The reasons why Linux will never go above 2.something% of computer users.

thisisjay

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I promise I'm not trying to troll here. I really would like to see things get better. I feel that a large percentage of PC users would like to give MS the middle finger, but it seems like Linux has been perpetually 20 years away from an acceptable level of functionality for the last 20 years.


-Speed. Despite claims from the Linux community, Linux is always outperformed by Windows in terms of speed when performing everyday tasks. The speed difference becomes more apparent as you have more apps open. More than 1-2 apps running in the background can bring some weaker systems to their knees. Meanwhile the exact same hardware can have 7-8 apps running with minimal slowdowns in Windows. Top end hardware doesn't seem to do that much better in Linux.

-Help with issues that arise. Modern versions of Windows mostly "just work", but when you do run into issues it helps to be using the OS that 3/4 of the planet is using when it comes to resolving error messages and "how do I " " in Windows" type questions. I'm not dismissing the huge amount of effort that has gone into building Linux support communities. Many of them are very good, but I prefer to just Google my questions. Doing that for Linux yields highly outdated information, forum posts full of the blind leading the blind, and brick walls where there currently isn’t a solution. It’s really depressing when you’re having an issue that people have been complaining about for 10+ years and there STILL isn’t a solution.

-Software availability. I’m sorry. Open source programs are a joke. 9 times out of 10 there is a program that has the functionality you need. 70% of the time it even has a GUI. 50% of the time it functions at a level that one would consider acceptable, 30% of the time it’s good, 10% of the time it's excellent, and almost never it’s undisguisable from the Windows version. The only 3 examples I can even think of are Google Chrome, Firefox, and Kodi. Pretty much everything else is junk vs the Windows equivalent. Maybe if WINE was like 5000% better that would help bridge the gap, but then what is even the point of running a “free” OS if you are just going to run closed source software in it?

Fragmentation of effort. Think of it this way. What if there were, at any given time, around half a dozen versions of Windows. Each being worked on by a completely different group of people. Each version had about half a dozen sub versions, also being worked on by completely different groups of people. Each sub version had dozens of sub sub versions, and each of those sub sub versions had dozens of forks and sub sub sub versions. Every version is being worked on by different people with completely different goals, biases, motivations, and levels of expertise with the vast majority of them getting paid nothing. How well would you expect ANY of those versions to function? A couple thousand people being paid to work towards commonly agreed upon goals is likely to produce a better end user experience than hundreds of thousands of unpaid people working towards hundreds of thousands of different goals with very little common agreement.
 


@thisisjay
Welcome to the forum!

Have you actually tried any Linux distro yourself?

I will take exception to almost every one of your negative points about Linux. I was a Windows user from the time I got involved in computers running Win 95 until about 5 or 6 years ago when I switched full time to Linux.

"I'm not trying to troll here" Really? You surely sound like it.

"Depressing" If you find it depressing not finding an answer to a 10 year old question; why haven't you figured out the solution and helped others?

"Linux always outperformed by Windows when it comes to speed" Really?

"1 or 2 apps running on Linux ..... 7-8 apps running on Windows" I understand that the latest Win 11 is too large to run on any of the many older machines that Linux does just fine on.

"Open source programs are a joke" Have you ever tried Libre Office? I would choose LO every time.

These kind of comments are almost laughable if they weren't so silly.
Thanks for the humor for the day.
My thoughts for the day .... Ignorance is something we all have. Stupidity is something some of us have. The difference between the two is simply this: Ignorance can be fixed and stupidity just stays the same and thinks it is correct.

Old Geezer TC
 
Germany is going Open Source. I'll bet there exists greater than 2% usage of Linux there!

Two messages in over three years? Circumstantial evidence, though not conclusive, points to the possibility of trolling.
 
The amusing thing is Linux runs almost everything they touch. From their router to the very websites they visit, it's Linux.

All the super computers? Linux.

And, it's actually closer to 4% which seems minimal but that's about 40 *million* desktop Linux users. Oh no!

Linux runs your phone, your TV, your router, every site you visit pretty much, and is even on Mars.

Ain't no Windows on Mars...
 
Germany is going Open Source. I'll bet there exists greater than 2% usage of Linux there!

This isn't the first time Germany has tried this. The last time was about 12 years ago.

 
I applaud ThisIsJay for expressing his points clearly. I appreciate responses to his points that are also clear and to the point without the need to be snarky or overly-defensive.
(My two cents worth: I agree that LibreOffice is a great substitute for Microsoft Office)
A
 
I promise I'm not trying to troll here. I really would like to see things get better. I feel that a large percentage of PC users would like to give MS the middle finger, but it seems like Linux has been perpetually 20 years away from an acceptable level of functionality for the last 20 years.


