I’d guess that the people most involved in and attracted to Linux originally didn’t have the sort of design taste, non-technical user empathy, and marketing savvy to make Linux desktop the standard.

Linux grew in a way that reflected its originators and eventually lost too much momentum on the desktop side of things. With tons of success in extra areas, Linux folks started leaning more in on strengths and desktop became more of a niche.

With open source becoming more mainstream and desktop computing stagnating of late, I think there’s room for the next great OS to be open source, and it would be great if it were more grass roots and not a Google project.

I think the biggest issue is UX for non-technical users. apt-get or dnf might seem totally fine to us, but if a non-technical user has to open a text interface to complete a mundane task you can forget about it.

Some projects are working on it, but without some big changes and a lot of marketing Linux will probably always be a niche tool. There is nothing wrong with that if it works great for its niche.

I ask myself this as well. I had used Ubuntu for quite some time and loved the fluidity and customization - not to mention it being open-source. I'm convinced more people would convert (especially from Windows) if they gave it a shot.

The biggest reason IMO are apps not having a Linux version. Users are hard-pressed to switch to Linux if they can't run their Windows app.

What the world needs is some sort of container for desktop applications. Developers should be able to code in whatever language they want and ship it as cross-platform by default.

The OS vendors should team up and make a standard API to enable containerized desktop apps. This way the desktop world can stay afloat in the cloud-native era, where webapps are becoming more capable than before.

Millions of people still want to use "next, next" buttons. Let's assume 3 billion people using computers. Maybe all developers' count is 15 Mio.

The other people might don't want to understand technical things. Because of this, most people using an easily understandable operating system.

Although I don't like Windows, the Windows offers an operating system which even most stupid people can easily understand.

I'm using Linux since 2007. I was starting with Pardus. It was very complex for the newbies. I had a hard time installing Pardus but I could install Windows myself.

And comments are saying, the design isn't good. There are different window managers. Nothing has changed during all these years. This shouldn't be called stability.

unexpected imo here:

I guess it is because lower computer literacy in modern society created by corporations and education system. While apt-get/dnf thought by @jacobherrington is true, it is just result of this. Anybody remember DOS/Home Computers era and how much time MS and others spent to push GUI as desktop OS? Main problem is people don't want to learn how to use their products anymore and IT helps them with it.

Linus answered this question in 2011

2012

To answer the question, first look at why Windows and OS X are as popular as they are currently.

Windows comes with most desktops or laptops you might buy today. To get hardware without Windows, you have to go out of your way. Dell makes machines they'll put Ubuntu on, but it's not easy to find those, and you really have to be looking for it -- which is not what most customers are going to do.

OS X comes on Macs. Most of those buyers want a Mac for whatever reason, and they get OS X with it. I'm an outlier here because one of the main things I like about Macs is they run OS X.

Most consumers aren't out there going "ok, so I need a machine that runs OS X on it, or even I need a machine I can install OS X on it." They get whatever OS comes with the hardware they bought.

There are companies selling Linux machines called "Chromebooks" :) . Again, they're not looking for a Linux machine -- or even a machine that runs ChromeOS necessarily. They want a cheap machine that's secure and can run stuff in a browser.

I think Chromebooks and even Android answer the question here. The only way for "the year of Linux on the desktop" to arrive is for some company to make a device people want to buy that just so happens to run Linux. Most buyers out there don't care what the OS is as long as it does what they need it to do, like run MS Office, run the games they play, etc.

Here in India personal computers became popular during the late 90s, and sellers used to install pirated copies of Windows 95/98 when they deliver computers. During the 2000s the personal computer market grew exponentially, and most of them came with Windows XP --- either OEM installed or pirated.

During that time, Microsoft was raiding offices and institutions searching for pirated Windows, but personal computers were never checked, thus making Windows the number one choice among people. Many applications were built for Windows.

People got used to the Windows UX very much. The UX remained pretty much same from Windows 95, 98, XP, ME, Vista, 7, to 10.

They know that "My Computer" shows what's in their HDD. The letters "C:", "D:" are their HDD partitions. Inserting a CD/DVD and playing music out of it was very easy. They know how to download something and install, how to change the wallpaper, how to change the default music player. Adding a new printer or setting up a network connection was so easy.

