Why don't more people use Linux? - DHH
Why don't more people use Linux? - DHH
A couple of weeks ago, I saw a tweet asking: "If Linux is so good, why aren't more people using it?" And it's a fair question! It intuitively rings true until you give it a moment's consideration. Linux is even free, so what's stopping mass adoption, if it's actually better? My response: “If exercis...
And Linux isn't minimal effort. It's an operating system that demands more of you than does the commercial offerings from Microsoft and Apple. Thus, it serves as a dojo for understanding computers better. With a sensei who keeps demanding you figure problems out on your own in order to learn and level up.
...
That's why I'd love to see more developers take another look at Linux. Such that they may develop better proficiency in the basic katas of the internet. Such that they aren't scared to connect a computer to the internet without the cover of a cloud.
Related: Omakub
Lol IT person here, so many developers barely know how to turn there machine on
As a developer, I have met developers that don't understand file systems. They could write code and not find it. Like wtf?
I know more than a handful of developers who religiously refuse to learn version control systems, and barely know how to operate a computer in general. It’s more of a mindset issue
That brings a whole new meaning to impostor syndrome.
Not directed at you specifically, but it’s the same with IT and dev people but with security/privacy.
If it came preinstalled it would overtake Windows
I just installed Manjaro over my windows 10 drive and the effort so far has been way easier than I thought.
KDE Plasma reminds me a lot of WIn 10, and nearly everything I did on my windows system works under Linux without hassle. The only issue I had were certain technical things like overlooking my GPU and setting up my LED lights.
Those are the usual problems in Linux, they can be summed up by "Third party companies don't support Linux", and they are especially annoying because with time you learn that there's no reason that thing shouldn't work, other than because the company either purposefully figures out if you're running Linux and crashes the program (e g. DRM, anti-cheat, etc) or because they created their own closed proprietary protocol and refuse to share the public API for it so it needs to be reverse engineered.
Yeah I didn't find Linux install any harder than installing windows from scratch.
Edit: the only thing was multiple choices for home filesystem, which made me do some research on why I would want ext3 or 4 of xfs, or btrfs.
This is the answer! Most people will not ever install a new operating system.
What about ChromeOS?
It is Linux, but the machines are low apec and depend on cloud based google stuff for storage etc. Not quite the same as Desktop or powerful laptop
There's plenty of videos on YouTube of people trying Linux for the first time, and it can be painful to watch how poorly they try to fix something or unintentionally break their system.
That's not to say windows is any better, because they'd do the same thing there.
But people will only switch permanently if windows really falls off hard, which may or may not happen.
You have to think of it like how people first learned to use a mouse and double click back in the 90s. It's not immediately intuitive for everyone, they often have to start over.
That being said, having a big OEM ship linux would do wonders, but Microsoft fights hard to make sure that almost never happens.
I don't know if Microsoft still using restrictions in their license agreement,that only one system can be installed for OEM when deliverying devices to shops.
iirc due to some anti trust lawsuits, they cannot do that anymore.
But it's still easy to coerce OEMs to run Windows because they offer stuff like quick support and standardized IT support.
If an OEM ships Linux, they don't want to have to make an entire department to help troubleshoot the OS for users who will inevitably call for help. Ignoring them would only result in returns and loss of sales.
I think some thinkpads actually do ship with some distro like redhat or opensuse as an option, but that's because thinkpads are very popular in the business space which means lots of CS people use them, so it helps save some cost from a windows license that won't get used.
Like I said though, if windows really dives into the deep end, I think a potential market would open and some OEM will take a chance on it.
totally honest, I had MUCH more trouble with windows AND Mac.
First off, Linux is so easy to install, while Macos and windows have all that unnecessary stuff, like iCloud and one drive (don't even get me started on one drive, its awful, nobody wants to use it, and where do you disable it? and why did it enable itself again?) Then theres the thing where you can't install anything on Mac without having to change about 500 permissions. And the main reason why I switched, customization. Windows has none of that, you can change the color and that's it. even the cursors often get reset when you restart. Macos is even worse in this regard though.
I think the main reason, why people don't switch is because our generation of teenagers is lazy, or they've always been, I don't know.
I know from friends, that they just don't care about privacy or functionality and think I'm a conspiracy theorist. And generally they make fun of everything I say regarding this topic and don't take it serious AT ALL.
