I like his Tech Tips videos.

His mind is pulling him back from saying "It's not for noobs"

I use Linux on my Desktop every day (in the last 12 years). I starve for a commercial level photography software (like Photoshop or Affinity Photo). Probably this is the issue - lacking commercial level software support for Linux.

This guy sounds like he knows what he's taking about, he should write his own kernel or something..

Well, linux is also confusing in the sense that it has a gazillion distributions. There isn't just "the linux". There is ubuntu, there is linux mint and so forth. It's already hard to understand what the difference of all those operating systems is and I'm a pretty tech savy person. Of course you could read it up and learn all that stuff, but that's where it already fails, because no average user will ever do that.

I haven't checked on Linus in 20 some-odd years but I have to say, his English has greatly improved from what I remember 20 years ago.

7,5 years later (November 2019): Nothing has changed.

I’m surprised he made no mention of a good user experience for the consumer. This is critical.

His English is phenomenal.

While what he is saying is correct he also misses the other huge factor - the application ecosystem. Android did not succeed just because it came pre-installed (symbian OS and windows OS failed when they were pre-installed as well) but also because it had lots of useful application providing great user experience. That's where linux in its current state cannot beat the other OSs

I think another major reason it is not popular on the desktop is because of one of the strong points of Linx, the number of choices. There are so many distros and so many people who are interested in Linux get so intimidated by the number of distros they just give up because they worry they will break something.

He was right about chromebooks. It's getting there.

Main reason- software compatibility

G.A.M.E.S.

There are laptop manufacturers like Vant PC or Slimbook that sell their laptopts with the Linux distro that you choose preinstalled (they also offer windows if you pay the license). Those laptops have a really competitive price and really good specs. I hope more companies would do that too.

A Linux distro to be successful must be able to do EVERYTHING through the Gui, using the terminal must be optional, as in Windows and in all popular operating systems, then the games and pre-installs will arrive.

Most desktop users just want a friendly and functional desktop that is intuitive. Linux in my opinion is too complicated for them. If there is no demand for Linux, manufacturers will not push for preinstalled Linux desktops. I tried to get my friends to try Linux and they come back and tell me they want a Desktop that will work for them and not work against them.... so yeah. Linux cannot penetrate the market because it is not preinstalled. For it to be preinstalled, Linux needs a window manager that rivals the "user friendliness" of Windows and Mac and not bleeding edge technology because that means nothing to the majority of desktop users.

I'm not sure that that's really the main reason. I have not used preinstalled Windows in way over a decade. And I know many who haven't either. But I just tried installing Debian on a machine and guess what? It didn't even contain a very basic Realtek network driver. That's not something a user should have to worry about. It was like that 15 years ago already (back then - no driver for my graphics card) and I guess unfortunately, it still is today.

preinstalls are real now, but the software is still missing (word, excel, photoshop, AAA gaming, etc.)

just his name is huge enough for me to listen everything he said, huge salute to him.

While I am no expert in the IT industry but IMO Linux not being available pre-installed in PCs is just an effect of a prior bigger cause, and not the real problem. We do see some laptops/PC having pre-installed Linux but most of the consumers just come back home and install Windows on it anyway. The real reason for Windows being popular lies in its scope of availability, and that's what lacking with Linux. We saw Windows in our school labs and that's where our first interaction with computers started. We then move to college and there we see Windows again. All the cyber cafes, your neighbor or friend's computer has Windows installed. That's where the chime to get used to Windows starts, and it's so addicting that subconsciously we never move to any other platform. Microsoft is also smart at distributing it's OS to the masses. Not just having them pre-installed in PC but actually allowing piracy to some extent (well, sort of). The reason pirated windows are available so freely and easily is because Microsoft does not take major actions to stop it. It rather allows it subtly. As more and more people get used to using Windows that way and thus never move on to something else. So, when these people complete their studies and move to companies to work, inherently and blindly the consensus to use Windows is made, and that’s when the orders to get pre-installed Windows PCs are made and that’s why we see Windows pre-installed I PCs. So basically, it’s an effect and not the real cause. And that’s why we see all the plethora of popular software too. I don’t think Linux can do much at the moment to capture Windows addicted consumers, but it can certainly take some steps. Only Linux pre-installed is not going to work, hence Linux at least should go for dual boot systems. Users will then not wipe out Linux in order to install Windows on it, and this gives Linux a chance to get itself acquainted to the users Social media campaign can also work for them. Have more and more conversation around the open source world and Linux and try to create an environment around. This will raise the curiosity of the people and urge them to try it. A dual boot PC will be handy at that instance. Well that's enough internet for today.

