I gotta say, the frequency with which you hear that Android/ChromeOS is actually Linux and it totally counts, or how successful Linux is on other applications is REALLY much less flattering to desktop Linux than people claiming that seem to think.
I’d argue the moment you have to pick a distro in the first place you’ve made the guy’s point. That’s already way past the level of interest, engagement or decision-making capacity most baseline users have. Preinstalled, tightly bound versions like Android or SteamOS are a different question, maybe. Maaaaybe.
Yeah I think it’s a similar problem to federation. Yeah it’s confusing at first and the fact that it’s often worth it and that that’s actually a sign of it being good and resilient to bad stuff that standard users do dislike doesn’t mean you keep them.
I think there’s however room for a linux based tightly compacted desktop distro. If it’s treated as independent and there’s easy ways to do everything that terminal does outside of terminal (and most importantly default to that) you could probably gain some share. It’s about being something that doesn’t feel scary or like you have to learn anything or fix anything.
Yep, that was my point. There’s nothing fundamentally alien to using desktop Linux for most tasks when it’s standardized and preinstalled, you see that with the Raspberry Pi and Steam OS and so on. The problem is that people like to point at that (and less viable examples like ChromeOS or Android) as examples that desktop Linux is already great and intuitive and novice-friendly, and that’s just not realistic. I’ve run Linux on multiple platforms on and off since the 90s, and to this day the notion of getting it up and running on a desktop PC with mainstream hardware feels like a hassle and the idea of getting it going in a bunch of more arcane hardware, like tablet hybrids or laptops with first party drivers just doesn’t feel reasonable unless it’s as a hobbyist project.
Those things aren’t comparable.
Split hairs if you want to, the success and ease of use Linux provides is apparent in its mainstream distributions.
I’m not splitting hairs, I’m calling out a fallacious argument. If your take is that Desktop Linux is super accessible and mainstream because Android is a thing that’s a bad take.
Here’s how I know it’s a bad take: if I come over to any of the “what Distro should I use first” threads here and I tell you to try Samsung Dex you’re probably not going to be as willing to conflate those two things anymore.
But hey, yeah, no, Android is super accessible. So is ChromeOS. If that’s your bar for what Linux has become for home users, then yeah, for sure. Linux is on par with Windows in terms of accessibility. May as well call it quits on the desktop distros muddying the waters, then. I mean, if all that is Linux what are those? 1% of the Linux userbase? 0.1%? Why bother at that point?
