He's right. If vendors offered Linux based machines people would try. Valve is helping Linux adoption more than all the big names like Dell, Lenovo, HP... combined.
this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2025
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Are you talking about a Chromebook?
Aside from that… I remember when I had my very first help desk job in 2008, Dell was shipping Latitude laptops with Linux for $90 less than the laptops that shipped with Windows… which is what a lot of places did that already paid for their own licensing direct from MS.
Choice is both one of Linux's greatest strengths and weaknesses. There are so many distros that offer something great an unique, but that also leads to choice paralysis as well as fragmentation. I think Bazzite has been great for the Linux gaming space because it does offer a single user experience that reduces the knowledge barrier for those just getting into Linux.
"Everyone wants to save the world, but no one can agree on how..."
The linux problem in a nutshell
Yep, choice is nice, but everyone and their uncle rolling out distros is excessive as all fuck. Especially when there is precious little that isnt ultimately, deep down, just another flavor of Debian, Arch or Fedora.
I do a lot of work setting up computers and laptops for people, mostly getting software they need installed and setting up ad blocking so I don't need to come back later on and clean up a million viruses.
Lately, I've been offering a discount to people that allow me to get rid of windows entirely and install Linux, with the option to reinstall Windows for free later. I've had several people take me up on the offer, especially once I explain what Recall is to them. Only 1 has had me switch it back, and they needed to use some super niche piece of software that I just absolutely could not get running with wine no matter what I installed, and I suspect that it has something built in to make it not run on non-windows systems.
Basically, just explaining Microsoft's security nightmare in a way that your average person can understand (and I mean a real average person, not the average person as people on Linux forums see them) has gotten over 2 dozen clients to switch over to Linux with minimal issues.
Also windows borking like 5 peoples SSDs certainly helped!
Linux don’t need anything to challenge Windows. Windows is doing great on their own.
For gaming and home use I think Windows will slowly die off. But I see precious few enterprise customers who are willing to consider Linux desktops for anyone other than sysadmins or programmers. Some will allow Macs for general users but I've never seen one that allows Linux.
Hard to enforce a GPO on Linux, unless it’s locked down like ChromeOS.
That’s really the limiting factor: liability and support costs.
So Linux, "the free alternative to Windows", needs corporate backing to sell it and make it mainstream?
This has been tried before and a lot of Linux fans don't like it. The first time I'm aware was Lindows, which was offered on CD at Walmart and other retailers. Microsoft sued and they changed the name to Linspire. It was corporate Linux, and the best thing it had going for it was that it wasn't Windows. Beyond that, it was kind of garbage. I mean, I guess it was Linux, but it wasn't right somehow.
If you want a corporate backed alternative to Windows because you don't like certain things Microsoft stands for, get a Mac. Honestly, you can't do much better than a MacBook Air these days, but the $500 M4 Mac mini (down to $480 in some stores for the holidays) is pretty damn hard to beat. It doesn't run most games though, but beyond that it's fine. Just know that Apple stands for a lot of things Microsoft does. Regardless, it's a corporate-backed OS that is an alternative to Windows, with solid hardware support... and it's not really denting Microsoft's market share, despite being objectively better for everything but gaming and repairability (the latter of which does not extend to Microsoft's Surface machines, but PCs in general).
I think the best thing for Linux was the end of Windows 10's life. Computers with 7th gen Intel and older were able to run Linux perfectly, despite Microsoft drawing the line in the sand there. My last Wintel machine ran a 4th generation Xeon, and it ran Windows 11 just fine with hacks (though not recently, I've been a full fledged Mac user for 2 years since that rig died).
And I think the worst thing, the thing holding Linux back the most, is the divisiveness of the Linux community. It's not everyone, but the guys who run Arch (and some of the Debian guys) looking down their noses at the Mint and Ubuntu guys... like, suck it up princess! People gotta start somewhere, and if you show the Mint and Ubuntu guys you're willing to help, they're more likely to be Arch and Debian guys in the future. But for now, depending on what you like (KDE/Mint for Windows expats, and GNOME/Ubuntu for Mac users), those beginner Linux distros are just fine! It's a foot in the door. And if they're happy with it, more power to 'em. (And if they got a Mac? Hey, at least it's not Windows!)
I have been using Linux for a few years now I have never seen someone say "arch btw" unironically. I swear, memers do more damage to its perception.
And I think the worst thing, the thing holding Linux back the most, is the divisiveness of the Linux community. It’s not everyone, but the guys who run Arch (and some of the Debian guys) looking down their noses at the Mint and Ubuntu guy
I don't know what communities you're frequenting but this is not my experience of the Linux community at all. Possibly you're reading jokes as serious, or you're just hanging out with lots of children (Discord?) without realising it.
I'm not sure it's good for Linux to attract disgruntled windows users. It would be better to attract people who actually want to use an OS that is different to Windows, rather than ones that just want a Windows that works. Linux is not a version of Windows.
that is good point. Having tons of people who would prefer to use windows but cant or dont for some reason is the way for them starting to demand stuff that would make things more like windows. Have enough of them and they might start having an impact and who knows where that might lead, most likely nothing positive though.
A lot of people just want a browser that works. They don’t care at all about anything else in the OS. For them, Linux can be perfect. So if they’re disgruntled that Windows keeps shoving ads and AI bullshit in their eyeballs, when all they want to do is check their email and watch YouTube, a preinstalled Linux laptop is a great answer.
No one wants to use any OS.
People just want to use their computer easily, and do what they want with relatively little hindrance or concern. The overwhelming bulk of people, I'd wager, Don't care about the OS as long as it stays the hell out of the way and isnt obnoxious.
