That’s an argument I will hear a lot from people who are not very familiar with Linux, including those who have even spent a little time with simple distributions like Ubuntu. Often times, I just wrote it off as people just not wanting to try something new, but… looking at the Linux community as of late has made me realize that the people who say this may not be too far off-base with their opinion. I know I’ll probably get a lot of flak for saying that, but I’ll explain; just hear—er, read—me out.
I’ll list several reasons down here and go over them. Hopefully, this will shed some light on the situation.
Most of the Linux community vehemently refuses to allow most distributions to resemble Windows or macOS…
Even at the cost of advancing technology and pleasant GUIs.
Honestly, Linux people are some of the most stubborn people I’ve met. I can say that without worry because I’m one of said stubborn Linux people. XD Unfortunately, that stubbornness and obstinance can find a way to interfere with what really could be a good thing for Linux as a whole.
As much as people hate it, take Unity for example. This was one of the only projects besides GNOME that was trying to be different, but unlike GNOME, it was easily learnable and usable by people of all levels of technological aptitude… pun intended. XP Now, though, Unity is dying, soon to be replaced by GNOME, a desktop that many now hate, and I can’t even bring myself to like it when I'm using a mouse and keyboard setup.
Unity hit that sweet spot between mouse/keyboard and touch that most OSes, even Windows 10, fail to hit. Even if Untiy 8 never came to be, Unity 7 was still a solid desktop environment, but people weren’t too supportive of it, mostly because it wasn’t “Linux” enough.
Yet KDE, elementaryOS, and Cinnamon, which look more like Windows/macOS are embraced with open arms. It’s confusing, to say the least.
There is no universal app-packaging system.
And even on distros where there is a package system, some apps don’t have premade packages, forcing the user to build them or just not bother.
Remember the days when programs didn’t really live in our Program Files folders? Remember when you’d just put in your floppy disk and run the program? I can’t say I’ve been around long enough to remember that, but to this day, there are still programs that do not need to be installed, which is totally okay in my book.
It’s a simple form of packaging that works well for simple apps and programs, but what happens when you use a program for everyday work and want it to have easier access to folders on your computer, and what happens when a program becomes extremely complicated? Well, the simple solutition would be to, in the former case, grab an installer, or in the latter case, if you’re a developer, create an installer. This has become standard on Windows and, to an extremely odd extent, macOS, but Linux distros still have a problem with this.
Sure, most users will just stick to Ubuntu or Linux Mint, in which case there are plenty of .deb installers for common programs, but you might come across a user that needs a bit more than what can be found packaged in an Aptitude-friendly .deb file, and these programs may not be single binary programs that can be packaged in a simple zipped folder.
What happens then? The user, if they’re a beginner, may just give up on Linux and go back to their familiar NT or Unix-ish workspace, or if they know a bit more, they might try to find out how to build a tarball, which is all well and good, but it’s overall an inconvenience to the user.
Plus, there are situations where the user may not be able to use a Debian-based distro or even use one that can install .rpm files. To the non-technical user, this is all just too much.
The Linux community, by and large, expects people to be tech savvy.
Even complete beginners should know what they’re doing. Otherwise, begone!
The Linux world doesn’t ever seem too welcoming to beginners compared to the Windows and macOS worlds, where you can find tutorial after tutorial about how to do anything and everything, and you’re often guided by very nice people along the way.
Many tutorials on even how to get the most out of Ubuntu are directed at more technical users, leaving the masses feeling like they couldn’t learn about Linux even if they wanted to.
This has been happening much less, and I’m happy about that, but it probably still discourages a fair amount of people.
There is still too much done by command line.
This is going to be a short point because, well, we all know it’s true, and it should be obvious why that’s a turn-off for most people. :/
There are not many devices out there preinstalled with Linux.
And those that are out there aren’t advertised very much.
Despite the fact that there has been a growing trend of putting out laptops and desktops that come with a Linux distro, there still aren’t enough to convince people to possily stop using the very-familiar interfaces of Windows and macOS. Excluding Android and Chrome OS users, there aren’t too many people who have Linux on their devices, and there are even fewer who buy one with it preinstalled.
Honestly, I could go on for hours about why Linux is actually quite confusing and not user-friendly, but I’m sure you get the gist of it with all this.
Now… is this our faults? Well, not all of it, but sure, some of it is, and we need to try to improve so that it’s not like that in the future. Linux is a wonderful collection of operating systems with potential that far exceeds that of Windows or macOS, but we need to stop acting like we can’t let it evolve and start allowing it to. We need to develop better solutions for all the users who might consider Linux in the future.
Is Linux complicated? Yes. Can we fix it? Definitely. We just need to work at it.
— CJ Roth / TechieFoxee / FennecFoxee