The TechHaze team

Why hasn’t Linux succeeded on the desktop? There are tree simple reasons:
People are not informed that an alternative exists. When they are, they are told that Linux is very hard, that the learning curve is awful and that they’d better stick to what they know. That is not true. I’ve proposed to install Ubuntu (let’s stick with that) on several people’s machines, and some of them (completely non-technical) have managed to do the installation almost completely on their on. The things that they didn’t manage, well, you couldn’t do it easily on Windows either (eg. partitioning).
The desktop itself is extremely simple. Most people learn to do the basic tasks in 5 seconds (seriously), and hen they can’t manage that, you just need to tell them that applications are found on the top-right menu. Done. You might tell me that I’m only talking about the basic tasks, but hat else do most users do? How many “non-technical” users do complex tasks on Windows? Close to none. Computers come with Windows pre-loaded, and most people don’t care about that. If people had to make a conscious and informed choice about that every time they bought a computer, Linux’s market-share would sky-rocket. How much? That’s debatable. I would bet between 30 and 70%. The minimum would be 10%. Not less. But then that doesn’t explain why it is said that Linux netbooks had a higher return-rate than equivalent Windows machines. The answer to that is simple too: the users had no idea. If I bought hat I perceived as a “small computer” and found myself confronted to an unfamiliar interface, I would return it directly too. People did not return Linux, they returned an object they didn’t want to buy, You can’t be surprised if people ho are not familiar with an interface reject if before knowing it.
But why is Mac OS X working then? It’s interface is not familiar either. Again, the same answer: people are informed. Apple spends a lot of money on advertising, and they’re smart enough so that it doesn’t simply disappear in the wind. I’m not saying the Gnome/KDE/Xfce interface is perfect, but is simple enough for any basic desktop user. If Linux was advertised and sold as an alternative by clever marketers, it would grow.

Below are extracts from the TechRepublic article, along with my rebuttals.

1- It’s still too much of a pain – While Ubuntu has made Linux much, much easier, it’s still not quite as easy to hook up a new printer, connect a digital camera, or manage your work calendar, for example, as it is on Windows.

Of the last to printers I heard of, one refused to work on Windows XP and was installed automatically on Ubuntu. The other is installed automatically on Ubuntu too (not sure about Windows though). Same story for digital cameras (that’s an old story, all modern OSs I know of do that automatically without a glitch these days). I don’t see what the author’s point is about managing a work calendar on Linux, so I don’t comment. But I can find a lot of things that are easier to do on Ubuntu than Windows. If we stick to simply basic tasks, I’d include installing (Point and click, you don’t even need to get off your seat), uninstalling (same story), running programs (they’re organized, contrarily to the Windows XP’s junk) and connecting to a wireless network. Most of the other basic tasks are just as simple (shutting down, checking battery charge level, etc.)

Plus, on the other end of the spectrum, Mac is even easier than Windows for most tasks and it has the same Unix underpinnings as Linux. As a result, in the last few years a lot of the hard-core techies who are the primary candidates for Linux have instead jumped to Mac OS X as a Windows alternative.

Who are we talking about? Mac OS is an alternative too, and a damn good one, but what does that change anything about Linux’s user-friendliness? It’s not because Mac OS X is easier than Windows that Linux can’t be.

2- The divide and fail strategy – The energy behind the Linux desktop movement has been divided up between a lot of different players, from Red Hat to SUSE to Ubtuntu to Debian at the software level to hardware players such as IBM and Dell at the PC level. A decade ago, the thought was that the force of Linux attacks from multiple angles would ultimately outflank Microsoft Windows. Instead, it has diffused the force behind Linux and dulled its attack from a marketing perspective.

If we talk about the basic user (95% of the market), that’s not a problem. Give them Ubuntu, they don’t kneed to learn about Linux. For the the other users: well, they already know.

3- Not enough innovation – The primary value proposition for Linux is that it’s just as good as Windows – or at least “good enough” – and costs a lot less. Occasionally, you’ll hear that Linux is more secure or more stable than Windows – which can be true, but that’s mostly based on its Unix foundation.

