Lol This argument keeps getting reused over and over. The main reason Linux is not used is lazy sysadmins who only care to support Windows and MacOS for other employees. This argument has as much convincing power as "elections" held in separatists regions of Ukraine.
I do have macbook offered by my job, yes it's definitely better than windows, and yes i would take a linux laptop any day
> doing sysadmin job at home is not appealing to me
Please tell me this is a joke. You have to have 0 knowledge about Linux Desktop to claim that Linux users are doing a sysadmin's job when they're using their systems. Calling Linux users sysadmin would be equivalent to calling Windows users Microsoft's QA team haha (ngl, they actually are).
We love Linux because it gets work done, for free, without hiccups that Windows often introduces, and without being a bloated spyware and adware mess that is modern Windows.
> The act of using Linux outside of the server context for a personal machine is hobbyist.
I don't know how you arrive at that, unless you're trolling or haven't gone that deep on Linux. Linux is a far better development environment for many languages and ecosystems than Windows, and Mac (granted of course that you'll have a much better time on Windows with .NET, etc). I've been forced to use both now and again in various jobs over the years and have always gone back to Linux.
Mac is better for non-programming office software, and Windows has better games support.
I've been using Linux as my daily driver since 2019 and I can tell you that the moments I got pissed off where due to companies being extremely hostile towards Linux (ahem, Microsoft) and making their shit with proprietary Windows libraries.
Linux is not difficult, it's much easier to learn than to spend 5 hours on Windows trying to find out which UUID refers to the now-hidden old printer configuration dialog.
Really, even setting up a firewall or hardening your Linux PC is much simpler than Windows.
> I've attacked it as a viable option because linux users seem to handwave some of the things that make it a non viable option for a large % of the population.
Yep, exactly this. A portion of the Linux Desktop community is so high on its own farts that it can't tolerate the idea that people might have legitimate reasons for not using Linux as their desktop. If you have a problematic use case, their suggestion is to get a different use case.
> Linux, well, is Linux. I get it, you have it setup perfectly, for you. And it is super stable, for you. And it has come a long way in usability, for you. It just isn’t a suitable alternative for your average user.
Funny, I feel the same way about both Windows and MacOS. Although both have made massive steps backwards lately.
>It amazes me that people will rag on linux because its "hard" and then build these elaborate Rube-Goldberg machines to avoid the most obvious solution.
It amazes that people don't understand that one's usage patterns might be different, so "just use Ubuntu" wouldn't be applicable (e.g. UNIX savvy guy who appreciates the shells and userland, but nevertheless wants to do Windows .NET development, or work with native and proprietary Windows programs the rest of the time).
>That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives.
I would argue Linux is only superior from the IT software perspective. This is a very narrow perspective that is only inflated if you're in IT or on an IT related site like HN. From almost every other dimension Linux is inferior and therefore from an Overall perspective it is inferior.
The most important dimensions for an operating system are usability and compatibility. Average users are like this while hard core masochist programmers are willing to spend years decoding an interface
>> Just stop using Macs/Windows. You can have it better.
Someone is privileged / in a bubble enough to think this is even remotely plausible for a massive chunk of people.
When native Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro X, hell; even Unity makes it to Linux, I’ll be able to consider it.
Until then, I make my money off those apps. How is not having access to the vast wealth of commercial software ‘having it better’? Even for just the average person?
It’s not. Plain and simple.
Can we finally just drop this ‘just go to Linux’ shit? It really only works for Grandma or Mom who only needs to check their emails, Facebook and type documents, and programmers who happen to be lucky enough to have that extremely limited set of tools work for them.
Until solutions like WINE are no longer required and commercial software is available it is and will remain a non option for the vast, vast majority of professionals using a computer.
No offence intended - but seriously every time someone posts ‘everyone should just move to Linux it’s so much better’, I have to ask myself how isolated in that community they made themselves to make that ‘realistic’.
>>Calling out microsoft tools like visual studio as proof linux doesn't work is sort of dumb
Oh sorry this wasn't my intention at all. I'm just countering the argument that I see a lot on HN(and tbf, maybe this isn't what OP was saying) - that Linux is so good that there is literally no reason for anyone to ever stay on Windows. Like......yeah, it's great and a lot of things work really really well - but some things still don't. That's all. It's not a criticism of Linux, or at least I don't mean it in that way.
Linux is great for doing things on your own. Where it fails is when you have to sync up with other people's proprietary norms.
For example, I'm a researcher who gets funding from the US government. I can do my day-to-day technical work in Linux. But I'm forced to still use Windows to present PowerPoint slides over Teams to my funding overlords, because that's what they use, and I have to conform to that. Linux ports/knock-offs of those products just don't interoperate with proprietary MS systems well enough for me to rely on them. Unless the US government (or at least the relevant parts I deal with) ditches Microsoft products, I have to keep a foot in MS-land to carry out the accountability parts of my job.
> Installing Linux takes literally the same amount of time than any other OS and if you are a developer, it just works
I don't believe you've ever actually used (or maybe setup) linux because I don't know of a single workflow that your average linux distro ships ready to develop on. You still need to download packages, dependencies, editors/IDE's to do anything.
Linux is still leagues better than windows. But it has nowhere near the reliability and software support as macOS. Anyone saying it does is outright delusional.
> Paradoxically, I think that the fact that the OS is less and less important is actually a bad thing for Linux adoption. Because people just don't care about the OS as long as the browser works. And on Windows, it works well enough. So why would they change?
I disagree that it's a bad thing for Linux. If you install Linux on a persons machine where they only browse facebook, they wont notice and they save ~120$. Worked fine enough for a couple of non-techies I know (kindergarten teachers).
To be fair you used are the one who used this absolutely brilliant argument:
> The main reason Linux is not used is lazy sysadmins who only care to support Windows and MacOS for other employees.
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