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what's the appeal of Linux for the average desktop user?

I'm going to very carefully poke the hornet's nest here and ask this basic question that I never really explicitly formulated. It seems apt here on Lemmy in particular because people take as a given the superiority of Linux as the starting point of conversations involved computers generally.

I'm not here to refute this, but I am thinking I should interrogate it a bit more. I'll start with an "average" user, to which I'll have to give some sort of definition.

Imagine somebody with a low to moderate concern about privacy, more than none, but not much more and will happily trade it for useful or enjoyable services. Imagine the use case of a desktop computer for this type of person is productivity software they use at work/school, and occasionally for their own purposes too because they're familiar with it. They also like to watch movies, browse the web, and communicate with friends and family using popular free software packages. Security isn't much of a worry for them, but they do engage in private communication and also banking and will pour a lot of personal information in to the machine in exchange for a lot of useful abilities like paying bills and organising their life.

Now also picture this person is open minded, at least a little and willing to hear you out on the concept of operating systems and of Linux in particular. Is it automatically in such a person's interests to switch to Linux? And is it always a good idea to start with supposition that it is and that the only barrier is hesitancy and ignorance? Would any of their needs actually be better met should they switch? A lot of this discussion tends to devolve in to whether it is or isn't hard for such a person to use Linux should they make the switch and whether using Linux is inherently more difficult than for example Windows but I think what's missed here is, assuming it's super easy to switch for an "average" user and perfectly easy to operate thereafter, is it actually better in such a case? If the needs are so basic, what has been gained? Is it mostly an ideological preference for the philosophical concepts behind the open source movement? That could be enough in and of itself perhaps, you could pitch Linux as "better" within that framework at least for the ideals it promotes. I feel like I sense there's a desire to push Linux for this reason on the thinking that if just one more person joins the fold so to speak, then it generally pushes the world at large vaguely in the right direction in some small way. But is there anything more tangibly superior for an "average" user? It seems like nowadays hardware has long surpassed the needs of users like these such that things like "performance" don't seem all that relevant considering almost any available platform could fulfill these needs so thoroughly that theoretically superior performance from the software would seem not to play a role. There is the security and privacy aspect, certainly for me, that definitely puts me off Windows but if an "average" user says they don't care about this things, can you really say they're being foolhardy in a practical sense? In a wider view, arguably, in the way that it pushes the world in a generally worse direction, but for them directly in the near to medium or even long term, what's going to happen if they just don't even worry about it? People say Windows has poor security, but for the number of people using it, just how many will personally experience actual measurable harm from this? Despite pouring so much personal information in to their computer, I suspect they could likely go a lifetime without experiencing identity theft, or harrassment from authorities, or tangible/financial losses. I suspect they probably know that too. That seems to me again like it really only leaves more of a "digital veganism" approach to Linux's virtues. That's appealing to some, to me a bit even but it's a much narrower basis for proclaiming it "superior"

Now at the other end of the spectrum, the users that are not the least "average" who run Linux on their home systems and probably at work, use open source alternatives for every possible service and do not need conversion as they themselves are Linux preachers. What is it that they typically get out of Linux? I've heard many say they enjoy "tinkering". I get that, is that the main benefit though? It seems then that the appeal is that it's kind of "hard", like a puzzle, but I don't think any of this crowd would like that assessment. What do you want to tinker with though that closed systems would prevent you from doing? This probably goes to the heart of it because it's the point at which I think probably most diverge from say an IT professional or programmer that loves Linux, I am too ignorant here to know what I don't know and I just can't really conceive of a scenario where I might for example want to personally modify the kernel of an operating system. Most examples I see if that type of thing is people making hardware work, and it's ingenious and impressive but the hardware is usually that part of the setup that's not democratised and not open source, it's usually something off the shelf it seems to me that that hardware would have worked already on a more popular platform. Likewise when you eke out of last bit of performance out of a system, what are you actually doing with it? I mean I get that it's a crying shame for hardware to be hobbled by lousy software but if the use for the hardware, the need for computing to be done can be met with existing platforms, what is done with the savings from the better software?

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  • Using Linux now is like using windows before it got bad.

