this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024
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“The year of Linux on the Desktop” is in the article. This again? Been reading this for decades and it’s still not true.
Linux is close, but has some core flaws that will forever keep it out of mainstream acceptance by your average user.
It has nothing to do with any flaws within Linux itself. The problem is and has always been that it's nearly impossible to buy a PC with any flavour of Linux pre-installed. Until that changes, Linux (on home user desktops) will never gain mainstream acceptance.
Didn't HP sell some fancy shmancy laptops that came with Ubuntu or some flavor of it? Think it was for developers but I thought that was the closest we gotten to commercially selling Linux based machines.
P.S. I could be wrong about this but I am sure this happened.
HP sold he DevOne, it had PopOS on it. Dell sells an XPS developer machine that has Ubuntu pre installed. System76, Entroware, and Tuxedo computers have all been selling Linux hardware for a long time. So there are viable commercial options. I wish the DevOne were going to get refreshed, it looks like a nice machine but alas, I don't think it will.
Linux really needs to be on the floor at BestBuy on base models, just a little cheaper than the Windows models. If that's the case, I think people will try it.
But if it's only on one or two premium models and online only, that's not good enough.
On the one hand, I think you are right, people who know can find a Linux computer if they know where to look. And they should be easier to find. On the other hand, I don't think many people by laptops at Best Buy any more. Maybe if BestBuy had one people would try it and see, but I feel like best buy is the place you go to buy a TV or a charging chord for your phone.
People buy things they see advertised. Being visible on the floor of BestBuy is advertisement. If it's just an option on a website, they're unlikely to try it, but if they see it as a "normal thing" that's available at retailers, they might consider it.
At least that's the assumption I'm going off of.
The lack of advertising is a big one, that's for sure. And Dell isn't spending any of their advertisement budget to brag about Linux.
Maybe that's what canonical should spend it's money on rather than snaps :-) (half joking...maybe )
It's possible they did. I think Dell briefly discussed it as an option, before using it as leverage to get cheaper Windows licenses from Microsoft. The EEE PC also shipped with its own Linux distro and appropriate hardware drivers.
This was why I said "nearly impossible" :)
You can go to the Dell website today and filter by Operating System and select Ubuntu. Through Project Sputnik, Dell has been selling laptops with Ubuntu for over a decade. It's a pretty interesting story, but I couldn't find a summary of it online easily.
I agree. Most people won't switch to Linux because they have never used it and think they'll have to relearn computers from scratch.
Maybe we should have like a yearly event for this. Like a holiday. International Linux Year Day.
I propose September 17, the day of the first Linux release.
I think there is some sort of conference. The key would be to convince all the Linux users to stop telling us about it the rest of the time.
Linux uses and vegans have the same "I'm better than you" energy.
every year is the year of linux for linux users. not so much for other people