Linux

Good S0ix support. At the moment, Linux mostly fails to sleep correctly on modern S0ix laptops, which happens to be most modern laptops.

This means the battery drains incredibly fast, and S0ix features aren't being used, which is unfortunate as it has potential for quick wake, lid closed actions and limiting battery drain while asleep (since S0ix can eventually hibernate automatically from a sleep state)

Also the boot loader could be improved, systemd-boot needs to support secure boot natively so we can be rid of the slow, ancient and scary-looking GRUB.

Look at the Steam Deck as an example:

• Linux is preinstalled
• Integrated hardware and software
• Immutable OS that is very hard to bork
• UI is Windows-like which is familiar to the target market
• Good value for the price
• Offered by a well-known and well-liked brand
• Marketed and advertised to the target market

We need more Linux devices like this to gain market share.

To make Linux more appealing to the average person, you'd have to be able to buy a Linux PC at your local computer store. Most people can't be bothered to install a new OS.

I’m a very casual Linux user and in my experience, I’ve NEVER had a problem with a documented solution that didn’t require going down a rabbit hole of other references.

Something like this: “To get the trackpad to work with Ubuntu, make sure you’ve installed the hergelbergelXX package.” (No link, find it on your own!)

Visit the HergelBergelXX page. To install Hergelbergel on Ubuntu, you must install the framisPortistan Package Manager. (No link!)

On the FramisPortistan GitHub readme, we discover it requires the JUJU3 database system to be installed. “JUJU3 may cause conflicts with installed USB devices under Ubuntu” JUJU2, which shipped with Ubuntu, is no longer supported. Also we recommend Archie&Jughead Linux over other distributions.

And this essentially never stops.

All of this is comparatively a happy result—I actually DID post a question on linuxnoobs about getting my trackpad to work with Ubuntu… and have not had a single reply. I have no idea how to find out how to make it work.

Simple, start teaching it in elementary school all the way up through high school. Apple did it long ago and got apple users out of those kids. Microsoft does it now, and now you have Windows users. Just need the computer education to be Linux centric from the start. It's not that it's different, it's that it's not what they grew up with and were taught.

Atomic OSes should be evangelized more aggressively to laypersons. IMO, they’re great for 3 specific use cases:

• gaming (bazzite) - personally, I want my gaming box to “just work”
• thin clients/low-powered laptops used as an entry point to your homelab or other remote systems - again, I like having at least one fairly bulletproof and super stable system to use as a human:homelab gateway/admin machine
• non-techies. If the update fails, just roll back. Can’t remember if that’s generally an automated recovery process or not, but that sort of idiot-proofing is precisely what the general public needs in the context of Linux. Because there are a lot of idiots out there.

Need hardware with it pre installed with a reason to buy other than because it has Linux

Maybe use the lack of a requirement for a Windows license to bring the price to performance ratio down

If they're really performant machines also helps break the idea Linux is only for old and slow machines, I only ever used to put it on laptops as they were reaching the end of their usefulness, the moment I put it on my pc and a new laptop it changed my perception on it entirely

I also think the majority of technical users still use windows, maybe we should concentrate on getting them first and maybe we'll see more support

On top of being preinstalled, we also need google search-able instructions that avoid the terminal altogether. People are afraid of the terminal, it doesn't matter why, it just is.

Currently, most solutions to linux problems come in the form of terminal commands. We would have to start creating a whole new troubleshooting forum where instructions avoid the terminal and are just lists of buttons to press in a GUI. Probably helpful screenshots too.

Of course I have no idea if some things even have GUIs at all, like configuring user groups and permissions or firewall settings, someone would need to make them. Not to mention every DE or program would need a different set of instructions, GNOME or KDE, firewalld or iptables. It'll be a lot of work.

you can't because it's explicitly against the whole point of having endless choices. when everyone works on something different, the quality spreads out to where it's mostly just mediocre stuff across the board.

https://xkcd.com/927

hardware compatibility is also a huge problem. for everyone that says "it works fine for me" there are a thousand others for whom it does not.

Needs to be pre installed, most people don't know how to reset their PC, let alone install a new OS.

Most people have had great answers coming from the company side of things. I'll take it from the standpoint of individuals like us helping someone linux curious see the light, while still having the "just works" experience.

Do not give them any choices. None. Put them on your stable distro of choice for a new user, call whatever that is "Linux", and be on your way.

But why? Isn't that antithetical to everything we value? Yes and no. We value choice almost above anything else, but that doesn't "just work" for most people. Which of those do you value more?

More GUI front ends for stuff. This takes away the need to understand command line tools and syntax, and makes the out-of-the-box experience feel more like it just works.