Linux was fragmented too much at this time. Also, their UX was not standard across distributions.

If a normal user wanted to try a Linux distro, they started facing many issues.

First of all, installing Linux on a desktop was not easy for a normal user. Then, people couldn't understand the file system of Linux. "/home" was a mystery for people that came from "C:", "D:". People had no idea where to look for HDD partitions. They didn't know how to install an application. Downloading source code and compiling it was not fun for a normal user. Doing something in the command line was cumbersome. Adding a printer/scanner was not easy. Audio may fail because of a driver error. Ooops!

Within days, they would roll back to Windows. I mean, their pirated copy of Windows.

Today, there are better Linux distros with much improved UX. Now there are good office packages, music/video players, and Chrome/Mozilla --- which are the primary apps used by a normal user. Many computers comes with Ubuntu OEM installed. People are fine with that as long as their Chrome/Mozilla works and music/video plays well. GUI based package managers are there, so people are fine with that too. Reading a CD/DVD or adding a printer are easier now. Anyway confusion on the "/home" filesystem still exists among them.

Today a good percentage of laptops come with Windows 10 OEM installed and a few models with Ubuntu (or some other distro) installed.

The popularity of Linux (primarily Ubuntu) is increasing slowly, but it can't dethrone Windows in a near future for sure.

The reason is very easy: Microsoft Exchange and the related ecosystem. It makes hard as hell to introduce linux desktops inside companies. So people at work will always install Windows, and maybe Linux in some virtual machine.

I would say the lack of PR, paired with Microsoft's historic smear campaign (which they appear to have quit), is half to blame for the lack of Linux popularity on the desktop. It certainly has nothing to do with ease-of-use!

I've introduced more average computer users, especially those considered "computer illiterate," to Ubuntu, and most of them have raved about it to all their friends, with them detailing how much superior it is to Windows in their estimation. It takes me 15 minutes to get an average user comfortable in Ubuntu, and they very rarely need to contact me for support. (Once in a blue moon, I get a phone call.)

I'd say the other half of the problem is the big software companies refusing to offer support for Linux. Adobe, Autodesk, Avid, Ableton, Intuit, and (decreasingly) Microsoft have waged a war against the platform for years. Thus, the main obstacle to adoption for many users is "my software doesn't work there." There are two dimensions to this:

1. Protools (Avid) and Ableton, as well as some Adobe and Autodesk products, sport workflows that their users are well-accustomed to. Typically, however, this can be overcome once they find open source alternatives that have the same features.

2. The larger complaint I hear is "I can't open/save the file formats I need." Intuit, Adobe, and Autodesk are especially infamous for this, so much so that I wrote an article calling out their products as ransomware.

Of course, the only reason those products are so ubiquitous is because users are told they're ubiquitous. For example, the majority of schools and universities push Adobe and Autodesk products, even though there are many studios and companies that refuse to use those products, many preferring in-house or open-source tools. And ultimately, the only reason the schools push the products is because they're told those are the standards...and the only reason those are allegedly the standards are because the companies in question claim to be so.

I could go on, of course, about how any decent educational program will teach workflow-agnostic skills, so the student becomes proficient with ANY related software...but I digress.

In the end, then, Linux and open source aren't more ubiquitous primarily because the competition saturates all marketing channels with claims of being "the standard. The only way to overcome this is to do what the open source world has been doing for decades: educating one person at a time.

Us developers weighing in on why Linux isn't mainstream on the desktop is one the reasons why Linux is not mainstream on the desktop :D

Others are: historically ugly and inconsistent UX, the fact there isn't a single Linux but many distributions, Windows being pre-installed on millions of machines, years of Linux not being really ready with people blindingly say "it's ready" (and they were all devs), the existence of Apple, OEM deals, millions of dollars spent on UX research in the other two major OSes, major apps not being available (Windows Phone is dead because apps weren't available and devs didn't want to code for Windows Phone), compatibility of formats.

I don't think there's a single reason why Linux is not more popular on desktop.

I think the extreme diversity of distros is what fundamentally ruins Linux's experience on the Desktop.

For most people, it's either Windows or a Mac. It's usually that simple, and makes for a relatively easy choice when deciding on an operating system.

