I agree with some of your points but in this one and other comments you are referencing “data” multiple times to provide validity for your opinions, yet you either fail to understand what the data is able to measure or you are using it dishonestly to further your argument.
A usage percentage does not provide reliable data about the usability (“viability for the mainstream”). There are too many factors at play distorting it to make a reliable connection between these two.
“It depends on the person” suggests it’s luck of the draw, but the Linux desktop penetration is something like 1-4%, at best, and that’s inlcuding SteamOS and PiOS in the mix […] that’s “doesn’t work for the vast majority of people”
The only way in which the percentage would be useful is, if you are implying that the other 96-99% chose to not use linux, because it doesn’t work for them, which is obviously not the case. Otherwise it is completely meaningless, as users were never exposed to linux, thus didn‘t have to make a decision, and thus didn’t deem another operating system superior.
There are a few objections along these lines in this thread, where the implication is that Linux is underused because it lacks awareness. Maybe it’s a generational thing? Linux has been around for a long time now, people are aware of it. There are multiple popular device lines out there that use it, several companies even put some marketing behind it.
I don’t know if you were there when Ubuntu first hit, but it was pretty widely reported. And that was twenty years ago. And of course Valve and Raspberry and Android and ChromeOs all were reported to carry flavours of Linux to the masses.
I mean, I’m sure a bigger, more coordinated marketing campaign would help, but it’s not a secret tucked away on nerdy cycles. I remember being in a college classroom in what? 2006? And when a professor didn’t know what Linux was the entire classroom laughed at them for reacting in disbelief at the notion that Linux was free (“so if something breaks who provides support?” I remember them asking, it was hilarious).
Look, it’s been a long time since you can just pull installation media of Linux from the Internet and just give it a try. Awareness is a factor, but it’s not THE reason Linux isn’t more widespread.
I disagree that the implication is only about lack of awareness. Further my point wasn’t that Linux is underused because of a lack of awareness. My point is that user popularity is not a valid measurement for usability.
Awareness definitely plays a role in user numbers but there are other more important factors. For example awareness of Linux doesn’t beat what comes preinstalled, this is a much bigger factor if we are talking about all desktop users in my opinion. Linux could have the best usability out of all desktop OS, most would still not change preinstalled OS for different reasons e.g. not knowledgeable enough, indifference etc… You might argue that if it was the OS it would come preinstalled, but then you would be ignoring the economic reasons that guide that.
I still maintain that popularity of an OS is not a metric that can be used to infer usability. As long as there are different hurdles to getting to the actual using part, actual usability can‘t be determined by popularity.
On a side note about awareness:
Maybe it’s a generational thing?
It could very well be, or it could potentially be something geographical. Anecdotally in my friends group of university students(20-26year olds) in a non-technical-field, not a single Person (beside me) knew what Linux was, and most had never heard the term before I mentioned it in a conversation. Neither would my parents. So maybe not a generational thing. I think you might be viewing the extent of awareness from the eyes of someone broadly in the tech field?
For the record, in the anecdote in question the professor was teaching marketing in a non-tech degree, so I’m not sure about that one. The argument, IIRC was about them arguing that the Win95 launch campaign had been one of the, if not THE most successful marketing campaign ever, which all the millenials in the room were not having. Prof argued “nobody even knows what the second most successful PC OS would be” and the Linux incident happened. It was very funny.
Anyway, on the underlying point I agree that you could change the usage numbers in many ways, but the argument here is not that the low usage info proves the bad usability, necessarily. I’m saying the bad usability and compatibility issues are a major problem that makes the OS hard to embrace for most users. That’s the hypothesis. The info that after decades of public, free availability Linux remains a marginal choice is a piece of info that reinforces that hypothesis. It doesn’t prove it by itself, but it’s certainly very consistent with it.
I’d argue that the fact that Linux is free and it’s not preinstalled more often also reinforces that point. In fact some PC builders would offer it as a fallback if you didn’t want to pay for Windows, especially back in the 00s when the functionality gap was actually narrower than it is now, and that didn’t seem to help much, with most people still paying the fee to get a OEM Windows install.
