Promoting Linux: An End-User Manifesto

Very thoughtful video! You make so many awesome points! I've always loved the fact that we have so much hardware choice with PCs, but then I get stuck at OS's. I NEED the Adobe suite for work, its required and no substitutes. So Windows is my ONLY real option for PC. I enjoy my fave Linux distros- but I just can't daily drive it without the software I need. I dual boot and toy around with it. I've put it on my kids school computers and older laptops for them. But I'm pretty much stuck in Windows and Mac OSX (I have an M1 Mac Mini for Logic mainly.) If Adobe supported Linux I could probably kick most of my need for Microsoft.

Free as in libre, bro.

I try using Linux (mainly Ubuntu) for my laptops every few years, and consistently I run into problems. The very first day I configured my machine, my girlfriend wanted to watch something on peacock. I say cool no problem, perfect time for me to bust out the Linux laptop. Peacock doesn’t run on the Firefox on Linux. I do some quick googling, first result doesn’t fix my problem, so I switch to my windows machine. Fast forward a week to today (day of writing) and my friend brings his new keyboard he wants me to try to work. Can’t pair it to Linux. And even the customizability is limited. I really wanted to have an infinitely large X button, like one has in windows, and even after trying out multiple gnome extensions, nothing mimics the behavior. Perhaps I’ll try another distro, but I fear that they’ll all be worse than Ubuntu which gets the most love. I want Linux to get there, but it’s getting slowly, and until then there’s nothing I can’t do on Windows. And yes I’m a programmer. Most common Linux cli tools are also compiled to windows. Sometimes there are libraries that there are no equivalent for, but running a virtual machine or the subsystem solves those edge cases. The opposite is true in Ubuntu at least where it feels like I have to do more things in Wine than natively! I’ll keep experimenting every few years but it’s simply not good enough (yet) to fully migrate to despite seriously wanting to.

Thank you for this video. I advocate exactly the same points for years, although without any impact or very litle. It is very important that someone like yoy peroduce a brilliant testimony like this one.

Linux Mint is chad in the Linux community. Never seen anyone complain about it.

About 15 years ago I put a Linux distro (PC Linux I think) on my laptop and immediately discovered that while closing the lid switch would sleep the computer, nothing was listening to the lid switch or anything else when I opened it so I had to reboot. I then gave up on Linux on laptops. Last month my father (who was the first Linux advocate in my life) showed me his new laptop that he'd gotten tired of Windows on and installed Ubuntu (and now he's getting fed up with Ubuntu and thinking of replacing it with Gentoo). He opened the lid and it started *booting*. The only driver issue he had was tracking down who made the trackpad, and once he knew that, he was able to find a driver for it and otherwise had no problems.

Cant install gpu drivers..
1/10 operating system

I'm currently using a lot of programs that don't work under Linux. If one program means I need to run Windows, then Linux isn't of any interest. From my Accounts package, CAD design for PCBs and 3d models. Frankly, Window works just fine, so why change? In short, what's so great about Linux? What does it give me that Windows doesn't?

Thank you for the video. I sincerely love and appreciate what you create for your channel.

First off, over the years I have known and worked with many people who use computers constantly, and the majority of them, all but literally two, just want something they can plug in and run. They hate having to mess with even basic administrative tasks or actively managing their anti-virus software, and when I have attempted explanations of Linux they've dismissed me outright. This majority has no time for Linux, and I'm sorry to say, that this seems to be the case for most computer users around the world.

Also, using the term gatekeeping is, in a way, buying into the idea that people who want to protect things in which they have invested their time (often decades; their lives even) and money have no right to want to safeguard them. There can be barriers to entry, and in Linux there certainly are. Admitting the mob will lead to the deterioration of structures put in place to make Linux what it is.

The last few years have been a great teacher for those who question the importance of defending one's space, interests, hobbies, homes, etc. Linux need not suffer as other things have. Inclusion has been the greatest lie of the 21st Century, in my opinion, and to facilitate the things demanding it we have seen the destruction of competence and the devaluation of merit.

There is, unfortunately, a ceiling on computer literacy, and literacy in general. On that latter point, for example, we humans have had the ability to read for millennia, but to this day many never learn and most people are content to have a secondary school ability, at best, if even that.

