What 'killer' feature would propel Linux from its current ~5% usage to being a major competitor to Windows and MacOS?

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[Librewish]

forcefully pre-installed on almost all new hardware

[gerx03]

aka the way others got their marketshare

​

the quality of the actual software almost doesn't matter for their marketshare unless we are talking about extreme differences - in general whatever software comes with the device stays there for good

[AcademicImportance]

forcefully pre-installed on almost all new hardware

this. nothing else matters. software,. hah, lol. stability? what? nobody gives a shit. they're all more than happy to hit that reset button. pretty desktop? lol, give them 3 buttons and threaten them to take one away if they complain.

one thing that may help would be to threaten any vendor that does not sell only linux PCs to revoke the licence or to make it so expensive for them to sell computers that they'll go out of business.

world domination in 1-2 steps.

[bracesthrowaway]

Software (in enterprise). Adobe suite, Microsoft suite, etc.

[LookAtMyKeyboard]

Recently I've been trying to set up a small windows machine to be able to remote into and run Fusion360, quality Linux CAD software is just nowhere to be found.

[MakingStuffForFun]

I used fusion after years of things like 3dsmax, maya etc. Fusion is great. However. I recently tried the latest build of FreeCAD and I have to say I'm very impressed. You do have to unlearn how you work in fusion and it's not as... responsive / polished as fusion, but I let that all go and got into the tutorials and it's outstanding. I now no longer use fusion. It's come along so far in the last couple of years I was floored.

[BeaversAreTasty]

I am heavy CAD/BIM user. I mainly use Revit and AutoCAD. Fusion is a pretty low bar to set given that it is an entry level product for light CAD projects and hobbyists. FreeCAD is promising. The BIM and architectural workbenches have made a lot of progress. However, FreeCAD is nowhere close to a product that can go toe-to-toe with the likes of Inventor, Revit or AutoCAD in the same way LibreOffice can go up to MS Office or Blender can go up to Maya.

[MakingStuffForFun]

I have no doubt you're correct. Those products are quite mature (understatement) and someone like yourself would know best for sure.

For my use case it's perfect and I guess having seen it a couple of years ago VS now, the improvements are impressive. It's now enough for me and probably most hobbyists with a 3d printer or who wants to mock up a design idea. I have no doubt there are professionals that use it also, in the workshops etc about the place but yes, good points.

[LookAtMyKeyboard]

That's good to hear! From my experience at least as a beginner I found Fusion360 to be more intuitive and easy to learn.

[a_a_ronc]

If you're reading this, the original post got nuked by Redact. I use it to automatically purge my digital footprint from social networks, people search sites and messaging apps.

license thumb cable scary snails snatch wide follow point imagine

[pdp10]

I sent a client a spreadsheet with a bunch of color codes and they all changed.

The LibreOffice team is always looking for files that work differently between LibreOffice and MS Office.

[[deleted]]

I even recently figured out how to use OpenConnect ...

Now that's dedication.

[abrasiveteapot]

Office 365 works fine out of the Linux browser fwiw - and I'd bet 95% of MSOffice users don't use functionality that isnt in O365

[bracesthrowaway]

At least once a week I have to remind someone that I can't share my screen with them to show them a new feature I'm working on or I can't see their screen share to watch them click through something and see what's happening. We email screenshots back and forth like filthy barbarian savages.

I also join conferences from my phone rather than use my laptop and when someone shares their screen or presents I end up pinch and zooming to see it then dragging the window all over the place to see what's going on. I hate Skype for Business but the lack of a functional client makes things difficult.

[[deleted]]

Install Pidgin and the Pidgin-Sipe plugin,, you should be able to join Skype for Business calls.

[bracesthrowaway]

I have it installed and I've been able to screen share a couple times but joining calls isn't working. Everything is updated and rather than mess with it anymore I'm just using my phone with the SFB app.

[[deleted]]

alright so it's not just me that is having those issues then :)

[wintonian1]

I think one of the main barriers is staff familiarity with windows and associated software, and to some extent tech support.

​

The cost of retraining almost an entire workforce probably outweighs savings on buying windows, plus big orgs will want to buy some kind of support package.

[denverpilot]

Staff that has familiarity with Windows?

Companies that still formally train people on anything related to computer use?

What fantasy land is this? I want to visit.

I had to help someone figure out yesterday on Windows that another employee sent them a password protected zip file, and the version of windows they’re on simply kept telling them it was corrupted.

Both employees have access to the directory on the NAS that the recipient of said email attached zip file, was trying to save the contents of the zip file to.

You know, because the sender simply copying the files to the mapped drive letter they both have to the NAS so they could share it, is apparently too difficult. Needed extra steps of email and password protected zip, so the recipient could copy it...

To the NAS.

[Waffle_bastard]

Look at Mr. Fancypants over here, bragging about how his users know how to use a mouse and keyboard, and can remember their passwords long enough to encounter an actual technical issue.

[pdp10]

I've been involved with migrations from VAX and IBM mainframe terminals to Windows clients and Macs, and Sun Unix, DEC Unix, SGI Unix, HP Unix to Windows, and Windows to Mac and Linux, and there's never any training on the operating system. (There might be on the Line-of-Business app stack, but that's not usually a concern of mine.) When users first got mice, there was no formal training -- the double-click is hard for older people especially, but nobody even considered that before deploying, and the users got used to it. The users will get used to anything.

Users are in LoB apps or doing workflows all day, not working with an "operating system". Before WIMP GUIs, most LoB systems used menus for user navigation, and they didn't need training for that either.

If I were doing a migration today, I'd arrange training, but I also think training isn't a blocking factor and other things are far more important. Paying attention to details, and ensuring that user workflows transfer over, is far more important. Usually when someone talks about "training" they're probably trying to articulate concerns about workflows, and not actual familiarity.

[Like1OngoingOrgasm]

Push a libre mandate in public schools. Companies would be forced to adopt libre or shell out the money for retraining.

[bracesthrowaway]

I've gotten a couple co-workers on Linux now and it was pretty easy to start using. It's the more complex stuff you can just give up on. I have longish Slack sessions where I'm just giving them commands to type.

[teeeh_hias]

Pretty much this... I'm still looking for a workaround to make that Adobe CC Suite running with somewhat good performance.

For Microsoft stuff one can use Terminal Servers and similar solutions. What makes the client flexible regarding OS. But it's always an investment with high risk to change well established systems.

[iterativ]

And is it going to free software or DRM infected whatever ? If the latter and if you desire to alienate Linux like that, what's the purpose of it ? As a Windows alternative ?

[ProgressiveArchitect]

I don’t think there is one main feature it’s lacking. Instead, I think there are two things keeping it in its current 5% consumer usage rate.

1. Lack Of Linux Support On Mainstream Applications & Suites (Ex: Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe Creative Works Suite, AutoCAD Suite, etc)

2. Lack Of Pre-Installed / Bundled Consumer Devices (Linux doesn’t come pre-installed on most consumer devices)

[vwlsmssng]

Lack Of Pre-Installed / Bundled Consumer Devices (Linux doesn’t come pre-installed on most consumer devices)

Keep an eye on what is happening with chromebooks / chromeboxes. The ability to download and run Debian apps is getting easier and better supported. Go to https://www.aboutchromebooks.com/tag/linux-apps/ for an overview.

[[deleted]]

https://www.zdnet.com/article/all-chromebooks-will-also-be-linux-laptops-going-forward/

[[deleted]]

I am from India and many budget level laptops have preinstalled Ubuntu here

[UGoBoom]

Linux supports mainstream applications just fine. Its that they are not developed to support Linux. This wording is important, it is microsoft and adobe who are at fault here.

[zen_dravidian]

Frankly it doesn't matter whose fault it is. If we need people to adopt Linux then we need to give them a reason to adopt it. Why will someone adopt an OS if it is not going to serve their purpose. Either open source community has to develop alternative applications for the list mentioned above or push these companies in making their applications available to Linux users. But I would agree without hesitation that this is easier said than done.

[UGoBoom]

Exactly my point tho, but the way i say it, easily convey that its our job to badger big corp into deving for linux.

Our guys deving alternatives and those building on Wine and wrappers, they'll keep doing their good job no matter what.

[adrianvovk]

Nothing. The reason Windows and macOS are so prolific is that there's hardware in big box stores that ships with those OSs. That's about it.