-Speed. Despite claims from the Linux community, Linux is always outperformed by Windows in terms of speed when performing everyday tasks. The speed difference becomes more apparent as you have more apps open. More than 1-2 apps running in the background can bring some weaker systems to their knees. Meanwhile the exact same hardware can have 7-8 apps running with minimal slowdowns in Windows. Top end hardware doesn't seem to do that much better in Linux.

-Help with issues that arise. Modern versions of Windows mostly "just work", but when you do run into issues it helps to be using the OS that 3/4 of the planet is using when it comes to resolving error messages and "how do I " " in Windows" type questions. I'm not dismissing the huge amount of effort that has gone into building Linux support communities. Many of them are very good, but I prefer to just Google my questions. Doing that for Linux yields highly outdated information, forum posts full of the blind leading the blind, and brick walls where there currently isn’t a solution. It’s really depressing when you’re having an issue that people have been complaining about for 10+ years and there STILL isn’t a solution.

-Software availability. I’m sorry. Open source programs are a joke. 9 times out of 10 there is a program that has the functionality you need. 70% of the time it even has a GUI. 50% of the time it functions at a level that one would consider acceptable, 30% of the time it’s good, 10% of the time it's excellent, and almost never it’s undisguisable from the Windows version. The only 3 examples I can even think of are Google Chrome, Firefox, and Kodi. Pretty much everything else is junk vs the Windows equivalent. Maybe if WINE was like 5000% better that would help bridge the gap, but then what is even the point of running a “free” OS if you are just going to run closed source software in it?

Fragmentation of effort. Think of it this way. What if there were, at any given time, around half a dozen versions of Windows. Each being worked on by a completely different group of people. Each version had about half a dozen sub versions, also being worked on by completely different groups of people. Each sub version had dozens of sub sub versions, and each of those sub sub versions had dozens of forks and sub sub sub versions. Every version is being worked on by different people with completely different goals, biases, motivations, and levels of expertise with the vast majority of them getting paid nothing. How well would you expect ANY of those versions to function? A couple thousand people being paid to work towards commonly agreed upon goals is likely to produce a better end user experience than hundreds of thousands of unpaid people working towards hundreds of thousands of different goals with very little common agreement.
Hi thisisjay,

While I agree with much of what you say, my personal experience with the speed of Linux has been completely different. I have an older Dell Inspiron laptop. It came preloaded with Windows 10, has a 4 core 8 thread Intel I7 processor with 8 Gig of ram and 1 T HD. It was decent in it's day but in the last year or so it had slowed considerably, to the point of being unusable. I started shopping for a new laptop, but decided to give Linux a try. I loaded Linux Mint Cinnamon in a dual boot config and the difference was night and day. Linux was speedy, responsive, and totally usable. After a week I removed Windows completely and it's now 100% Linux.
 
-Speed. Despite claims from the Linux community, Linux is always outperformed by Windows in terms of speed when performing everyday tasks.
bs
 
Microsoft and apple always amaze me in they seem to be able to incorporate new and improved ways to create new revenue streams. A couple recent examples for me:

Windows: I set up file history to run on windows boxes in my home to simplify backups. Now that we have both retired in my household not that important but I have kept it running. I set up a new pc for my wife and found that file history was not working correctly . After poking around a bit I found that everything was being saved to OneDrive. What was worse since there is a 5 gig limit the storage was maxed out and not everything was being saved. Of course if I wanted to I could pay a monthly fee for more storage I could fix that. I was able to get all that shut off and backing up to my local samba server. ugh.

Apple: I have wanted to see content that is on Apple TV. Started to research that and found its pretty difficult to do unless you guessed it you have some Apple hardware. There are some workarounds out there but kind of lost interest chasing that.

With all that said I do understand that Microsoft creates some solid user friendly stuff as long as you allow yourself to get stuck into a monthly payment plan. This will get worse. Myself I use linux most of the time as I have used it for years and am comfortable figuring out solutions for problems that occasionally come up. It does work on most hardware so its been a while since I have had to buy anything new for myself.

Even if you don't think you are using linux in your life I assure you you are. Most networking and security appliances running the Public Internet are linux based. Most smart appliances in your home are likely also using some flavor of customized linux. I'm sure there are many other things I'm not even thinking about at the moment. It is everywhere.
 
I shutdown ANY Linux machine....and poof it shuts down in half the time. I turn on ANY Linux machine older laptop/desktop, faster then any Version of Windows. Libre Office can open PDF, and any MS Office files, and save as well. Linux does not update drivers to its own like Windows. AMD GPU drivers are now being updated with Win Drivers and crashing the AMD Software. I just had to fix that problem with a Dual Boot Desktop. Then you need to edit Win files to get it to STOP.

