whole. But a great killer app like Steam could bring a lot of "normals" over from other platforms and change that.

It's basically a chicken and egg problem that needs some established company to make a big bet on Linux to initiate change. That's why I think it could pay off big time. If Valve could draw even a tiny fraction of Windows gamers over to Linux it could kickstart a huge migration away from Microsoft over the next several years, with Valve at the center.

> It's basically a chicken and egg problem that needs some established company to make a big bet on Linux to initiate change.

Yes, this. That company may or may not have to take a monetary hit to do so, but I can see it happening at some point.

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