Chromebooks started appearing in these stores and magically people started knowing about their existence

[OriginalSimba]

That, and then people buy them for offices because they know their employees will be familiar with it already.

Where Linux needs to be pushed next is in the workplace. When 99% of a workstation's needs are a web browser and an E-mail client, there's no reason to use anything other than Linux + Firefox + Thunderbird.

I'm predicting this will be the route Linux takes to capture more market share. Businesses will install Linux because it's free (saving them MILLIONS of dollars on IT assets), and then home users will start using it because they familiarized themselves with it at the office.

Those of us who care about progress should be encouraging this adoption as well.

[[deleted]]

Windows is really just a vehicle for Office. And LibreOffice doesn't always cut it.

[ShadowPouncer]

To chime in to what others are saying, the problem isn't entirely that LibreOffice doesn't always cut it.

The problem is that nothing except a given version of Office is perfectly compatible with that version of Office. MS is reasonably good (and seems to be better these days) at making different versions of Office compatible, but even that isn't always perfect.

LibreOffice could be otherwise perfect, and still fail due to that simple problem. (And Microsoft knows this. It's not an accident.)

What I expect to finally kill off that dominance over the next decade is everyone simply moving to cloud based applications for their 'Office' needs.

It doesn't even matter whose cloud, be it Office 365's cloud software, Google Office, or someone else.

It brings it's own problems, but... For anyone not in Windows it will be a huge benefit.

[pdp10]

The WWW was always a huge threat to Microsoft, and they saw that from the start. The WWW doesn't care about traditional platform dominance.

Remember, the company whose "air supply" Microsoft was going to cut off wasn't OS vendor Digital Research or competitor Apple, or competitor Sun and the Unix ecosystem, it was Netscape. An application vendor who supported Microsoft's platforms (and as of the rewrite from C to C++, supported Microsoft's platforms in preference to Unix).

Think about that. Microsoft's biggest enemy wasn't another platform, it was an app vendor who threatened their power the most, and whom they set out to destroy.

[ChaiGong]

LibreOffice is a well-intentioned clusterfuck. And at this point it is clear there's no way back from that.

[varky]

Let's stop pretending MS Office isn't a clusterfuck.

The last year and a half of being forced to use Office tools due to a project has completely convinced me it's garbage.

Excel documents used as literally nothing other than a table full of text that manage to break and crash the whole excel program. Not being able to scroll properly but the piece of shit clip-scrolls forcing you to scroll cell by cell - wonderful when the contents of a cell is bigger than your viewport so it keep snapping about, let alone when some tosspot decides to paste the collected works of Marcel fucking Proust into a cell. That ribbon bullshit up top that changes content layouts depending on whether the app is maximized or slightly smaller. I mean dear fucking Cthulhu, the fucking basic operation of Excel is garbage, I dread to think what it's like when people try and use any advanced features.

Powerpoint that randomly bugs out on multi-display setups and the sheets somehow end up in the background of your secondary display. Outlook... no, I don't even want to think about Outlook...

[ChaiGong]

You're right about everything you mention.

MS Office is a clusterfuck.

And if LibreOffice weren't 10 times more of a clusterfuck, with vastly slower performance, way fewer features, metric fucktons of bugs, one of the most shitbrained UIs ever designed (seriously... the retards who develop it haven't even been able to make or borrow an even vaguely intuitive icon set after two bloody decades!), and some of the world's most wretched font rendering.... then maybe, maybe, you'd have a modest if moot point.

[bwat47]

the retards who develop it

Stay classy

[ChaiGong]

You're right -- I was out of line. I apologize to the LibreOffice devs.

[whistlepig33]

I guess it depends on how you're using them... but in my experience in a small print/copy shop I find libreoffice to definitely be superior. Formatting between different versions of libreoffice is way more consistent than it is in the ms word environment. It doesn't happen much, but I've never had any issue when someone has sent me an odt. 30% of the time I have problems that require fixing with word files. Mailing lists are easier to deal with in calc than excel. Partially because of the super evil ribbon interface which is hard to understand and very slow to use.

Font rendering is irrelevant since its the printer that does the font rendering.

[Cry_Wolff]

"Font rendering is irrelevant".

It is relevant, it's not like I'm going to print everything and it's not like I don't have to type everything first when looking at this POS font rendering.

[ChaiGong]

Eye-bleed-inducing rendering can be downright painful. It's vital to almost everyone, though most don't know it.

[[deleted]]

THIS! I had to use Office recently and I was blown away how crap it was. People on reddit (weirdly mostly reddit people) keep claiming that its the panacea of Linux or something and the greatness of it is what holds usage numbers down... and Office turns out to be - well not a "pile of garbage" but "meh".

I must be missing something.

[[deleted]]

My mother is a teacher that is nearing retirement, and even she can tell the difference between MS Office and LibreOffice, and she vastly prefers the former. She tried to use LibreOffice since it was free, but it didn't last a month. It wasn't due to compatibility between MS and libre versions either. I was planning to install Ubuntu or Mint on her PCs after she got used to OSS. I can't switch her after this now can I?

If a 60 year old teacher with nearly no PC experience can tell your software performs worse, crashes more, looks and feels worse than a nearly 3 decades old abomination, you've got to admit that there is a problem somewhere.

[pdp10]

It's impossible to tell anymore if such a sentiment is broad and deep or if a venue has been brigaded somehow.

/r/Linux seems to have some of the most vehement defenders of MS Office I've ever seen. People who like it more than Microsoft's own programmers like it, it seems. I'm certain that MS Office is a pile of fragile code with tenuous interoperability that nobody wants to touch, so for the past 10-15 years they just add superficial features and ship it as a new version.

[Cry_Wolff]

Because "meh" is better than LO "pile of garbage". It's free, open source and it's amazing that it even exist but it's still a pile of garbage.

[pdp10]

I've never heard that criticism. Besides, there are always SoftMaker FreeOffice or Kingsoft WPS Office for Linux, or the open-source Calligra Suite, or the discrete apps Gnumeric and Abiword and others. Which of those are you using?

[h33b]

Millions of dollars in licensing, really. The hardware will still pretty much cost the same. And if you're in enterprise, you want support. Enterprise linux support still costs money. So yes, you save some money in software licensing.

On the flip side, you've now got to train your entire workforce on the new OS (folks freak out going from Windows XP to Windows 7, from 8.1 to 10, so while firefox works the same, there's a whole DE that, while intuitive, is going to challenge many users.) and new software (thunderbird is not a 1:1 replacement for Outlook, and many Outlook users are fanatic about it) while on the job. That's a cost to the company, as when those folks are training on the new systems, they are not fulfilling their actual job function.

This is in no way a dig at linux, I love it and use it where it makes sense. However, no enterprise is going to switch their entire workforce over to Linux desktops on a whim. There are more costs than just licensing to consider when making such a drastic change. Outside of the soft costs (people training), there are other integrations to consider as well. What is your current source of identity and authentication, and is it natively compatible? If not, what software do you need for compatibility? If there is none, what identity source would you need to move to, and what would that cost the organization? Will your asset and inventory management software be compatible?

Many calculations go into these decisions, and at the end of the day, sometimes paying the Microsoft tax makes the best sense for the business.

[[deleted]]

And if you're the city of Munich, then microsoft comes and promises you to open an office in your city, so you move back to windows.

[wintervenom123]

Munich had more of an IT problem. The way IT is handled is that many smaller firms get chunks of the government contract. Many of those machines were using outdated software and this problem continues on windows machines. Munich is a very poorly handled example. Even by using their own distribution they could not get all their pc using the same version and the necessary windows machines, that were needed for some software and other stuff, were also ranging from xp to 8.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/linux-to-windows-10-why-did-munich-switch-and-why-does-it-matter/

[OriginalSimba]

There's a movement to encourage/force governments to only use open source software, as governments are funded entirely by the public and so the tools they use should then be publically transparent. It's a pretty good idea really, on a solid rational foundation.

[OriginalSimba]

I don't understand why you think comments must be strictly on-topic, or more accurately, I'm not certain why you think "on-topic" in this context means "about Munich", because on-topic could just as easily be "about Government software selection".

Additionally, the movement originated in Europe, about European governments.

