For everyone else, the reason they don't use Linux on their desktop is because it didn't come installed on it.
If somebody does to desktops like what Google did for smartphones, then Linux will finally have its moment.
That's already happened, and Google did it. They are called Chromebooks. They are Linux underneath, use the GNU userspace stack and Wayland for GUI. They have a button that installs Debian, and GUI packages you "apt install" appear in the Chrome app launch folder.
Apparently ChromeOS is being swallowed by Android, which I suspect isn't a big move. Crosini, the LXC thingy that hosts Debian on ChromeOS, has already been ported. That means Android will be powering laptops. Does that make it a Desktop OS? If so, that does the we can count Android's 45% market share of all personal computing devices towards a Desktop OS? And if we do that, does that mean Linux has finally won the desktop wars? By any definition it's already won the personal computing devices wars.
> That means Android will be powering laptops. Does that make it a Desktop OS? If so, that does the we can count Android's 45% market share of all personal computing devices towards a Desktop OS?
OS market share for a particular device type is typically measured as the respective portion of the OSes that run on that hardware. If you are looking at desktop/laptop market share, you'd only count that :)
My experience lines up with this.
Both my elderly parents run Zorin OS on their separate laptops for the past 6 years, they understand as a kind of 'free windows'.
They don't care about the inner workings, they go online, check email, do shopping, make travel arrangements, print a ridiculous amount of paper. And I stopped getting calls because 'the printer is not working'.
Somebody does to desktops what Google did for smartphone. The company is called Microsoft, and the behaviour is called blatant monopoly abuse.
They didn't even use the same graphics drivers till late.
lol... so, all of it? Linux is a kernel.
Regardless, my point had absolutely nothing to do with technology. Android's popularity has absolutely nothing to do with Linux and/or what it shipped with or didn't ship with. Its popularity has everything to do with the fact that it shipped preinstalled on devices that people bought. Linux isn't going to become popular on desktops until it is shipped on desktops.
Replaced them with Windows.
Because the Linux desktop is and continues to be a sup-bar experience for the average joe. GNOME requires a modification to even run Discord properly, but anyone who points this out gets shouted at.
People don't not use Linux because they've considered it and found out that their applications won't run on it. They don't use it because they've not considered it at all, because 99%+ of people do not choose the OS on their computer. They go to the electronics store and buy a Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo, or Apple. There's no Asus Eee running Xandros at my local Best Buy, and if there ever was, it wasn't on the shelf for very long.