what I said in another comment: as long as you cant buy a PC with Linux pre-installed easily this will remain a small minority OS.
At this point I'm fairly sure setting up the average Linux distro takes less time than the first-party Windows and MacOS welcome wizards.
There’s now only one prerequisite for new users: the willingness to format the hard drive. Everything else is trivial and for 9/10 distros the screens are welcoming, clear, refined, and non-technical.
> agree it is so simple an quick to do the installations that it is not such a problem anymore.
I wonder if people here are sometimes exposed to non technical users. You would be very surprised.
As for installation, my sister is a graphic designer and installed KDE Neon completely on her own about half a year ago. Also one of my friends before that did the same with Kubuntu. And they are far from technical people, especially when it comes to computers.
I think the biggest problem are our crappy educational systems which are these days basically Microsoft propaganda and training centers. They should all be teaching free and opensource only and not do free marketing for Big Tech which are nowadays increasingly just spyware/adware corporations. but these days they hardly even mention anyone else and thus just produce mindless uninformed consumers. But yeah I know this is a big problem to solve but a must to solve or else it will get increasing bad for society. And that is why we must also act politically and join political parties and push fort these fixes and improvements in educational and governmental policies to demand the software and hardware that respects users freedoms, privacy and other digital rights. And only this way informed and aware people will also demand people respecting product when buying and more brands that not many know will become known and the better known will be asked more to offer GNU/Linux-preinstalled computers.
If we similarly gatekeep drawing tablets like iPads and say that they aren’t really doing computing and one day in the future an artist’s tablet that runs Linux becomes commercially successful, the end result would be that more users buying “computers” are on Linux.
And if you’re trying to make Linux into this paragon against the AI invasion, a portable console connected to the largest gaming store in the world is not a winning move. With how fickle Valve is, they’ll go all in on AI any day now.
> the Steam Deck is so different and specifically made for gaming that it’s really hard to count it amongst the Linux fold.
That's funny, it has a KDE desktop and a graphical installer for Linux packages. It looks no different from my Linux desktop at home.
> We don’t count the Switch owners as computer users of BSD after all.
You very well could: https://switchroot.org/
The default Switch OS is more importantly based on Android though.
> a portable console connected to the largest gaming store in the world is not a winning move.
You're damn right. That's why Valve specifically designed the Steam Deck so it's not connected to them for essential services. You can install Windows on it, put another Linux distro over the base install, or dual boot with whatever ungodly combination you prefer. I don't know who led you onto this, but using Valve-provided software is entirely optional for Steam Deck owners.
> With how fickle Valve is, they’ll go all in on AI any day now.
Evidently you don't use Steam very much, either. Steam, the app, hasn't received a serious "new feature" since they spruced up the in-game chat app during the pandemic. I am about as worried of Valve going all-in on AI as I am worried of Joe Biden adopting serious socialist reform into his policy. It's not going to happen, Jack.
And finally, Valve is conservative with many things, and fickle in many others. They have completely reversed their policy with regards to what adult game is or isn’t allowed on their store twice. Allowing AI-made content on their store is a question of policy.
If you can manage to monetize a game that relies on OpenAI, I don't see why it couldn't be made available on Steam. I also don't see why going "all-in" on those experiences would ruin the experience for everyone else; that's the industry's decision to make, Valve doesn't really make games anymore.