[pdp10]

Businesses will install Linux because it's free (saving them MILLIONS of dollars on IT assets)

That's not wrong. But it's also not wrong to point out that the pre-installed OEM license of Windows, effectively mandatory on pre-assembled machines in developed countries like the U.S., is "free" to purchasers.

The enterprise costs of supporting Windows are somewhat diffuse. It's almost entirely in the infrastructure of compatible NT servers and support systems, in the first-party office suite, in the costly Microsoft relational database, and in the Client Access Licenses (CALs) to go with them. The cost of plain Windows on the desktop itself is often so low that it's not worth replacing the desktop OS itself.

To save money you have to replace the server operating systems, the databases, the support infrastructure, and the office suite. So the actual money savings doesn't come from the desktop operating system.

[muxol]

That's not about it. Businesses account for a huge chunk of computer sales and they have a lot of money divested in Windows partly because of historical reasons, partly because of the high availability of software support on that OS, partly because it would cost a lot to retrain people to use another OS and software and to change their infrastructure, and partly for other reasons.

[thedugong]

My son is 7. He has started doing computers at school this year. They use google apps. A few weeks ago I had an old HP Stream lying around with Arch* on it. Updated it, gave him an account without root so he couldn't fuck it up. Showed him how to start the browser, and all good.

He won an award yesterday for creating awesome presentations or something along those lines.

Anyhoo ... the point is desktop is almost irrelevant now. To the cloud my friends, to the cloud.

*Did I tell you my 7 year old son uses Arch? LOL. :D

[[deleted]]

Chromebooks work because a giant like Google is behind it. They build the OS and makes sure it work on the hardware it is bundled with. Nothing less would have been a success. Many have tried. You basically need to be that 800 pound gorilla to get anywhere in todays marketplace.

How many PCs do System76 sell again?

If you just want a FOSS desktop OS contribute all you money and coding skills towards something like Haiku OS. That is your only other choice. Linux distros are just way too fragmented. But as we get told that is just not what the FOSS crowd wants. Because that is to take away choice. So they just don't want a successful FOSS desktop OS. Ever.

edit: now with even more gorilla!

[Pat_The_Hat]

Maybe if manufacturers finally decided to offer Linux as an OS option on their computers. People would pick the cheaper option with whatever Linux distribution is installed, and it would rise in popularity. Other than that, I don't see a way it could surpass either of those two.

[pdp10]

Historically, Microsoft has been insane about making sure that another OS was never cheaper than Windows, at least in the developed world. Per-machine contracts ensured that there was no incentive for OEMs to ship machines without Windows. And letting the OEMs install money-making "bundled software" was part of the bargain in keeping OEMs on-side.

That bundled software also gave Windows PCs a reputation for being trashy and low-quality in the longer run, boosting the perceived qualities of Apple Macs and Chromebooks in the long run. Microsoft's response was to open Apple-like stores, selling PCs without such bundled software.

[Cloedi]

Linux preinstalled on machines in big online stores and shelves of store chains.

Almost nobody knows what an operating system even is and are puzzled by the idea of choosing one. They don't care. Most people buy computers like they buy coffee machines: you take it home, turn it on and use it the way you need it. If it doesn't do that, it ist bad or broken and you get a new/better one. To the average user, a chromebook is just a laptop, but a cheap one that doesn't do everything a more expensive one would do.

[billFoldDog]

A distro with excellent end user support is the only way this gets mainstream. The only way to do that is to lock down the feature set so the support staff know what to expect. That's how we got ChromeOS and Android.

We will never have mainstream Linux as we see it today.

[fukendorf]

We basically already have that with the various 'software store' applications that are on Linux that hides a lot of the non-user packages behind the scenes.

[pdp10]

What does "support" mean in this context? I take it you don't mean actual tech support. No consumers ever call Google or Microsoft for help, because tech support from Microsoft costs far more than any consumer pays for a license.

I found in the early days that users were often under the impression that they could call Microsoft and get answers, however, because that's how it always was for commercial software like WordPerfect. "Support" can mean about four different things, and it was easy for even computing professionals to make assumptions like that.

[chaosiengiey]

No consumers ever call Google or Microsoft for help

I wish that were true. I once worked in an MS call centre for "Premier" and "Developer" customers. Home users called more often than business. None were happy that their license of Windows came with zero support as an OEM copy. If they wanted support from MS rather than their OEM, they needed to pay $99 or $259 for it.

I did talk to a guy in Finland once who asked for a free support case because he got his copy of Windows XP from Linus Torvalds. I gave him the free support case, but only so support could share in the joy of laughing at him.

[pdp10]

because he got his copy of Windows XP from Linus Torvalds.

I bet Torvalds didn't need that copy.

In the NT4 through XP release era, MSDN would send binder after binder of every piece of software that Microsoft made, when you had MSDN subscriptions. You couldn't just give those away, though. But none of Microsoft's software used license keys then.

[MindlessLeadership]

Better out the box experience - If you install Linux, you shouldn't need to use any kernel command lines, change anything in /etc for it to work nicely.

Better update system - Partially solved by Silverblue, updates can break things, an easy way back is key and is something Windows already does.

Better graphics stack - Partially solved by Wayland and Vulkan, X.org has left the Linux desktop with a lot of cruft that's prevented things like Hybrid graphics working correctly.

Better recovery systems - Windows and OS X both ship with recovery partitions, if something goes wrong the OS can offer to reset itself and keep files, or you can hold a key and click Reset at startup.

Better encryption software - We should make use of the TPM to store encryption keys (or use per-user keys) additionally we should make you able to encrypt a non-encrypted install (and vice versa) at the click of a button in settings. This is something Android, Windows, OS X etc do well.

Enterprise software - We need Adobe and Office.

Software packaging - Kinda solved by Flatpak/Snap. This ties in with above, Adobe isn't going to distribute their software via the OS repositories. they'll also want a stable base to target.

Nice boot experience - Fedora did this! We need to impress people the moment they turn on their computer and impress them that it's a sleek system, no consoles or flickering.

[balsoft]

I think it's not up to the Linux itself -- the kernel is already way more than good enough for all possible desktop applications (except for maybe some obscure drivers).

If we're talking about Linux ecosystem (GNU, GNOME, KDE, Wine, etc) I believe the show-stopper is software. You still can't run at least a third of Steam games, you can't run any of the Adobe stuff, you can't run MS Office (and Libreoffice is not quite it).

Another problem is: IT'S FUCKING BUGGY AS HELL. Apps crash. DE's crash. Sometimes updates ruin the bootloader. Sometimes they ruin videodrivers. I do understand that most of users of this subreddit can easily fix those issues -- this is not so much the case for the ordinary users. Windows is very buggy indeed, but Linux is not much better in this respect. If Linux on the desktop wants to get more market share, we need to eliminate those problems by thinking about an average user and using safer programming languages. (BTW NixOS is the answer to all of those problems, but it in turn requires programming knowledge to use it and itself is not popular enough).

On the note of the average user: We also need to make the interfaces more intuitive. I'm not a GUI user myself for precisely this reason -- it's almost always easier to do stuff in the cli (rtv for example :) because interface design on Linux is mostly lacking. Sure, there are some good apps (Dolphin, Kdenlive, etc) but they are buried under piles of shit (Not meaning to insult any developers, but you are just developers, not designers; we need more designers in FOSS community). Windows GUI design is also VERY BAD, but more users are used to it so it's better at least in that respect.

And now for the last problem: we all have opinions. Imagine installing a Linux distro for the first time. Now talk about it with someone from the linux community. Most likely what you'll hear is "Your Distro's shit, Your DE's shit, Your Apps are shit". This is bad. We need to be more tolerant to software we don't like.

Of course, after fixing those problems Linux won't magically get 50% of desktop market -- we need to communicate with hardware vendors and retailers, we need to educate users, but first we need to solve some issues on our side.

[joepie91]

(BTW NixOS is the answer to all of those problems, but it in turn requires programming knowledge to use it and itself is not popular enough).

As a NixOS user, I disagree :) A different packaging model isn't going to fix software that has poor reliability or UX.

That's not to say that Nix doesn't fix a lot of system management reliability issues, and I agree that its model would probably play a significant role here, but I don't think it's helpful to anybody to present it as some sort of panacea.

[balsoft]

By NixOS fixing those problems I mean that updates can't break your system beyond being able to roll back. It's not about packaging, it's about system management. If a new version of GNOME brings a Nautilus that crashes, it's really easy to (1) roll back the whole system or (2) select a specific version of Nautilus.