“Can be true”? This is just a way of saying it is without giving points to Linux. The end of the sentence clearly indicates that the author thinks so. But then Linux cheats because it’s a Unix-Like OS. Even if Linux’s security was 100% based on Linux’s Unix foundation, Linux would still be more secure than Windows. It doesn’t matter where this advantage comes from, if it’s true, it’s an advantage.

But, what innovative features has Linux brought to the world of desktop operating systems? The only one I can think of is the desktop manager / virtual desktop (which Mac OS X eventually adopted as its “Spaces” feature). The technology industry (and the consumers and businesses that support it) are still driven primarily by innovation, and the Linux development community has spent too much time trying to copy Windows and not enough time innovating on its own OS.

Linux seems to either be not enough like windows (then criticized of being unfamiliar) or too much like it (then criticized of not bringing anything new. Gnome never tried to copy Windows (one glance at a screenshot will tell you that). KDE has in the past, but you can’t say that KDE’s last version has not been innovating. Of course, that just makes it unfamiliar, right?

4- Businesses want someone to blame – As my colleague Bill Detwiler says, IT professionals prefer to have someone to point the finger at when critical systems blow up and it leads to lost revenue or productivity. If you have Windows desktops (or even Mac), you’ve got a big target to point your finger at if you’re having a PC software problems, and someone predictable to call to help figure it out. On the other hand, if your IT department went with Linux desktops then you’d be going out on a limb. If something goes wrong – like users losing productivity from incompatible software – the finger could get pointed back at the IT leader who made the decision to take a non-standard Linux approach, since there’s no big software vendor to blame it on. In other words, Linux can expose IT leaders to more risk.

IT professionals? I thought you were talking about the average Joe. Anyways, I have some good news for you. Most Open Source companies make money with paid support. Yep! and you can point your finger at them if something goes wrong!

For the rest, I agree, Chrome OS will not affect other linux OS market shares. But for the average users, the probable is the fear of changing something that works, even if it doesn’t work well. Companies are the same.

It’s time to stop all of the misguided predictions about Linux becoming a force on the desktop. That ship has sailed. The masses don’t want it. Businesses don’t want it. Even Google can’t change that.

The masses didn’t expressly want Mac OS either. Apple made them want it. Before people know about a product, they don’t want it. Leonardo da Vinci didn’t want computers. His pen and paper was enough for him. Now if someone advertised computers in front of him in a way that could interest him, he would certainly have craved for it.

Linux is still building major momentum in servers and mobile devices. In the data center, Linux is replacing lots of Unix servers and is more than holding its own head-to-head against Windows servers. In mobile, Linux quietly serves as the underpinning for both Google Android and Palm webOS, the two platforms that pose the biggest challenge to the incumbents in the smartphone market. However, on the desktop, it’s time to just admit that the market has rejected Linux.

Or maybe not. Linux is not perfect, and I would not replace Windows or Mac OS X for anything, but it is an alternative. The users have rejected Linux, and are still rejecting it today, but that does not mean that there is no place for Linux in the market.

If we talk about the basic user (95% of the market), that’s not a problem. Give them Ubuntu, they don’t kneed to learn about Linux. For the other (more advanced) users: well, they already know.

Linux is still building major momentum in servers and mobile devices. In the data center, Linux is replacing lots of Unix servers and is more than holding its own head-to-head against Windows servers. In mobile, Linux quietly serves as the underpinning for both Google Android and Palm webOS, the two platforms that pose the biggest challenge to the incumbents in the smartphone market. However, on the desktop, it’s time to just admit that the market has rejected Linux.

Or maybe not. Linux is not perfect, nor is it the best OS out there. I would not replace Windows or Mac OS X for anything, but it is an alternative to which most users could switch to did they know they had it. The users have rejected Linux, and are still rejecting it today, but that does not mean that there is no place for Linux in the market. Linux is not ready for the market, because it has had no marketing.

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But why don’t you have a look for yourself?

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