To reiterate your point

"To kind of explain what Linux is, you have to explain what an operating system is. And the thing about an operating system is that you're never ever supposed to see it. Because nobody really uses an operating system; people use programs on their computer. And the only mission in life of an operating system is to help those programs run. So an operating system never does anything on its own; it's only waiting for the programs to ask for certain resources, or ask for a certain file on the disk, or ask to connect to the outside world. And then the operating system steps in and tries to make it easy for people to write programs." -- Linus Torvalds

You have to have the programs available for your computer for people to think about switching. I know that leads to the chicken and egg argument but that is what it is. Most don't have the skill or code to make everything work on their own.

I think the key to overcoming is not to be religious about it just show folks that it can do what they want (if it can) and offer help preaching is off putting.

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It is not prejudice, it is experience. It certainly helps to actually work in the IT industry, especially in the business of repairing computers, to see what most people to with their computers and I can assure you that it is not "Thinking GNU" or "What a wonderful community my OS has". I also can assure you that I exactly know how to "Think GNU", so you don't have to tell me to do it. Just because neither I nor you are the topic of this thread (as we are already Linux users), the topic is how to get people to use Linux. And to achieve that you will not get very far with telling them "Just think GNU, see how wonderful our community is, just forget that you can't use that program that is important for you over our wonderful free system". The average computer user is a consumer and consumers in general don't want to think, they want to consume, their social networks, their videos/photos/music, their games, but certainly not their OS.

In short, the same essence of what Germany_chris (and Linux Torvalds) posted: If you want more Linux users give them applications, they won't come for the OS.

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I agree and reiterate my thinking that there are two sides to Linux. User and expert. The user feels exactly as you describe. Pretty much everyone here falls under the category of expert, and I'm using that definition loosely. I'm meaning to say that anyone who cares to tinker with the operating system, either configuration of it, writing programs for it, or within the actual OS itself is a lot further along than the user who merely wants to run programs.

Android is Linux. Pretty much everyone who tackles it, or has used an iPhone, can learn or has learned how to use Android, and further, the mostly common interface that Android provides is typical enough that most users will eventually "get" it versus spend hours trying to even get it to work. In short, they'll find it usable.

If people were given a Linux computer, fully configured with recovery software; much like they receive a new Dell, Gateway, or Compaq computer, they would use it and probably like it. They also would have to have a common distribution which was supported. I think that's pretty much what would get Desktop Linux full acceptance in a large community of users; deployment at a commercial level by some company which chose to distribute their computers with a version of Linux which they support.

Little advice TobiSGD people need to feel part of something if they want to change. I learned this years ago. It is part of the way we socialize.
and to overcome most of the people that have judged linux to harsh.
Has anyone just tried to teach what it means to be part of the community. If people are to busy killing other humans by texting and running over people on bicycles
that's for another thread. But to be part of a living growing free community is the way to over come things.
I am so glad you posted your situation you never know. May be someone in the Community may want to take a project on and help you out of the good of the community.
What I say that is all we have is a community and that is your tools for change and growth.

The average person does not know what Linux is. (I wouldn't know, either, not being a geek- but when I see words that I'm not familiar with, I tend to investigate- so I learnt what Linux is very early-on in my computing life)

Most people don't knowe of all the choices that exist in the world of Linux OS's.

People who have heard of Linux, think that it is hard to use and/or feeble.

To those of us who knew of Linux and decided to give it a try, the fact that many distros these days are trying to emulate Windows and are full of bloat, and hog resources, is a big turn-off. I came to Linux looking to get away from those things- not wanting something that would replicate the Windows which I was trying to escape.

I never felt that the Linux desktop wasn't developed-enough. Just the opposite. And thanks to the great variety of Linux distros, I found distros like Crunchbang and AntiX, which don't even come with desktop environments by default- but use window managers, like Openbox- which took about 24 hours to learn how to use, but provided me with just the snappy performance and "cleanliness" I had been looking for; while offering virtually unlimited customization options.

If I were just making the switch today from Windows to Linux, and came across something like the current Ubuntu, I would really be turned-off, as it seems to have the same privacy issues as Windows; comes with tons of junk that I don't want or need; is a resource-hog; and has a good number of problems, these days- which are all the very things I stopped using Windows to get away from.