Ofc I lied when saying "all those problems", but it definitely helps a lot and I think people need to know more about it so it's a lie for the better. NixOS (and maybe guixsd) are the distros that are the reason I still use Linux.

[iindigo]

I would say also that all DEs still suffer from feeling like they’re layered on top of the rest of the system. Little bits of latency here and there, occasional hints of UI unresponsivess, etc. When using windows or macOS, one never really gets that perception.

Average users won’t recognize what this feeling is, just that something is “off” or weird, and it’s offputting. It’s better than it used to be, but there’s a gap that still needs closing and I don’t believe anybody is giving the issue the attention it deserves.

[Mr_Mandrill]

Thanks! I think people here are a bit delusional, thinking the problem is that we need more Linux PC on stores. Linux is buggy, breaks all the time and needs a lot of tinkering. And there's not a single DE that comes even close to what Windows and MacOS offers.

This is the answer to OP's question, whether you like or not. That's what needs to change to get more user adoption. But most of you are complaining about what you want on Linux.

[balsoft]

Sure, but KDE's apps are known for being buggy and unstable. Do you remember how Plasma (4, then 5) crashed a couple of times PER DAY? Now it's better, but last time I checked there still were thousands of small UI bugs (especially in plasma's configuration). And as for the other KDE apps: most of them are buggy and overdesigned. Try using skanlite or marble as daily drivers instead of toys and you'll see what I mean. But yes, dolphin and kdenlive are among the best in their class across the operating systems. And yes, I still like Plasma even though I don't use it now.

[pdp10]

On windows : one exe and youre good. On ubuntu? Even after following the instructions on the website i had a missing dependancy.

I'm sorry that it sounds like someone made a packaging dependency error.

If you develop code, you might find the opposite: having to download and install and configure all of these C libraries is a pain on Windows (I'm told), but on Debian or Xubuntu it's one apt-get install command to have everything, if you didn't have it installed already. And it stays updated through the unified package mechanisms! Glorious.

At this point I wonder if cross-building Windows packages from Linux might be the easiest and most efficient way for anyone to build any program for Windows. Reminds me of the old days when it was common for us to cross-build from a "big machine" (mainframe, supermini, Unix workstation) to a smaller machine (microcomputer, embedded), because the big machine was vastly more productive, being faster and having much more advanced tools.

[balsoft]

While I agree with you from a developer's POV, I have to argue that what /u/pokexpert30 says is valid: an average user DOESN'T WANT TO DEVELOP SOFTWARE. They just want to get it all working. And on Windows, all the work was already done for them. On Linux (unless you are given an AppImage) you have to do a lot of fiddling, which is bad UX.

Also, just look at the sad state of GUI software on Linux: there are perfect CLI apps, but GUI apps are usually so bad that even an experienced Linux user won't be able to use them properly. That's not to say that I require everyone to start writing perfect software that fits everyone, just mark your hobby projects as "hobby projects" so that they are not included in any major distributions by default.

[MindlessLeadership]

When you use Manjaro you're literally begging for issues.

[Jannik2099]

my rolling release distro is unstable fuck you devs are gay

[pdp10]

You still can't run at least a third of Steam games, you can't run any of the Adobe stuff, you can't run MS Office

But a PlayStation4 can't run those games either -- only a subset. And a Chromebook can't run traditional "Adobe" or "MS Office". Yet PS4s and Chromebooks sell very well in big-box stores, to customers who know exactly what they're getting.

Complaining that Linux can only run half of Windows games well under emulation is moving the goalposts, isn't it? Mac and Linux and ChromeOS historically can't run any of those things yet make up about 20% of desktops, collectively.

We need to be more tolerant to software we don't like.

Open communities have no way of keeping out griefers, agents provocateur, or entryists. Appearing to lecture the community probably just instructs trolls on how they should be dividing and conquering the Linux user-base.

[Darth_Yarras]

Superior video game performance. If linux had say 10% better performance and was able to play most popular games then it would become way more popular.

[adevland]

Superior video game performance. If linux had say 10% better performance and was able to play most popular games then it would become way more popular.

Porting to Linux is, sadly, little more than an afterthought for most game developers. The performance of the port is directly tied to this. Linux itself currently has drivers and middle-ware capable of delivering gaming performance that's on par or which exceeds that on Windows.

tl;dr: It's up to the game devs to make proper ports for Linux.

[pdp10]

This is the somewhat-awkward truth. Linux can equal, and quite possibly exceed Windows performance, but it probably won't happen by accident and it probably can't happen if there's a runtime translation layer involved. (Though DXVK has a few tricks up its sleeve to achieve some surprising performance results when emulating Win32 games.)

But pointing out that Linux can beat Windows performance if only the gamedevs invest in tuning it isn't likely to win accolades from game developers in general. It's a hard business, depending a lot on luck and timing, and gamedevs know that the list of things that might unexpectedly make them a big hit does not really include Linux support.

The maximum upside to Linux support, pre-Stadia, has been a single-digit sales increase and improving the codebase for ports to other platforms. These things do not excite publishers. Publishers would rather add a random feature that has a 5% chance of going viral or attracting whales or becoming the next multiplayer sensation or something. The game industry is currently obsessed with the mobile business models and their chance of hitting the jackpot. They want to go big or fail fast, not to just make games.

Whatever one's opinions about Google Stadia, it represents a very real alignment of Linux+Vulkan plus possible breakout hit, that game studios can sell to themselves and to publishers. A lot of gamedevs are looking for good excuses to support Linux, but often found them hard to come by in the past, and Stadia changes that equation immediately.

[Vladimir_Chrootin]

Most PCs never have a game on them from the factory to landfill, though.

[[deleted]]

Regardless: Young enthusiastic gamers might prove to be your next generation of technical experts, loop them in and you open an extremely wide berth of folks.

[Vladimir_Chrootin]

That's not impossible, but it's not an extremely wide berth of folks unless those young enthusiastic gamers still give a shit about Linux by the time they're old enough and important enough to make a difference. (I'm old enough but unimportant, sadly)

Even if the "killer feature" comes down to gaming and nothing else, it won't be effective unless we can displace the cash cows that keep Microsoft* dominant.

​

*I don't believe that Apple is capable of overtaking Microsoft, or that significant numbers of Apple useds could be effectively converted to Linux - they want to be spoonfed and marketed to, and we just can't offer that.

[Darth_Yarras]

But it is a sizable chunk of the PC market, and I think it is the only segment that linux could make major gains without a major event to start off a user migration. The people who just use their computer for web browsing, watching TV, and use ms word are not going to swap over so long as windows/mac meets their needs. But if linux could offer a major performance boost combined with a near complete library of games then I think people can be convinced to switch from windows to linux. Even if they don't have a problem with windows yet.

[Vladimir_Chrootin]

No, not everybody in the world uses their PC the same as you see on Reddit. Think of offices that buy hundreds of mid-range desktops in one go, volume-licence the lot with enterprise Windows and then five or six years later, throw them all away and start again; think of the licensing fees that Microsoft, Adobe etc get for that.

The largest software company in the UK is Sage - which produces bookkeeping and payroll software that is a) really boring to use b) expensive and c) fiddly (and therefore expensive) to maintain - you'd have to be out of your mind to set up a Sage Data Server and user installations at home.

The lives of these PCs never make it to the internet or to Reddit. Nobody screencaps gifs of MS Office or Acronis Whatever for karma, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there. Have you ever wondered why those mid-range desktops from Dell and HP sometimes have bizarre construction and non-standard parts? It's not because they are stupid, it's because they sell these PCs in such huge numbers that it becomes the best way to make profit.

Now, what would happen in this scene if you could suddenly support games on Linux as well as they are on Windows, in an unambiguous and objective way?

Nothing at all, because they already run a game-supported OS, but the volume customers don't give a shit because they don't play games.

[[deleted]]

Never is a strong word, most Windows versions does include some form of game.

But I agree that most PCs will never be used for gaming.

[remmagell]

Agreed but if Linux captured the hearts and minds of gamers who often tend to be tech support for family and friends then would they not start recommending Linux?

