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With the amount of fuck-ups from Microsoft, this might not be necessary, but:
The average user doesn’t want to install the operating system or doesn’t care about it as long as they can do their things, and those who care can easily do so today. Thus, IMO, advertising to the end user is a waste of resources.
Focus on permeating it in governments, institutions, and OEMs to increase market share and break the “Linux is complicated / incompatible / for developers” stigma, then organic adoption out of these environments will grow - at least among people who can actually use it with the supported software.
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CLI can be good. The benefit of CLI is that it is fairly easy to build GUI front ends on top of a solid based.
Not to mention CLI makes “quick fixes” easier.
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Unless you use the GUI that is built on the CLI
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That’s what a lot of GUI apps are. They either call the CLI program directly or make calls to a library provided by or for CLI.
Compare that to a GUI focused OS like Windows were the GUI is built into the low level architecture.
The thing is, without a unified GUI it’s impossible to get an answer to “how to X on Linux” that doesn’t involve the CLI (and that’ll work for everyone). Even the ones that do are often distro-dependent.
People can still get things done by searching for “how to X on <distro> using the GUI”.
Really, this seems to be the best way to spread Linux adoption to me. I would bet that Linux got at least a good few users from the Steam Deck coming with it pre-installed. Big way to show people that for most things the average user doesn’t need to go into the command line to use their system for what they need as well. Of course, continued improvement in the software included in the most popular distros would really boost Linux adoption as well. I’ve seen plenty of people say they’d make the switch - if only they could use MS Office or Adobe software on it. Alternatives like LibreOffice, Thunderbird, Kdenlive and the GIMP have come a LONG way since I first made the switch around 2009, but especially the Adobe software still outclasses the competition when it comes to features. MS Office isn’t as hard to let go of, especially since you can still use Office 365 Online on Linux and LibreOffice is closer to having all the OOTB features of MS Office than the other programs are to Adobe, but you have to convince people to give it a try first and a lot of employers still require MS Office for work.
I will also say, though, that it was only due to Windows Vista otherwise bricking my laptop back then that I even made the switch. I’d heard of this mysterious OS named Ubuntu so I thought I’d give it a try to save my laptop before I bought a new one, especially since I was living abroad at the time and didn’t want to deal with the hassle of buying a computer with a foreign language version of Windows on it. So I had a friend burn me a copy of Ubuntu 8.10, it worked like a charm, and I only ever since ran Windows at home when dual-booting for a couple years for gaming purposes before Proton became a thing. I didn’t even know Ubuntu was Linux until I’d installed it and started learning how to use it in earnest. Really showed me how even then Linux wasn’t so difficult to use for the average computer user.
Your partially missing the point. Linux is unlikely to be something someone who doesn’t like computers is going to use. It is something people who are power users and computer lovers will use. Its stolen the market share from the old school windows power users.
There’s a circular reasoning happening that’s causing Windows to stay dominant. Why isn’t professional software being developed for Linux more? Because it doesn’t get used in the workplace. Why doesn’t Linux get used in the workplace? Because it doesn’t have professional software support.
You need to break one of these things to succeed.
Agreed. Both things need to happen when they can.
If you live with the applications available on Linux ( or prefer them as I do ) then you can use Linux in the workplace.
At the same time, some “professional” applications are going to need to start targeting Linux. Some do. More need to.
There is an implied contract above. If you need professional applications and they become available on Linux, you have to use them ( and pay for them ).
Why, though? Like, why should we care?
The more people, the more donations, the more devs, the more user bug reports, the bigger communities, more communities, more brains, more software support, more game support, more likelihood of using linux at work, less microsoft and apple bullshit, …
thanks for the red circles
I’m confused, is the image about Linux? I don’t see it says Linux anywhere in the red circles. /s
Extremely important stuff here
The red circles convinced me to enlarge the picture to read it.
People do this all the time.
People don’t have any reason to recommend Windows because it’s the regular OS everyone already uses.
Linux may be an improvement for a lot of people’s use cases but a vast majority of them don’t even know it exists and its not just for servers and stuff. Mac people probably do this too.
The original image said windows where this would be accurate but I doubt it applies to the average linux user
You don’t tell people that you use Arch in random conversations? /s
Well, I do. In fact I’ve installed Linux on 4 classmate’s laptops, after insisting for some time.
You are a true friend.
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When you tell people to use Linux and they have any issues or something is unclear, they’ll ask you every time. Not sure how many people I could support simultaneously.
Every time one of my friends has issues with windows, I tell them to install a real OS.
I do too. Its just for fun. BTW you should check out _____.
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No! I prefer ______, and you are WRONG for thinking otherwise!
Found the Arch user
Linux isn’t competing with Windows or MacOS.
