Why don't more people use Linux?
world.hey.com
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 exercising is so healthy, why don't more peo...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ndlug.org/post/1064425

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.

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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

  • SorteKaninA
    1·
    3 months ago

    Personally I’m a developer, so I care a lot about integrating parts of my development stack. A lot of those things don’t “just work” on Windows, or even Mac, so I’m happy to stick with Linux instead.

    I’m also a developer, but I’m also a user, depending on what I’m doing. And this is a very poor excuse for Linux having bad UX.

    Linux shouldn’t only be for developers, it should be for everyone.

    • arendjr@programming.dev
      1·
      3 months ago

      Of course, I’m a user too, but I don’t think Linux’s UX is that bad. It may be bad in some areas, but it’s not bad across the board.

      I also don’t think Linux is only for developers. It’s great for developers, but it’s also great for people with only basic needs of their computer, those that don’t need much more than a browser, an email client and maybe an office suite. The UX is totally adequate for them, as evidenced by ChromeOS.

      I think where Linux lacks is mainly for the users in between, those who are not full developers or tinkerers, but do want to mess around and do so from a perspective of expectations of how things worked in the Windows world. And I won’t deny there’s a plethora of legitimate enterprise use cases for which there is no equivalent in Linux today. But those are not UX issues, those are mainly matters market support. Linux is not great there, maybe it never will be. Or if it does, it’ll take a long time.