A lot of people (regardless of age) have a very fuzzy idea (if at all) of what a file or a directory is. They wouldn't know a operating system if it sat on their face.
The only way to get them to use Linux is to switch the system on their computers. And they'll probably manage just fine(after a bit of initial grumpiness), since most interfaces are pretty much the same anyway.
But they're never going to change on their own.
When using Windows, I occasionally encounter this weird phenomena that I never experience using any other type of OS, whereby it generates a problem that's so stupid on such a fundamental level that there's no way to really work around it.
Like when I recently tried out Windows 11, I made a manual restore point in case it fucked itself up doing a big update. Which it did, and then when I tried to restore it I found out that it only keeps one restore point, and that after it broke itself doing the update it overwrote my manual restore point with its own automatic restore point, ensuring that the fuckup it just did was the only thing to restore to. I tried restoring it anyway to see what would happen, and it said it couldn't do it but didn't explain why.
Like when an allegedly modern OS so utterly misses the point of both system restore and basic error messages, I don't know what to do with it really.
Windows is not difficult to install, it's just tedious and full of anti privacy options most people don't care about
Also don't think 90% of people will ever install an operating system in the first place anyway
Teenagers are not lazy and are definitely installing it have you seen the hyprland discord
I have never bought the idea that free/libre SW in general is just not as easy, including GNU+Linux. I'll leave out open source initially, and come back to it later, not because it doesn't experience the same, but because corporate wide it doesn't suffer the same fate. And linux itself is one of the most widely used kernel if not the most, it happens similarly to openssl, and so many other open source components. So I see no issue with linux adoption, I can't think of any kernel more adopted than linux...
To me what has really affected free/libre SW is the monopolistic abuse of the corporations, plus their ambitions, and how in Today's world, they have created the illusion that being a technologist is the same as being a technology consumer, which gets into the hearts of governments and education systems (more hurting, public education systems). Let me try some practical examples:
- Educations systems translate the need to educate students about technology into making them familiar with MS different SW, like the windows OS, MS outlook, MS office, MS project, MS visio. Even on the higher levels of education, colleges and universities prefer to use matlab over octave for example, even for just matrix operations scripting. Office covers spread sheets BTW, so people specialized on accounting know excel, but no other spread sheet.
- On public education systems, where one would be inclined to think it might get more interest on developing the expertise to not depend on proprietary SW only, it's where corporate reach deeper offering "cheap" educational licences.
- From the prior two keep in mind that educational licenses from proprietary SW usually means future professional and people depending on proprietary SW in general. They are meant not to educate, but rather generate the future dependent population.
- Governments, whether local or nation wide, instead of adhering to open standards, for any kind of form submission, and even further to adhere to use of free and open source SW, to build the technical and competency expertise required to have a criteria about different technologies, about SW, infrastructure, DBs, and so, they prefer to require citizens to use non free or open source SW to create required forms, and prefer to pay for SW solutions which totally lock in the entire solution, usually coming from big corps, or other companies actually making use of SW and technologies coming from big corps.
- In their effort to discredit free/libre SW, the idea that the fundamental principles behind free/libre SW hurt the SW industry, or that are irrelevant to Today's world or even worse than that, there were claims that the GPLed kernel was a great threat and GPLed SW a cancer. Now that open source usage has totally overcome free/libre SW, there are no such claims, but the damage is done. There's nothing wrong with people wanting some compensation from corps, when developing SW, and thus not using free/libre licenses like GPL-3+ or AGPL, but in the end that eventually might hurt the users rights protected by such licenses, which such corps don't really care that much (their profit has higher priority for sure), and experience shows that just because SW is licensed open source doesn't guarantee any compensation for the development whatsoever, so if volunteering SW, doing so as open source is not even close to get every developer a decent income out of their contributions. Well, except for the big corps backed SW, linux included, but that's not the majority of open source SW.
- The discredit of free/libre SW, which allowed the eventual creation of open source, is such that the banning of individuals ends up being an attack to the organizations behind it and even their principles and motivation.
- Moving away from the free/libre SW observations, even now with open source, from the big corps, which barely compensate the open source developers, complain about the open source supply chain, campaigning against not well maintained SW and such, there's the famous image of a complex and heavy structure depending on a weak and deficient leg. Whatever truth around that figure, it of course hides the overall picture of the developer of such leg not ever being compensated (not to mention paid) for his library or SW component, and perhaps that's one of the reasons the project got even abandoned, but now it's easy to blame such situation when talking about FOSS in general.
