I’m curious to hear thoughts on this. I agree for the most part, I just wish people would see the benefit of choice and be brave enough to try it out.
“When someone comes to me asking how to get into Linux, they do not need to hear a laundry list of distributions to choose from. When they ask, I don’t want to have to say, something akin to, “You could try Ubuntu, Linux Mint, elementary OS, Zorin OS, or Ubuntu Budgie.””
Ok, so what if I need a car? People will give me a laundry list of car brands to choose from, so I don’t really see that as a valid point. What if I want to buy a pair of shoes? Is there another laundry list? Yes there is.
Just pick something popular, and try it out. If you don’t like it, you’ll have a better idea of the features you want or don’t want in the future.
Well, it’s all about expectations and alternatives. People don’t expect to be overloaded with choices before the OS even boots.
Linux is the only OS on any platform where they have (to make) this choice.
Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone, all of these Systems don’t give you a choice between wildly different versions.
Also, the issue extends to after the installation as well. If someone asks me about a Windows issue of medium intensity, I can tell them on the phone how to fix it without having a PC nearby.
Say they ask me how to do something as simple as to install a program from the repository.
Depending on the Linux they are using, they will (or will not) have any one of a few dozen package manager GUIs, which will work wildly different. Even if they don’t use the GUI, they might be using apt, yum, pacman, snap or any other of a few dozen CLI package managers.
And depending on their distro, the package in question can have one of a few dozen different names, or might not be in the repo at all, so that I need to add a ppa or some other form of external repository.
That is a massive issue in everyday use. The only viable thing is for the local family/friend group admin to decide which distro to use and then everyone needs to use that distro or get educated themselves.
For example, I got a lot of experience (~10 years) on Debian-based OSes. Put me on Arch and I have no clue.
The same is not true for e.g. Windows, where I have used every single version extensively (except of Win11).
What’s crazy to me is that Linux was out way in front of this. Put me in front of windows back in the aughts and say ‘go install a program’ and you had to google it, hope you clicked the right download link, install it, hope you didn’t get a virus. Ubuntu you just opened up synaptic and bam, there was a wealth of programs you could just install with a single click. It was mind-blowing, and way easier than what everyone else offered.
It’s the typical opensource problem. The advantage of FOSS is that anyone who wants to can create a fork. The problem is that everyone does.
There are dozens of rivaling systems that do the exact same thing a slightly different way with a completely different user experience.
That description sounds a lot like fixing a car or trying to operate it.
How do I turn on the windshield wipers? Oh that depends on the brand. You need to find that thing that’s usually on the right, but in some cars it’s on the left. Then you need to press, pull, turn or twist it clockwise or counterclockwise depending on stuff…
How do I replace the left headlight? Could be easy, could be a nightmare. Depends on so many things.
That’s kinda true, but because of that reason you need to take more than 40h of lessions (at least over here) and two tests before you are allowed to operate a car.
When you then buy a car, the salesman takes about an hour to show you everything you need to know about your car, and the car gets delivered with a pretty well-written 500+ page manual that tells you everything you need to know about operating and maintaining it.
The same is not true for operating systems in general and Linux distros specifically. There you get no course at all, nobody that shows you anything and all your resources are Google and toxic online communities where you get called names for asking questions. Makes it much harder for beginners to get into it.
The author is an idiot.
When someone comes to me asking how to get into Linux, they do not need to hear a laundry list of distributions to choose from.
Only techies ask anyone how they “get into Linux”. Say it with me now. “People don’t buy, buy into, get into, install, or use operating systems” They buy fuckin computers. It is perceptibly to virtually all non-techies a feature of the device.
There are a million types of cars but people manage to pick one and buy it same with breakfast cereals or shampoo because they are obligated to make a decision or go hungry, dirty, or walk everywhere.
People don’t particularly like making decisions and they decided what OS they were going to use when they bought the computer and they have no intention of downloading an iso, write it to a USB, figure out how they boot from it, figure out the bios options they need to disable and what works differently than what they are familiar with.
You lost them around step 2 and lost all hope of moving forward unless the prize at the end is something much better than “does everything I used to do but differently”
The success of Chromebooks, android phones, and the steam deck is that it was driven by devices people wanted to use not an OS people wanted to use. If you want to see more Linux use that is the story you need to focus on.
If Lenovo or HP or whatever started selling their notebooks for way cheaper without the windows license on the machine linux would probably get a lot more usage. But they would probably have to put big warnings on that to avoid a big return wave, which would hamper the whole deal.
Homoginizing Linux would be destroying so much of what makes Linux special. And besides, as many have pointed out, that’s not the source of the problem anyway in that most people don’t care what OS is installed or even comprehend what an OS is.
I also don’t think Linux needs mass adoption. It’d be great if it did, but it being a tool for those who care about what tools they use is fine too.
That’s cool, but I’m not making software for desktop linux until there’s one standard GUI api
Just us electron like everyone else /s