I believe that this is representative of the true human desire to better one's self or just to extend one's self past the point of necessity. A troubling majority have no drive to do so and never will. If we dumb down something like Linux for the base set it will cease to be Linux. If we make it easier to have mass appeal then corporations will move in and do far more than handle it economically. They will impose upon it corporate standards and any ideologies embedded within their corporate culture, inevitably creating a new kind of gatekeeping after perverting the original product.

It would be amazing and inspiring if more people had the desire to learn and work on Linux, but the reality is that most people will only go so far. Trying to meet them at the point where they're comfortable giving up will require abandoning everything of value to make continuing an effort more palatable or valuable. In brief, a majority of people are base and cheap, and it would be catastrophic to the future of our species to prioritize catering to them.

✊

A lot in what you say. I think the biggest problem with getting wider adoption is the Idea that Windows or Mac are the only way to do the job and anything else isn't worth considering. I used to dutifully buy a new Windows system every few years but when the near perfect XP was "upgraded" to the awful Windows 10 I'd had enough. After trying Ubuntu I was recommended to try Mint and that's me done with Windows. Some things are more difficult, like getting my Brother all in one laser printer come scanner to work.(still not that slick). With Libre Office I've not felt the need for anything from Microsoft now, We have a windows 7 netbook to update the to TomTom when we get a new satnav that will go too.

Lmao that intro, I feel like I returned to 2010 for a second ☠️

Why are people so desperate for GNU/Linux to widely adopted? Part of it's strength is the wide variety of distributions, desktops and applications. Why compromise that in order to seek approval from the corporate world and gamers. Things are good as they are. Leave it alone. The Linux community is self sustaining and supporting. Wider adoption will not bring greater innovation it will stifle it.

Lack of tolerance of choices is something that drives me NUTS about the Linux community. I like using some software that’s closed source. OneDrive is the best option for me for cloud storage right now. I can’t set up a personal NAS. Me wanting to use onedrive on Linux shouldn’t result in people screaming at me to switch to something self hosted. It’s something I see way too often.

I disagree.

I think gnome should fix their graphical software manager. First thing any new user will come about and it works like maybe 70% of the time :D

1. No way am I advocating Linux desktop use for current Mac or PC users. In the end it will go wrong and I have to fix it.
2. I am and I leave that choice alone!
3. This is where gatekeeping is a good thing. An ill suited end user will also think other proper uses of Linux are bad. Advocate for them not to bother.
4. Has it though? It has been through a lot of facelifts, but real desktop improvement generally is that something good becomes better, not that something odd becomes different in the same way. Also office and productivity suits for Linux are a mess. The only thing I find the Linux desktop to be any good at is coding, but just about as well as OSX does that.
5. This is more relevant for servers and the network stack. End user applications do not matter in this regard. In fact FOSS mentality is was has stopped applications and the Linux desktop from being good. The driver argument is something else, but seeing as people dump the most horrendous malware ridden goop on their devices, who cares?
6. Wasted effort. The EOL of the desktop for all platforms is pretty close and application will be (urrgg) cloud based and platform independent within a few years. This includes Adobe and other kill apps not directly available for Linux. Desktop use will decline and OSX, Windows and eventually desktop Linux will be pointless.
7. If people use Linux in some form and do not openly complain about it, that is giving back enough for me. I spend hours dispelling wrong claims my costumers had about Linux based platforms.. I lost money on that...

FOSS software can actually be paid. The free in FOSS is more like freedom of speech, not free beer

Sir. As always a great presentation. you touched on a major point of issue for myself. I try to learn Linux, and then go to seek help, and am often made to feel really dumb for asking a " simple" question, I shall continue trying to self educate myself. Your presentations have helped me greatly in my desire to continune to learn. Thank you for your work.

I just wish linux wouldn’t randomly break for me all the time. My favorite bug is just my keyboard becoming unusable randomly. How can i recommend an operating system when it has such basic instabilities.

This is the first party manifesto. Vote Christopher Barnatt for Prime Minister.

It comes down to two things: application availability and user friendliness. First thing, I learned *nix on Solaris something in 2000 and used it professionally a few years. Then I used Windows basically entirely through my university period in the 2010s except for when I was building something in hardware. I've made Linux VMs a few times to do things that only run in Linux, and that comes to my first point: application availability.

If a user uses a Windows program that doesn't exist in Linux don't tell them to use Linux. I specifically mean that exact program. If there's a professional Lightroom user, don't tell them about some shitty Linux copy. Don't pester users to completely re-tool their workflows, pester Adobe (or whomever) to recompile their programs for more operating systems.

