I saw David Heinemeier Hansson recently wrote about this topic and thought I’d take a crack at the question as well.
I’m sure there are plenty of others, but I’ve identified what I believe to be the primary reasons why more people don’t use Linux.
Marketing
Apple, Google, and Microsoft spend millions of dollars each year promoting the use of their operating systems. And not just through direct advertising, but also in the form of salespersons convincing large corporations, organizations, and governments to use their operating system over free alternatives.
They’re some of the largest companies in the world and are able to promote their software to every corner of the market.
By comparison, when was the last time you saw a Linux distribution advertising their operating system? Probably never. I don’t think I ever have.
But I suspect the majority of their efforts are targeted toward hosting companies and perhaps some segment of the developer user base.
Support Structure
Dell, HP, Apple, Acer, Lenovo, and more. They’ve all built their business around selling computers and offering support to their customers. There may be some non-zero amount of effort put toward supporting Linux on their machines — I know that some of them have sold computers with Linux pre-installed and would have wrote documentation and done testing for those customers.
But it’s minuscule compared to the knowledge and expertise that they have in building and supporting computers that run Windows, macOS, and ChromeOS.
I’ve had some conversations about Linux with some close friends and family. All of whom I’d think of as having a, roughly, average level of technical knowledge about computers. And one of the points that has been brought up on multiple occasions is the idea that if something goes wrong when they’re using one of the major operating systems, they know who they can call for help.
If they were running Linux, though, they have no idea. They can’t just call the support line for their computer manufacturer and expect to get assistance. They’d likely end up relying on me or they’d be aimlessly searching for answers on the web — almost certainly without the vocabulary necessary to craft fruitful search terms.
Familiarity
I’m sure most people have a pretty similar experience when it comes to computer access. You likely had Windows machines at your school and maybe some Macs for specific classes — we used them in my photography class in high school.
Children of today might be slightly different, I know ChromeBooks and iPads are seeing some usage.
At home, your family probably had Windows machines or maybe Macs, but obviously that wasn’t as common. Likewise, if you use a computer at your job, it’s almost certainly a Windows machine or less commonly a Mac.
The overwhelming majority of users have absolutely zero experience with Linux. So it’s difficult to convince them to jump on board with something they’re completely unfamiliar with.
Perceived Barrier to Entry
Even for many users that have deeper experience with macOS and Windows, Linux is perceived as a difficult operating system to use and maintain. The type of users that have installed Windows from scratch, recovered a Mac using a Time Machine backup, or have spent time customizing their system beyond the surface-level tools built into the operating system.
Some of that may have been warranted in the past. I know I’ve spent my fair share of hours trying to get Wi-Fi working on some machines or hitting my head against the wall because of some graphics card driver issue.
I still have trouble with these things from time to time — generally because of hardware that’s a bit tricky to get working on Linux.
But I think a lot of people think of Linux as often requiring a command line to function. But I think, for the majority of users, they could use a Linux desktop for years without having to use the command line for anything.
Many Linux distributions have far better hardware support than I’ve experienced in the past. There are the occasional hiccups, but if you are already using Linux or know that you plan to use Linux, you can just buy hardware that has solid support without jumping through hoops.
That combined with the software center apps that make installing and removing software a breeze, Linux is pretty darn user friendly.
Can We Change This?
I expect most of the people reading this would consider themselves to be a bit more technologically savvy compared to the average user. What we can do, if we want more people to use Linux, is to start using it ourselves.
Eventually, as we gain more familiarity with the system ourselves, the idea of convincing a friend or family member to switch will become more approachable.
The key is to wait for the timing to be right. For example, my mother-in-law is currently using an older iMac as her primary computer.
It works okay for now, but Apple doesn’t offer software updates for it anymore. Brave and Chrome still support the operating system that she’s running, but that won’t be the case forever. Eventually, you won’t be able to get a decent browser that runs on the machine that also receives regular updates.
At that point, a new computer seems like the obvious solution. But the iMac has a quad-core processor, enough memory for her tasks, and a solid state drive. The hardware itself is more than capable.
When that time comes, it will be the perfect time to pitch the idea of installing Linux.
Consider the options:
- Spend over a thousand dollars on a new iMac.
- Try using Linux on the exact same machine, for free, to try and get some additional years out of it.
The great thing is, if she were to try using Linux and it doesn’t work out, she could always just fallback to buying a new machine. There’d be no harm done and at least we gave the free option a shot.
There are likely other scenarios where suggesting Linux as an alternative could be met with interest. Maybe the next time Microsoft decides to add a feature to Windows that’s almost universally detested. Or when Apple decides to add yet another security feature that will primarily serve to annoy macOS users.
Think of it as the type of effort that many of us participated in with Firefox in the mid-2000s, helping friends and family install it on their machines and encouraging them to use it over Internet Explorer. That effort, in no small part, helped Firefox reach its peak marketshare of 38%.
Now I don’t expect we’ll ever reach those heights with Linux in desktop marketshare, but we can certainly improve things. And I think the world would be better if we did.