It doesn’t follow the capitalist model of a market, and that’s a good thing.I think I don’t even want Linux to become too popular. It will attract the wrong kind of attention. First, being more targeted by attackers it may become less safe. Most importantly, I don’t even know how but I know that if Linux becomes a huge market for home users, corporations will look at it and go “uh, big market sitting there let’s monetize it” and there is absolutely no way Linux won’t become shittier in more ways than one when thousands of big corporations out there are trying to get their hands on Linux users and our data in multiple different ways. Again, I don’t know how it will happen but I don’t like having this kind of attention on Linux.
I don’t see how that could happen. You can always choose another distro, or make your own if absolutely necessary. But I understand why you’re concerned.
Idk, where there is potential for data mining and money there is a will and a way.
I am worried about stuff that is widespread like systemd, KDE, GNOME, flatpak, a bunch of stuff which is mantained by companies like redhat and canonical, etc. I also worry stuff like what was attempted with the XZ backdoor becomes more common.
We can always hop to other distros but if the high level polished stuff that we’ve taken a long time to achieve gets compromised these safer distros may end up being a worse experience and set us back years or decades.
I think I am fine with home use Linux growing a little bit, maybe if we get just under 10% or so that can be good in terms of software availability and just more people working on open source projects. Too much popularity idk, I am not onboard with that rn.
Hmm yeah, you do have a point there.
Windows and MacOS are products. Linux is a technology and common human knowleadge.
Do we need to do anything? Microsoft updates do the bulk of the work - surely everyone has a last straw?
This is an extremely sheltered view. Most people don’t even know what an operating system is, and they assume that it is an unalterable component of the computer they purchased at Best Buy. They don’t have a last straw because as far as they’re concerned there isn’t anything they can do about it other than perhaps switching to a Mac.
…and yet Linux is a thing
Linux was very obscure for a long time and now has moved to less popular. Honestly I think many tech savvy people will switch and the rest will be supported by some company making a product based on Linux.
As someone who uses Linux as a daily driver for both work and home, I have this very easy trick on making Linux more popular:
I don’t.
I want it to be better for me. Everything else just happens to benefit others. Do to others as you would want to be treated or something like that.
Another “Steam Deck is the reason” failure to cover the fact that once Steam Deck dies out it’s users also leave. Valve has awful hardware history and Steam Deck itself only runs games because they are the ones paying for Proton. It should not be controlled by a company that is known to make you lose your games.
Valve money pulled Linux gaming a decade forward.
Gamers is what will make Linux go mainstream, mark my words.
Not even a corpo shill, check comment history but valve has been pro consumer while holding the market share. Most other companies are actively working against their customer base for some idiotic reason. Next up subscription toilet.
It should not be controlled by a company that is known to make you lose your games.
Are you referring to the fact that Valve promotes digital game distribution (which is a very fair view), or are you talking about some incident where Valve removed games from people’s libraries? Because if it’s the second one, then I would really like to hear about it.
Yes Valve has removed games, CSGO is gone, Artitic card game is gone, TF1 gone, etc. they are part of the Corporate World.
CS:GO got a controversial update and got renamed. Old versions are still available under CS2, you just can’t use Valve’s servers anymore. Playing old versions on private servers is possible. But OK, I give you half a point for this one - you can’t play matchmaking with old smoke physics anymore (but then again, it’s not like it’s the first CS:GO update to change the gameplay in a fundamental way).
Moving on, Artifact. It’s in my library, ready to be played - Valve definitely didn’t “make me lose Artifact” like you claimed. The community is dead, but there are still 40 people playing right now according to SteamDB and servers are up. One point down for easily verifiable lie.
And finally, Team Fortress 1. I assume you don’t mean the Valve’s game called Team Fortress Classic, because that one is still available for purchase on the Steam Store and oscillates between 40 and 100 active players at any time. So that leaves us with Team Fortress, a mod for Quake. But that one is available from ModDB without any problems, so… What’s the issue supposed to be, exactly? No points, because I have no idea if there’s more to your claim.
Hint: blatantly lying about some points heavily undermines the other points you make. So at least try to be subtle.
No it’s you who is lying, you’re making shit up about alternate game instead of the original. The original is gone, you can’t play the original. It’s like saying portal 2 is the same game as 1, no it’s not.
I guess they mean “how to make buggy messy often usermade Desktop distributions more popular.”
As Linux itself is insanely popular, it’s everywhere and runs everything. From the vast majority of server and network infrastructure to most phones.
System76 (a laptop maker “rebrander”) is making their own desktop. Can’t think why ASUS, Lenovo or Dell could not contribute to some desktop or maintain their version.
Because they’d need to support it or hire an assload of developers to bugfix and contribute to the projects they include in their distro.