Then we've got on to user friendliness. While we all might be happy fprotting our tarballs like jeffk that is anathema to any normal user. If you want users to install your stuff it needs to be one click or one string of text away. EVEN THEN things will fail and you NEED to write a doc to coach people through those failures. I made 4x Piholes for people over Christmas. Pi Hole people wrote a one line installer! Even then in all but one case I had to deal with contingencies. Sometimes I could just re-run the one line installer. Sometimes it would have taken too long to un-f whatever that got f-ed so I just reflashed the entire OS and started from scratch.

Switching operating systems needs to be as easy as switching browsers if you want to gain mass market share.

What Linux needs, is some standardisation. More choice is not always good i.m.h.o.

Thank you for being another reasonable voice for Linux users.

Well, I tried to spread the Gospel of Linux long ago to friends and family, and they didn't like it. Thank God I didn't become a martyr. I have to run out of town. They didn't want to hear about it even when I told them it was free to download. I don't know how Linux was 2000 years ago, but I do know this: Linux works flawlessly for me on my old PCs and makes them run faster than when I used Windows.

Linux for President in the US 2024. 🎉🎊 I needed help understanding the last manifesto principle. Are you saying monetary contribution, donation, or assisting the Linux community with software creation?

Hi. We'd love to have you as a guest on one of our podcasts to talk about this.

An additional point is that a lot more apps today are cloud based than five, ten, or fifteen years ago. Therefore, the OS you use becomes less important.

forget it, no one use it.

I certainly appreciate your passion for Linux. I switched to Linux 25 years ago as my primary OS.
I think, as you eluded to, the key to Linux adoption is via the applications. I don't think most people are tied to an OS, they're tied to applications.
I use GIMP for all of my raster image editing, Inkscape for all of my vector image editing, Kdenlive for Video Editing, Blender for 3D Modeling, LibreOffice for Office Documents, and the list goes on and on.
I've started producing video tutorials on using these opensource applications and I think educating users on opensource application alternatives is the key to Linux adoption on the desktop.
Keep up the great work on ExplainingComputers ;-)

The argument for 'gatekeeping' Linux is vindicated in the gradual withering of the Unix philosophy that made it great. As more people drift toward Linux, the expectations grow for it to become "more like Windows" or "more like Mac". Take the controversies surrounding pulseaudio & systemd as early 'writing on the wall' examples. PA was forced on most Linux users, despite the fact that it was terrible and came with all sorts of unnecessary features that, to this day, hardly anybody ever uses. Systemd, made by many of the same (openly antagonistic) people, was very much the same situation. These attempts to homogenize Linux have some benefits, but they prioritize a few conveniences of debatable importance over simplicity. In short, as Linux becomes more 'mainstream' it becomes much more bloated. As it becomes more widely adopted, it becomes a bigger target and less secure. Red Hat / Fedora / Gnome have done everything in their power to take complete control over the 'ecosystem'.

Lots of old school Linux users have already transitioned to BSD to escape the Steam era waves of Windows/Mac refugees. I have been using Linux for 20 years and though I still recommend it to people on occasion, I'm much less enthusiastic about it. Watching Linux change over the years has been more depressing (at times, infuriating) than exciting. It's close to 50/50 in my book, but the bad changes have arguably outweighed the good. Linux has gone in a mostly bad direction.

They (distro teams) need more money to continue to pay the bills and innovate. I dont want to say advertising bc I hate it. But the top/most popular distros could use some corporate and university sponsorship for revenue as well as closed source paid apps. Most linux users expect everything to always be free and therefore never donate a single dollar to their favorite distro or apps

I agree with others. This is one of your best videos. It isn't just the subject matter. Your other videos are more like a lecture -- informative but with less passion. You're clearly passionate about the subject in this video. I'm not a Linux user but, to paraphrase the Bible, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Linux user."

Which program did you use to make this and the other videos you upload. I am going to guess it wasn't a Linux program?

A frustrating thing is having different desktops within a distro, such as Mint. Unnecessary complications. Mint should simply be Mint, not 'which version of Mint'.
Zorin have nailed it in terms of making it easy and appealing to migrate to.

Your antiFOSS point is spurious. At no point does supporting the FOSS movement preclude software companies, such as the ones you proclaim, from creating software for the GNU/Linux OS. This is the first video of yours I have disliked. Terrible journalism.