Eleven years later and we have the Steam Deck leading the way as a machine with Linux pre-installed. Linux is in a very good spot right now for the desktop. It's a stretch, but a version of Steam OS for gaming laptops might be a good idea.

It's all about the convenience and compatibility with windows. Plain and simple.

Oh nice to see you again Tom Scott Tech Tips

You shouldn't look at Android. It is not a measure of Linux's success. It is Google's successful use of Linux.

This year was my jump into Linux and I happened to of already bought a new hp laptop. My next laptop will be a machine from system 76 to support a company making machines with linux preinstalled.

It's all in user preferences and market viability, from a techie's perspective it's a great desktop variant for any operating system . After 10 years of working with Linux and long time after I installed Windows 10 side by side I just play around with both and find it very interesting that how with open source in the modern computing has increased an operator's role to almost a system administrator.

I'm a fairly techy guy, but I lost any and all desire to use Linux as my primary OS when I had to spend like 2 hours looking for working drivers for a WiFi adapter

I tried Ubuntu but no compatibility with my wifi card and very difficult to install driver.

He could just have said: Windows is a product while Linux is an open source project. Completely different animal, just happens to do the same thing. Windows got marketing, cooperate deal, instruction manuals and customer support. Linux has none of that. The end. I love that MC finally embrace Linux with the subsystem thing. Working with webs stuffs is impossible on windows.

Times changed, ever since i switched to linux on desktop (Debian + KDE Plasma) i never looked back, the software management alone is light years ahead of windows

Great presentation.

Growing up I was forced to play Tux Racer 😢 SteamOS is a game changer

I bought 2 asus notebook with native (out of the box) ubuntu in Colombia. That was just my best computers ever.

Very realistic and measured reply

Enjoyed listening to him

He's right on the pre-installs and It's not going to take off on desktop unless you make it really intuitive and easy to use (AKA no command line needed for 99% of usage). Have only ONE distribution with a great GUI. Every hardware addition is plug&play, and have Games and Software availability.

I have used debian on my desktop and now currently having fun with arch. I don't know what can be better for home pcs.

So far so good nowadays

Very informative talk, been going down the rabbit hole watching videos on this sort of stuff. As for the reason it's not as popular as your standard OS, I think it comes down to: 1. There's a learning curve. 2. Not everyone has time or desire for that learning curve. Windows and macOS are more or less plug and play. For the people that barely know how to use a computer, it's not even remotely feasible to expect them to learn what Linux is, what it's advantages are, and how to use it. More than likely, that type of person is using a computer for basic tasks - online shopping/social media/online banking/MS office documents... why on earth would you need Linux for that? This still represents the majority of the market. In a similar vain, it's a lot like consoles vs gaming PCs debate. Sure, the PC does more, and is more powerful. But for a lot of people, plugging a system in and starting to game is about the extent of the amount of time they want to invest, which I think some people forget. The simplicity is the draw in both cases.

Yes, Linux not coming preinstalled is part of the problem, but IMHO a much bigger problem is the lack of standards on the Desktop. As a programmer I can't for example write a program that just "prints" something or opens "the print dialog" on linux, because different distros have different libraries and NO COMMON API. Same thing for managing daemons, same thing for registering MIME types, installing and uninstalling software or registering a program to run at startup (that's not even consistent between different releases of the same distro). There also isn't a "default" desktop environment (OR AT LEAST A COMMON API) so you could write GUI programs without a framework that's possibly not preinstalled in the distro my client uses. The distros are just too different. As crappy as windows handles these things, at least in handles them consistently enough that programmers can rely on it. If you had that kind of consistency, you could much more easily get your GUI programs running on your clients computer - that would make Linux much more attractive for companies - and when people got used to Linux at work, they might be more open to having it on their home machine So pretty please, Linus, Linux Foundation, talk to the developers of the respective libraries and decide on standards for the APIs

yeah, especially when it comes to drivers. some distros works just fine and some don't

It's very in character for Linus to say "I started this operating system for desktops" despite the fact that he started only kernel, and it was made into OS mostly by other people.