Linux however, doesn't fall under this. It's a kernel, which is built upon by others to create operating systems. The problem any new linux user finds when attempting to join is, which to use? People will commonly say things like 'Ubuntu', but to an end-user, that doesn't mean anything. They still don't understand why there are so many choices. It confuses them, leads them into problematic situations of choice, learning, and other horrors.

Think about it. If you have an issue with your OS, usually you'd simply search up 'Issue with Windows' or Mac or such, but when it comes to linux, no such situations are universal. When can sudo apt-get be used and when is sudo pacman -S used?

The vast choices also make it hard to try it out. You have choices from things like Debian, Arch, Fedora, OpenSUSE, etc etc etc. What does the user choose? What is easiest to work with, starting as a noob.

I think fundamentally, the main problem ends up how diverse distros are. It's so unclear and confusing where a new user should go to learn stuff that they simply stop trying to enter the ecosystem.

Perhaps you could contrast your question with another question: why is linux on the server so successful? Viewed from that perspective every reason why linux doesn't work on the desktop seems like a shallow excuse.

Take for example fragmentation: Hell we have servers running on Ubuntu, Debian, Redhat, suse etc. seems no problem here.

The point is: Linux filled on the server side the need of having an alternative operating system which was cheap and tuneable.

The same goes for android.

But do we have the same need for the desktop?

No.

And that for two reasons:
1) Your consumer product comes with a desktop operating system pre-installed. You e. g. gain no monetary advantage if you choose Ubuntu over Windows. So it's more of an ideological choice.

2) Desktop - or should I say - stationary computing is on the decline. Aside: I am writing this with my tablet lying on the sofa.

So my expectations are, that there will be no alternative desktop operating system an the near future.

@ben Halpern
As much as I would like to see a more "grass roots" type of OS,I am well aware that the main part of the success story of linux incorporates names like Redhat, IBM etc. (even ironically Microsoft is nowadays a big contributor) so that I see that that is not going to happen any time soon.

I think you don't know anything about Linux... Defragmentation is not an issue in Linux don't trust me just type command in terminal: sudo e4defrag -c / .
I believe your defragmentation score is 0...How I know ...I am using Linux desktop for last 12 years & guess what I am not a developer just a normal Linux user...In my Linux mint19.1 desktop I play latest games and I am also using ms office 2019... That's the power of Linux.

I think there are several major barriers.

First, users tend to stick with defaults rather than seek out, download, and install alternatives. That's how Microsoft killed Netscape, by pre installing Internet Explorer. Although this barrier isn't impermeable (otherwise iTunes and Chrome couldn't survive) it's a major one. If applications don't get replaced, most people aren't replacing their built-in OS for an alternative.

Two, manufacturers are unlikely to make Linux their pre installed default. Windows is the "safer" choice given the consumer brand recognition, the corporate support from Redmond, and the broad hardware and software compatibility.

Three, offering Linux as an option is unlikely to succeed on a mass market basis without a major marketing push, robust tech support, and either FSF level purity (for a privacy and trust pitch) or compelling value (lower retail price and/or very substantial performance improvements such as those offered by ChromeOS).

Four, technical glitches, sometimes caused by hardware makers refusing to cooperate with the FOSS community, continue to plague Linux, including broken or inferior functionality with Wi-Fi, video cards, touch pads, and sleep / hibernate. This can lead a newbie, even one trying a more mainstream distro like Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, or PCLinuxOS, to give up in frustration.

A daily Ubuntu user here (switched from Windows)

I've been a big fan of Ubuntu since 2008. I constantly switch between Windows and Ubuntu. After 10 years, looking back I see that Windows and MacOS have grown much much better in UI/UX when compared to Ubuntu.

Why I hate Ubuntu

I always keep up to date with the latest versions of Ubuntu. Still, I'm facing a lot of problems

• Hard to find drivers
• Lacks development tools. Whenever I search for tools like Client for Postgres, Git GUI, most of the popular software says "Download for Windows/MacOS". All of my colleagues use Mac (it works!) :(
• Getting WiFi is still painful after 10 years of Ubuntu experience
• "Ubuntu Software" is buggy as always
• Poor UX, constant switching between GNOME and Ubuntu One. I appreciate Windows on their speed of improvements in UX
• Hard for non-techies to install software, configure something

Why I'm still using Ubuntu

• Can't afford a Mac
• Super fast in running projects (react, node) when compared to Windows
• I get the exact environment as in server (we use Ubuntu in all servers, it works great!)