Linux Mint is such a stable OS. I use it to run a radio server that must be up 24/7/365. Most updates are seamless. And I have ran it for 6 years solid. In that sense it is way more reliable then windows 10. But I still use windows 10 as my main pc since most software I use doesn't run well on Linux. I mean sure I could probably do a wine32 setup, but many times it fails or complicates things too much.

I tell all my friends how awesome Linux is, but when they ask me can they install and play a game on it, I tell them to just stick with windows lol.

Manifesto Point #2 - I believe that, due to the ability to hide behind the screen and keyboard, people nowadays have little or no filter. I've used tons of Linux desktop and server distros and, quite honestly, I have rants and praises for all of them. However, it's incredibly rude (and a bit childish) for someone to slam a user for not following "someone's" preference. Sure, there are plenty of technical and business reasons to go with one distro over another, but when we're talking about desktop computing, does it really matter? At the end of the day, most of the differences amount to which form of eye-candy you want. It's been this way for centuries in the automobile industry. I have my preference for make/model which may or may not line up with others' preference. That should never translate to "I'm better than you because you chose the "wrong" brand". I think the "You do you" saying fits quite nicely into this senseless argument.

Linux Mint has been incredible! Been using almost a year! If I could text from it like I can in MacOs I could be exclusive to Linux! It has truly became very usable now!

After being part of the steam deck group, which is linux based, I've came to the conclusion that the biggest hurdle to overcome is the fact that most people seem to not want to learn. I've explained things hundreds of times to people and yet there are more and more people everyday asking the same exact questions or complaining that it's not easier to do. Between google, YT, and FB searches these people should've been able to find the answer in just a few minutes but they don't even take the time to do that. They'd rather just sit back and let others tell them how to fix it or just sit there and complain left and right about how hard it is.

ohhhh...if only the good folks at IntelliCAD (a clone of AutoCAD) would port its fine affordable CAD-engine to Linux!! I'm one of those members of #3 on the List. Sadly :-(

You were cooking until you said “why should Nvidia drivers be open source there’s no reason they have to be.” That is a very bad take. Nvidia graphics cards are the most popular graphics card by a landslide, but due to their proprietary drivers not being available on Linux, that means if you’re using Linux on an Nvidia GPU your experience will be worsened due to the lack of the necessary software to get your graphics card to run, a problem AMD GPUs do not have. Prior to 2022 the only Nvidia driver available was really old.

To get Linux more widely used we need better support for Nvidia graphics cards so people don’t need to buy a AMD GPU just to daily drive Linux, unfortunately Nvidia doesn’t want to play nice, even moreso since they’re on the verge of forming a monopoly on graphics cards. There’s a reason Linus Torvalds flipped Nvidia the bird

I feel like the FOSS movement is noble, it inspires creativity, collaboration and transparency as opposed to a corporate proprietary culture governed by companies who are very well willing to sacrifice user experience for profit

Of course, proprietary software is completely reasonable and any form of extremism to remove everything proprietary is really unreasonable; we should accept the users right to install and use whatever software they want on their machines... however, there is definitely a overwhelming benefit to supporting and promoting free and open source software for the user aswell

That's just my thoughts anyways, excellent video!

Linux is pretty cool but there always seems to be some kind of problem you need to fix and something simple like installing an app can end up breaking the whole system. You constantly need to scroll through forums and go through tutorials and copy/paste commands from strangers and it may or may not break the system. Everyone who uses Linux knows how fragile and buggy it is and that you always need to do some complicated tweak or configuration when you install an app or a game but theyll turn on you on a dime if you ever mention how crappy it is.

If Linux was a car you would say "this is a piece of junk". On Windows theres none of that, stuff just works but for some reason im hellbent on using Linux, theres probably some deep psychological issues i need to look into

I hate to say this as one who uses and enjoys Linux MINT daily, but the more Linux users there are, the more attractive and numerous will be attacks threats, viruses etc on Linux users. Some of these new Linux users have intentionally moved from Windows to Linux. They believe Linux to be safer because it has/had small percentage users compared to Windows or Mac.

How difficult is it for a company to port their software over to Linux?

I loved running manjaro.but bought a cameo 4 that required Windows

so much nodding while watching this video, especially the part about Windows or partial Windows users. Hopefully something like Kdenlive will someday improve enough so you can reasonably not have to use Windows. On a similar note, I personally won't be "holding my breath" for Adobe to release Linux versions of CS anytime soon, considering the well-expressed reasons for no longer releasing a Linux version of Reader.