It's current year, I should never have to touch the terminal for anything. I don't care that it's powerful, my brain is already full of windows knowledge and I don't want to have to google what command I need to perform basic functions. Everything needs guis. If there's a gui, I can figure it out and also discover tools I didn't know about along the way, which allows me to solve future problems without going insane.

That's popular sentiment though, so how about one that I don't see often: Add options to allow windows like behavior. For example, middle click paste is the bane of my existence. I should be able to change it to middle click scroll os wide, not just in firefox. I know that there's a hacky workaround to kinda make it work, but it sucks.

Whether any OS could ever just work isn’t even going to solve the issue.

Getting OEMs to sell laptops and desktops in Best Buy (or the like) that have Linux installed and is properly supported — that is what will help solve the issue.

Thank you thank you thank you for posing this question.

This is the biggest issue by far with open source stuff in general, and as a non-programmer who wants to use more and more of it, user unfriendliness hamstrings so much.

I don't know the answers but I can tell you for a fact that if open source in general is serious about broader adoption, this needs to be occupying 50% of everybody's open source discussion time, at least.

What I know is the standard "fuck you read my 19 pages of 1s and 0s" is the wrong answer.

Maybe good design is just really hard. I don't know, I've never tried to do it. Seems like the sort of thing that might take three thousands iterations.

Software, 1,000%. I love linux and daily drive it. But when I have videos to edit, photos to rework, or collateral to design I have a windows laptop with professional grade tools to do the job.

I'm sorry, gimp is hot garbage. There isn't a pro-grade, open source video editing tool or anything close. Inkscape is useable in a pinch. Scribus is useless.

Not everyone is a multimedia creative professional, but most software on linux never quite have the features you need, are no longer maintained, or will be useful in ten years.

That said, I'd still rather break out the laptop when doing client work than daily drive MacOS or Windows 11. Either way the barrier for most users is that linux almost works.

The way to get Linux more appealing is to get proprietary software makers, like Adobe, Microsoft (Office), you know the actual things people need to do their job, to make software for Linux. Steam Deck is a good example of this, it works because Steam ported the games to Linux...

Software-wise, it seems that the relatively fast adoption of flatpaks and other containerized formats somewhat solves the typical dependency hell that was so common in Linux just a few years back (and to some extent still is an issue today depending on your distro and use case). The hardware support side is a little harder. That's going to be up to vendors to play nice with the Kernel team and/or introduce reasonable userland software that doesn't break the golden rule. Until Linux gets more market share the latter isn't likely to happen. A nice side benefit of the emergence of immutable and/or atomic distros is that users can play around and try things with much lower risk of bricking their systems, so I'd also consider that a step closer in the "it just works" department.

I think it should be: "Software that is yours"

Overall, I think more focus should be put on consolidating similar projects.

Do we really need 6 different window managers that follow the same design logic?

Do we really need each major distro to have its own package manager?

How many image and PDF viewers do we need? How many music players?

Can we convince Ubuntu that no one wants snaps and they are wasting developer resources.

The freed up capacity should be focused on better windows app compatibility. Something akin to Valve's push in gaming.

From a non techy perspective, having what is used and installed being secure is a big one. I am new to Linux Mint. Mostly user friendly until something gets corrupted or suddenly can not be verified.

Looking for why is not always simple, and there are some explanations/instructions easier to understand than others.

I preface most of my searches with Linux mint (whatever I am searching for) for dummies. This helps some.

I have been forced to use mac now for like a year, and I don't get the whole "just works" opinion of it. Like I have had so many issues with just basic stuff. Turning off mouse acceleration and the mouse still feels all slimy. Highest mouse speed is so slow and setting it higher requires some crazy tricks, which also does not work consistently through boots. It can't wake up a lot of monitors, I have to turn them off and on manually. If it cannot connect to a monitor properly but tries, it like disables your keyboard for a few seconds while trying. Some items in the settings menu take a long time to load, as in if I reboot, log in, open settings, there is no mouse settings.

Honestly Linux does work pretty much just as well as MacOS if you run it on hardware thats super well supported and that tons of linux users use. MacOS has integration with its hardware because its all made by the same company. They only have to support a few models of computer.

If you installed Linux Mint today on a Thinkpad t480, and on some obscure weird laptop with rarely used hardware your gonna get 1 install that just works out of the box and your gonna get 1 that you have to hunt for drivers, and do tons of work on. Its just the nature of being able to use any hardware. Some will work better than others.

If you want an example of how to increase adoption you pick a line of computers thats of high quality and have them be supported by the community a ton. Then you convince the company that makes these computers to ship a version of them with linux pre-installed, and potentially help atleast with funding the development of whatever distro they use.