If I were going to market Linux- I wouldn't try to market it to every Windows user as a replacement for Windows. I would instead market it to DISSATISFIED Windows users, who were looking to get away from Windows; and I would tout Linux's differences from Windows, as it's strengths. People who are satisfied with Windows aren't likely to switch, anyway; People who are dissatisfied with Windows, don't want a Windows clone.

At this point I kind of feel like talking to a wall. The whole point is: People don't care about their OS, they don't want to fiddle with, they just want it to run their applications. The OS has to get out of the way, it has to just work without everyone even noticing it. Why the hell should those people care about the community of an OS? Why should they see it as an advantage to think "Hey, there is a forum full of people that talk about this OS" when they don't want to care at all about that OS? You are arguing like: I drive a motorcycle and it is fantastic. The only thing I can't do with it is transporting large things. So we should tell people to stop transporting large things to show everyone how great motorcycles are.

sorry was not my intention. And I really do get what your saying. It is the overcome that has really put this in a spin.

I can name many reason why not to switch. I can counter them with another program they have to learn. But the truth is and it is hard watching people go through different OS's is like watching a child learn to walk. How can we make it better. And you have many time TobiSGD you have.
http://www.slackware.com/~volkerdi/

People do and should care about the kernel, GNU and revolutionary, caring ideas. Off topic example I can't "support the troops" unless their only there to protect educators and everyone never money!

@Drakeo: people learn because they want to learn, not because you want them to learn.

We have a saying for that in French: On ne fait pas boire un âne qui n'a pas soif.

In English: One does not make a donkey drink if it isn't thirsty.
Or: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
Or (Old English Homilies, 1175): Hwa is thet mei thet hors wettrien the him self nule drinken.

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Didier Spaier do you have kids? I don't but if I did I would trick them in to wanting to learn and am thankful that kids have to (even if schools get it wrong here and there!)

@jamison20000e: I have two children (probably older than you :-) and hopefully they were and still are eager to learn.

As for kids in general, the best you can do is create an atmosphere that will encourage them to learn, but if you try to force them then maybe you won't be very successful.

As an example, I happened to meet forty five years ago a Tunisian gendarme who couldn't go to high school because his father died soon and he had to work to feed his brothers and sisters. But every afternoon, coming back from work he had his seven children seat down around him in the inner yard of the house and asked to each of them "tell me, what did you learn today?". Very young he introduced them like "future doctor" of "future engineer". All of them have a higher education, and the then "future engineer" has worked for the NASA and is now an university teacher.

As I see it there is only a couple of ways to make it better and they all have play together to achieve that aim:

1. Linux has to come preinstalled on computers. The average user does not install an OS, but uses that one already installed. There are of course people willing to learn and try different things, like many members here or those people that root their phones to replace Android with Cyanogenmod or Replicant, but that is a small minority.

2. The OS has to go out of the way: There have to be distributions that will be supported for a long time (look how many people still use XP because they had simply no need to upgrade) and are widely accepted by software developers, so that they offer packages for those distributions (or even better maintain their software in the distro repositories). They also have to offer a image, brand, whatever you call it, while still being compatible enough to make packaging for different brands easy. Even people that actually don't care about their OS (or can't tell you the advantages or disadvantages of different OSes) love to brag about what they run. For now Ubuntu, with somewhat widespread adoption and LTS versions supported for 5 years, is going the right way, at least when it comes to that.

3. Widespread adoption by commercial software developers, especially those of the large, well known products for (semi-)professionals, like Photoshop, Dreamweaver, AutoCAD, and also, to reach the mass market, game developers and social networking software, when needed. Skype support for Linux is still sub-par, WhatsApp doesn't even exist, ... .

Not wanting to cause anyone to get upset, but do we really want loads more people using Linux, thus making it attractive to the nasties who will start writing viruses for it?

toatally agree and trust me Cloud is not the answer to everything. but is a step forward to integration.

I've purchased a few games through Steam now (mostly for my nephew) plus have all the demos and must say the levels of creativity and artistry seem higher to me (behind as just emerging but higher) so my new, new #1 creativity ( GNU\Linux may have more all around.)