Paid SW might be more intuitive to use at times, I can understand that. There are paid developers making the UIs more intuitive and attractive, in the end it needs to be bought or massively consumed to get earning through its use. But if you look deeper, perhaps it's not just that free/libre or open alternatives are non intuitive at all, perhaps people gets used to that UI when attending basic or high school, or college/university. Perhaps even when exposed to mobile devices even when they can barely walk. Everything else, different in nature, will look alien to the future "technologists"...
On a sad (lacking hope) note, I don't think there's any indicator of things changing. My only hope is changes in educational systems, which are nowhere happening, and not the parents, as mentioned they are already convinced that using google, ms, apple, oracle or whatever prepare their kids for the future and will make them the technologists of the future.
On a funny note, I would answer the motivating question with: Linux is so good that it's actually most probably the most used kernel world wide, :)
Ok but why my graphics driver act up?
If talking about non proprietary kernels' drivers, such as linux, then again, profit is what regulates it. No wonder why now nvidia finally cares about linux, being the most used kernels behind the cloud, behind servers of whatever. Meaning, it's not profitable not to support linux now a days for Nvidia.
The other fundamental factor is lock-in, which is abused by some big corps, such as MS.
But the profit idea es even wrong, but it's what we have been educated with. For an OEM, providing FOSS drivers or FOSS FW doesn't mean to have less profit, but somehow it's interpreted as such. And there's also our culture, backed by corps again, that tends to make us believe that everything profitable enough has to be corporate secret, and if not, others would take advantage of you business. That way of thinking really prevents for more FOSS adoption at the OEMs level. I don't agree with it. It might be the presence or lack of some HW features might be inferred by the drivers/FW, but it doesn't mean your competitors will know how exactly you provide such feature, and even less how to make it with the performance you do. And usually once released, you really want to show off your features, your innovation and so on, not keep it secret. So in general, really see no issue for OEMs not to offer drivers and FW as FOSS, even as free/libre SW.
I can imagine OEMs offering FOSS drivers and FW, but that not being as convenient for the major players in the market, since that would risk their position in the market. Just a thought...
Remember the lock-in mechanisms by the corps that feel being threatened if open sourcing dirvers... Some of which no longer say it out loud, but still think GPLed licences are a cancer...
On Windows or Linux?
There's some really high quality GNU software, like LibreOffice. Though, recently, when searching for a git client, I found it funny that some of the most frequently recommended git clients for Linux are proprietary, (GitKraken, Sublime) and that I couldn't find a GNU version that works as well as it's Windows counterpart.
I'm also not convinced the GNU license held up fully to it's promises, Android is also open source but took 50% of the mobile market. (And companies like Amazon [outside of Google] have used it for their own devices, like the Kindle)
Hey just so you know in many people's minds SW doesn't stand for software.
Sorry about that. I was not aware of other meanings. I'll try to remember to use the complete "software" word instead of its acronym I was used to since the 90s... Hopefully under the context what I wrote doesn't get misinterpreted. Thanks !
- Doesn't have millions to market like the alternatives.
- More technical requirement (historically anyways)
- Much less likely to be the default on hardware (which is what most ppl stick to)
Because people are not willing to do more than the bare minimum for most things.
I just wish we could have less ways to do things in Linux.
I get that's one of the main benefits of the eco system, but it adds too much of a burden on developers and users. A developer can release something for Windows easily, same for Mac, but for Linux is it a flatpak, a deb, snap etc?
Also given how many shells and pluggable infrastructure there is it's not like troubleshooting on windows or mac, where you can Google something and others will have exact same problem. On Linux some may have same problem but most of the time it's a slight variation and there are less users in the pool to begin with.
So a lot of stuff is stacked against you, I would love for it to become more mainstream but to do so I feel it needs to be a bit more like android where we just have a singular way to build/install packages, try and get more people onto a common shell/infrastructure so there are more people in same setup to help each other. Even if it's not technically the best possible setup, if its consistent and easy to build for its going to speed up adoption.
I don't think it's realistically possible but it would greatly help adoption from consumers and developers imo.
Yeah that part's a confusing mess. I moved to Linux on my gaming PC a year ago and have been pleasantly surprised multiple times but not with installers!
