Let’s say just like for example like MacOS. It’s awesome we have so many tools but at the same time lack of some kind of standardization can seem like nothing works and you get overwhelmed. I’m asking for people that want to support Linux or not so tech-savy people.
Look at the Steam Deck as an example:
- Linux is preinstalled
- Integrated hardware and software
- Immutable OS that is very hard to bork
- UI is Windows-like which is familiar to the target market
- Good value for the price
- Offered by a well-known and well-liked brand
- Marketed and advertised to the target market
We need more Linux devices like this to gain market share.
System76 is doing that these days. They put extra hardware support for their Linux distro TuxedoOS and I’ve heard good things.
Edit: System76 make PopOS and Tuxedo computers make TuxedoOS
Underlying kernel aside, I think that the Steamdeck’s SteamOS is an excellent example of how “easy to use” != “smaller feature-set”. I’ve heard countless times from apple dudes that the reason that their stuff allegedly “just works” is because of the lack of some functionally that if present would overwhelm the user. You know, as if ios and android don’t share fundamentally the same user interface principles. But they do have a point, a green user can be overwhelmed when presented with a huge feature set all at once. Yet, despite SteamOS literally having a full-blown desktop environment, the UI frankly is way less confusing than my Xbox. It just goes to show that it’s not about the number of features, it’s about how they’re presented. Power users don’t mind digging into a (well designed) settings menu to enable some advanced functionality, and keeping those advanced features and settings (with reasonable defaults) hidden around the corner behind an unlocked door helps the newbie get started with confidence.
Yeah exactly.
But what about casual usage like office? The option to choose OS preinstalled on the laptops or desktop would be beneficial.
But Microsoft holds its monopolistic grip.
“People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.”
The only way to make sure Linux works like that is to have a closed hardware environment. But it has to play nicely with other hardware and services (e.g. printers, webcams, etc + office documents, etc). It has taken a very long time for MacOS to get to this point, but people put up with Mac compromises because enough things worked smoothly.
I’ve just commented about this in another thread…but I’m pretty convinced that Linux is not close to being ready for normies.
To make Linux more appealing to the average person, you’d have to be able to buy a Linux PC at your local computer store. Most people can’t be bothered to install a new OS.
That’s also true but also impossible. Linux isn’t a for profit company.
What are you even talking about? Anyone can sell a PC with pre-installed Linux. There are already several companies today so just that.
Let me clarify myself
*It’s impossible to get big corporate guys attention so they ship Linux by default and it’s clearly tested. For now the Valve, System76, Framework and Tuxedo are exception.
Edit: Also I was keeping in mind corporate entity behind OS.
- Apple - MacOS
- Microsoft - Windows
- ? - Linux
The big guys won’t sell Linux to consumers because of Microsoft’s anticompetitive practices. That’s the main thing that’s holding back Linux acceptance right now. But if some big player (e.g. Valve) would take the leap, things might get interesting.
Yes exactly.
Dell sells PC’s with Linux installed.
Not in retail stores though AFAIK
Correct. I was just touching on the big corporations point since they listed some online only retailers.
It would be a real leap forward, if Linux PCs were sold in big box stores. Which is why Microsoft will do anything they can to prevent that.
“It’s impossible. Let me list 4 exceptions though”
Hahaha true 😆
But the scale is too small for now. :/
Dell have at times sold laptops with Linux pre installed.
Can you buy a Dell laptop with Linux at a retail store?
I’ve seen this type of question elsewhere. Why is it an issue?
Standardisation? Corporate Linux? Just like the big boys? Big fish eat little fish.
Careful what you ask for . .
lol wtf are you talking about? You can literally take $100 off the price of a computer just because it’s not bundled with a Winderps license - the price is straight up lower because the license cost is $0. You can order some models like this straight from Dell or Lenovo or whatever.
OEMs aren’t paying $100 per license. They’re also making deals with McAfee/Norton/whatever to package a bunch of extra crap on your windows laptop to lower the price further.