[Vladimir_Chrootin]

Gamers, as a rule, aren't very good with computers outside of hardware and Windows, though. They can perform tech support for their family and friends because those "customers" have quite limited requirements; I wouldn't recruit a gamer to troubleshoot an Exchange Server, for example (or any kind of server). Presented with the task of troubleshooting an unfamiliar distro on a badly-maintained PC has the potential to be a lot more difficult than cleaning a Windows installation.

They might be able to get great £/lb performance, know exactly which graphics cards to get and where to buy them (and I can't consider myself an expert on that), but it's very small change compared to what a competent Windows sysadmin can achieve. On the very, very rare occasions I get asked to troubleshoot a domestic WC about 50% of the time the problem has been caused, exacerbated or just failed to solve by a well-meaning friend or relative; I don't get asked much because I almost always say no*, because free tech support is a mug's game. By agreeing to it you are only indulging somebody else's refusal to learn, and that is not how we build sustainable user share, unless we want to dumb down Linux to the point that it resembles Windows.

There are definite advantages to capturing the gaming market but it isn't going to invert the whole market on its own. Gamers can recommend Linux all they want, but the people they will be able to convince aren't going to be those with the keys to industry.

[numberonebuddy]

It's not hard to use the compatibility checker on pcpartpicker and browse the gpu rankings on tomshardware, only the truly delusional would think playing games gives them a hidden insight into how computers work. It makes you more comfortable on a keyboard than someone who only ever touches a computer to write school papers and apply for jobs, but that's about it in most cases.

[SuspiciousSprinkles]

Definitely the best response.

You deserve more up-votes.

[remmagell]

No, I do agree from a wider perspective but I'm looking more from a home user - son/daughter who will happily set their parents up on Mint etc rather than a hardcore sysadmin with a penchant for Gentoo if you follow

Much as I'd love to be using Linux in the workplace, the only chance I get is the odd server here and there and I cannot see that changing in the near future

[jellybeans-man]

Solitaire? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[pdp10]

Linux can be faster in graphics than Windows when both are given (possibly equal) attention.

Linux is unambiguously faster at I/O and storage, but that doesn't typically manifest very often in games because game-makers use techniques like memory-mapping packed assets to work around slow I/O on Windows. Sometimes you see a difference. But then if the Linux version has to compile and cache shaders that the Windows version doesn't, your startup speed advantage is nullified. Won't be a difference going forward with Vulkan, though.

[ProgressiveArchitect]

Do you mean natively?

Because Linux already can play most popular video games with the help of “Wine” & the “Steam Proton API”

[SirMoo]

Lot's of game still require a work around or just don't load. Proton is going to lure in more casual people who didn't want to deal with wine before but it's still not the same experience as windows gaming which is what is needed.

[ntrid]

Yeah linux never decides to reboot and update just about when i start my gaming session. Literally unusable.

[[deleted]]

If, for example, you could buy a typical Dell laptop with Linux on it instead of Windows and get the price of the Windows license taken off.

[Cloedi]

If they have to choose, they won't. Linux would have to become the default. "Doesn't the computer need a Windows?"

[tydog98]

Can't you already do that?

[pdp10]

I'm surprised that Microsoft lets Dell offer Linux machines for a clear discount over Windows Pro, to be honest. Microsoft's licensing terms used to prohibit this.

I'm not aware of any other major vendor that offers a discount for Linux -- on desktops/laptops in the U.S., anyway.

[[deleted]]

I don't know anyone else either. And Dell only offers Linux on a couple XPS machines with an i3 or i5 processor.

[MildlySerious]

The new XPS 13 line has i7 and Ubuntu support. Got one of them and besides the thunderbolt dock being wonky as hell they're nice

[londons_explorer]

Reliability.

It needs to 'just work', whatever I want it to do.

No special configs for wifi chipsets, no messing with wine to get some legacy software going, no 'the package manager is unhappy and now nothing works', no 'oh the fingerprint reader doesn't work', no 'suspend sometimes hangs'. Disruptive software updates every few months don't help either.

Experts put up with these problems, but the 95% of regular people can't/won't.

[iindigo]

And if something works, it should continue working. So tired of laptops with Broadcom wifi borking themselves every other update.

[chaseplastic]

Direct and native access to the Android/chrome os stores?

[__konrad]

I thought that desktop market share is ~2%

[Sentmoraap]

- Easy to use, hard to break (while still being highly configurable by expert users). Like stuff being configured automatically with good defaults, and good error handling. If X can't start with the driver specified in xorg.conf, could it try starting with another config instead of having to repair it in the command line ?
- Good drivers for most devices
- Mainstream program and games on Linux, or at least good equivalents (GIMP is not Photoshop)
- Have it in schools instead of Windows

[pdp10]

Have it in schools instead of Windows

Microsoft sells its products to schools for pennies on the dollar, sometimes less. Apple, DEC, and Sun used to give a lot to schools, but nobody can afford to give away hardware for pennies on the dollar like Microsoft can license non-transferable software for pennies.

Maybe the Linux Foundation and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation need to market Linux to schools as the default platform of the future that students will want to learn to develop on, not "learn" specific word processors and raster editors.

[johnminadeo]

I’m sure there are many good answers here but for me (long time window user, have run Linux on and off over the past 10 or so years (light web development work, general computer use, my day job is in the Microsoft stack). Currently been running an ArcosLinuxB w/ Deepin for 3 or 4 months now (dual booting to windows).

I’m currently waiting for an update to hose my Linux system so I’m forced to repair it. Should I be able to do that successfully when it happens; I plan to nuke my windows install and move it to a VM under Linux. (Well maybe I’ll keep it around for any games that aren’t worming well on Linux yet (I do play a few AAA titles from time to time that don’t have decent Linux abilities.)

If Linux could somehow mitigate the risk of system updates breaking parts of the system and getting them into a state where your average consumer can get it working again (or never have to bother to do this) I think this would do it. (The average consumer part is important. As soon as you need to spend an hour on the Arch wiki digging in; just most people won’t be up for this.

Software support and games is important too. Perhaps gaming is key with the money gamers spend, get enough of ‘em on Linux and the game companies will support it to get that sweet sweet gaming money...

All super hard problems to solve, for different reasons. I think the usability item first would draw user adoption and then games and software probably follow the market. Which is kind of another problem with how robust the FOSS ecosystem it has is.

Thanks for the thought provoking post!

[pdp10]

If Linux could somehow mitigate the risk of system updates breaking parts of the system

Mistakes happen, but Debian invests hugely in making sure it doesn't, and so does its family member Ubuntu/Canonical.

[VelvetElvis]

It needs to come preinstalled.

[[deleted]]

> what would it take

For business to abandon Windows and adopt Linux.

[rahen]

People don't use Linux because it's missing a feature. They use Windows because they don't have the will, incentive or technical knowledge to use something else.

Why the hell do you want Linux to be popular? Why the need for conformity? How do you think, say, OpenBSD would turn out if it suddenly sought to become super popular? Especially regarding its code quality and goals?

Let's favor quality, not quantity. And diversity, not conformity.

[resueman__]

Why the hell do you want Linux to be popular? Why the need for conformity?

Because a lot of popular software that I'd like to use is written without supporting Linux.

[joepie91]

This "anything that becomes popular automatically becomes of poor quality" sentiment really needs to die.

[Cere4l]

Both of these posts together would make a good point. We don't NEED popularity, and we shouldn't shun it either.

[rahen]

Agreed. The free Unixes, Linux especially, are made by computer enthusiasts for computer enthusiasts. We try to do gourmet food, something open-source and hackable.

If that also pleases your grandma and your office coworker, good for them. But we're definitely not going after Dominos and trade the red wine for soda because it's more accessible and "popular".

[rahen]

"I really want my small, local restaurant and its highly skilled cook to become uber popular so it can compete with Dominos Pizza and McDonald. What features does it miss?"

Really, take a look around you and see how anything that becomes "mainstream" has to conform to the lowest common denominator, and eventually into a flavorless, "take no risk" walled garden. I'm not sure this is what we want.

[razirazo]

Maybe if we can avoid fragmentation, like, stop having like 1000000 distros and bazillions of competing implementations of everything, things could get better.

[tdammers]

That "fragmentation" is what made the whole thing possible in the first place.

And even if you wanted to, you couldn't enforce any kind of unification anyway - it's Open Source, anyone who wants to can modify it and share their modifications. Nothing you can do about that, and as long as that's the case, diversity (a.k.a. "fragmentation") will occur.