I love SteamOS for gaming and I think going forward that may get more and more adoption, but a lot of day to day apps or dev tools I use either don't have Linux releases (and can't be run via wine/Proton). I would love to jump over on host rather than dabbling with it via vms/steamdeck but it's just not productive enough.
One especially painful thing is when certain libs I'm developing with need different versions of glibc or gtk to the ones installed by default on OS, and then I die inside.
Yeah it'd be nice if there was a really standardized Linux distro that gave developers a baseline to aim for, and then those of us who use the nerdier distros could just figure out our own stuff from there. I think Ubuntu was on track for that for a while, but they tend to go off on these tangents (Unity, Mir, Snaps etc.) which sometimes work against them, and now distros like Pop!OS and Mint are starting to fill that space a bit more.
Basically it's this lol
i think flatpak has done a lot to make this easier, but at the same time... i'll admit i'm not a fan of it (mostly due to random issues).
the way i see it, more distros need something like arch linux' AUR. if an application is reasonably easy to build, it really does not take much to get it into the AUR, from where there's also a path towards inclusion in the official repos.
i don't know too much about other distros, but arch really makes it amazingly easy to package software and publish everything needed for others to use it. i feel like linux needs more of this, not less - there's a great writeup that puts why linux maintainers are important way better than i ever could:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230525163337/https://kmkeen.com/maintainers-matter/
Package management in central is a bit of an issue. I think nix has the right approach where it's incredibly difficult to create a package that won't work on x system. I think appimage flatpak and snap all work in a similar way
Pip is a right pain in the arse though, if I had a nickel for every time a pip install has failed for some specific package with an esoteric error message...
It's because they'd have to install it to use it. I put my boomers on Fedora with GNOME over a year ago and there hasn't been a single Linux-related issue since. Most people use their computers as Facebook and YouTube machines and Linux doesn't make that any harder than Windows/MacOS. It's not like it's 2010 where you'd need to install some desktop app that doesn't have a Linux version and you'd have to fuck around with WINE, which was a massive pain in the ass and often buggy even if it did work. Now in 2024, those apps are in the browser (barring more niche use-cases) and we have access to Firefox and Chrome like everyone else. If Linux shipped on most pre-builts, then I think the average person would be fine.
Thank you! I'm a staunch believer that most of you don't think about how much prior knowledge you need just to be able to use Linux, let alone not break things.
When we started, none of us had any prior knowledge and quite frankly, if it broke all the time none of us would have stuck with it. It's the same for people when they started with Windows or Mac OS
At the same time I think most people don't think about how much prior knowledge you need to just be able to use Windows or Mac. And for someone without ANY prior knowledge all of them are the same.
Story time, my MiL is a zero when it gets to computer literacy, to the point that every week I had to solve something for her. Eventually I gave her a laptop with Linux in it to make it easier for me to do support, and to my surprise she had lots of problems the first months when setting things up and until learning the ropes, but afterwards there were almost no problems.
The thing is that people have a lot of Windows knowledge, so when they try Linux they expect it to be Windows and get frustrated when it's not.
After some encouragement, I've been making an effort to switch much of my computing over to Fedora (at least, on weekends until it's got everything I need on it).
My (Framework) laptop fully supports the OS, and even booting it up on an external SSD has been easy, and it works fast and smooth.
But, it's absolutely not as easy to settle into compared to windows.
With Windows, the only "tweaks" that a user might make is installing a different browser, but everything else will work as it should.
Power Windows users will spend more time removing bloat and ads, I won't deny that!
But on Fedora, I had to scour the internet to find out how to get a minimize and maximize button on a window (had to install another utility, then an extension...). Then I had to do the same to move things down to a dock.
Annoying, but it wasn't a huge deal. These small add-on, tweaks, and personalization options all require that you know where to look and how to actually apply these fixes. Thank god I didn't have to fuss around with device drivers.
Then, as I happily watched the Para Olympics while multitasking, my screen just went black. No warning, no way to recover it. Hitting my laptop's power button throws up a series of errors and !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "FAILED TO EXECUTE SHUTDOWN BINARY".
If this is the equivalent to a BSOD on Windows, then it would be my first BSOD in many, many years.
Now I need to figure out how to get some Windows-only software to run, if that's even possible, which adds another layer of time and aggravation.
If I were a novice computer user, I wouldn't even bother with any of this and just stick to Windows. Hell, I wouldn't even know where to begin with any of it!