And nearly 10 years later, we have the Steam Deck. Will be interesting to see what happens.

I appreciate his pre-installed comment. I have been using professional audio hardware for years and very few manufacturers support Linux. What Linux needs is a company like Google to produce a common desktop version much like Android that has a standard graphical and driver API for developers. If I could get a Linux distro that could run Pro Tools, Cubase, etc. and have Lynx, Focusrite, MOTU, etc. driver support, I would jump in a second. I would gladly pay for it and even pay a yearly subscription for updates.

Using OS X - always thought that's an other UNIX derivative - quite popular - pre-installed - and simple (on the front side) - only just not cheap.

I think some of you are missing the point. If Linux was preinstalled (and ostensibly therefore had a larger marketshare), inevitably driver support would improve because hardware manufacturers would be motivated to write high quality drivers for Linux. Also OEMs would likely pay some sort of royalty to Linux developers to help improve the desktop experience more, or at least help fund development because it'd be in their interests. Currently all the money is in mobile and servers so naturally that's where it has the most support. And of course higher marketshare makes it more worthwhile for software developers to release software on Linux. All of these things are a result of proper support, not a reason for the lack thereof.

Makes all sense

The answer is simple: there are hundreds of different distros, and no average user is going to research to find what distro suits their needs. Doesn't matter how easy the install is

With Autodesk and Adobe, we are getting into Enterprise Software and the discussion is mostly about Average Users. Ether way, this is a vicious circle: Big companies won't build software for X11 because there aren't enough (paying) users. Users are scared to switch to Linux because the software they're accustomed to is not available for that distribution. For most users, Ubuntu or Mint would do, but they just don't know it and won't make the leap of faith.

I would love a followup now that the Chromebook Go is the gold standard of Chromebook's. Note: I know that the may need to be a little cheaper, but the hardware/performance ratio and features are well balanced on that machine.

What a great man

I think that beyond that "commercial reason" there're few quite heavy technical reasons either: 1. Lack of backwards compatibility. For example you can not expect to install all software that worked on Ubuntu 18.04 , on Ubuntu 20.04 (lts!). You get missing dependencies, missing ppa's etc... And think that Ubuntu is one of the most famous and used destros out there, with a commercial company behind it. And I am talking about LTS only!! If things are bad there, guess how bad they are on less famous distros. 2. UI (Gnome/Kde) issues. The hardware here doesn't matter(tried on various laptops), those libraries are buggy and resource heave. period. And think that I am just writing code most of the time so my needs are very modest. If I were a graphical designer, I would be cursing after 5 sec. So bottom line, you can not be successful on desktop without a solid working UI.

I have 40 years in computing. The reasons are its totally alien, its seen as a hackers OS, there are too many versions, a hostile user base but most of all there is no software. Really. What runs on it aside from office software?

I have been using Opensuse, Minx and Unbuntu for many years as well as Windows 10. Linux is easily the most adapt to performance and stability.

Preinstalls rule the market in my mind because native driver support. Take any laptop model and move it from windows to linux vice-versa, and you'll usually have a ton of issues with drivers.

Reason is simple, linux is made for people that know how to uses computers. What kind of regular consumer wants to mess with the sources from the package manager, and i don't even talk about software that must be compiled from source code, who wants to mess with wine configurations to make an app works flawlessly on their computer. For sure there is a tool to answer these problems and to make this less difficult. But when you know how the regular user of a pc doesn't even know how to do an appropriate google search to solve their problems do you really expect them to take time to understand what are environments variables and how they must be needed for some software to operate ? To me it's crazy to even not realize why people don't use linux, even more when you're a linux user.

and here am I installing distro after distro (3 on my own machine ) and couple of times i installed it on friends pc's as well

It is now the year 2021, and after 9 years since this video are we getting a couple companies preinstalling Linux.

Linux Mint is so easy to use and setup - once I discovered how much faster it i s then windows, I never looked back. Just looking forward to more Vulcan 3D on Linux now.

In a professional environment... the software compatibility just isn't there

Linus T., Nobel Price Winner in Computer Science. Like many scientist, he devoted himself to the whole world but never asked for any reward.