    No forced online accounts, no bloatware or ads, no forced subscriptions, runs amazingly even on old hardware. Full functionality with full customization and no forced apps. I can do whatever I want with it.

    Windows 7 was really the last windows version like this, and has since gone to shit.

  • Windows has so much pushy behavior - trying to trick you into using Edge, turning on OneDrive and syncing files in the background (eating bandwidth in the process), locking you out of the machine while OS updates run.

    When I switched to Linux Mint in 2015, the most surprising result was how much smoother and frictionless everything became.

    I genuinely believe that the "average" user outlined above would be served well by Mint. Why would I not tell people to use it?

  • Permanently Deleted

  • It seems apt

    May trigger some folks here by using apt. :)

    I've been a linux user off-and-on for about ten years. In the last two years, I've worked to switch to it exclusively, with the last holdout being my gaming rig that has been Windows-free for 1-1.5 years. I rely on Arch, Debian, and Pop for my daily drivers, but I'm also always trying to suggest that distro doesn't matter a whole lot, except to simplify setup for certain use cases.

    But as to the crux of your question: for me, the appeal comes down to a few different factors.

    Freedom

    This is the one absolutely everyone says. It's true in some senses, but not in others. For example, I do have more or less complete freedom over my own hardware if I am using a purely FOSS setup. There is a certain power in that, but moreover, it feels like a necessity -- I paid for the hardware, and am wholly opposed to handing over usage rights to it to some software black box that could be doing things outside of my best interests. Is that tinfoil hat-ty? Yep. But I also do think it's realistic.

    Practicality

    This might seem out of place given Linux's history. It's better known as a tinkerer's OS with lesser known procedures and mechanisms than as an easy, practical OS. But Linux has changed by leaps and bounds since its earlier days. It's no longer difficult to set up (unless you want some crazy shit, but that's true on the Windows side too and thus can be factored out).

    I measure practicality in a few different ways. Does the machine do what I need it to? Does it waste resources doing so? Does it do things I don't want it to do? Is it hard to do the things I need to do on the machine?

    In my own experience, Linux does what I need it to do. It does it without wasting as many resources as Windows (I was still on an i7 4790k until last week, because it was plenty -- I only upgraded for gaming performance). It doesn't do things I don't ask it to, and even if it did, I could adjust it.

    The common annoyance of Windows Update being constantly in your face is a thing. Ads in the start menu. Bloatware. All of those things I don't want the hardware that I paid for to be doing. All of those things make Windows less practical for daily use.

    But what about software support? What if I need something that only runs on Windows? First, these instances are fewer and fewer. Gaming was the biggest of elephants in the room, and frankly, I find Linux gaming superior to Windows now. I can run DX12 games and pre-cache the shaders, causing less stutter in general as a result. For AMD, the graphics drivers are in the Linux kernel -- never do I need to worry about manual video driver installs again. Yes, some games do not perform as well through Proton -- but some perform at parity and others run better than on Windows.

    There are some clear examples of software with no real Linux alternative, e.g. Adobe suite: You could use GIMP instead of Photoshop for many tasks, but not all. You could opt for Inkscape instead of Illustrator, except it doesn't support CMYK and some other features. Need Premiere? Then you probably actually need Premiere. There isn't really a good way to run the Windows versions (unless they now work in WINE or even Proton -- I haven't looked into it in some time), so if you need them, you may be SOL. But many people do not need them, myself included, and the alternatives work great for the limited use cases I have elsewhere.

    The new reliance on web apps for so many things has been an obvious boon for Linux. You can have the same browser experience but without the extra overhead in the back.

    All of this adds up, in my view, to an experience that is superior on the Linux side, and thus I stick with it.

    Community

    Believe it or not, this is a big one. Stereotypes aside, the Linux community (and FOSS community) in general is amazing to be a part of. You usually don't see people discussing the finer points of Windows outside of corporate events. But Linux still rides that line between hobby and necessity. The community is one of the things that keeps computing fun, but at this point Windows just feels like the soulless. corporate option. In contrast, for as stable and easy as modern Linux can be, it can also still be a tinkerer's playground at heart.

    All of these things taken together -- the freedom, the practicality, keeping the fun in computing -- make Linux an obvious choice in my opinion. I really have not looked back.

