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Comment by mikenew | Hacker News Reader

I'd love to nitpick and disagree with some of these, but I think that misses the broader point:

I'm someone who believes that it would be a huge benefit to the world if desktop Linux were 10X more popular than it currently is. And ultimately, if there are concrete problems that are holding back Linux adoption, that's good. That means they can be fixed (at least in theory), and that as a result desktop Linux will have wider adoption.

If it turns out that all these problems are just "not our fault, dumb end users, just learn to google" and so on, then we're screwed. Linux adoption is just out of our control and there's nothing to be done.

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Years ago I used Linux as my daily driver. That was before kids and a real house and all the other things that go with being a father and husband. Now, I ain't got time for that. I need something that works and doesn't require a lot of fiddling. I also support four other machines for various family members (total of eight including mine). I encouraged everyone to buy Macs. That lowered my support effort by 80%. I use one Windows machine for work. No Linux anymore (except WSL2) and I wouldn't even consider it.

My solution to the excessive fiddling was Debian Stable. I've been using it since 2007-ish and it does not get in the way of anything. But I agree with you on the Mac OS thing--the only tech support I have to provide is babysitting Time Machine and the occasionally hardware failure (which just requires a payment to Apple, and two round trips to the Apple store).

It's somewhere in the middle. I think that what hampers Linux adoption is the same thing that hampered Windows adoption: lack of OEM preinstalls. Windows was a nuisance that took too much resources and slowed your system down, so nobody ran it and few ISVs targeted it as a priority -- until a 386SX with VGA and 4 MiB of RAM became the default low-end option in 1990 or so. Then, vendors started bundling Windows 3.0 in with their systems (likely urged by Microsoft) and suddenly there was a huge Windows installed base, and applications software increasingly targeted Windows.

Oh, and the last thing people booted MS-DOS (or "MS-DOS mode" in Windows 9x) for was the last thing Linux enthusiasts boot Windows for today: gaming.

In short, none of the UI bikeshedding we do to Linux will do any good. We have to capture OEM hearts and minds.

> I'm someone who believes that it would be a huge benefit to the world if desktop Linux were 10X more popular than it currently is.

Linux' unpopularity is a direct result of its bugginess and not adhering to certain popular proprietary OS principles which are: 1) API/ABI stability including on the kernel level 2) Strict QA/QC 3) Broad HW support 4) Rich API support

Linux is lacking everywhere.

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