PS: I'm switching to Mac very soon

I think one of the major reason is that, when you buy a new PC/Laptop, Windows or MacOS Comes Pre-installed. Most of home or office users aren't that tech savvy to dual boot Linux , and most importantly why should they! They are getting everything they need!

As a developer and someone who doesn't mind tinkering, it became a bit too overwhelming. I wanted to use Linux for development and did not want to go too far into customizing, but using Linux always caused more frustration than joy.

In my opinion, there too much configuration for not a lot of benefit. There was always something I did not like on the distros I tried. I could change it, but that required a fair amount of searching and then copying and pasting things I did not fully understand. It was always something minor that may not bother others but bothered me a lot. Things such as middle click to paste, the number of lines to scroll with the mouse wheel, mouse sensitivity/acceleration, changing the boot menu timeout, sound not defaulting to the front headphone jack, etc. There was not always a GUI option and editing files was hit or miss. It led to frustration when solutions online didn't work. Running updates to stable releases of programs or distros would often leave things in a broken state. Trying to get issues solved was a timesink that killed productivity.

For me, I think visual polish is another reason. Some users are functionality over looks, but I tend to like nice looking interfaces. There are some distros that look pretty good, but they always retain that "Linux look" that is hard to really put into words. I think it has to do with the fonts used and the font smoothing, but it just makes it feel dated. This is definitely a superficial opinion, but looking at Apple's popularity I think there is more of a demand for good-looking stuff.

I've settled on Windows 10 and Windows Subsystem Linux. I'm used to the Windows environment and WSL gives me what I need from Linux command line tools. I still have Ubuntu installed, but rarely reach for it. I think Linux is still very much for enthusiasts that are more into the open source movement.

For a large part of end users, a "friendly" distro like Ubuntu SHOULD be a perfect alternative to Windows.

Just try to explain both Windows, and Ubuntu (with the Gnome Classic UI, I would say) to a complete noob, let's say your proverbial completely non-technical mother-in-law (with no prior exposure to Windows) ... I predict that Ubuntu won't score worse than Windows, and maybe even better.

My sincere opinion is that a user friendly distribution like Ubuntu can actually be a lot EASIER to use than Windows (easier to install, manage, use), however the public image that Linux has is the contrary: nerdy and technical, and most users have already been spoon-fed Windows and trained to use it, and so have already been more or less brainwashed in that regard ... ;-)

Fragmentation is indeed a problem, the proponents of the different distributions can be like followers of religious sects.

My advice: getting behind Ubuntu as a "de facto" Linux standard for the desktop (and maybe even for the server). It arguably has the largest community and 'ecosystem' around it and the most mature desktop implementations.

Despite my argumentation for using a "standard" I'll quickly add that I'm personally a proponent of using Gnome classic rather than Unity on top of Ubuntu, however the various desktop managers are all well supported on Ubuntu and for 95% of the apps it does not matter.

The result of getting behind a standard: wasting less time and effort on learning (and developing, and maintaining, and supporting) competing command line utilities and package managers and whatnot, more answers to be found online, etcetera.

I have spend a lot of time fixing other people's computers; most users I see don't know what Linux is or that it exists. They just buy a computer and it comes with Windows. Then a few years later something goes wrong, I fix it by installing Linux (it it suits their needs) and they are all (yes I have had no exceptions) "Why haven't I heard of this before?", "How can this be free?". All my friends that are well educated do know of Linux (because they know me) but don't care and have enough money to "just buy a Mac" (that also why I make fun of them because I pay less and can do more).

I don't think deployment was an unsolvable issue in the past.
It is usually enough to provide .deb and .rpm, someone will probably put it in the AUR and you covered all important platforms.

One of the reasons (the one that hit me last month) is, install it correctly & successfully. I mean, every time I installed Windows (any version: from XP to 10) there were no issues.

Last month I got a brand new Dell XPS (9570). Maybe I am doomed, but it took the entire weekend to install Mint (tried Ubuntu first, but same errors). I think I launched the install process about 10 times before it was installed - and then I had some other issues to fix (allow the laptop to enter sleep mode, fix the freeze happening after a few minutes...). I hope my next install will be smooth :)

My biggest problem with Linux desktop was that elevated explorer file operations aren't possible sometimes without Terminal to launch the FM.