  • Honestly, as much as I love Linux, I'd rarely ever recommend it for the average user.

  • Lots of good points have already been made, so I'll just share a different one. IMO Linux is a lot more conducive to sane systems administration. It is designed to be used and maintained, not to sell licenses or collect marketable data or grow a media/software platform or all the other things that shape Windows.

    When you start poking at the underbelly of Windows, you see decades of aged, decayed infrastructure in various stages of functionality, largely undocumented and closed-source. There are ungodly webs of inscrutable APIs and drivers and frameworks and DLLs and bullshit that is just kind of a pain to think about. Windows sys admin is at least part of my job and I still find it annoying. Venturing outside the happy path is painful.

    On Linux, it feels more like a normal part of life. You might run into obscure issues, but chances are there is documentation that could help, or maybe source code, and maybe there's a forum post about it (with replies from humans, not Microsoft spambots). It feels more like you're working with the community instead of working against Microsoft.

    • It feels more like you're working with the community instead of working against Microsoft.

      Getting my education in Microsoft IT Environments and this is spot on. I've been using Linux on and off for about 10 or so years and now and getting around to learn Microsoft Server, Azure, Powershell and other Microsoft products.

      It all feels like a constant pain of trying to read jumpy and unclear documentation, getting through obscure hoops, not finding anything when searching for errors. It's like I have to either be hand-held by Microsoft against my will or contacting a senior sysadmin who've stumbled across it from his senior or messed about for long enough to get a solution going.

      There's always speedbumps no matter how easy you're trying to make it. Instead of universal solutions it's so targeted you have to save your own. In the end you have a cluttered library of obscure powershell scripts that configures the most weird things that are either very poorly documented or only referenced once somewhere else or not at all. In the end, it never feels like you have control of the system. The only thing that makes things secure are hopes and prayers and that one setting doesn't affect the other because you'll never know.

  • I enjoy all the things you cited for Linux users. But it's been a spectrum.

    • I started out as "Whee everything is free (of charge)"

    • As I got more experience it was "Whee, everything is free (of charge) and tinkering is fun, and ZOMG WTF is Windows doing with Privacy??!!"

    • And for several years now it's "Whee, everything is free (of charge) and tinkering is fun, and ZOMG WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU Microsoft?"

    Windows privacy has become worse and ads have become worse, and using/supporting it at work has just really driven home what a nightmare it is in comparison.

    At some point between the second and third bullets, the free (as in freedom) aspect really hit me. This 3 minute video explains it in the cutest, most non-preachy way I've seen.

    If/when that aspect sinks in - there's really no other choice. (Aside from BSD - but now we're talking about an even smaller pool of likely users.)

  • I think many people coming to Linux having experienced some significant problems. Something didn't work for them and they started to look for alternatives

    Let's call typical user David, he maybe has an older PC or laptop. He tried to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and now everything runs much slower. He cannot understand why and answers online are unhelpful. Meanwhile he cannot come back to Windows 7 because it's support is over. What to do now?

    All David's data (calendar, mail, contacts, chats, documents etc etc) is locked in proprietary systems and now it's difficult to get out of there. He tries to move to another platform but can't because he's restricted by little quirks and lack of support for features he needs.

    Still believing that he could unbloat his system David comes across community of an open source app cloud platform -- nextcloud. Surprisingly this platform doesn't want his money or tries to lock him in. It works on any system, it's got amazing support and community constantly creates new exciting home made modules to do some small but very welcome adjustments.

    He realizes that such community is there for operating system as well. A year later he "runs Arch, btw"

    This is just one path of a person who wanted his laptop to run as fast as it used to. Other people may dislike overreliance on big tech or would like to support the underdog -- independent devs.

    Bonus:
    First thing I ever gotten from Linux was KDE connect: it didn't work on Windows but it's amazing on Linux. It connects devices between each other and let's you sync the clipboard, use PC keyboard on your phone, send files locally (real fast), switch music tracks on other devices, change volume and a lot more.

