Isn't user friendly.
No games
No true photoshop/video editing replacement
Otherwise it's rather nice
So there is no chance that BSD and OSX will ever go open source.
BSD is open source but its not under the GPL; think of BSD type licences as copycenter, to the GPL being copyleft which is the opposite of copyright.
BSD is useful to many corporations as it permits them to take an opensource product like FreeBSD, modify it to their needs and never have to distribute the source code. This is one reason why derivitives of FreeBSD/NetBSD and not GNU/Linux is used by shady government organisations and as console operating systems.
Compliments to make any BSD user proud. You better stop or you'll make someone blush. :p
He should try PC-BSD, dead easy to install and use GNOME, KDE etc on. If something hasn't been ported to BSD but you have a 32bit Linux binary for it, it will probably run it. The perfect OS for someone who wants something like linux without saying they are running Linux ;-)
To be fair, Apple did more to create the PC = Windows with that clever yet annoying marketing campaign.
That and Microsoft has had the liberty of a legacy. IBM PC running MS-DOS --> PC/Compatible Running MS-DOS/Windows --> PC = Windows.
I still think the Apple campaign helped solidify that idea into the minds of those who were ignorant of Computing history.
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Most people don't want to learn how to do things and are legendarily stupid.
The only way I could see it happen would be
1. works with all the major/popular programs.
2. Stupid easy to use.(show a pleb terminal and they will instantly say no)
3. instead of sudo apt get basically something like apple or play store.
4. automation of all back end things(drivers, updates, network settings, 0 maintenance only what they want to do)
So basically the software catalog of windows with the ease of apple with a little marketing thrown in.
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Android? Do I win?
Pretty close. I have some apps that crash for no reason on droid. then you have to go into the settings the force stop.
The question that the OP has, to be honest, is perfectly logical.
Most opinions that have been laid out here are pretty much spot on.
To me, personally, Linux isn't the most popular OS for a few reasons. But the main one is simple...
People behind it.
We do it ourselves all the time..."my distro is the best, your's is living in the middle ages", and even nastier comments than those :(
It doesn't need to be many, but ONE distro!!
Not saying which one, cause I honestly don't care.
I love linux, doesn't matter to me who makes it, I love it cause it's accessible. Open. Free.
On the other hand, one could go to an extreme and say it's exactly like people.
You meet one, you like them for their persona, you meet another, they make you laugh. In a word, variety. Problem is, it's impossible to like everyone, same as impossible for everyone to like you. Same with the distributions. We all say it: "not my cup of tea".
But if all those wonderful minds that are behind the code, sat down and worked together...oh boy what a distro would that be??? Years ahead than anything esle, imho.
Anyway, this is taking longer than expected, sorry. Will close it up. Sorry for the wall of text.
And this is the thing ^^^^^^^^
If every game developer and publishing company decided tomorrow that the only OS they would develop games for was Linux the mass adoption of Linux on the desktop would begin, yes for a lot of folks it would be dual boot to game on Linux then back to Windows or OSX for everything else, but gamers would flock to Linux and most would totally switch forsaking Windows or OSX forever.
This would be the Killer app that would drive everyday users to Linux and also drive Windows only software developers to port or develop for the Linux platform, at that point about the only users left on Windows would be grandma and grandpa and the enterprise that is still clinging to Win XP.
If game publishers only knew how much power they hold over operating systems and users, I mean what is the difference between that and exclusive titles driving console sales, it's just a small scale IMHO.
I don't thing that would work. The amount of pc gamers that would go through dual booting is too small to cut off the revenue from other OSes.
Yes this is a problem. When given too many choices users just lockup and don't commit. The closest we have to the one Linux distro is Ubuntu. But we also have lubuntu and xbuntu and the hundreds of others. People want the one os that came on the machine that lets them do what they want without any hoop jumping. Deciding on a distro from a list of hundreds of flavors is a big hoop for some people. They will not decide rather than risk making the wrong decision.
Also if there was more focus on fewer distros the ones we had would be better.