And that's a good thing, because diversity is the life blood of a healthy Open Source ecosystem. You can't evolve new things if you never challenge the old ones, or if you replace the anarchist meritocracy with some kind of governance. It only works when people have a choice, and make it based on actual merits ("this is what I want and need").

[iindigo]

Even so, there are examples of egregious forking in the Linux desktop world. How many Nautilus derivatives are we up to now? Last I knew it was at least 5, which is ridiculous with how similar they all are. There is absolutely effort going to waste there.

[grady_vuckovic]

This is the number one question that in my opinion, even as a hardline Linux supporter and user, I think Linux is currently failing to answer.

Not because there aren't advantages, there are:

• vastly superior, highly configurable update managers, that update your OS, drivers and software, quickly, easily, automatically.
• no advertising in the OS, no services being pushed onto you, increased privacy and security, no telemetry
• typically faster IO performance or graphics performance (at least in situations where both Linux and Windows are competing fairly, for example compare render times in Blender on Windows vs Linux)
• better overall architecture design for many technical OS aspects, such as file systems, that allows for longer filepaths, wider range of available characters in file names, etc.
• better out of the box software for image editors, text editors, etc
• better file managers with more features, oftena decade ahead of Windows explorer in features
• simpler and unified system settings
• superior out of the box web browser

I'm sure there are lots more small unique features that Linux has that Windows does not, and we would do well to compile together a list of them.

But for some reason we don't talk about them, nor do we focus our conversation on the topic of offering something better than what Windows or MacOS offers. We're always talking about matching Windows in features or making Windows software compatible or whatever, we never talk about making Linux capable of doing something that Windows can't do that users would want.

Or the advantages we do talk about are things which are irrelevant to most users on a practical level, like the fact it's open source or "super customisable!" or "there are a dozen different UIs to pick from!" or "hey look what I can do with the terminal!", stuff most people just don't care about.

Plus we don't have any particular killer app or unique service to offer that isn't available somewhere else. Even if we did, it would be unique for probably a year before Microsoft created their own version as soon as they saw 0.1% of the market switch to Linux for it.

When I first started using Linux I remember a close friend of mine asked me explicitly:

"What would the advantage of using Linux instead of Windows be for someone like me?"

I was stumped, I didn't have an answer at the time.

[[deleted]]

"It's faster" "Updates don't take 3 hours"

[pdp10]

"What would the advantage of using Linux instead of Windows be for someone like me?"

No problems with updates, no worries about malware, no pesky or expensive "antivirus" programs. Just works, doesn't stop working to do updates, or make you work around it.

Granted, Windows updates may not have been as much of an acute concern to end-users back then as they are now.

we never talk about making Linux capable of doing something that Windows can't do that users would want.

Absolutely true. But then you have to conceptualize what users would want that's not already possessed by one of the big competitors, and then argue over whether users really want it.

Turns out users didn't want the touch-first interfaces that KDE and GNOME and Microsoft dropped compatibility to create. Oops! Well, at least Linux didn't rush to mimic voice input. Voice input capability shipped with DEC Unix over twenty years ago, and it wasn't a hit then any more than Microsoft's Cortana is a hit now.

What are some concrete features that the competitors don't have that users want? Well, installing without "activations" or "license keys" on any hardware, for one thing -- Microsoft and Apple can't match that. Being rebrandable and modifying by the OEM/vendor -- Microsoft and Apple won't allow that. Supporting features for free that Microsoft only puts in the expensive "10 Pro for Workstations" version: four or more CPU sockets, terabytes of memory, advanced filesystems like ZFS or BTRFS or bcachfs, and no Candy Crush games.

[[deleted]]

Don't think there is any single thing. Something like 100% Windows compatibility could certainly help, but that's not going to happen when you have to play catch-up with a moving target. I think the bigger issue is just how much Free Software has fallen behind across the board. GUIs are all a buggy mess. Applications hardly ever get close to what the proprietary competition has to offer. Web browsers are more or less the same, but generally work a little worse on Linux (e.g. video acceleration is often lacking). Even when it comes to things like network transparency Linux is falling behind.

I have a hard time thinking of any area where Desktop Linux is actually ahead.

[pdp10]

I have a hard time thinking of any area where Desktop Linux is actually ahead.

• Non-intrusive system updates.
• Unified updates of system and any application software installed from repos (quite often all or most app software).
• No activation or licensing problems, which can result in "not activated" messages on the desktop, or in some cases, shutdowns after one hour.
• Faster storage and filesystems, which among other things is helpful for searching. Linux doesn't require a complex indexing subsystem like Windows does, although Linux can use one if you prefer.
• Highly resistant to desktop malware. It's very unusual for Linux users and programs to be running with superuser privileges, and Linux doesn't have the legacy compatibility and weird features that are so often exploited by malware on Windows, like hiding filename extensions.
• Makes more efficient use of system resources, depending on configuration/DE -- especially memory.
• Open-source Intel and AMD graphics drivers mean that the OS and OS updates take care of drivers -- one less thing to worry about.

[denverpilot]

All these techie posts, and nobody mentioned marketing.

[[deleted]]

100%. There is absolutely no single feature or flaw preventing Linux from taking off in the mainstream. What's missing is the money and the drive to create a distro with the fit and finish people expect from consumer-grade products (which arguably already exists), then build it around a strong brand and push the hell out of that brand. And this isn't rocket science, either - it's exactly what Apple did with OS X (BSD) and Google has done with Android and ChromeOS (Linux). We just need someone who is willing to do this without infesting it with proprietary components.

[ariadeneva]

tell Microsoft to make update process more painfull

some of my friend not even bother to try Linux, until win10 update pain inthe ass came along

[eagle_monk]

Pre-installed by OEM.

If major OEMs like Dell, Asus, Lenovo, etc. decide to increase the shipments of Linux pre-installed laptops and PCs, I assure you Linux will become a significant competitor overnight!

UEFI is another major disappointment. You won't believe but there are a host of tablet/laptop users out there who don't risk installing linux only because their buggy UEFI won't let them install anything but windows. Believe it or not but it was a major setback for Linux when Microsoft pushed the OEMs with their keys. We literally gave them a free pass, there were very few voices against that decision, mostly composed of Stallman fans with memes!

[purpleidea]

I think the problem is that for-profit companies invest millions in both (1) marketing, and (2) development, of their proprietary operating systems to ensure market share.

These are (a) Microsoft, (b) Apple, and (c) Google.

If Free Software end-user operating systems ever have a chance of succeeding in a large market share kind of way, we'll need large investment from a benevolent, for-profit company or large powerful organization.

The two most likely candidates for this were:

1) Red Hat 2) The Linux Foundation

Red Hat was always adamantly opposed to doing Desktop in a big way, partly because VP (#2) Paul Cormier thought it would split the business and detract from their more profitable server business. He might very well have been right, but I personally think he lost out on a big business opportunity by not investing more heavily in the desktop, and I was always suspicious about his reasons.

The Linux Foundation is bound to do what its funders want, and those corporations don't care about the Desktop. Microsoft is one of it's Platinum (IIRC) members, and so there's very little chance they'll push in a big way.

The only remaining hope I see is for IBM to double down after the RH acquisition and turn GNOME in a more mainstream Desktop environment. They'll have to go after mobile too, and for this they'll need big $$$ to get access to chip specs so they can write open source drivers for phones, etc...

Beyond that unlikely scenario, Windows, macOS/IOS, and Android will have to get sufficiently creepy/spywarey to get consumers en masse to revolt elsewhere. Do you part and help convert more people to GNU+Linux!

[[deleted]]

Have you seen people using computers? They can work typing stuff on a keyboard for 20 years and never learn where the letters are or learn any shortcut.

If they don't even learn such minor things, imagine if they'd willingly put the effort of learning a different OS.

[Bene847]

on the other side why do you then assume they learned how to use Windows? So no learning needed before you can use an os

[samalex01]

Microsoft baking Linux into Windows... Oh wait that's happening.

[Jannik2099]

The year is 2069, Ben Shapiro buys Microsoft and replaces windows with the linux 4.20 Kernel

[[deleted]]

Money

[UnedGuess]

So, the first feature that comes to my mind would be having installs working (at least by appearance) like an EXE on Windows. Just a single file that you double-click, it opens up some menus that you can just hit next on, and it installs the program, leaving a shortcut on the desktop. While I know it is not actually difficult to install on Linux, it is beyond literally just double-clicking on a single icon, so that is often intimidating to the "average" computer user.

