Maybe for some use cases? Agreed that a lot of people are users and not interested in tech, but that is not why they avoid Linux- I really like how @Atatax put it into percents.
Also, how many people here are techies but still avoid Linux for a number of tasks? This hurts adoption because I’m not quick to recommend it to others.
Are you talking from an Arch perspective where you have to build it? Lots of distros that are perfect for the above, a few of us posted how we gave family Linux boxes for the above. I gave my nieces my older laptops with Linux installed to do school work with- its great for that as they are elementary level where formatting doesn’t ruin a grade. Imagine how many people would use Linux if MS would make office work on Linux? Because lord knows I took some hits at Uni when OpenOffice and Libre screwed up formatting when saving as a word doc for the teacher.
I still stick to my guns:
for “civilians”, lots of software just won’t work, the alternatives are simply not 100% parity or no alternative at all (ex: the feeling even a Windows user feels with thousands of apps that won’t even run on newer windows but requires compatibility mode or VMs of older Windows).
Enterprise, certain realms of enterprise does not get the right support, I can’t wait around for RHEL to service tickets while I hold up an entire engineering team because to roll out as-is would be in violation of security contracts.
The two above stops even the non-normies you call out, the “completely illiterate when it comes to the CLI and Linux”. To the contrary, lots of members here that probably want to go 100% linux but can’t regardless of their CLI and Linux guru’ness.
Yes, you are correct - however, Powershell has a built in limitation in that it only works on .NET products - which all of Windows is pretty much built on these days. Which is what I was getting at.
Oh and BTW, Powershell cannot do it’s fancy object dance with Blender either since it is not a .NET app. It can however, use “legacy” command line options for Blender, which, well, makes it on par with Bash. I guess.
A bit going on the weeds, in my opinion.
The problem with Linux is that a number of things for pure desktop users don’t ‘just’ work.
Grab your favorite distro and do a few tasks that a ‘normal’ user will do: connect to the internet, use a browser (“What’s this foxfire stuff?”), connect a printer, open PDFs, office apps, etc. etc.
I really want to do this with say Fedora and keep a running book of what I’ve had to do to make it usable with what I want to do.
For example, I have a printer. It works. I had to .tar my way to victory with HPLIP. Normal u sers will not go through that.
Another, I click funny webm. It doesn’t play. I need something called non-free codecs. The moment they google the terminal command, you’ve lost’em.
This also explains the common recommendation of Mint, since it includes a lot of this stuff by default.
Migration to Linux could be encouraged if the question “Which distribution should I install” had only one answer, and that distribution actually “just worked” as the person expected it to.
Consider:
Q: “I’m currently using Windows but I want to try Linux, what should I install?”
A: “Zorin”
and
Q: “I’m currently using MacOS but I want to try Linux, what should I install?”
A: “Elementary”
Contrast with:
Q: “I want to try Linux, what should I install?”
A: “Ubuntu|Mint|Mate|Arch|Yellow Dog|Tinfoil Hat|Puppy|Fedora|FurryBeaverFrappaccino|etc…”
If the whole community could stop being so fractured and elitist and just pick two “gateway” distributions to funnel existing Windows and Mac users through, then there would be a better chance of those “first impressions” being more positive and those folks hanging around.
Of course, Zorin and Elementary are purely arbitrary choices. Step 1 would be for the Linux community to actually agree that official “gateway” distributions are a valid way of increasing the user base. Step 2 would be for the community to decide which distributions are actually chosen as “gateway” distributions (perhaps with the understanding that a review would happen every 2–5 years). Step 3 would be for the community to stop promoting alternative distributions to brand new users and just promote the official “gateways”.
Reduce the barrier to entry and confusion for new users by consistently referring them to a single gateway distribution that “just works” (for users with their OS background).