Simple, start teaching it in elementary school all the way up through high school. Apple did it long ago and got apple users out of those kids. Microsoft does it now, and now you have Windows users. Just need the computer education to be Linux centric from the start. It’s not that it’s different, it’s that it’s not what they grew up with and were taught.
I’m a very casual Linux user and in my experience, I’ve NEVER had a problem with a documented solution that didn’t require going down a rabbit hole of other references.
Something like this: “To get the trackpad to work with Ubuntu, make sure you’ve installed the hergelbergelXX package.” (No link, find it on your own!)
Visit the HergelBergelXX page. To install Hergelbergel on Ubuntu, you must install the framisPortistan Package Manager. (No link!)
On the FramisPortistan GitHub readme, we discover it requires the JUJU3 database system to be installed. “JUJU3 may cause conflicts with installed USB devices under Ubuntu” JUJU2, which shipped with Ubuntu, is no longer supported. Also we recommend Archie&Jughead Linux over other distributions.
And this essentially never stops.
All of this is comparatively a happy result—I actually DID post a question on linuxnoobs about getting my trackpad to work with Ubuntu… and have not had a single reply. I have no idea how to find out how to make it work.
I had similar stories getting Wireless Networking to work on some devices before. Good thing is, there are drivers for most, if not all, default hardware interfaces directly in the kernel nowadays and if a device has any sort of popularity it will be supported before long if it isn’t out of the box.
I’m not talking about a long-ago problem. I’m talking about a current install of Ubuntu.
Yes, presumably on hardware that’s just a bit too old or rare. Might be unlucky as Linux compatibility isn’t high up on OEMs lists
Atomic OSes should be evangelized more aggressively to laypersons. IMO, they’re great for 3 specific use cases:
- gaming (bazzite) - personally, I want my gaming box to “just work”
- thin clients/low-powered laptops used as an entry point to your homelab or other remote systems - again, I like having at least one fairly bulletproof and super stable system to use as a human:homelab gateway/admin machine
- non-techies. If the update fails, just roll back. Can’t remember if that’s generally an automated recovery process or not, but that sort of idiot-proofing is precisely what the general public needs in the context of Linux. Because there are a lot of idiots out there.
I installed Bluefin on my mother’s laptop and it’s like a Chromebook for her. She just wants to surf and consume media, and the OS stays solid and out of they way.
Atomic distros are the biggest advance for Linux in recent years.
Most people have had great answers coming from the company side of things. I’ll take it from the standpoint of individuals like us helping someone linux curious see the light, while still having the “just works” experience.
Do not give them any choices. None. Put them on your stable distro of choice for a new user, call whatever that is “Linux”, and be on your way.
But why? Isn’t that antithetical to everything we value? Yes and no. We value choice almost above anything else, but that doesn’t “just work” for most people. Which of those do you value more?
It’s current year, I should never have to touch the terminal for anything. I don’t care that it’s powerful, my brain is already full of windows knowledge and I don’t want to have to google what command I need to perform basic functions. Everything needs guis. If there’s a gui, I can figure it out and also discover tools I didn’t know about along the way, which allows me to solve future problems without going insane.
That’s popular sentiment though, so how about one that I don’t see often: Add options to allow windows like behavior. For example, middle click paste is the bane of my existence. I should be able to change it to middle click scroll os wide, not just in firefox. I know that there’s a hacky workaround to kinda make it work, but it sucks.
“Do not let has been burden what could be.” /s
I agree though, other common UX replication options would help user meet the OS where they are more. I also agree that most common system administration and user UX should be doable in a full GUI, they are just so nice for when you don’t know what you are wanting but will once you see it.
I also think VUI (voice user interfaces) would bridge the gap for a lot people and NLP would cover most of the worlds population.
Honestly people keep working on and it ebs and flows in progress. Its just a lot fing work to do it well. One day we will get to doing most functions with multimodal interface support (GUI/CLI/API/VUI/NLP/BCI?).
More GUI front ends for stuff. This takes away the need to understand command line tools and syntax, and makes the out-of-the-box experience feel more like it just works.
