Why don't more people use desktop Linux? I have a theory you might not like
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Article said:
The problem is the lack of a representative version of Linux.
Although I agree with that, he is clearly understimating procrastination, lazyness and resistance to abandon the comfort zone of the biggest part of the people
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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"One 'standard' Linux" breaks fundamentally with the concepts of 'Mechanisms, not policy'. It tells the Linux guy that he no longer can create the user interface the way he thinks the best. The program logic cannot be structured the way he thinks the best. Maybe he will even have to adapt to some established professional vocabulary and set of concepts that he thinks inferior to his terminology and concepts of a professional field outside his own. He can't mandate his favorite file system. Can't make an entirely different menu style, selection style or text input style. Maybe he'll even be denied to promote his well justified technical arguments for 'letter to pål' being a different file from 'Letter to Pål' (or probably to his preference: 'lettertopal'). Windows killed the User Manual. That is what made Windows conquer the desktop. There was one way to set up a window and menu system. There was one way to open a file, to exit a program (vi, anyone?). One way to identify the program and version. One way to access online Help. After having tried two or three Windows programs, you could handle the rest of them without any User Manual. That is what won the desktop. People felt familiar at once with all applications. No matter what you do to the Linux kernel and the desktop: Linux application developers will continue creating software the way they wish the software world to be. If it doesn't feel familiar to the user, it is the user's responsibility to familiarize himself with the developer's style and preferences. Windows never had that attitude, but said: To make the user feel at home, you should do it this way, do it so and such! "the majority of desktop use cases these days are centered on the web browser". While that may be argued: If it was the case, who cares about which OS runs the browser? Run the same browser on any OS, and it appears the same to the user. What would then be the argument for replacing the underlaying OS, if the user won't notice anyway? Today, there is a second reason - another one that the Linux open source community won't like: As soon as you step outside of software development, a large proportion of advanced applications are rather mediocre. Office tools? Half-done attempts at cloning competitors, with no clue about why this and that solution was chosen, won't cut it. Photo editing? To do it well, you must know the tasks as a photographer, not as a programmer. Sound and musi
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