Just look at the list on distro watch and see what a mess it is.
http://distrowatch.com/
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So, BSD has all that?
lol, no. Linux is where apple and windows got all the ideas, AppStore, multiple desktops, compiz magic, etc.
also wind the clock back to Ubuntu 9.04, basically Ubuntu was all that. Microsoft and Adobe had been resting on their laurels, so Gimp was basically as good as photoshop, and OpenOffice.Org was fully compatible with MSOffice, however better and fewer quirks. No need for terminals, because drivers were detected, and the Software Center was all-encompassing (save for terminal programs)
and win10 just nicked the workspaces feature too and KDE's looks mixed with googles material design.
SteamOS will sort out the gaming thing. In fact it will be thee linux platform.
1400 games for Linux on Steam, lots of fantastic games. another two years and it will be over 2500 games. Performance will have doubled and its already only 20% - 40% behind windows, some times its actually faster.
If game devs realy start to working on games for Linux aswell, and they can make them just as good as on an windows platform.
Then i realy see some big changes happening to gaming community aswell.
And if microsoft loses the battle about being the most suitable OS for gaming.
Then i think they will be in serious trouble.
Because honnestly wenn games are going to be more widely supported for Linux, there is realy no point to stay with Windows atall for gamers.
I realy hope that it will happen.
And i also hope that vulkan to be something good.
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Valve don’t move too fast but they never u-turn on things this big. perhaps just re-format it like the paid mods idea, but its still coming.
so, the worlds largest game distribution platform business on PC have the wubs for Linux. Its their long term vision, its not even released yet and there is some hype starting. 10 years from now EX-Windows users probably won't even realise they are gaming on Linux as the branding has already been stripped and its now Steamplay. Just like Andriod users mostly don’t know or care that its Linux or iPhone users dont know or care that their OS is UNIX-BSD based.
You might say people don't understand, or care about, open source.
Microsoft is also changing its attitude towards linux in general. Those dual booting will have noticed that when you do a clean Win10 install on a system that already has a Linux install on it, Win10 will not overwrite the bootloader put there by Linux...
Even nVidia has brought out some GL 4.x developer tools for Linux recently.
Linux itself is also changing. Especially the dependence of C is something that many parties want to do away with. The most talked about Linux development is probably Docker, and that's programmed in Go, Google's BSD-licensed alternative to C, which has been cleared of any remaining C code recently.
The whole IT world is changing, actually, it has already changed. That is most apparent when you look at hardware: Intel puts energy efficiency and low volume hardware so much in the focal point, that - even if you buy "overclocking" parts - the Intel CPU's will override any user configuration and plot their own operating conditions at any given point in time.
The typical PC, a concept that PC gamers seem to want to hang on to like some car enthusiasts want to hang on to V8's and lateral valve actuators instead of overhead cams, is on its last leg, because it's just not efficient, in that it takes ever more investment to achieve only a bit of extra performance, nothing comparable to the performance offered by a distributed computing arrangement, where users connect to with thin clients in all shapes and forms.
People seem to forget that you can actually get faster video rendering services for free through the cloud these days using an iOS or Android device or Chrome browser on any platform, than you can get from a PC or workstation under 15000 USD. Some may not like that, but that's the way it is going forward.
Many people still have the feeling of being in complete control as long as they have powerful hardware of themselves, but they are kidding themselves. The important thing going forward will be to take control over the software used, and the hardware will not be as important. That's why Microsoft won't butcher the Linux host any more, that's why important hardware features are seeing dev tools for linux be released, that's why containerization and virtualization are so important, important enough for Microsoft and Intel and all the rest of them to invest miliions into what basically is Linux-based technology.
The PC games of the future will not be PC games, they will not differ a whole lot from iOS or Android games. An XBone or PS4 will be perfectly suited to play Games-as-a-service at the same fps and resolution than on a PC. A hardware baseline is being established right now by the big hardware companies. Have you seen the new AMD Nano-GPU? Have you seen the new Intel 5x5 mobo form factor with exchangeable CPU socket allowing gaming grade CPU's (up to 65 W TDP, which is pretty much the new consumer top end at Intel, as I said, overclocking isn't what it used to be with those new Skylakes...)?
Everything is pointing in the same direction, and the newer generations are not into PC gaming all that much any more, because the PC gaming industry screwed up, they sold out too much, they took too much advantage, and it backfired on them.
But just like Nascar or VW Cup (classic VW beetle) racing, PC gaming will remain a niche market of considerable economic importance, even if it's not essential any more for any industry. Look at ESL One Cologne CS:GO, it's turned out to be the biggest gaming event to date.
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