  • In addition to everything else said here, what has crystallized over the last year is how good it feels that Linux and other open source initiatives are Enshitification-proof

    This I believe is a big part of what give the warm and fuzzy feeling when using open source software and website. Generally everyone involved wants to make something good, without looking towards IPOs or the next quarterly revenue at the cost of the software

    (Sure controversies happen, but they are generally few and far between, and open source licensing ensure forking is a viable last resort, like with LibreOffice and Nextcloud)

  • People who prefer Linux generally like full control over their computer, and accept that manual control requires manual work, or are excited about learning the inner workings of their PC. These are the DIY deck builders who crown their joists and use stainless fasteners. The cooks who hone and strop their knives. The swimmers who shave their bodies. The backyard gardeners who send soil samples to the extension service and rotate their vegetables in their 1/8 acre homes. All otherwise normal and average folks who are passionate about getting the most out of some facet of their lives. And all of this stuff is "silly" or "unnecessary" to most people who build a deck, cook dinner every night, swim at the community pool, or have flowers in their yards. And so even if Linux is objectively better, it's pretty likely the average user isn't going to see any advantage to it.

  • You said performance doesn’t matter. It does. If you have an older system or a system that due to Microsoft’s strict windows 11 requirement feels slow or is not able to have the latest OS, Linux can be quite worthy, as it tends to be quite lightweight. For simpler use cases, like general web browsing or simpler file editing, open source utilities are very much usable and delightful to use. In Linux, you will never (unless NVIDIA is thrown to the mix or some pesky Wi-Fi cards) have driver issues. Printers, that horrible nightmare on windows, are actually usable on Linux. For more complex documents, nowadays, with the improvements in wine, you can pretty much just install a better office suite. And for slightly more than basic users, the customisation is more than worth the slight inconvenience Linux may cause. Also, sometimes Linux just gets new features first, like workspaces, something that only came to windows 11, and has existed for years on Linux

  • I'm a long time Linux user and a programmer. What I love about it (besides privacy, non-pushiness etc.) is that I can pull pretty much whatever program or tool I need from package manager and that command-line lets me integrate many command line tools with graphical apps.

    Just yesterday I made a little script that pulls weather data from a "non-official" weather station that is closer to me and stores it in a csv-file, then I could bind a key combination to fire another script that plots and shows me that data. It's just a few command line tools mashed together. A few days ago I wrote little scripts that control lighting in my house and I can bind keys to those as well.. maybe that's "tinkering" too but they're small things that make my life a little bit better :) Is that impossible to do in Windows? No, but Linux has much less friction.

  • People use mainstream software because they're used to it or it came bundled with their hardware. We are used to Microsoft bundling it's software in with most PCs because it aggressively built those relationships with manufacturers and that's how it got massive market share.

    The point about Linux is that is not a commercial piece of software designed to maintain Microsoft's grip on your life and now your data and sell you to advertiser's. Linux is just software that does the job and does it well without any compromises to keep a big corporation in control

    The point for the average user is not that Linux is better in itself - it is that Linux is just as good but without all the compromises we've taken for granted in terms of poor data security, privacy, being sold as a product to advertiser's or having features locked away or restricted for the benefit of the company rather than consumers. Linux lets you do what you want with your hardware, choose any software you want, and do whatever you like on your device.

    We're so no used to the compromises forced on us by big monopolies like Microsoft with Windows that most people don't even realise the value Linux gives in restoring those basic consumer rights ans freedoms.

    Linux does what Windows does, it just doesn't ask you to give up your rights, your privacy or your data to do it. For the average user the benefits are hidden which is why they don't see the point in it.

  • Speaking as someone who's still transitioning from windows to Linux on his machines...

    1. My main concern is that the software I use should feel like it's there for ME, not for the company it's from. Windows does not feel like it's putting me first. Many have covered all the reasons in detail, but I don't like having to fight my OS to get things the way I want them.... Which is funny because

    2. Yeah, its fun to tinker with Linux, but there is some fighting to get it to do what you want, especially when you're new to it. For instance, I'm on KDE, I set up a very aesthetic top bar with a calendar & time widget in the middle. It took me MONTHS and countless small sessions of reading to get my email's events and special dates to show up on the calendar. I was missing KOrganizer, as well as some extra settings that only show up on the calendar widget if you have KOrganizer installed. I've yet to figure out how to refresh the data to get up to date info, because so far it seems like the data just stays stale. I'll eventually get to it.