Additionally further on this, autodetection of dpi awareness is another problem, got a 4k monitor? Sure, run 3, 4 terminal commands to up console and UI resolution. It should be automated.

The UX can be pretty bad in places too but this never made it a write off for me.

I use Linux desktop where I can but supporting it and running it for a long period of time is hard.

The large array of choices when it comes to desktop environments is also a bit overwhelming for new users, this obviously can't be 'oh just delete them' but there really should be one main environment that everyone tries to target which isn't designed for a tablet os. Looking at you gnome.

Unfortunately the main competition has the market share in the desktop world because of the single desktop environment and out of the box UI to control all the things without Terminal / CMD. Which I feel this is where Linux has fallen short when it's put together in a distro.

Anyway, I absolutely love Linux it's a great system for what I use it for (servers), but it won't be replacing my desktop os until I find a distro without these gripes.

Elementary os came closest to being what I wanted but still heavily relying on the terminal for certain tasks puts me off.

I'm actually looking forward to kids who are taught Raspberry Pi in school. On what they will do to adopt Linux as part of their goto platform when they grow up.

I cannot see my mum install packages or writing on a terminal😜🤣

The reason why Linux isn’t used as much as windows and Mac is mostly due to the way they where created.

I’m old enough to remember when computers where pretty expensive in Portugal and only a few people had computers - mostly running Windows 3.1.

Back then Macs where insanely expensive and only “elite” people would be able to afford a Mac.

Windows became available in schools and libraries and things became cheaper so everyone started to buy a desktop and it came with windows installed.

Back then installing Linux was a real pain/impossible if you didn’t know what you were doing. Forwarding a few years I remember already having internet at home and tried to install Linux on one of my machines but I could never make the internet work and without internet I had no way to figure out how to install internet on my Linux distro haha

The fragmentation of Linux can be an issue as well since most people are afraid to choose the wrong distro - something that doesn’t happen on Windows and Mac.

In my opinion the Mac got even more popular because “kids” like me were able to finally afford this “elite” brand and I’m sure every single one of us where amazed by actually be able to afford one haha

These are my views from Portugal, perhaps it’s different other places

You seem to share the same sentiment as Linus himself:

The problem is Adobe here.
Mac and Windows still exists because of that, many people relay on his software to keep using those OS.
If someone makes that Photoshop or any other Adobe software runs on Linux without using wine, bye bye Apple and MS.

Because Desktop Linux experience is terrible.

Every couple years I try to go back to a Desktop Linux experience. My dev machine for the longest time was Linux with fluxbox/blackbox as the wm. It was fine for me when I wanted to tinker more and didn't mind the hoops to get things working.

But nowadays? I tried to give my daughter an Ubuntu powered laptop. But then I had to keep getting it from her to configure this thing or that thing or whatever. Wouldn't play videos on some sites. Couldn't run Spotify. Speakers only played mono. Printing was a pain. Wifi was spotty.

My younger self would have tackled it. But now? Ain't nobody got time for that when your kiddo is trying to do homework and just not worry about drivers, config files, etc.

I use Macs with OSX cause I never have to think about that stuff and be interrupted, plus I can run whatever OSS I want (either as a container or via homebrew or whatever).

Linux for servers though? Nothing better imho. But Desktop Linux just still isn't there and likely never will be.

I have been using Fedora since version 24, i use for work and for gaming ( yes, gaming with Steam Play or Wine and DXVK). I had few issues with Ubuntu after some updates and the sound didn't work anymore.
Besides that every time there is a kernel update, i have to reinstall Nvidia propietary drivers but Fedora is one of the bests.

On this topic I have only one sentence: Linux is not clickable enough. And this is problem for many users, when they hear 'Linux' they hear 'writing something in terminal to do anything'.

The story of Linux on the desktop is like the story of pied piper in the silicon valley series. Brilliant from an engineering point of view, unnecessarily complicated from a user point of view

There are 3 things Linux doesn't have that prevents it from being my daily driver OS:

• Microsoft Office
• Adobe CC (also CSP)
• games

Those 3 things, plus developing software are the main things you can only do well on a desktop computer compared to other personal computing form-factors like phones and tablets.