Windows has a setting for Mouse clicks to automatically go to the "hot" button, has worked for years. Now the setting is still there but it works about half the time. I set something up in Linux it stays that way. Win decides it knows better.
 
Linux may only have less than 5% of the desktop.
But they OWN the server market. Over 95%.
 
Fragmentation of effort. Think of it this way. What if there were, at any given time, around half a dozen versions of Windows.

..and yet, there are. We still have plenty of people running windows 8, 10, 11. It's not that uncommon
to even find Windows server 2003, 2008, 2012, 2019, 2022.

I personally think the uniqueness of each distro is what makes Linux appealing. I'm not locked into
a single proprietary look and feel. ..and I don't have to keep paying for it.

Modern versions of Windows mostly "just work"

Different experiences for different people I guess. As a rule I have more problems with Windows these days.
Software availability. I’m sorry. Open source programs are a joke. 9 times out of 10 there is a program that has the functionality you need. 70% of the time it even has a GUI. 50% of the time it functions at a level that one would consider acceptable, 30% of the time it’s good, 10% of the time it's excellent,

You throw ou a lot of statistics here, I'd like to see the source of those statistics. But I asure there are plenty of people who
use Linux who never use the CLI. Just about everything is doable from the GUI.

Each version had about half a dozen sub versions, also being worked on by completely different groups of people.

You mean like office 2007, 2010, 2013, 2019, 365, etc... Internet Exploder, and Edge.
Some of us feel completely the opposite. In fact it bothers me more when everything starts becoming the same.
snap software packages are a good example, many distro's are moving away from RPMs, DEBs, AUR/Binary.tgz
to snap packages. I feel they lose some of their identity and soul when it all becomes one big generic landscape.
 
I hope Linux stays at 2% and never reaches any higher.
No real Linux users wants Linux to become popular.

The day Linux become the choice of the home user base it will be nothing more than another polluted OS as Windows OS is now.
 
This old chestnut again, to continue from what others have said, Linux core runs more of your smart home products [TV's/washing machines/toasters/coffee makers, entertainment equipment etc,] than any other system, Oh and do you drive a modern car? Then it is most likely you are driving a Linux core [auto-linux is about the most used system in motor vehicles worldwide, there is also marine Linux and aero Linux]] and when it comes to military most fly-by-wire, radio-controlled, and smart ordinance also depend on Linux,
So yes percentage wise Linux has the least number of desktop users, but it is the only core system used by 90% of the western world population on a daily basis
 
Each version had about half a dozen sub versions, also being worked on by completely different groups of people. Each sub version had dozens of sub sub versions, and each of those sub sub versions had dozens of forks and sub sub sub versions
FLATPAKS and SNAPS are we a joke to you :D
 
Every version is being worked on by different people with completely different goals, biases, motivations, and levels of expertise with the vast majority of them getting paid nothing. How well would you expect ANY of those versions to function? A couple thousand people being paid to work towards commonly agreed upon goals is likely to produce a better end user experience than hundreds of thousands of unpaid people working towards hundreds of thousands of different goals with very little common agreement.
The reason why the Windows GUI and user experience is a better experience because most people have grown up with Windows and because Windows sends telemetry of everything within Windows to Microsoft so they know what components are used a lot and what parts aren't.

1. Speed, as others haven't mentioned. Show me some stats I sometimes have more than 10 applications open and a virtual system and have never had my system running into issues and my system not super high-end.

2. Help, there are plenty of forums where you can ask a question, like the Ubuntu and Linux Mint forums and this one. As for outdated information you can search for a certain data in your Google search query, which is what I do when looking for myself or someone else. As for Windowss error messages don't make me laugh, the error codes in Windows aren't useful at all of pointing out what the problem is "Error code 0x80072f8f". Most of the time in Linux you at least get a message that points out to the issue, depending on your experience and understand of Linux. Lastly most average PC users don't know how to troubleshoot.

3. Software, you are missing the point. People use it because it's opensource and a lot of cli tools in Linux are based on the Unix philosophy so a lot of Linux gui tools may have a similar idea(not all).
The Unix philosophy emphasizes building simple, short, clear, modular, and extensible code that can be easily maintained and repurposed by developers other than its creators. The Unix philosophy favors composability as opposed to monolithic design.
There are plenty of opensource pieces of opensource software that plenty of people use: VLC, Mumble, Jitsi, LibreOffice, Thunderbird, GIMP, Audacity, Filezilla and more.
(Check number 5, it has linux.org as a screenshot)
No opensource software isn't perfect it has it's disadvantages and advantages bot so does proprietary software.

P.S I have seen many posts on Reddit and other places like this and they lead to nothing.
 
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