    I also randomly corrupted my partition during an update and spent a good 5 hours getting it back. I'm experienced enough that I wasn't worried at all, and I was even enjoying the process at the beginning....but by the end of it, I was just annoyed. The solution? Yeah my distro's documentation mentions a specific command, "rebuild-kernels" which instantly fixed my partition. It was like the second sentence in an article about my bootloader. I felt stupid for how simple that was, compared to how much I was doing with other suggestions I found online....

    So yeah, point is, it's tough, and I personally am not fond of it, since I just want my PC to let me do my thing while I let it do its thing. Even then, I would still rather deal with that kind of thing than deal with Microsoft's or Apple's shenanigans (also, kinda hoping that immutable distro's aren't as tedious, even though I know they will be, cause I think that would be an even more ideal system, one that's very tough to corrupt).

    1. I totally get the sentiment on overpowered hardware. The nice thing about this era of Computing is that you can do a lot of things that you currently pay for as a service online. You just need some of that overpowered hardware you might already have lying around. Want to stop paying for a cloud photo backup? You can spin up an immich server. Too many streaming services with too little content? Fuck em, spin up a Jellyfin or Plex instance, automate content downloads with Arr services, hell, create your own subtitles with a speech to text language model running on your own equipment. Philips suddenly wants you to have an account to turn on your lightbulbs? Throw in home assistant to the stage, tell your lightbulbs to know their place. LastPass leaked your passwords? Throw them into Vaultwarden, throw your second factor in there as well (or don't, convenience vs security, and I'm too fucking lazy to care).

    The amount of stuff that can be self hosted is insane, and it can absolutely replace a lot of the things you're currently using, and it can all happen in a specialized Linux-based OS for running a bunch of services, such as Proxmox, TrueNAS Scale, unRAID, etc.

    In the end, though, there's a lot of "having to learn new things" and "loving to tinker" needed for a lot of it. It's fine that your average user isn't interested. It's sad for those of us who care, who truly believe we need to regain most of our freedom from this tech, but it's totally not the end of the world either. Maybe there's no appeal to the average user....yet.

    My advice would always be to try, say, Linux mint on a spare laptop, and force yourself to use it for casual stuff. Give it a try, and if it geeks out on you too much for your liking, you go back to your platform of choice. No biggie, it just doesn't hurt to see what's on the other side. Who knows, maybe you don't mind the casual tinkering that you may encounter, maybe you don't even feel a difference in day to day use compared to your platform of choice, or hopefully you like it even more because it might do things in an easier manner than you're used to. If that's the case, then think about whether you're ok with Apple's walled garden, or Microsoft's occasional antitrust infringements, or if you might simply want something to work your way and not the creating company's way.

  • I will say something different. Most people are best off with what they know and what the people they know use. It is all about support. I, my wife, and my father in-law all use Linux and Android with a Lot of FOSS stuff. They can because I can support them and my wife can support her dad and we are all local. My mom on the other hand uses Windows. She is half way across the country and my brothers family all know Windows. I do most of the support but they can too.

    Advantages. Around 2000 after spending maybe $20000 on hardware and software over the years with Apple and Windows just got tired of the treadmill. Overpriced monopoly software that was basically done still being soaked for meaningless upgrades. I have used Linux ever since

    Advantage today. Your not on the upgrade mill, your not the product, better FOSS support, it just works, your contribiting to an open and competitive market place. The major downsides are lack hardware support out of the box, and most people do not have a support network. Also if you want to run commercial software for some reason probably will not run on Linux, use Windows or whatever commercial platform in that case.

    At some level it is not that hard. Want to run FOSS, run Linux. Want to run commercial software, use a commercial platform.

  • I had written up a long reply, but accidentally deleted it. So here's the short version, aiming to cover ground not already covered in this thread. Disclaimer that I'm a Linux user and Windows developer / sys admin.

    Linux is a better environment for systems administration. This is still relevant even to individuals with a single device; if you own and use the computer, from time to time you must administrate. It is this way because it is designed foremost to be used and maintained, whereas Windows has dozens of corporate incentives that are often at odds; to be marketable and fashionable, to be complete and foolproof, to be infinitely backwards-compatible, to build a platform for media and software, to collect marketable data, and so on.