If you’re asking about “Linux” in the sense of what it is (the kernel for an OS), then that’s kinda like asking about the biggest problem for NuKernel adoption or Mach adoption or Windows NT Kernel adoption. The answer is that, with the notable exceptions of driver developers and OS vendors, which kernel your OS uses generally doesn’t matter to anyone. For example, there’s about as much reason for MS to switch Windows to Linux as there is for Apple to switch macOS to the Windows NT Kernel — that is, pretty much no reason at all since they all more or less do the same thing and switching kernels would essentially require the OS vendor to do a ground-up rewrite of parts their OS (this might change if hard real-time support makes it into mainline Linux, since that’d be a real difference in capabilities).
If you’re asking about “Linux” as in “one of any number of OSs that all use Linux as their kernel but are all confusingly lumped together as ‘Linux’ even though anyone who’s ever tried to administer a computer running them can tell you that DIFFERENT DISTROS ARE NOT THE SAME OS AND DO NOT ALL WORK THE SAME”, then I would say that the part in caps there is the biggest problem (or at least the basis for the biggest problem) for adopting OSs which use the Linux kernel. When Google, StackOverflow, etc, all stop giving results for “linux” and start requiring you to specify a distro, then “linux on the desktop” will have a chance (it just can’t be called “linux” because that’s only the kernel, not the whole OS).
Edit: To be clear, the all-caps part is not me yelling at the OP or anyone else.
Yeah, that was my experience with it. Pretty much nothing exposes .Net objects on the Linux distros I’ve used, so PowerShell ends up being a clunky tool for calling bash scripts.
FWIW, my main gripes with Windows mostly boil down to “The UI is wrong” and “I don’t trust Microsoft to not spy on me and not delete my files during a mandatory unscheduled upgrade”. Linux distros don’t have the 2nd problem, but AFAIK they all share the first. Although I recently discovered that Elementary OS has taken the no-doubt controversial step of making the copy command copy text from the terminal instead of killing your active process, so at least there’s that.
Here’s my personal anecdotes coming from a long time Mac user, providing IT support of both Mac and Windows in an enterprise environment and only really trying to use Linux at home more several years ago as an alternative.
1. Applications are confusingly difficult to install and uninstall if they aren’t included in the built in package manager.
So I want to install Steam. I looked in the package manager and its there. Great! I install and launch and its broken. A quick look at online forums to find out why, the version included in the package manager is hopelessly out of date and I need to install it directly from steam’s website. Go get the installer from steam and try to follow the command line instructions to install using apt-get and receive lots of cryptic errors that I’m missing required packages, none of which I have any clue what they do or what they are for.
More searching online, finally find instructions on installing missing packages, finally get installer working. Why so many hoops to jump through?
Want to install Google Chrome. Not in package manager (not knowing about chromium).
After some searching, find wget command to download. Get it installed. Great!
Few months go by and start having issues and getting errors about being out of date. Look for update under About… no information about updates there. Turns out I didn’t add chrome to my update repository (how was I supposed to know? Why does this work differently from Windows and Mac versions?)
Same situation for installing TeamViewer and Teamspeak clients. Nobody seems to know how to make a friendly install experience for linux.
Where can I find a comprehensive list of everything I have installed? Linux has so many different ways software can be installed its easy to forget what you installed months ago and there’s no way to easily look in one place to see it all. If you stick to the package manger, sure its not too bad but many programs people want to use aren’t available for install this way.
2. Lack of hardware driver support.
I think this one goes without saying. and I’m primarily looking at you Nvidia… Why is it so hard to install linux with an nvidia card? I had to jump through so many hoops to get a decently optimized driver working and even then, whatever video port I got working on the card, I couldn’t get the other ports working until I uninstalled and re-installed the drivers with a display attached to it… then the other port would be dead. why? Obviously this is out of the hands of most in the linux community but it IS a major headache for new users trying diligently to adopt Linux as their primary OS.
That said, the situation on Linux is far better than the Nvidia driver situation on MacOS right now for what its worth.
3. Lack of major commercial software developer support.
This right here is probably one of the biggest factors, especially for the enterprise. Those other issues above can be solved with a trained IT staff, but if you lack the software to actually get things done, what use is it to switch?
Big strides have been made with OSS alternatives to Microsoft’s software, but sometimes you must use the real deal. The real Achilles heel right now is lack of support from Adobe software or viable OSS alternatives.