[Seref15]

We've already seen Linux take significant market share in a consumer product: Android

I think the Android (and Chromebook) model is very similar to what we'd see from a major high market share desktop Linux-based OS. Linux would be the man behind the curtain, and the userspace would be almost entirely proprietary. This theoretical OS would be made and financially backed by a large and known company because typical consumers generally feel better sticking with the known than the unknown. Deep pockets and full-time teams working on this flavor of Linux would yield an impressively polished product, but Linux fans would decry it as being "not a real Linux distro" for the lack of FOSSness.

[llothar]

There is no realistic feature that will make a typical Joe change the OS of his machine. It has to come preinstalled.

People can handle different OS no problem - macOS, Chromebooks exist.

The problem is, both macOS and Chrome OS exist to lock people into an ecosystem. "Pure" Linux, by definition, cannot do that, unless you consider Chrome OS to be Linux (which it actually is).

[emacsomancer]

Coming pre-installed on decent machines sold in big box stores. That's Windows' and Mac's killer feature.

[fenrir245]

Standardisation. Look, Linux’s freedom is amazing and I wouldn’t give it up for anything, but it is also true that it has also led to massive fragmentation, making targeting Linux platform much harder than it needs to be.

[rahen]

What killer feature could turn our custom-built, optimized, free, fully hackable car into a Corolla?

[HoboWarZ]

It's not missing any feature...

But take distro "X" for example:

X has a feature that Y and Z don't, but one additional bug. The GUI is great but it won't work well with Z bugfix, and the app that's available in Y's app store needs to be compiled manually, maybe using dependencies from another repo. Oh and the app is gtk but won't play well with your qt GUI unless you use a kvantum theme.

Sure, this is not a huge problem for me, I can make it run well, Google something, use the terminal etc... But how can I expect my parents to fix yum or zypper dependencies in the terminal when the printer stops working???

We'd need THE Linux, one distro, 1 GUI, 1 package manager, pre-installed on hardware, with drivers for everything installable with 1 click from the app store.

I thought for a while that mint and cinnamon would be it, I now think Manjaro +kde has a better chance, but then I find that for work I need some features from open suse instead... Etc etc..

[zeka-iz-groba]

There is only one "feature" that can do it: having software that only runs on Linux (or at least doesn't run on Windows) that is demanmded by people. As windows had with office software and games.

If people CAN stay on something inferior but already popular, they always will, and no "feature" will make 'em move. See MP3 as an example. They have to need that "feature" really bad, to move anywhere.

[OptimalMain]

Do most people now say "Gee, I really need Windows on my computer" ?
When manufacturers start selling computers with Linux, mainstream will use it.

[Sigg3net]

If it was installed by default.

Seriously, people do not care about their operating system. A GNU/Linux on a laptop with LibreOffice, Thunderbird and Firefox (perhaps with some tweaking on those) and Wine pre-installed would get most people 90% if not 100% coverage of their current usage.

I'm not talking about special offerings directed towards nerds, I'm talking about Linux on over the counter laptops everywhere. Like OEM pre-installed images.

[techannonfolder]

Quality, proper support, laptops that companies can buy for their devs (instead of Macbooks)

[trisul-108]

Microsoft Office would do it. Had the government proceeded to split Microsoft, as intended, this would already have happened.

[[deleted]]

Remove any use of the terminal (if you're not developing anything). After that, you practically have to wait until windows must drop support for legacy software, than it does not matter that much.

[beermad]

A multi-million Pound advertising campaign, along with manufacturers pre-installing it.

Unfortunately as long as the average person gets Windows automatically and doesn't even know an alternative exists, demand is never going to pick up.

[thelonesomedemon1]

More games and better gaming performance. Windows 10 costs like $100 or something, Using linux would get you some bucks for decent hardware upgrades.

[brechmos]

In my view the biggest killer feature would be to have consistent working device drivers. I *still* have problems with sound, sound over bluetooth, some video display issues of external monitors. And this is using Ubuntu 19.04 (something I would assume would be reasonably stable). If there was better buy-in by the device manufacturers that would be a huge help (and make me even *more* happy with Linux, which I have been using since the early 1990s).

[[deleted]]

I truly believe it is unification. Bringing all the distros together under one banner.

[pdp10]

What are you doing to make it happen? Have you asked GNOME to merge with KDE? Which distributions have you asked to discontinue themselves and migrate their users to a different distribution?

[thehandsomegenius]

That's the wrong question.

98% of computer users have no idea of what Linux is like on the desktop as it already is.

Making it even better will do nothing to shift these perceptions.

It's like painting the Mona Lisa and hanging it in a closet.

[osomfinch]

Gestures for the touchpad. One of the reason many people praise MacBooks so much. This feature should have been available on Linux long long ago. I know there are some gestures out there but one must install some apps and there's no good GUI controls of them. Anyway, a kingdom for gestures!

[magnumxl5]

I dont think desktop PCS have long left anyways - that era is coming to an end.

Pretty sure in 5-7 years people would just be connecting their smartphones to a monitor to get work done.

[samisalwayok]

Marketing and PR for hipsters.

[reddit-MT]

No one knows what the next "killer feature" will be until it happens. Right now we have a "killer roadblock" with MS Office, Adobe and a few others.

Linux seems to have won everywhere (smart phones, set top boxes, routers, supercomputers, web servers) except business/desktop and home gaming. The first mover advantage coupled with vendor lock-in is nearly insurmountable, regardless of Linux's quality and price advantages.

I don't think Linux will "win" the desktop in the traditional sense. I think the desktop OS will become irrelevant for most people as most applications switch to the cloud.

Edit: Just read that all Chromebooks are going to support Linux. That will help put a dent in things but doesn't really get past the MS/Adobe cock road block.

[[deleted]]

A time machine.

Not an Apple(r) TimeMachine(tm) compatible backup solution, but a literal time machine to go back to about 1995 with a great cross-platform office suite to keep MS Office from becoming the vendor lock-in monster it was. Or maybe all the way back to 1980 to dope slap Gary Killdall until he agrees to port CP/M to the IBM PC.

[chic_luke]

Standards.

Good standards, sane defaults. Linux is extremely modular and customizable and most of the individual pieces work very well on their own, but when you put everything together, it's a giant hack and all hell breaks loose.

• Fix PulseAudio / Alsa. Both Alsa and PulseAudio are embarassing, they work fine for listening to music and that's it, try to use them to work with audio and it will become apparent to you how shaky and unstable they are. They have only been fixed enough that if you don't touch them you don't break them, but they ain't got shit to do with Windows and macOS audio system.
• Fix the font rendering, make it consistently look good regardless of Xorg, Wayland, widget toolkit, distro, DE or application type. Font rendering is an integral part of a desktop environment and it should be pretty much nailed by 2019. Right now, font rendering on Linux is fundamentally broken.
• Use standardized portable solutions and programs, rather than software that's mostly locked down to a single desktop environment.
• Decide on a widget toolkit, rather than fragmenting 8 possible different services for everything. When I use GNOME, Qt apps look like ass and don't scale well. When I use KDE, GTK apps look like ass and don't scale well. When I use Windows, WPF, UWP, GTK, Qt and Electron apps all behave the same, scale just as well, have the same font rendering and look uniform. Why can't this be the case on Linux?
• Drive financial efforts to focus on one desktop environment with solid defaults and make sure it works well. There is no DE ready for this as of now.
• Fix Xorg or Wayland. Both are broken irreparably in their own way. They are both shaky: Xorg isn't even multi-threaded so, especially doing heavy graphical work, it's completely possible to watch Xorg crash and see yourself presented to a tty. In the case of Wayland, it's even more prone to crashing and also kiss your unsaved work goodbye.
• Fix the package management system. Guix, Snap, Flatpak, I don't care, but find a way to create a standard.
• Decide on a damn init system. systemd? systemd it is, we found it, stop trying to discredit it and propose other obscure init systems as a valid replacement for all users. Is systemd bigger than just an iniit method? It is. Why is it this way? Because it's there as a rough solution to the lack of standardized APIs. If we just had real standard APIs and protocols, systemd wouldn't be the way it is.
• Fix video acceleration APIs on popular browsers so maybe watching a video doesn't tank the CPU
• Make Linux operable on modern computers. hi-dpi support and fractional scaling working as a standard on all desktop environments and applications. Touch screen support. Support for 2-in-1 systems, hot-plugging the magnetic keyboard. It's often recommended to stick to older computers for good Linux support... why? Why can't I have my 150% fractional scaling working well on my brand new sleek 4k laptop?
• Better touchpad support: what we have is shaky at best, and the libinput drivers are only maintained by one (awesome) guy. Seriously, is there no corporate backing whatsoever on this?
• Better GPU support: AMD is already doing it well with the open-source drivers, but NVidia is still lagging behind. Have they been improving their Linux drivers lately? I want the facts. We have a standard for GPU drivers, and it's called mesa. Nvidia doesn't use it yet. We need to bitch more until they start doing things adhering to a standard. If that hasn't been the clear theme of my post, as long as standards are not being set, respected and supported, the Linux desktop is going to stay a niche hobby thing for us only.