    When you start peeling back the layers of Windows you see decades' worth of aging, decaying infrastructure that may or may not still function, probably isn't well documented, and doesn't really make any sense. Leaving the happy path is painful and strongly discouraged.

    On Linux, it is expected and normalized, and the feeling is that you are supported in your attempts to understand and control your system instead. There is documentation, and source code, and forums with real people instead of Microsoft spambots. The freedom of individuals to choose software that makes their lives easier (as opposed to meeting rigid and complex requirements) means that there's overall a better chance for you to understand and effectively control your system.

  • I find that it's easier to fix things (though that's through the terminal, so it's subjective). I'd say that maybe the best they could get out of linux (appart from the philosophical aspect or the security) would be more alternatives in software (if they care to have them) and better support for older hardware. Maybe even remove some of the problems that windows usually has like the preinstalled apps and slow updates, though that really depends on if the person finds these things annoying or not. (Also, it can be free, so that's nice)

  • For me, like you said in your post, I'm a tinkerer, I love configuring, making things do things the way I want it and generally trying out new things.

    But most of your points I feel stand true, for the absolute average user not giving a care, having the warranty and more technical support available from their laptop/computer manufacturer is probably the way to go. Unless they want to try something different for the hell of it. I find installing and using Linux in its most basic form today is nothing hard with the right distro, and finding a distro to get started with that is stable and easy isn't a difficult task either. Freezes, strange hiccups and weird hardware errors is what made me switch recently, I've been using Linux on and off for years depending on what my use-case is around the time. Getting a free speed boost, having a faster computer, getting loaded in quicker and just in general getting a different feel for how you use your computer could be a nice plus for some. Like people liking OSX because it feels different or vice versa. It's an available alternative.

    My arguments could still be considered edge-cases, I don't really disagree with that but it's still something. Like Valve choosing Linux and pushing Proton development because it works for them and they can make it work for their end-users rather than having to jump hoops with Microsoft, forcing Microsoft accounts and a heavier OS. Their reasoning can be put into the average end users as well I would feel like.

    But in the end, the average user browses the web, watch online content, stares at Facebook and maybe plays The Sims 4 on low settings or something. They have no real reason to switch because what they use works for them so why would they bother? If they like things the same, they'll stick to the same. If they want to try something different, at least there's alternatives.

  • No OS level adware. Next question.

  • For hopping into the GNU/Linux, installing any distro in a Virtual machine or testing liveboot is an good way to to start. The first choice of distro has no meaning. My first was Knoppix on Win98 machine. Tried Ubuntu. Linux Mint got me hooked ~2014, moved to Arch Linux after Antergos. I'm still using Cinnamon DE.

    Some "funny" realizations I have made over the years:

    • Distros are just vast collections of the same software. The choice is simply what includes your subset.
    • Most of the bad rep is missing in-kernel driver for device. Once AMDGPU got usable everything changed for me.
    • You can "copy-paste" the entire system into different disk, plug it into another PC and it's like remote accessing the original.
    • It will feel like learning a new language, every time you need to something new. This just fact of life.
    • If you want to be "bad person": find the exact lines of source code and who wrote them. Then curse that person and the program.
    • If you want to be mediocre: post an bug report. Maybe it is fixed asap or put onto "wish-list" and forgotten.
    • If you want to be an amazing: donate code. Like actually write it. But be warned, the other users are also like vampires, really picky and demands are unreasonable for the time required. If nobody does this then the software turns into stone.
    • By popular vote, some things have surpassed their black boxed counter part and there is no equivalent black box to be purchased. It has become free-software-only.

    From above, the making of bug report/feature request is an introduction point into an amazing community behind the software you used. It is not an black box of faceless shareholders.

    The occasional awareness tests for Linux users:

    • When is the new kernel released? I must have the newest kernel.
    • Update removed the floor you were standing on.
    • The horror of installing anything on windows makes my skin crawl.
    • The horror of accidentally pasting "rm -rf" into prompt and knowing it was yourself who pushed the button.
    • No back-doors, unless you installed one.
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