4. The number of updates or installers that break things to the point the average user gives up and just re-installs is too damn high.
While Windows has a reputation for bad updates causing major issues or users goofing things up requiring a reinstall, this too happens frequently on Linux as well. I feel that this may be partially to do with the fact there are too many chefs stirring the pot and a lack of centralized authority controlling everything about your experience.
This fact almost makes it excusable on Linux and Microsoft’s situation ridiculous when you think about it, but the reality of the matter is that I’ve had to reinstall everything far more frequently with linux than with any other OS. Yes it may have been user error on occasion but that only enhances my point. The overall experience with Linux just getting goofed beyond a new users ability to reverse it easily happens too frequently.
5. UI design issues.
This one isn’t as big of a deal for most mainstream Linux distributions concerning most basic functions of the OS on a daily basis. Sure, printers could be easier to set up, installed software could be easier to manage and shortcuts on the desktop are atrocious to set up, but navigating menus, most settings and the file system isn’t that bad these days.
This issue is more application dependent. Some do it better than others. Some are obviously built by developers who have very little UI experience and it shows. Cryptic variable names should never be used on your settings menu to let your users guess what these things are for (ZoneMinder, I’m looking at you).
Many powerful Linux functions are command line only or require editing of cryptic config files. While this may be great for long time server admins who are used to it, this isn’t the 90’s anymore. Lets build some GUI interfaces and put some effort into the UI people!
I’ve no idea how you even managed that but that does show another problem. One that Windows isn’t immune to.
That’s not the way to install chrome. Searching chrome Linux takes you to google chrome page where you click a link that installed the repo and chrome for you.
Although it shouldn’t be hard to get where you can screw up with bad searches because of bad info.
FYI, fedora has an up to date chrome repo you just need to enable. However for the money it’s not immediately obvious.
This was several years ago… as I recall Google didn’t have any package installers for my distribution or something which forced me to look for other ways to install. I’ve since been trying to de-Google my life so haven’t messed around with Chrome for a while now.
I was making a point about how asking nearly anything about “Linux” is usually the wrong question because the answer typically depends on what distro, desktop environment, window manager, shell, etc you’re using (sometimes it even depends on the combination).
Pretty easy to set up. You don’t have GPO but you do have chef puppet salt.
Not sure what else you are using ad for but your right we have a tool for that
OK. I’ll bite. who would pick that distro?
You? Me? A corporation? A forum? A raffle?
what if I don’t like Zorin?
what if I don’t like Elementary?
Are you/them going to pick for me?
We are talking about a platform that has forked and reforked the forks of the forks over disagreements as to WHERE THE TASKBAR SHOULD BE, IF THERE SHOULD EVEN BE ONE. Literally no one in the Linux community is going to agree over which Master Distro should rule them all, and nobody is going to just take what you or any one source would hand them and not try to tailor it to their needs. That is the entire point of the platform.
Yes. Your opinion doesn’t matter. It’s the same with the idea of backing one hardware vendor. Who cares if you don’t like them, you can go use something else. What you do and don’t like isn’t the point, the point in having a standard base.
You are not a new user, so it should not apply/matter to you.
Who picks the gateway distros is irrelevant to new users. They don’t know enough about Linux, or the community, for it to matter.
Who picks the gateway distros is also irrelevant to you. Assuming you’re not a rabid, cliquey fanboi, and can put aside your own prejudices long enough to place the health of the community above your own ego, just go with the flow, suggest or vote for whatever distro you think would be best, and then get on with your life. Creating a positive first impression that encourages new users to stay in and become part of the community is far, far, far more important than what distro they spend their first few days/weeks/months with.
Assuming you were a new user… and you use the gateway distro long enough to form an educated opinion… and you decide you don’t like it… then hopefully you will have already learned enough to be able to pick/install/use a more suitable distro that meet your needs — and not encounter insurmountable obstacles that would permanently drive you away from the platform.
I view the gateway distros as training wheels (lower the barrier to entry; ease the learning curve). I would expect that the vast majority of users would ‘move on’ from them at some point. Each user would decide for themselves when they reach that point.
