It works for me and has done so for almost 10 years.
Sure it won’t work for everyone but to say it isn’t viable isn’t true either. It depends on the person.
It’s not viable for the mainstream. “It depends on the person” suggests it’s luck of the draw, but the Linux desktop penetration is something like 1-4%, at best, and that’s inlcuding SteamOS and PiOS in the mix.
That’s not, “depends on the person”, that’s “doesn’t work for the vast majority of people”. There is a reason for that.
I agree with some of your points but in this one and other comments you are referencing “data” multiple times to provide validity for your opinions, yet you either fail to understand what the data is able to measure or you are using it dishonestly to further your argument.
A usage percentage does not provide reliable data about the usability (“viability for the mainstream”). There are too many factors at play distorting it to make a reliable connection between these two.
“It depends on the person” suggests it’s luck of the draw, but the Linux desktop penetration is something like 1-4%, at best, and that’s inlcuding SteamOS and PiOS in the mix […] that’s “doesn’t work for the vast majority of people”
The only way in which the percentage would be useful is, if you are implying that the other 96-99% chose to not use linux, because it doesn’t work for them, which is obviously not the case. Otherwise it is completely meaningless, as users were never exposed to linux, thus didn‘t have to make a decision, and thus didn’t deem another operating system superior.
There are a few objections along these lines in this thread, where the implication is that Linux is underused because it lacks awareness. Maybe it’s a generational thing? Linux has been around for a long time now, people are aware of it. There are multiple popular device lines out there that use it, several companies even put some marketing behind it.
I don’t know if you were there when Ubuntu first hit, but it was pretty widely reported. And that was twenty years ago. And of course Valve and Raspberry and Android and ChromeOs all were reported to carry flavours of Linux to the masses.
I mean, I’m sure a bigger, more coordinated marketing campaign would help, but it’s not a secret tucked away on nerdy cycles. I remember being in a college classroom in what? 2006? And when a professor didn’t know what Linux was the entire classroom laughed at them for reacting in disbelief at the notion that Linux was free (“so if something breaks who provides support?” I remember them asking, it was hilarious).
Look, it’s been a long time since you can just pull installation media of Linux from the Internet and just give it a try. Awareness is a factor, but it’s not THE reason Linux isn’t more widespread.
Yeah I’m not going to lie that’s kind of a weird take.
By that logic captain crunch cereal isn’t ready for mainstream because it doesn’t have enough market share.
We may not be reading the word “mainstream” the same way here, because when you have a small oligopoly with one player at 75%, one at 15% and one at 4%… well, yeah, one of those is mainstream and one of those is not. That’s kind of how being mainstream works. Hell, that’s borderline monopolistic.
That’s not the same as a commodity where dozens or hundreds of options are available and compete on relatively equal footing. The comparison isn’t Captain Crunch versus Corn Flakes, it’s Coca-Cola versus Green Cola. I can find Green Cola in my supermarket… but it sure as hell isn’t the mainstream choice.
That’s different to “being ready for the mainstream”, though. Linux is not mainstream because it has big blockers that prevent it. The lack of readiness is a cause of the lack of mainstream appeal, not the other way around. For the same reason that Green Cola’s stevia-forward absolutely wild aftertaste is a cause of its lack of mainstream appeal.
I do realize not everybody will get this comparison, but if you know you know.
It is not a problem of whether it works for most people or not. It is a cultural problem. People hate change. That’s largely why people hate windows 11 even.
And it even leads people to spend an hour arguing with strangers about how completely unacceptable Linux is for most people when there’s actually a lot of arguments against that and very few in favor of it.
Rage on. No one believes you’re unbiased lol
That is not true though. The vast majority of people are people that don’t do much on their systems at all. Maybe look at Facebook or a few sites, write the occasional document or email and maybe play a few simple games. The type of people that have never heard of Linux or even know what an OS is let alone able to switch to another one. Those types of people will be perfectly happy on Linux if it came pre installed.
The people switching ATM and having issues are the highly technical people that have far more complex requirements and for those it does depend on the person and what they need to do.
The low percentage of users is not a sign of of it not being ready, just the sheer marketing and effort Microsoft has put into making windows the default option.
Again, same as the response above: that use case is covered in phones and tablets. Nobody who is just browsing the web is changing their entire OS. Especially if their main device is currently running Android or iPadOS/iOS. I am sure my parents could use Linux the same way they use their current device, but their current device is an Android tablet they know how to use and works just like their phone. I’m not switching them over for nerd bragging rights.
I mean, sure, they mostly would use a Linux device as a ChromeOS device (ChromeOS also at residual usage levels, incidentally), but it’s disingenuous to pretend articles like the one linked here are targeting those users, and it’s definitely not the focus for Linux desktop usage and development, either.
There are more people who only browse and use cross platform apps that don’t realise they could switch easily, than there are people for whom a switch would be problematic.
Windows has more supported software, but many people use a small range of common software. Gamers are just one niche. Just like you think Linux users are an echo chamber here, you are not considering the echo chamber of gamers you’re in that dont represent most windows users.
And those people have phones and iPads.
My concern isn’t gaming. If you do read what I wrote above, I actually say explicitly that gaming improvement is one of the more solid improvements on Linux recently.
The real problem isn’t PC gamers, who are typically tech savvy (although the issues with anticheat and display hardware compatibility are relevant for a big chunk of many millions of casual gamers). The problem is with people who use their PCs for work using unsupported software in Windows or Mac. Those people have no time for troubleshooting. One key piece of software doesn’t work or isn’t available? That’s a dealbreaker. One area of the setup has a problem that needs tinkering for troubleshooting? That’s a dealbreaker. I am using my computer to make money, I don’t have time for posturing. Either all the stuff I need works or it doesn’t.
Gaming is a problem, but it actually has a lot of people working to support it because at least one major company is betting on that to make money. Software and hardware compatibility doesn’t have the same corporate backing and it makes Linux impractical.
