Sorry but that’s just wrong. Enough people simply don’t even consider Linux because their needed software doesn’t work + there’s no equivalent alternative. And my PC/OS is not a hobby or a Ideology. It’s a tool that I use to work with.
Is it really wrong? Do you have numbers? I think the most people claim above is at least plausible. It surely fits my personal experience, but that is of course not worth much.
I would argue that most people use their PC for web browsing, light photo editing and personal office stuff and maybe gaming (at least outside work) and those people are not affected by “the software I need does not work and there is no alternative”.
I am a gamer and I run into “the software doesnt do what I want, and theres no way around it/alternative” very often.
almost always cause I want to run another file in the same proton instance of a game to install a mod or do something else.
Or because something just doesnt work, despite following the instructions and others getting it to work.
Like, Cyberpunk is my most recent example. CET doesnt work, followed the guide, installed the packages the guide said to, still nothing. It doesnt prevent me from running the game, but it certainly stops me from enjoying it the way i want to.
I would argue that most people use their PC for web browsing, light photo editing
Maybe just me but I know nobody who still uses a PC for this things anyway. The vast majority of people use their smartphones or tablets for basic stuff like that. People who still use a PCs or Laptops, usually do more work than that.
You named multiple things with major compromises.
Gaming is fine if you use Steam and the compatibility layer or jump through hoops, and don’t play basically anything online.
The photo editing tools on Linux are dogshit.
Web browsing is fine, but not if you want to stream any content, because no one will serve you anything even medium quality without DRM.
Office stuff can kind of be replaced, but mostly by using the browser versions of the shit people actually use, because the tools to collaborate with others (particularly non-techy people) don’t exist for open source alternatives.
The software available is absolutely a massive limitation.
Gaming is fine unless the game has kernel level anti cheat. Minor compromise.
Photo editing tools are good enough for the needs of normal people. Gimp and Darktable are not dogshit, no compromise.
DRM under Firefox works. Never had a problem with it plus most people don’t even watch on computers. No compromise.
Non techy people mostly not do collaborative projects. Plus registering for any cloud with office and collaboration is easy. Minor compromise.
Your first point is web browsing. Even that doesn‘t work properly on a linux desktop lol. Browser performance is abysmal because the browsers lack out of the box support for hardware acceleration. Even if you get it to work it might not work reliably and an update might break it again.
Try using a discord call and open a youtube video in 4k at the same time on a a freshly installed linux desktop. The audio will be choppy and the video will drop frames like crazy. Just moving around windows on your desktop is not nearly as smooth as it is on windows.
You seem to be very misinformed. Browsers do not lack hardware acceleration. Some distributions do not include the necessary packets in their default configuration. Some. And when you get it to work, like in Arch Linux, where almost nothing is installed by default, it works flawlessly for years, never had an update breaking browser hardware acceleration.
I can run 12 4k youtube videos at the same time and route the audio to different channels of my different audio devices AND accept several calls from different webapps and the only thing that is not smooth is your way of discussing things LOL
I think it’s more that there’s a perception of things not being compatible with Linux nowadays. A lot of the games that didn’t work 5 years ago now do, and I’m still seeing people complain that games like Halo Infinite don’t work on there when they actually do.
The only things I can think of that aren’t compatible and required for some tasks are Photoshop and professional CAD/CAE software. For >90% of the population Linux should be able to handle everything they need