And since developing software is the only one of those things that I can do in Linux, that's the only thing I use Linux on the desktop for.

Think it's just fear of the unknown. People are comfortable using Windows or Mac and have heard how 'difficult' Linux is to use over the years so why switch.

Everyone I have switched over to Linux always says the same thing "I wish I had done this earlier"... most of these are not 'technical' users.

Today with most people doing a majority of things online Linux is a great platform, it's just not convenient for most people to switch.

// , Allow me to refer you to the Unix Haters handbook:

freecomputerbooks.com/The-UNIX-Hat...

The authors discuss the fundamental issues with the variants of Unix, including Linux, usability in depth.

Many of the issues we see today would persist even if a billionaire took up the cause.

Oh, wait, did that already happen?

I'm on Linux, but it took me a couple of attempts to actually settle on it completely. First attempts were unsuccessful because I would often ran into problems and then ask myself why it has to be so hard? and then went back to windows xp. At a certain moment windows 7 appeared which I never used. Then due to perseverance or stubbornness I went back to Linux. I think after a third attempt I never went back to windows. I have never regreted it.

If I had someone around me who knew Linux perhaps I would have needed only one attempt.

Count the steps and time needed to get the good driver for graphics or sound on Windows vs Linux and you'll see why non-technical users stay away from it. Constant bugs, experimental base versions which produce pain for users that want to get on with their lives etc...
Microsoft has a way of reaching different manufacturers and those create good enough drivers for the hardware in need (you can write down list of problems it's still stable for large number of users) then linux guys have to figure out how to catch up and cannot get all of the specs while writing drivers. It sounds stupid for Linux users but just test it and see. It's not fun to configure PC for 3 days just to get it to work when you only need system to work as fast as possible. It looks like this is currently changing but it's not. Any time I try to get back fully on Linux I have issues regardless of the distro.
It's a bit matter of business where MS has it's way to force hardware makers to do stuff for them in the personal machines part while servers are not that of intrest to them. On the other hand Apple has it's own specific hardware and they make it work :D

I'm surprised honestly that there's literally no talk of ChromeOs particularly with Crostini here.

We all know ChromeOs as being a super locked down linux base, on some less powerful machines. A few years ago the introduced android apps that barely worked, but they scrapped it and re-did the entire feature and now its pretty good. That also paved way for the above mentioned Crostini.

Crostini is essentially a special container running debian off the chromeOs kernel, that lets you install software with apt-get as well as .deb packages. Gui programs automatically open in ChromeOs as native windows and get launcher icons in chromeos so you don't even have to open the terminal once they are installed.

In addition, if installing from a .deb file you can double click it in the file explorer, and it will install for you without having to do anything with the terminal or another. Also in the pipeline is the ability to simply type the program(from apt-get) you're looking for into the search bar and install it with a click. Currently the main limitation is that there is no hardware acceleration for the applications in the container though that is now in alpha testing and coming down the line. Steam runs but the games barely run due to that.

So ChromeOs you can run basically every Android app, and basically anything from linux land, with none of the normal driver BS you sometimes have to deal with. I've gotten IntelliJ running, Gimp, you name it. And its so simple. It's still a bit incomplete but its still technically in "beta", that said, its basically everything I want a linux desktop to be.

I think it's just the ease of use. After switching completely to Linux ~10 years ago I was amazed by speed and the amount of tools available for software development. Then, when I switched to MacOS I was also surprised that a lot of things from Linux just worked on there too and the setup was a lot easier.
~8 months ago I switched back from MacOS to Linux Ubuntu and yet again I was surprised how much OS has changed:

• Automatically detects and installs correct drivers
• Lots of auto updates for OS
• Looks way better than MacOS & Windows (well Windows I guess is a spent horse so it's unfair to even compare)
• Faster
• Docker works natively without some witchcraft with "lightweight" VMs :)

I think Linux community did a great job. Current versions of Ubuntu and Fedora can be used by anyone (even your parents).

I'm a web developer, so there is obviously a lot of motivation for me to move to Linux - being the platform my code gets hosted on. The environment differences, and the generally poor Windows support for supposedly "cross-platform" languages, and so on.

