Hi! For as long as I’ve used Linux, it wasn’t super popular with mainstream desktop usage, even amongst people that I consider to be nerdy or knowledgeable in this topic. I’ve tried many times to bring people over, oftentimes being met with failure. If you don’t mind a confession, I used to think that many people who didn’t want even try Linux were just… dumb. Lazy and dumb people, blinded by Windows’s and MacOS’s marketing. “Why can’t they see this as the better OS?” is what I said to myself oftentimes.
After a series of events that happened recently, I decided to put away my prejudices and ask people directly. I went on a few Discord servers I’m in and I asked “Why don’t you use Linux?”.
The stated reasons why people don’t use Linux
- Compatibility: almost all of the replies mentioned this directly or indirectly. I can’t argue with this because it is true to an extent. Many popular apps and games simply don’t work on Linux or require lots of fiddling with tools like Wine. The Adobe suite doesn’t work on Linux natively, many games that are popular nowadays like Valorant or Genshin Impact don’t run or have trouble running on Linux, software for configuring devices like gaming mice or keyboards doesn’t work natively either. It’s true that there are alternatives for these apps or there are ways to run them with Wine, but most people don’t want to bother with that. I’ll come back on this later.
- Ease of use: this was mentioned in some of the replies I got. I can see their point, especially when it comes to configuring devices or software that doesn’t work natively in Linux, however, I believe that newbie distros like Linux Mint or Ubuntu offer most system functions like updates, package management or settings in GUIs, making it easier for a new guy to set some things up quickly. There’s more to this story, however.
Now, while both of these are true, I believe there are more things to talk about here.
Why I believe Linux isn’t popular
The reasons stated above for why people don’t use Linux are true and I think they go hand in hand. I believe the big reason why Linux isn’t used widely is because of a catch-22 problem: companies, like Adobe, don’t support Linux because there aren’t many users, and there aren’t many users because companies don’t fully support Linux. When there isn’t compatibility for a product, the ease of use lowers, amplifying the problem for users. As a result, neither one of them gives way because it isn’t a worthwhile deal. Users will only waste their time on something they don’t care about and companies will lose money if they support something that only ~3%(maybe?) of the OS market uses.
I said that most people don’t want to bother with using alternatives or getting their software to run under Linux. I believe this is because most people aren’t into computing and they just want to get their stuff done. Linux is mostly esoteric. It is for people who are at least slightly interested in the topic and have some knowledge in it, not really for the guy who uses a computer because of work or for entertainment. Linux being free and open source or offering the user complete control over their system aren’t exactly reasons for most people to switch. Those are reasons why someone interested in computing might switch, but not reasons for the common Joe. If anything, some pros of Linux are cons for the general population. For example, if someone doesn’t care about computing, they won’t go to try and understand the terminology or how things are put together, so giving them full control over their system will simply get them confused and will likely result in their systems becoming unusable.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Everybody is free to do whatever they want and that includes not caring about a certain topic. I also don’t care about a lot of things that most seem to care about, so I can’t exactly judge them for something I’m doing myself.
Conclusion
Ultimately, I believe the reasons why Linux isn’t much used is because companies don’t support Linux, which makes things for most users hard, as well as the fact that most of them just try to get their stuff done without worrying about their operating system.
If you like to use Linux, like how I do it, just keep using it. It’s more than okay to use whatever you want. You’re more than free to use it.