Why are Linux distros so unpopular?

Mechanikx · 09-04-2019, 09:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by azrielle

There is a fairly prevalent capitalist consumer mindset that if you don't pay for it (or if you get it for cheap), it can't be any good. Doesn't matter what the product is either.

This definitely rang true for me. Back in the mid 2000's I was telling a friend, who does PC repair, about a new computer I was getting. He asked if I had heard of linux, I said no, and he told me I should try it out and that it was free.

I remember thinking to myself "How bad does something have to suck for someone to give it away for free."

I was pleasantly surprised.

Germany_chris · 09-05-2019, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by braithwaite

A computer shop could sell a desktop with dual boot. People can choose between a linux distro and Win10 every time they boot.
Hell, you could have several linux distros pre-installed.
If you did this with a laptop - you could sell even more devices.

Anyone have a problem with this business proposition?

Android uses the Linux kernel.
But Android is not Linux. Android is Google.
Why don't you know that?

You think most people are clueless and for you 'it's OK that way'.
That's not a very nice sentiment is it?

Linux is about ownership of an OS, personal control of our lives, privacy, security, freedom.
And even if people are 'clueless', even if they are deluded people like you - we still give Linux to them.
If you have Linux without paying a penny - then everyone should have Linux.

Android can be Google and it can be free of Google, it's the users choice..

Flash AOSP and F-droid and now you have Linux sans Google

==

The great part about being a grown up is I get to choose the things I use daily and you can pry my Mac's out of my cold dead hands..I like my MacOS/OSX just as much and more for quite a number of things then my Linux.

permaroot · 09-05-2019, 10:37 PM

AOSP ftw.

I overheard some guy the other day say "Buying a Mac is like buying a linux laptop already set up for you. It's the same thing. But linux guys hate it when you say that."

Some people just don't get it. Or care to.

ondoho · 09-06-2019, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Germany_chris

Android can be Google and it can be free of Google, it's the users choice..

Flash AOSP and F-droid and now you have Linux sans Google

Unfortunately this isn't quite true - AOSP is very much Google's project, and even if there is almost(*) no calls to Google servers, it still uses a software paradigm & infrastructure that is created by and depending on Google/Alphabet.

Interesting:

Quote:

Android is developed by Google until the latest changes and updates are ready to be released, at which point the source code is made available to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), an open source initiative led by Google. The AOSP code can be found without modification on select devices, mainly the Nexus and Pixel series of devices. The source code is, in turn, customized and adapted by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to run on their hardware.

And you cannot "just flash AOSP" on some device for many reasons - here's one:

Quote:

Also, Android's source code does not contain the often proprietary device drivers that are needed for certain hardware components.

(*) e.g. captive portal check - seems to be surprisingly difficult to remove for "alternative" ROM developers to remove that google server call.

273 · 09-06-2019, 11:43 AM

Something else occurs to me. There is a whole army of people who are either in IT jobs or known to others as "good with computers" (or both, of course) who only know Windows. Some are just hobbyists who learned how to use the OS on their PC well and some took very expensive courses on Windows system administration. I wonder which OS the lazier of these people recommend to people they know?

Personally I bucked the trend and use Linux almost exclusively for my own machines and claim ignorance (often real, sometimes feigned) when anyone asks me about Windows issues. I did manage to get a friend into Linux though because he knew I could help him with the basics until he could learn his way around -- this is a guy who I used to help when he was swapping engines in his cars and the like so you get the idea of our attitudes to learning, work and doing things ourselves how we want to...