But I'll see how long I can ride this out, and perhaps I'll be a full-time Linux user some day.
That's less about Fedora and Linux than it is about Gnome.
Coming from Windows to Gnome is a shitshow, honestly I think it's the main reason there isn't more Linux users. If that's your first introduction to Linux, no wonder people yell screaming for the exits. It's not an easy transition.
Using DEs like Plasma or Cinnamon is a way more welcoming way to change over. Maybe eventually you'll want try Gnome and it's opinionated workflow, but I think its a terrible way to start out an already jarring transition.
Nobara is a good distro to use Fedora and have KDE by default, with the option to change later. And it has a pile of video tweaks and fixes for gaming and editing out of the box or via the welcome screen tasks.
Well, I think my experiment might have come to an early end.
Yesterday, when I booted up fedora, I lost my wifi (like, it didn't even give me the option to use wifi). Re-booted and it worked again.
Then I decided to get a copy of Fedora with KDE Plasma loaded up. Seemed fine, started setting it up.
Let's try some Windows software through Wine (Bottles, I believe, is what the actual software was called). Program 1, installed, but won't run. Program 2, installed, but wont' run...
Then, out of nowhere: Blank screen.
After waiting several minutes, I hit the power button: FAILED FAILED FAILED messages "Failed to start plymouth-reboot.services" being the last. FFS...
I just don't understand how I can break Linux so quickly without really doing anything. My experience over the last 20 years of trying Linux has always ended the same. Are there no stable distros available? Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Elementary, Damn Small... none of them last more than a few days/weeks before they crash and burn.
And when Linux crashes and burns, I really don't know how to fix it.
It's extremely hard to go from Windows 11, which has been absolutely rock solid. Literally no problems, no crashes, no BSOD, no compatibility issues, etc. to Linux, even though I value Linux more.
I would rather not use Windows, but I feel like I'm forced to at this point.
Windows only software
I'm sure by now you know about the troves of compatibility layers that exist in order to make this possible; depending on the software.
Get a minimize and maximize button
This is more of a DE issue than Linux issue, I'm assuming you went with the default Gnome but you might like KDE or Cinnamon for a more windows like experience. I personally loved both of those DEs until I made the mistake of getting comfortable with a window manager
I’m sure by now you know about the troves of compatibility layers that exist in order to make this possible; depending on the software.
Yes, I'll need to do a bunch of experimentation to see if I can get it working. But it's a messy solution to something that isn't even a thing on Windows.
This is more of a DE issue than Linux issue, I’m assuming you went with the default Gnome but you might like KDE or Cinnamon for a more windows like experience. I personally loved both of those DEs until I made the mistake of getting comfortable with a window manager
Fair point, I'm using what Fedora came with, but I can go with something else. Better if I do that sooner, rather than later. LOL
I want to point out that the changes you are talking about, minimize/maximize buttons and docks, are actually big changes to the workflow of a desktop environment. How hard would it be to remove those buttons and the standard dock on windows? Harder than it is with gnome I think. Gnome isn't windows and it's used differently from windows. It shouldn't be expected to accommodate windows's workflow.
That is a fair point. I don't expect every feature to match 1:1. But minimize and maximize window seems to be a no-brainer for basic use. At least, how I use floating windows.
But... I'm glad that there are options to bring those features (and more) back if someone chooses.
I experienced that failed run shutdown binary a lot, the issue was that the OS I installed the drive on was defective. In use, the entire filesystem would become read only, the OS would freak out, and shutting down would fail with that message.
DHH saying something not ridiculous? What is today, April Fools Day!?!?
The working out analogy is great, everyone with a technical job involving computers probably should keep a Linux machine, switching to it has skyrocketed my knowledge on computers in general
It's difficult though, I would compare daily driving it with cycling into work instead of driving, it's fun and good for you but constant effort
Linux sucks
I'll let myself out
Watch out, using the door requires you to be in wheel group
we all pity you.
I figured I'd squeeze in one anticomment among the circle jerk
Hardware and software Compatibility . Which in Linux mostly relies in free collaboration work and cannot match what money can move.
Commercial software compatibility has always been poor. It's a classic way of locking users in.
Because they prefer to use something else.
Why don't more distro use LibreSSL? Why don't more distro use mandoc? Why don't more distro use clang?
On desktop, Linux isn’t the best choice.
People use Linux where it’s the best, servers!