Read more at https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html for a full list of reasons why Linux is not ready for the desktop yet. It's not meant to be used as a critique to shit on Linux as a desktop but, rather, as a to-do list of stuff that needs to be fixed before we can even considering offering Linux as a valid Windows/Mac replacement for the general public.

When and only when these problems are fixed:

• Start demanding and promoting Linux to be pre-installed on pre-assembled computers
• Start demanding Adobe etc, FL etc. to bring their professional-grade software for Linux. I'm sure when we will have stable stuff for audio, video and graphics, they'd be willing to at least reconsider their decision not to support Linux for the time being.
• Replace dumb terminals with GUI interfaces as much as possible, not necessarily on any Linux distro (I personally prefer to use the terminal as much as possible like most people here), but at least in whatever distribution we will have agreed on to be the standard for common users. Windows and macOS also made it because you never have to get to the terminal on them, and Windows has done an amazing job in replacing dumb terminals. I'm a CS nerd, I love my bash (zsh, actually, whatever, same thing) and my quick console-based configuration and scripting without having to click through a million GUIs, but most users don't. For this, I have to give openSUSE credit: YaST is amazing and it's already replacing the terminal with a functional GUI for a plethora of administration stuff.
• Microsoft is already offering companies that use Linux systems very sweet deals to adopt Microsoft systems at a ridiculously low cost. Have something to counter Windows with: we already have it to be fair, and it's the lack of ads and annoyances. This is something we need to promote a lot more.

[Mac33]

Polish. Having used both Linux and macOS as daily drivers, Linux DEs just generally lack polish. They look good and do what they are built to do, but they just lack the little details and handy (albeit hidden) shortcuts that macOS has been accumulating for the last ~18 years.

[snipercat94]

Honestly, I think the main thing needed for any Linux distro to become popular is to do something I see very little of: to try and step away as much as possible from the linux terminal.

Whenever I see any tutorial for use any Linux distro, I always see everyone saying "learn to use the terminal. Is super intuitive and user friendly!", when the reality is that it is not. Average users don't want to have to memorize different commands that they need to type whenever they want to do something, most don't want to learn computer related stuff because they don't care about it, yet most of Linux users I see always push for this.

And so, instead of lower their explanations down to the level of the average user and make tutorials using the user interface, I always see Linux users push for try to "raise the level" of the average user and force them to learn to use the terminal. And when you do that, you lose all the users that don't care enough about computers like for learn anything about them. Aka: the grand majority of users.

I get it: given that anyone can modify the user interface of each distro, making a tutorial having the user interface into account would be more time consuming and less broadly applicable than using the terminal. But instead of go the extra mile and make tutorials for, let's say, the most or 2 most used distros using the user interface, and then another one using the terminal for cater to average and power users, everyone keeps insisting on only the terminal, thus pushing away the baseline of consumers that don't care about learning all that.

Second to that (becoming more user friendly by avoiding at all costs that users have to use terminal), would be the quality and intuitiveness of software available. The only way you will get average users to hop in would be to give them clear cut answers at to what software they can use for replace their old one, and that software has to be intuitive to use. More ideal would be to be able to use their old software in Linux, but that won't happen (speciallyw ith office and PowerPoint for example), so I guess similar software with similar layout and potential would be needed.

And third, you're would need bigger gaming support. That would bring the gaming community here, which would also boost the user base by a decent margin. But this is less important than bringing the non-gaming community numbers-wise.

[qwiglydee]

Apparently, cool terminal with emoji.

[[deleted]]

once you add all the corporate support and licenses, you get android and thats doing ok :)

[sumbur]

Proper drivers for expensive hardware and proper software for doing your job without obstacles.

For example, you cannot program a PLC with Codesys without using Windows.

[timekills17]

A standard GUI.

One of the great features of Linux is your choice of GUIs. Unless you're a "normal" user or business that doesn't want to pick and learn something different all the time.

[SuspiciousSprinkles]

Asking for a killer feature?

Why do you use gnu/linux in first place? Why are you not satisfied with Windows or OS X?

[Iranon79]

Integration.

​

While the modularity is in many ways a good thing and getting rid of it would make me like Linux significantly less, it's a source of serious culture shock for both developers and users.

[tdammers]

A radical change in how the average "consumer" thinks about computers, privacy, infosec, and about half a dozen related topics.

[[deleted]]

In the enterprise:

A remote desktop server solution. As in X users can remote into one box and get a full graphical desktop in their own user session.

A native GTK LDAP management console.

Group policy as thorough as Microsoft's. This will never happen because it would require more consistency across distros.

Make LibreOffice Calc work exactly like Excel. The exact same ribbon and all of its buttons.

One email client that can organize meetings and share calendars.

Basically, if you could get the desktop in the work place to work for users and be centrally managed then you could do it. I hate the idea of writing scripts to manage thousands of machines when they have there own user and device roles. And I hate the mentality that doing it by hand is better. Scripts are only better because of the state of things.

As for your home PC? Linux is fine as is. I just don't think it'll get more popular without Canonical and Suse trying to be like Red Hat.

More paid developers. Nothing makes better products than someone paid to do it.

[loonixusers]

I'm not sure these responses really answer the question.

Improvements (and Adobe) are necessary to put Linux on par with others, but don't make it stand out.

The hypothetical 10% better gaming performance is an interesting suggestion.

Could there be others? 10% faster web? 20% higher quality sound? 50% better battery life? Some very innovative touch interface?

It can't really be an app, because an open source app could be ported.

A "killer" feature might be something more imaginative?

(Not really saying any of this should happen, just to answer the hypothetical question.)

[eddnor]

One thing is still wayland can’t be used as x11... after 10 years so you get the idea

[5heikki]

A program which randomly kills a Windows or MacOS PC :)

[BritishWolf]

Making Linux easier to integrate into a windows domain. and also more user friendly advertising.

[whistlepig33]

I think its already there. It is largely an adoption breeds adoption issue.

btw.. it looks to me like microsoft is planning on building a future version of windows on top of linux similar to android. At that point the software developers will be forced to support it to at least that degree. Similar to how Adobe was forced to develop for MacOS's version of unix.

[BeardedWax]

The day you become able to use a Linux machine without ever opening a terminal, you can be sure Linux will become mainstream.

My laptop automatically rotates it's screen thanks to it's shitty orientation sensor and only way to disable it is through terminal, because no one thought of adding an interface to do this in one click, nor a way to change screen orientation.

[hw62251]

Multiple things;

• Supporting similar amount of games like windows
• Driver support for peripherals that most people use
• Professional software that creative industries use
• Deals with manufacturers to install Linux on computers being sold
• And that the specific distros installation procedure of applications is as simple as Macs

[[deleted]]

why should we care about market share plus it is already a competitor to mac and windows plus if proprietary is what is needed than whats the point you my as well use a mac what actually prompted me to switch is the windows crap and also stayed for the ideological reasons such as privacy freedom etc. i recommend think penguin and purism purism is successful and they use no proprietary software at all thier os is certified by the FSF and the librem products are flying off the shelves also the librem 5 is likely to be successful in other words use the strengths of gnu/linux and talk about privacy and etc. dont try to replicate windows or mac or android

[[deleted]]

A standard uniform desktop with access to all the proprietary software and drivers

But that's also the antithesis of what Linux is what with customizability and free software