Which is why Windows reigned for so long, because regardless of what criticism you throw at it.. Microsoft was amazingly successful at creating a GUI and interface that you could set anyone in front of and they'd be able to figure out basic usage in half an hour with relatively little direction.. and, especially in its heyday of windows 7, did an excellent job of just being mostly invisible to everyday use. It wasnt even a thought in your head. Just throw your disc in/download your software, and run. No thought, no worry. Just doing what you need and want to do, without having to think about it or worry about it.
Linux, depending on the distro, is finally getting close to that same place.. Where you can just use it without having to think about it to much. Where you don't have to dig into a terminal and look up command line actions and such. For basic mom&pop email and banking computers, you know..basic web based stuff, Linux has been there for I would say almost a decade at this point.
But for gaming and other stuff? I You've been able to do it for longer, but I'd say the past 2 years have just been an absolute golden age of being able to just do stuff without really having to worrying about your OS/proton/etc. The only remaining roadblock that requires you to stop and think at all is to see if the game uses a kernal based anticheat, and thats pretty much the only roadblock to playing a small minority of games on linux, Which doesnt feel like a small minority if those are the bulk of the games you play, in all fairness.. But thats not even linux's fault. Blame the devs for being shady fuckers for it, cause plenty of BIG games out there use regular old anticheat that doesnt have to have full root access to your computer and often does an even better job at stopping shit than the kernal anticheats.
To Torvalds, Chromebooks "are the path toward the desktop."
What does he mean by this?
I struggle to believe Chromebooks will meaningfully contribute to more people adopting Linux, because Google is more interested in getting people to adopt Google instead.
I imagine he means things like Chromebook, rather than Chromebook itself. Mass-market consumer hardware which comes with Linux by default
The Steam Deck. It's been my daily PC since I got it.
The unfortunate thing is that OEMs don't really have an incentive to ship Linux-powered systems.
Have you ever noticed how vendors who ship computers with Linux often do so at the same or greater cost than Windows? I believe I have heard somewhere that Microsoft subsidizes OEMs for shipping with Windows, which is scummy but Linux can't really compete with this.
Not sure if they still do, but PC Manufacturers used to get kick backs from every vendor they added shovelware for. For example, E-Machines was famous for it... AOL, Adobe, Office, shareware "pay to unlock" versions of games, Norton, etc. everyone sent checks to Dell, HP, Compaq, etc, just to peddle their wares for them.
Personally, the issue is ease of installation and configuration of programs.
Some things (edit: admittedly, most of the "important basics", such as web browsers, Steam and Office-suite equivalents) are just as simple as they are on Windows and iOS with just clicking a button and using a wizard of sorts, but some things need you to parse a series of terminal prompts and figure out how to rewrite parts of the instructions to fit your particular machine and setup.
Often I end up missing or misunderstanding some step and it doesn't work and I have no idea why.
It's not impenetrable and it's not a problem exclusive to Linux, but it does make setting things up a bit more of a chore.
I got Ubuntu on a laptop now to test out how to use that as my daily OS before I commit to figuring out how to swap over my Windows 10 desktop sometime next year and it admittedly is MUCH EASIER now than when I last tried around 2008, but I still run into problems.
I'm currently trying to schedule a weekend where I can diagnose why my raspberry pi won't boot after a power outage when it's survived that in the past and another weekend to figure out why the self hosted tandoor app I got successfully running a few months ago suddenly stopped and cannot run now, even after what I thought was a clean install.
I wanna switch. I do. But so many steps of it are full on projects. I'm learning a lot and it gets easier every step of the way, but it's still at a state where I need to schedule time to address these things that "just work" on Windows.
Edit: I understand why this is the case. A lot of these things are free, open source projects made by teams who don't necessarily have the time and resources to make their program out-of-the-box ready for every conceivable software and hardware set up out there. And I understand why someone might think that a corporate backing of resources might be able to address that issue, but I agree it isn't really isn't in accordance with the goals of Linux or helpful to the point of moving away from these corporate structures.
I disagree; I’d say the issue is HAVING to install and configure. Windows got where it is by coming preinstalled with a functional default configuration, allowing IT to set group policies to make and enforce configuration changes.
That can all be done with Linux today; it just isn’t.
Before big commercial companies can succeed with the mainstream, flatpak permission handling that is as smooth as Android and iOS. Not everything is going to be in the distros base package manager and devs need a way to distribute software that can be expected to work on any of these devices. No confusions over why they're system doesn't know what to do with a deb or rpm file. Flatpak is the closest thing right now to something with universal adoption. After that it's a slow and steady grind for market share. Like how Macs market share 20 years ago isn't very different from where Linux is today
I think a hardware company could succeed better by marketing the devices as creation devices. Focus on Blender, Krita, Ardour, Darktable, Kdenlive, etc. Pretty much the niche Macs were marketed as 25 years ago getting regular people interested with stuff like garageband and imovie
It would be cool if FL studio and Ableton are more easily installable on Linux, but they're not going to do it.
hardware compatibility is only one part of the problem. the other is binary compatibility. vendors are not going to ship binaries for a range of linux distributions and versions. vendors are not going to ship source code. and if they do, it's going to be a pain to get it to compile (e.g. trying to compile epson scan 2 on arch right now and grappling with a boost version that is too new).
flatpaks
Yeah, people need to get with the times. Flatpak exists since 10 years and smashed through the roof with Steam Deck (4 years).
Adobe.
It's SJVN. That's all you need to know.
He's no Cringely.