But all of that is still indications we see in the market of the ripple effects of Linux’s reputation, which would be ripple effects of its UX and compatibility issues. It’s not the entire picture, but it sure fits in the picture, if you see what I’m saying.
I agree with some of your points but in this one and other comments you are referencing “data” multiple times to provide validity for your opinions, yet you either fail to understand what the data is able to measure or you are using it dishonestly to further your argument.
A usage percentage does not provide reliable data about the usability (“viability for the mainstream”). There are too many factors at play distorting it to make a reliable connection between these two.
The only way in which the percentage would be useful is, if you are implying that the other 96-99% chose to not use linux, because it doesn’t work for them, which is obviously not the case. Otherwise it is completely meaningless, as users were never exposed to linux, thus didn‘t have to make a decision, and thus didn’t deem another operating system superior.
There are a few objections along these lines in this thread, where the implication is that Linux is underused because it lacks awareness. Maybe it’s a generational thing? Linux has been around for a long time now, people are aware of it. There are multiple popular device lines out there that use it, several companies even put some marketing behind it.
I don’t know if you were there when Ubuntu first hit, but it was pretty widely reported. And that was twenty years ago. And of course Valve and Raspberry and Android and ChromeOs all were reported to carry flavours of Linux to the masses.
I mean, I’m sure a bigger, more coordinated marketing campaign would help, but it’s not a secret tucked away on nerdy cycles. I remember being in a college classroom in what? 2006? And when a professor didn’t know what Linux was the entire classroom laughed at them for reacting in disbelief at the notion that Linux was free (“so if something breaks who provides support?” I remember them asking, it was hilarious).
Look, it’s been a long time since you can just pull installation media of Linux from the Internet and just give it a try. Awareness is a factor, but it’s not THE reason Linux isn’t more widespread.
I disagree that the implication is only about lack of awareness. Further my point wasn’t that Linux is underused because of a lack of awareness. My point is that user popularity is not a valid measurement for usability.
Awareness definitely plays a role in user numbers but there are other more important factors. For example awareness of Linux doesn’t beat what comes preinstalled, this is a much bigger factor if we are talking about all desktop users in my opinion. Linux could have the best usability out of all desktop OS, most would still not change preinstalled OS for different reasons e.g. not knowledgeable enough, indifference etc… You might argue that if it was the OS it would come preinstalled, but then you would be ignoring the economic reasons that guide that. I still maintain that popularity of an OS is not a metric that can be used to infer usability. As long as there are different hurdles to getting to the actual using part, actual usability can‘t be determined by popularity.
On a side note about awareness:
It could very well be, or it could potentially be something geographical. Anecdotally in my friends group of university students(20-26year olds) in a non-technical-field, not a single Person (beside me) knew what Linux was, and most had never heard the term before I mentioned it in a conversation. Neither would my parents. So maybe not a generational thing. I think you might be viewing the extent of awareness from the eyes of someone broadly in the tech field?
For the record, in the anecdote in question the professor was teaching marketing in a non-tech degree, so I’m not sure about that one. The argument, IIRC was about them arguing that the Win95 launch campaign had been one of the, if not THE most successful marketing campaign ever, which all the millenials in the room were not having. Prof argued “nobody even knows what the second most successful PC OS would be” and the Linux incident happened. It was very funny.
Anyway, on the underlying point I agree that you could change the usage numbers in many ways, but the argument here is not that the low usage info proves the bad usability, necessarily. I’m saying the bad usability and compatibility issues are a major problem that makes the OS hard to embrace for most users. That’s the hypothesis. The info that after decades of public, free availability Linux remains a marginal choice is a piece of info that reinforces that hypothesis. It doesn’t prove it by itself, but it’s certainly very consistent with it.
I’d argue that the fact that Linux is free and it’s not preinstalled more often also reinforces that point. In fact some PC builders would offer it as a fallback if you didn’t want to pay for Windows, especially back in the 00s when the functionality gap was actually narrower than it is now, and that didn’t seem to help much, with most people still paying the fee to get a OEM Windows install.
But all of that is still indications we see in the market of the ripple effects of Linux’s reputation, which would be ripple effects of its UX and compatibility issues. It’s not the entire picture, but it sure fits in the picture, if you see what I’m saying.