If your average user bought a laptop, opened it, turned it on, and it had linux on it and worked relatively well, they are never going to change it. Its not a normal thing to just change your OS most people don't even know that you can do that. I gave my grandmother a linux mint laptop and she thinks its windows.

BazziteOS is really straightforward. Newbies can just jump on there.

As others have said, macOS does not “just work” anymore.

I am primary tech support for a few “normy” users including my mother and wife. My wife, the more technical and capable of the two, uses macOS. My mother uses Windows. My wife requires substantially more tech support. Worse, the issues are often complete mysteries to me like “why is everything so slow” and it turning out that some OS level process is consuming huge amounts of memory and / or CPU. Web searches reveal lots of people with similar issues but no real insight into what to do about it or why it is happening. I have moved OS versions just to solve this kind of crap on Mac. Another problem is software not working on older versions of the OS.

I am no Windows lover but, once I show my mother how to do something, I never hear from her. Every once in a while I stop by to marvel at how many updates need to be applied but that is about it. She is in the Windows 10 that I installed for her many years ago now. It just works.

Kinda don't think you can its one of the beauties of Linux, there's so many different flavors of it. Best thing that would've helped me as a beginner would've been like a collection of all the wiki's and basic knowledge in a single space instead of searching through different sites for a problem or terminal commands, which I bet exists but I just never looked too hard. Also documentation of common problems would've been big for me (especially for older devices) like drivers no longer being supported by kernels and solutions like using the open source version instead.

The problem is, that no operating system "just works". It also highly depend on what the person wants to achieve, and if there are any pre experience with computers or even relying on existing software or specific hardware. My recommendation is not to tell people the illusion of "just works" and be honest upfront. People should learn how it works, what to expect and if tradeoffs, time and resources are worth it.

Same is true for the other way too. Does Windows "just works"? Especially if someone switches from Linux to Windows.

Rather, we should teach the reasons to switch and encourage that decision. In example why it matters to have control over your system, rather than the company has control over it (MacOS and Windows) or why spying on you is bad (Windows). And encourage giving up something you are used to (and maybe paid). Sometimes its okay to use a program that is not as good as Photoshop. Sometimes its okay to give up playing a videogame you like (and maybe associated with friends playing that game with you). But most people are not ready to do it, because that is associated with lowering quality of life.

I switched in 2008 from Windows XP to Ubuntu. I know these struggles. And they are not over yet. This is an ongoing task between my brother and me too, and he was using the Steam Deck, but decided to go with Windows 11 with the recent build. It was almost there, but there is always a butt. I say, don't tell people that "Linux just works". No operating system "just works".

The issue starts at the fact that it's difficult to find a computer sold by a common major distributor with Linux already installed, nor does Linux have any marketing aside from word of mouth to compete with the aggressive Microsoft/Apple duopoly.

The threshold to entry begins at simply having the technical prowess to install an alternative operating system on one's computer, which I don't believe a good majority of people are even capable of. Before that, people also need an incentive to transition in the first place. They've probably been using their current OS for a good portion of their life and are more than comfortable with it without putting themselves through another learning curve.

The average person isn't considering an alternative to what they're already using, and if they are, it usually isn't Linux. The biggest problem isn't appeal or ease of use; it's exposure and immediate accessibility.

That said, performance and simplicity would be an excellent selling point for Linux. It would be absolutely worth banking on the open-source nature of it to appeal to a growing demographic of people interested in privacy-oriented tech as well.

Linux is a tool that big corporate entities have profited greatly from for many years, and will continue to. Same with BSD, Apache, Docker, MySQL, Postgres, SSH...

Valve, Sys76, Framework, etc. Are proving that using Linux to serve an end user market is also profitable, and are capable of supporting enterprise use-cases.

I understand that there may be specific problems to solve wrt improving adoptability, usability, compatibility, etc., but Linux is doing more than ok within the context of the FOSS ecosystem (and increasingly without).

Your thinking is slightly skewed, IMHO. Linux doesn't have an inherent incentive to compete with MacOS or MS, and if it did, it would be subject to the same pressures that encourage bad behavior like spying on users, creating walled gardens, and so forth.

MacOS being a bad example here since Apple only needs to make its OS work on a very small set of hardware that they control wheras Linux (and Windows, yes) need to work on probably hundreds of thousand if not millions of devices (including Macs 👌) with at least the same amount of peripherals combined in almost any imaginable way. That's a completely different task.

An easy way to import/export Flatpaks would be really convenient. On Windows, I can easily move around software using a usb drive to a computer that may not be connected to the internet. I'd have no clue how to do that on Linux aside from AppImages

But due to fragmentation etc. I'd guess that such portable flatpaks would be huge, as they'd need to carry all dependencies in case the other end is missing some