The first computer i successfully installed linux on (an hp that had windows 10 pre-installed but a small hard drive that soon became unable to keep up with the size requirements of windows updates) was great except that there was no linux driver written for the network card. I don't have the technical know-how to write my own device drivers, so it lacks some utility.

because my new broadcom usb wifi works flawlessly in windows but need tons of foreplay to get it to work with ubuntu/mint/manjaro

My Major reason is Adobe Products. I have used so many distros on my machine but i always had to switch between windows and linux for my average work. And some of it is related to newer hardware graphics driver.

It's great to see that Crostini is becoming a thing now. Chromebooks actually have the potential to be fully featured laptops that run Linux.

Never thought in that way

Very thoughtful answer! I'm a #freesoftware guy and I understand Linus' stand. All things aside, if you read the email Linus sent in his initial release of Linux which worked with limited hardware, he didn't aspire it to become something "professional" like GNU, rather like Minix. It was the people who packaged everything together and still called it Linux. FSF saw it as a discrediting move and thought Linus trying to steal their hard work. This began the ever long tussle between Free Software and #opensource.

I think the main issue is professional tools like Adobe collection and Camtasia, Snagit, ... I know there are alternatives but they aren't as good as the ones on windows and mac os

I honestly think it all has to do with drivers. With good driver support, you don't need to have goofy workarounds or use second rate substitutes for what you need. However, not many companies will be willing to make device drivers for 1%-2% of the market share, so it's truly a chicken and the egg problem. This also ties in with software compatibility, take Adobe Suite as a good example.

For me, I can run all of my AI projects on Windows, but I have some issues with games on Windows, and creating RL for games; it is important for the games to be 100% stable on the OS, which is not the case for the games I am using right now...

The year of Linux Desktop is upon us!

Short and on the point.

The moment When the look and feel of Windows have changed was the opportunity to win a bit of the market. Why do constructors have not preinstalled linux ( free) is the key...

Really good talk, he clearly tought a lot about this

In my opinion it is not only the preinstalls, but also the microsoft office software itself. Big Companies have administrators to install operating systems for their users. But for a lot of simple business tasks the people stick to excel, word or powerpoint and the user experience of open source alternatives is not great. This might apply for other commercial software.

Summary: Linus says it's because Linux doesn't come pre-installed on desktops. That prevented it from gaining traction with casual users. He contrasts it with mobile, where Linux is huge because it's part of Android.

It's kinda sad how he keeps patting google on the back for their Android even though Android is far from pure Linux and google is figuring out a way on how to replace it with their Fuchsia project.

I would argue that problem is not that you have to install the OS, I think the real problem is that within 5 minutes of installing it you need to resort to the terminal to do something or get something that couldn't be achieved in GUI.

Using Windows, Mac, and Linux. Each has its own benefits. But for the most part, I'm using Windows, due to the main software I'm working with is available for this OS only.

I tried to install 3 versions of linux and none of them worked on my computer. I tried to understand why for couple of days, but when people talk about linux it's like totaly different, high-tech language i dont understand no matter hard i google it

And you know why Linux isn't pre-installed on desktops? Because everything you want to do, you have to do through terminal. No matter how simple, the solution is always to type terminal commands, and edit settings files. And there's isn't a single distro where this is improved. I don't even know what the different distros do, other than ship with different UI colors and wallpapers. If they're not working to add more functions to the UI, then what are they even doing?

Standardisation is the key. From top to bottom on the desktop, it’s pretty much Microsoft all the way(Windows and Office). That’s why.

Software compatibility and ease of use. Although both are improving. Games is still a big reason it’s not mainstream.

Windows first came on the market and linux came with an operating system incompatible with millions of software and drivers developed for windows.

With everything being browser-based nowadays there is really no software concerns anymore for most people, device drivers are also in a much better place. The issue is Microsoft also knows this and has turned Windows into a basically free Product, supported by ads and spyware.

Most software (and games, ofc) support. And that's it. No further talk. Preinstalls good to get it into mainstream, though.

He is pretty clear with whatever he says.

With the current trend in the software industry where everything is going onto the web (Office Online, web versions of Photoshop, etc), maybe the compatibility issue will be over. With a decent browser on your machine, you can do pretty much nowadays. In this new environment, Linux can play is 'free' card and gain market!

