(How far) Do you see a future where one of Linux's distros gets a good enough user experience that average people start using it?

My partner has been using Ubuntu in one of her side-computers and they haven't complained. That said, my partner is pretty technologically literate, although they don't code professionally.

The moment game devs jump on board and we get a seal of approval that the source has been checked and a very carefully combed repo is populated with modded software and they rename it to something
Approximate when ever someone gets around to it lol

Speaking about "average people", they already can use Linux desktop easily, it in my opinion.. Average people usually do not care about GPU-intensive games; they only need internet browser

My parents are non tech and barely know how to use a computer.
Dad is running Fedora with gnome, mom I don't remember but I think Ubuntu.
They had no issue so far, but again, all they do is surfing on Firefox

Already? If you go with ubuntu or mint or something like that the average person would be fine, all they do is browse the Internet anyways

pretty much what others said.

in some countries even government employees use linux systems now, so they could stop paying microsoft for licenses, most of the world has move on to using PDFs rather than DOCX too and I think providing an ODT version is becoming mandatory in some places.

so essentially people who can already use user oriented linux distros:

- average people

- some office employees

- software developers

people who still can't use linux distros fully:

- Gamers

- a lot of graphics designers 2D/3D/Video

I think we're at the point, where we could reasonable expect a person on average to use a computer with linux without having any problems unless they need specialized software to do their work or leisure, in which case it would be specific for their situation.

we're really not doing badly, just linux still has some bad reputation that will slowly fade out, especially if microsoft keeps fucking up windows

Most of my family (non-IT end users) are on Mint now.

The main problem is that average people don't even know that Linux exists, and even if they did, they wouldn't install an OS, no matter how easy that is. They buy a computer that comes with an OS pre-installed.

Ubuntu has a decent user base

Oh wow. Perhaps I got scared because I used Debian 10 years ago when it still needed "sudo apt-get" for many installations

No. Never going to happen.

Linux BY DEFINITION cannot be user friendly. It's impossible. It was designed that way.

Got additional hard drive ? Too bad for you, go write command line to mount it.

Wanna it to be mounted automaticlly ? Go find out GUID, then go put it in a config for auto mount.

And that's just an easy example.

@killames LOL NO.

The problem with Linux is total absence of B2B software, not games.

Until Microsoft releases a full Office version (Don’t’s start with libre Office, it doesn’t even compare to Notepad++), Linux is dead for mainstream users, except maybe servers and some masochists who love (religiously) this dumb OS.

@eo2875 You can of course still install from the terminal if you want.

However, Mint has also a graphical package manager with view on individual packets as well as a software manager with view on whole applications - works like an app store. The update manager is also fully graphical, including settings for automating updates if you want.

@NoToJavaScript Mint has the "disks" utility for that. Graphical of course. Maybe stick to an easy distro if you want ease of use.

Also, average users don't have MS Office on their private machines to begin with.

It's not about user experience; that's not too hard to change. Linux plays a particular role in the OS market. Linux is based on the idea of having absolute control over everything, which led to the development of countless desktop and UI environments, package managers, distributions, etc. Linux is designed to fit all sorts of preferences and specific use cases. Average users don't actually care for that, however, they do want a familiar, tested, and supported system. Therefore, if you want to give Linux to an average user, you need to present them with a single reliable subset of options that you can test and support in the long term, and you need to do the same for those who develop third-party software for regular users.

So the real question isn't when, but why? Will switching to Linux have significant benefits for an average user? Will switching to Linux make it significantly cheaper for companies to develop and *support* software for average users? Unless it does, why bother?

I say NOW. Arch based distros are assumed to be hard, but truth is exactly the opposite. I've noticed that things like Manjaro are way more polished and user friendly than something like Ubuntu. And almost all of the packages can be installed with a package manager without even opening the terminal(kudos to AURs). On debian I used to install some 50 apps from source from github. Now I just search for it in aur and it just works:tm: I've not built a single app from source in a terminal on my arch

I say since 5 to 10 years ago

Moreover, arch docs are very "complete". (something I think Ubuntu lacks). Desktop experience is very easy to configure. Someone coming from windows can have a similar desktop setup for linux. Drivers are just 1 click away. Just waiting for steam deck so all anticheats work on linux as well.

@NoToJavaScript notepad ++ has an entirely different purpose from libreoffice

And I dunno what you mean by b2b since lamp projects seem To comprise half the legacy web apps businesses use

And the game thing is what keeps the standard user away since literally everything else is caught up

@AvyChanna Misusing AUR like that is a security risk. In fact, it did already lead to malware issues: https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/...