I've started using Ubuntu on Windows, and it's still a somewhat prickly experience. Certainly better than waiting for a dependable Windows build of anything. And at least I get a stable, dependable UI for everything but programming languages 🤨

I'm the type of person who reluctantly picks a Linux every year or so, and have for more than a decade. It typically takes about a week of agony to make me go back to Windows.

This is just to provide some context for my experience.

What are the main issues?

The first is stability. Even the experienced Linux people I work with are constantly showing up to a presentation with a laptop that crashes just because you unplugged your monitor and went to a different monitor in the next room. Even a smaller hardware change seems to be enough to make it break down.

More systemic changes like taking out your harddrive and putting it in a new computer is almost guaranteed to either brick your system completely or at least leave you with lots of manual updates and/or things not working.

Probably the driver model is broken? Or perhaps the drivers themselves are neglected by the vendors and/or contributed by third parties? I don't know.

I never have problems like these on Windows. Drivers and hardware needs to just plug-and-play, with no intervention on my part. Having to fight the OS to achieve stability is completely out of the question for me.

For reference, I have seen Windows 10 crash precisely twice since it came out.

In the same time period, I must have seen my coworkers Linux machines crash (or just wig out) often several times daily.

The second big issue for me is software distributions.

On Windows, I download one file, double-click, and walk through an installation wizard.

On Linux, even with some of these vendor-supplied "app stores" attempting to make things more accessible, installation is usually a complete mystery.

The typical experience is something like a terminal window with thousands of lines of weird messages flying across the screen - and then, at the end of that, typically you're left completely in the dark, probably with some assumption that you know precisely what you've just installed and how to invoke it?

And for things like languages, these "app stores" aren't usually even an option, because everything they have is outdated, and, if you're installing a programming language, typically you need the latest version. The it's off to Stack Overflow to find obscure commands to manually add (often "unofficial", which feels really spooky) "repositories" to yet another mysterious tool just to be allowed to download and install the thing.

Who wants to know any of this stuff? It's the Dark Arts. I want to be a programmer and not a systems administrator.

So those are the two biggest problems from my personal point of view.

I'm using GNOME on ArchLinux, at least since 2014, and I feel like I'll never look back.

The dark theme, before every other OS, looks just stunning since about ever.

The UI is buttery smooth, and the alias open=xdg-open makes me forget I'm not on macOS for the pretty much only command that I like about my macOS bash experience.

The Random Wallpaper extension makes me forget I'm not on Window, offering me amazing wallpapers from various sites curated by people, with all details when needed.

If I miss one thing from macOS, it's the Emoji widget on ctrl+command+space, something replaced by Emoji Selector extension, but not nearly as well integrated.

If I miss one thing from Windows, is just the ability to play, from time to time, whatever game, even if most things work well via Steam and/or Proton and/or dxvk.

If I could have both previous things on top of what I have daily, I'd say my perfect OS would be already a reality: blazing fast, community driven, usable in laptops, as well as Raspberry PI (or any other SBC, really), and Desktop PCs, and it's always updated 🎉

As developer, you'll indeed have always latest stable version of any package, but you can also create your own packages and publish those in AUR, where AUR is the best thing ever for community packages creation and developers.

To anyone still associating Linux to Ubuntu, just give GNOME on ArchLinux a chance, and you'll start writing posts like this one 'cause you'll be super happy, but sad if others haven't tried this combo too.

If you wouldn't know how to, give AntergOS or archibold.io a try.

I've installed these to my family and few friends, and everyone is happy.

All packages that work in Debian/Ubuntu will eventually work on ArchLinux too, so even the fragmentation excuse is not really an issue.

Now, answering to the question: why not more users?

There are still various famous "premium" softwares that work on Windows, or macOS, only.

Adobe does that, but so does Origin, EA, and many many other Games related Software Houses.

They just don't care about Linux, and not because it's difficult to distribute anything, simply because they ignore a minority of users.

There is also outdated softwar, full of bugs, security issues, yet used by banks, public administrations, etcetera ... and until they do the switch, and there are various countries where PAs already did switch from Windows to Linux, we'll still have a minority so that selling software for Linux would mean putting some effort without a certain income.

And people also keep associating the Linux world as if everything must be free while they can sell on Windows and macOS: this is simply not true at all, yet hard to drop from many people mind.