Need hardware with it pre installed with a reason to buy other than because it has Linux
Maybe use the lack of a requirement for a Windows license to bring the price to performance ratio down
If they’re really performant machines also helps break the idea Linux is only for old and slow machines, I only ever used to put it on laptops as they were reaching the end of their usefulness, the moment I put it on my pc and a new laptop it changed my perception on it entirely
I also think the majority of technical users still use windows, maybe we should concentrate on getting them first and maybe we’ll see more support
The way to get Linux more appealing is to get proprietary software makers, like Adobe, Microsoft (Office), you know the actual things people need to do their job, to make software for Linux. Steam Deck is a good example of this, it works because Steam ported the games to Linux…
In some ways this is true. However, I feel like in the case of Adobe, someone needs to take another shot at a good FOSS image editor. Adobe is really starting to mess itself with generative AI; knowing many artists, they hate generative AI image tech as a threat to their job, so I find it weird that Adobe is alienating one of their largest user bases. I find it weird how Inkscape is really good and has evolved (I actually switched to it from Adobe Illustrator and don´t regret it), while GIMP has barely changed in 10 years.
I get that some parts of an image editor are complex, but at some point, it’s just a chain of mathematical operations. Maybe I’m wrong, but when I get the time, it’s almost tempting to take a stab at the issue.
While I don’t disagree with you about the potential of those alternatives they won’t cut it for the average graphic designer… usually not due to the lack of features but most likely because of the network effects / dominant position that Adobe holds over their field. People who need to collaborate with others and are pressured to get stuff done can’t afford the slightest compatibility issue.
True. Industry entrenchment would be a big issue. I can think of two ways to try to fight it. The less viable option would be trying for PSD support, which would be a lot of work. The other option would be to write a Photoshop plugin to allow working with the new file format in Photoshop. This might be annoying to end users having to deal with the format, but also easier developer-wise because you could make sure Photoshop handles rendering right; you’d just need a way to warn about operations in Photoshop that can’t be converted to the new FOSS program’s native format.
Thank you thank you thank you for posing this question.
This is the biggest issue by far with open source stuff in general, and as a non-programmer who wants to use more and more of it, user unfriendliness hamstrings so much.
I don’t know the answers but I can tell you for a fact that if open source in general is serious about broader adoption, this needs to be occupying 50% of everybody’s open source discussion time, at least.
What I know is the standard “fuck you read my 19 pages of 1s and 0s” is the wrong answer.
Maybe good design is just really hard. I don’t know, I’ve never tried to do it. Seems like the sort of thing that might take three thousands iterations.
I have been forced to use mac now for like a year, and I don’t get the whole “just works” opinion of it. Like I have had so many issues with just basic stuff. Turning off mouse acceleration and the mouse still feels all slimy. Highest mouse speed is so slow and setting it higher requires some crazy tricks, which also does not work consistently through boots. It can’t wake up a lot of monitors, I have to turn them off and on manually. If it cannot connect to a monitor properly but tries, it like disables your keyboard for a few seconds while trying. Some items in the settings menu take a long time to load, as in if I reboot, log in, open settings, there is no mouse settings.
An easy way to import/export Flatpaks would be really convenient. On Windows, I can easily move around software using a usb drive to a computer that may not be connected to the internet. I’d have no clue how to do that on Linux aside from AppImages
But due to fragmentation etc. I’d guess that such portable flatpaks would be huge, as they’d need to carry all dependencies in case the other end is missing some
For all its faults at least you don’t need to chmod+x on windows. Ironic since linux is usually more permissable.
I think it should be: “Software that is yours”
Overall, I think more focus should be put on consolidating similar projects.
Do we really need 6 different window managers that follow the same design logic?
Do we really need each major distro to have its own package manager?
How many image and PDF viewers do we need? How many music players?
Can we convince Ubuntu that no one wants snaps and they are wasting developer resources.
The freed up capacity should be focused on better windows app compatibility. Something akin to Valve’s push in gaming.
So reading all of your responses
- Tested and preinstalled hardware
- One resource to solve the issue not many
- Customizablity when needed
- Easy rollback when something breaks
- Changing people mindset that Linux isn’t for desktops
Does anyone have more?