No wonder because AUR throw you back to the "install random shit from the internet" model where the S in AUR stands for security.

You are supposed to vet the packages yourself before you install, and this is unfeasible for average users.

@Fast-Nop I don't think most of the users will be downloading random packages off AUR. Trusted open source projects directly point to their AUR package in readme's. More advanced users will be able to inspect makepkg files before installing random stuff

@killames Standad user doesn't play in video games.

If you think 'everything is at least as good as Windows/mac" then you probably last time user windows XP.

@NoToJavaScript I can directly compare to Win 10 at work, and there's no way I'd use this crap unless I'm being paid. XP was ok-ish for its time, Vista sucked, Win 7 was the best Windows ever and actually recommendable, but then it went steeply downhills.

That's why I migrated the folks in my family from Win 7 to Mint Cinnamon - with Win 7 at EOL and nothing useful from MS on the horizon, leaving Windows altogether was the way out.

Hii

I purchased a laptop with Linux Mint preinstalled 3 years ago. A few years prior, that was unheard of. It also depends on computer manufacturers, and the availability of rebrandable, white label computers that are not (contractually) bound to Windows., eg. Clevo.

There are more Linux users than Windows users now - they just don't know that Android is a Linux distribution too.

So Linux on the desktop is just a matter of smartphone docking stations becomming popular...

@Oktokolo Vendored systems like Android and commercially-backed distros like Ubuntu are the way for average people to use Linux. But unless they root their phones or mess around in the terminal, it's completely irrelevant to them whether the underlying system is Linux. In the end, Android, Ubuntu, and related systems are just simple Linux-based alternatives to commercial operating systems in their respective segments, and an average user won't benefit from using one over another. Those who will truly benefit from people switching to Linux are Linux devs and existing Linux users because their system will become more relevant and interesting for driver and game developers.

@hitko There are some benefits on user level:
- Updates are not forced.
- Updates are reliable if you don't go for a bleeding edge distro.
- You can choose a DE without any weird "desktop revolution" approach.
- System rollbacks actually work if something should go wrong.
- The OS isn't spyware. That's a big one for those in my family who resent surveillance because they lived in commie states.
- Shit doesn't install itself without being asked for (Candy Crush, the badly done weather applet, ad infested tiles).
- Inexperienced users are much less likely to end up with malware on their PCs (and no, it's not just due to the market share).

@Fast-Nop many apps share installations of dependencies somewhere

@NoToJavaScript the ms office argument would be valid, if office wasnt a 150$ software package that you have to buy on top of windows. Most users use office365, google docs, or one of the free office suits, all of these are available on linux

I have a ton of friends in India who use Ubuntu regularly. They had someone install it for them in 2016 but it just worked ever since. It's apparently very popular because if you get someone to set it up for you once and you use it for the same thing, Linux can easily run a decade without maintenance.

The advent of in-browser everything helps a lot because tuning Linux to run a web browser reliably is very easy and you can get the same performance for quarter the price.

@lbfalvy @Fast-Nop Linux updates and maintenance are a delicate thing. On the one hand, Linux won't constantly bug the user with updates that potentially break something, or install them automatically, or even collect data about users and their problems. On the other hand, running your system without regular maintenance exposes you to all sorts of known security exploits, which will become way more popular if/when Linux becomes a popular desktop OS.

@yellow-dog Lol yeah, right. Genuine OEM office keys sell between $5 and $90, depending on what site you get them from, and most people at least know someone who can get them a completely free version through less-legal means.

@hitko thats like saying bikes will never be popular bc you can steal a car

@hitko Running apt update, apt upgrade weekly solves vulnerabilities and unless you have oddball packages like DAWs it pretty much never breaks.

@hitko Linux updates are so painless, at least under Mint, that I have set them to fully automated for most of "my" users because they prefer to let the system just take care of itself.

That means updates will be installed once per day in the background if the machine is running. But first, that's a choice and not even the default mode, and second, the updates work because it's a solid LTS distro with focus on stability.

I didn't have that kind of trust even with Win 7 where I would download the monthly security rollup, wait for a week, check the news sites, and only proceed if no troubles were seen. Then I would test stuff on my machine, and only then release that to the other users' machines.

Mind you, that was the better way even with Win 7, and MS' update quality has gone downhills since then because they axed their QA.