All this could change only if people started ditching the latest game, the latest software, or the latest whatever, if it doesn't have a Linux version too.

This, although, won't probably ever happen, 'cause people don't like being in charge.

Because they teach Windows and MS Office in all schools.
Forcefully and exclusively.
Also because Adobe doesn't release for linux.

Try Fedora, it works for me

I change it to cinnamon, is better and friendly than gnome.

I just stumbled on this older article & want to chime in.

I'm a convert from Windows desktop to Ubuntu. As a dev I'm more technical than average, but at the time I was a huge Windows fan & not super comfortable with the terminal.

Though I think I was the perfect target for Ubuntu... it was still a transition that required a high level of dedication & determination. As great as Ubuntu is, the entire Linux ecosystem lacks 2 main things: focus on user-friendliness & polish on the available applications.

The simple fact is if you want to market an OS to mainstream users, they never, ever want to run terminal commands to do anything. And even Ubuntu is only about 70% there. The gui has to be intuitive. It took me forever to first figure out how to get an app shortcut on my desktop. Fix the driver & hardware compatibility issues. Etc.

Second, I have so far found a Linux alternative to every piece of software I used to use on Windows years ago (except my accounting software, but I moved to cloud). However, without exception each one is visually uglier than the Windows alternatives. They may work as good or better - but if the GUI looks like the 1980s... people think it's old - even if it's actively updated. Microsoft makes Office & Outlook which are two of the main things people use. They keep the design polished, modern & consistent.

The public likes simple & shiny. Microsoft & Apple deliver this- even if they are bloated, vendor-locked & full of spyware, people won't care. Remember when Windows' Aero Glass theme came out? People were gaga over it.

For me it was app/driver support. I use Ubuntu at work and was using PopOS at home till I recently purchases a Macbook pro. I got tired of things not working at home on my laptop and the solution being pages long. As well as some apps just being buggy or not working.

I think fragmentation is a big issue, but there is also people with closed minds that will not accept anything that is not Microsoft related. For instance, a few days ago I had a job interview and the interviewer said something like If it were for me, all the servers would be using Windows, it's simpler... after he told me he had to use Linux because his architect told him so.

The answer has nothing to do with popularity or usability or familiarity or anything UI/UX. It is all about advertising and [semi-redact above] familiarity or comfort. Windows was so bam bam in the beginning that it dominated the market, and became what is know as the Coke syndrome where the very idea of an OS, for desktop, was to assume Windows. "...I'd like a coke please." interprets to, "...I'm buying a new desktop" and now the buyer is only assuming that it comes with Windows.

Oh well, my flavor is Mint or any Debian with smaller PCs (media centers and 3d-printer boxes) favor towards LinuxLite. distrowatch.com/table.php?distribu...

Well Linux is more used in desktops those days thanks to... Microsoft and its Windows Subsystem for Linux :D

The reasons why Linux is not so popular in desktop are, in my opinion, the following:

• Stability. Lack of quantity and quality hardware drivers.

• Software catalogue. Most devs had dual-boot before WSL2, specially those devs that are also gamers and if you try to play something different than minecraft on a Linux you'll learn why.

• Frustration. People that would use Linux usually face issues that needs to be solved with the terminal, and muggles (non-IT users, and fake IT users) have the bad practice of copy and paste each thing they find on internet on a vague try to solve it's issue and go on without ever trying to understand the issue so it quickly ends up on a mess and the need to format after typing ROOT from the beginning and executing some commands found on wherever blog about something "similar" to it's issue.

Linux is and always was an OS made by "nerds" for "nerds". If you want to push a product to the market as "consumable product" you need to push hard on usability and avoid user's silliness to end up in a mess or on a weird path. This is something Windows did nice since time ago. It may push a blue screen to your face so you know something went so wrong it had to stop, on Linux you get an error on a specific "module" so you can keep trying to solve that and you'll be able to solve that only if you know about Linux. Simply setting a "safe mode" for that and not the Linux current safemode (which is primary about disabling drivers that malfunction) would be better while showing "orange screen of death". Oh and.. you'll need to maintain all the modules that shape and form an OS version, otherwise you'll end up with issues here and there and oh this is not maintained anymore and so...