And that’s something those companies don’t like doing.
System76 is a hardware vendor specifically created to cater to the Linux sphere.
but they already do for their buggy ass apps like armory crate. I think that they are afraid to commit ressources for an OS that is barely used on desktop.
Might we considered there may be a tiny difference in scope between an OS and an app like Armory Crate.
The Linux desktop is great for people who need a system that works with them. It is a little trickier explaining that to someone.
Linux is the most used kernel on the planet - and it’s not close. Just the Android phones are enough to get a comfortable lead. Add the embedded systems. Add the servers. The competition is severely trounced.
The few desktops left and right are just slivers of the complete domination that Linux exerts over commercial operating systems.
That’s kind of why it is so good. It comes from a solid base that’s well used and tested. Compare that to GUI first.
I’m a die hard Linux user. I don’t spend much time telling people about it outside of actual tech conversations that should include the topic. I did raise my kids with a lot of Linux desktop use on their machines. They uniformly find the Windows 10/11 experience to be horrible, so I guess I’ve managed success on that front.
The crazy moment was when one kid was about 10 years old and he busted open the terminal without promoting to get something done. He already knew it was faster and more powerful so he just started learning the tools.
I danced a little jig in my head once I realized what had just happened.
@azimir
All I will say is your kid is smart and you should be a very proud man :)I suggest as a linux dude myself, keep encouraging him :D and as an extra suggestion if he wants to learn more about Linux see if he wants to try out arch linux because that has taught me a lot over the time I have used it :D
Thank you. I’m very proud of all of my kids (even the Windows user).
I haven’t put anyone on the Arch path yet. So far, apt, video drivers, and Steam have been giving the crew enough trouble.
If nothing else, just keeping Discord patched is getting them lots of experience with sudo and dpkg tools. Why doesn’t Discord have a repo?
@azimir
Good :)Hm what distro do most of them use ?
I’m not sure why it isn’t on their repo I know there is a .deb for it, maybe there is any other Linux launcher for Discord but for me discord just works whenever there is an update because I’m on a rolling release distro
Also steam can be a bit frustrating I brought watch dogs because it was on sale and it won’t run with proton, I believe it works on lutris but I dont wanna install it just to play one game :0
Discord does provide a .deb, but I’ve never found a repo that carries updated versions. I’ve found plenty of hacks that download the latest one and install it every night, but for whatever reason, it’s not kept in the various Debian repos out there.
The kids mostly use Mint with one Ubuntu machine (driver issues that worked on Ubuntu, but not Mint).
I’ve only barely used steam myself (no time for games: see having many kids), but I know the kids often do have to do various tweaks for games at times. I let them have full sudo on their own machines with a scorched earth policy if something goes wrong. Mostly, it seems to work and they don’t bug me much.
@azimir
I know the arch repos do since I’m on it, but if they ever check out a hacked one make sure it is safe just in case!Ive had issues with mint before, I belive I was using an Intel laptop when I faced the issue, are they on Intel ?
Games can be very annoying and yoi gotta then graphics down at least in my case :0 but in the future it will get a lot better :D have you tried the custom proton ?
Also sorry for the late reply, I have been busy ^^
That’s when you know you’ve won!
Or you know Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot
Why does Linux need to be more popular? This isn’t some NRM with a proselytizing mandate. Use whichever OS you prefer and let others do the same.
Linux being more popular means more applications of higher quality. I guess this does not matter to you. For those of us that would prefer more high-quality applications, Linux popularity matters.
Ask India, they hit 15% Linux desktop use
High Fives India, Well Done!!!
Forced financial constraints? Because I am an Indian.
It’s not like pirating Windows is hard or expensive.
Then what do you think is the reason, that I do not know, that results in so much Linux adoption in the country I live in?
I don’t know. Your justification seems a bit weak. It’s not like piracy is not a thing there.
I assume you know better than me about India, a country that does not have much awareness material about in global media?
India is not the most financially constrained country in the world by far. If the explanation was just that, we would see a very direct correlation with the rest of the countries that are similarly constrained.
Now, if instead of making rethoric questions you could maybe offer some arguments you would definitely be more helpful.
Our per capita income is not exactly healthy, and the wealth distribution is highly unequal. Linux is majorly used in South India, and among the techies that are older fhan Gen Z/Alpha, as millenials and older people grew up on computers instead of smartphones.
Quite possibly. North America still has too much disposable income to start making OS decisions based on pricing
It’s 2006 and the year of the Linux Desktop
https://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/articles/Ah_the_change/2006_The_Year_of_the_Linux_Desktop
All jokes aside Linux has grown a lot since the. Just need to keep pumping out good releases, integration and reducing the jank that used to be a thing
Please don’t.