Linux was a fun project for me, but I currently can't see it replacing Windows for me. Windows 10 is pretty horrible, but it is the ease of use and speed I like. Reinstalling an OS is no big deal I think. It is very streamlined nowadays, but getting additional features to work is a nightmare on Linux, if you are just an average (+a bit tech savy) user like me. It took me 4 hours to get the AMD Linux drivers to install on MX Linux. 2 hours to get Wine to install... Hell, I couldn't get sound through HDMI after 5 hours of trying... For every little detail you have to check "insert your search engine of choice" and how to deal with the issue. Only to find that it works on Ubuntu, but not other Distros. So you have to start again. 25 years ago Windows 95 was already much easier to use, though of course more limited. I would rather use less time on troubleshooting and more time on focusing on my hobbies and work, so Windows it is. It is sort of a middle ground between MacOS (which I despise) and Linux right now and fits me perfectly.

I'm watching this 11 years later, where of course, everyone uses Linux on the desktop now.

And now mostly linux distro is awesome and stable, support proton steam for games is amazing...

Well this video was years ago, and linux was struggling with its everything back in the day. Everything that could be said to Linux was that, it is secure as a kernel and it manages resources better than its counterparts. Both Windows and MacOs. To this day, all of them evolved. Windows 10 is a solid operating system but its still not on the Linux level of management. I get why is like that. Microsoft knows the solution but Windows should be backwards compatible with other softwares as well, and that's what Microsoft is really good at. Supporting old software for their operating system. This is not something common on the linux community since nearly most of the programs are open source and updated version will be free and all but this is something that Windows must do. For the answer of that question, Linus is kind of right. However, linux does not need pre-installed devices, someone who is willing to use linux distrubitions are mostly doing it for the sake of the linux. Just using linux is the reason to that loads of distrubitons. And that is the reason why linux hasn't taken off even today. Lots of distrubitons means lots of confision for the average consumer. Maybe some of us are not average on that topic, but you get the idea. Why Android has taken off at the mobile industry? Because it is known as Android, not linux. It IS running a linux kernel, its is actually a solid piece of linux, but is not know as one. Even the example that Linus gives here is on this topic, Linux comes to consumer computers as the form of Chromebook, or to be more specific, Chrome OS. Open source is good, all distrubitions are linux are there for a reason and I am aware of that. Linux as a kernel is more than just a kernel anymore. Most of the drivers and other functionalities are supported from the kernel level, which means that most of the hardware on the planet earth should be able to run linux now. But the reason it is faling is the lack of doinance amongs distrubitions. And yes you are right on the both topics, creating one more dominant distrubition will create the 15th standart to the market, where there are already 14 standarts are ready and waiting. In other words, would bring more players in the field thus changing nothing. And forcing some distrubition on is just wrong to the idea of the Linux. Developing for one operating system, especially one distrubition on mind will kill the community and it is not happening as you can see. Linux is kinda doomed on that aspect. Average consumer doesn't care about freedom and open-source, they don't even care what those mean. They just want to get work done and this is something that is kind of hard with Linux. I hope you get my point. It is something that looks silly, but it is already true. Look at Apple products and customers of Apple. Most of them buy products because of the "ecosystem", and that ecosystem is basically a simple one interaction center of all of the tech they got. Macbooks, iMacs, iPhone and iPad's are all use the same kind of UI. Windows devices are just windows devices, buying another windows device would not change the place of a setting or some specific funciton that you are looking for. But that is some mess in the various distros between Linux. That is the problem linux have, which they can't fix without changing the actual name, "Linux".

This should be changing as I have installed Linux on several of our machines due to Windows not having sufficient support for their latest operating system. I am my friend's geek girlfriend. If they have issues with windows I highly recommend Ubuntu and Linux Mint. The windows support desk told me that two of my computers were trashed.. Funny how they work perfectly with Linux.

Unix like os such as linux is server os uses on industrial os when you need security and work on 24/7 without restart.

Games and application support of course

I can listen to this man for entire day. Wish he was at my university as professor

Android is a Linux and shows what can be done with a Linux if they allow you (the community) to do it.

Games, office, Adobe etc. Its all about software compatability. Android is so popular because almost every app made is compatible with Android, which is why its preinstalled..

True, the problem is just that there is the work of pre installing. Because my mother is not really that good in computers and she has been using Linux for 2 or 3 years after I installed it or her old Windows machine.