From amitchoudhary0523 at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 10:38:11 2025 From: amitchoudhary0523 at gmail.com (Amit) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2025 16:08:11 +0530 Subject: Why is Linux desktop not popular among non-programmers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi, I have been programming since 1998 mostly in C language and Linux. I use Debian Linux and my user interface is GNOME Flashback Metacity (I don't like the GNOME 3 interface). Even Linus Torvalds was critical of GNOME 3 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME). According to the following website (https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide), linux desktop has 4.13% of the desktop market share while Windows has 73.41% market share. So, it looks like non-programmers have not yet embraced Linux desktop. Some people will say that it is because of marketing by Microsoft and Apple but I don't buy this answer. I am listing the no. 1 reason that I believe is behind the un-popularity of Linux desktop among non-programmers (I know some people won't like it): I don't think Linux desktop development teams (GNOME, KDE, etc.) are interested in increasing the usage of Linux desktop among non-programmers. The main reason for coming to this conclusion is that Linux desktop development teams don't ask people (non-programmers) what they want, they just go ahead and do what they want to do. An example of this is that the GNOME development team went ahead and created GNOME 3 without asking the users (non-programmers) whether they would want this kind of user interface or not. In my opinion, GNOME 3 is less user-friendly than GNOME Flashback Metacity. Recently, I opened a discussion on Discord to talk to GNOME developers and I told them that GNOME Flashback Metacity is more user-friendly than GNOME 3. They got hurt and closed the discussion thread. Then I also got angry and forced them to delete the whole discussion. But, if Linux desktop development teams are really interested in increasing the share of Linux desktop among non-programmers then they have to think from non-programmers point of view. They should also ask non-programmers as to what will convince them to use the Linux Desktop. My analysis is - Microsoft Windows is insecure, Apple is costly, so Linux desktop(s) should become very popular among non-programmers but it is not. It looks like there is not much will to make Linux desktop popular because where there is a will, there is a way. I am sorry if I have offended anyone. People don't like constructive criticism these days. Regards, Amit From bhavi at ubuntu.com Tue Jan 28 10:56:49 2025 From: bhavi at ubuntu.com (Bhavani Shankar R) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2025 16:26:49 +0530 Subject: Why is Linux desktop not popular among non-programmers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 16:09 Amit wrote: > Hi, > > I have been programming since 1998 mostly in C language and Linux. I > use Debian Linux and my user interface is GNOME Flashback Metacity (I > don't like the GNOME 3 interface). > > Even Linus Torvalds was critical of GNOME 3 > (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME). > > According to the following website > (https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide), linux > desktop has 4.13% of the desktop market share while Windows has 73.41% > market share. > > So, it looks like non-programmers have not yet embraced Linux desktop. > > Some people will say that it is because of marketing by Microsoft and > Apple but I don't buy this answer. > > I am listing the no. 1 reason that I believe is behind the > un-popularity of Linux desktop among non-programmers (I know some > people won't like it): > > I don't think Linux desktop development teams (GNOME, KDE, etc.) are > interested in increasing the usage of Linux desktop among > non-programmers. The main reason for coming to this conclusion is that > Linux desktop development teams don't ask people (non-programmers) > what they want, they just go ahead and do what they want to do. An > example of this is that the GNOME development team went ahead and > created GNOME 3 without asking the users (non-programmers) whether > they would want this kind of user interface or not. In my opinion, > GNOME 3 is less user-friendly than GNOME Flashback Metacity. > > Recently, I opened a discussion on Discord to talk to GNOME developers > and I told them that GNOME Flashback Metacity is more user-friendly > than GNOME 3. They got hurt and closed the discussion thread. Then I > also got angry and forced them to delete the whole discussion. > > But, if Linux desktop development teams are really interested in > increasing the share of Linux desktop among non-programmers then they > have to think from non-programmers point of view. They should also ask > non-programmers as to what will convince them to use the Linux > Desktop. > > My analysis is - Microsoft Windows is insecure, Apple is costly, so > Linux desktop(s) should become very popular among non-programmers but > it is not. > > It looks like there is not much will to make Linux desktop popular > because where there is a will, there is a way. > Hello Amit, While your observations on GNOME maybe valid or may not be, as I am not representing gnome in anyway here but, As an Ubuntu developer myself, I can certainly speak on behalf of the Ubuntu community I guess :) Our community has a very strict code of conduct and welcomes contributions from everyone in every walk of life, You can have a look at the Ubuntu development lifecycle and the Ubuntu packaging guide to contribute to various areas of Ubuntu development.. similar with the Debian ecosystem ethos too, so you can reach out to us in assistance with your ubuntu development journey and will be happy to help always. Another thing is there's a lot more ways to contribute to the community or the operating system more than only development efforts or package or app maintenance, you can contribute in areas like the QA, documentation, translation etc or even hang out on the IRC or matrix channels helping out other users on their queries :) All the very best in your linux journey! Regards, Bhavi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net Tue Jan 28 15:03:42 2025 From: ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net (Ralf Mardorf) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2025 16:03:42 +0100 Subject: Why is Linux desktop not popular among non-programmers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 2025-01-28 at 16:08 +0530, Amit wrote: > [snip] > Some people will say that it is because of marketing by Microsoft and > Apple but I don't buy this answer. > [snip] > I don't think Linux desktop development teams (GNOME, KDE, etc.) are > interested in increasing the usage of Linux desktop among > non-programmers. The main reason for coming to this conclusion is that > Linux desktop development teams don't ask people (non-programmers) > what they want, they just go ahead and do what they want to do. > [snip] > My analysis is - Microsoft Windows is insecure, Apple is costly, so > Linux desktop(s) should become very popular among non-programmers but > it is not. This is a highly simplified assumption. > It looks like there is not much will to make Linux desktop popular > because where there is a will, there is a way. [snip] This reminds me of the discussion about a community-built smartphome, i.e. the hardware. Will is not enough for feasibility. From ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net Tue Jan 28 15:30:13 2025 From: ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net (Ralf Mardorf) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2025 16:30:13 +0100 Subject: Why is Linux desktop not popular among non-programmers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: PS: Somewhat abstract examples: There are so many areas, and for some areas developers have to write software that depends on expensive licenses, if the licenses are sold to open source communities at all. Or very specialized hardware is needed, in such cases the hardware manufacturers must first be willing to provide drivers themselves or release the necessary information so that a community can provide drivers without reverse engineering. It's rarely about the desktop, the user eats what he has to if the necessary applications are available and ideally also work well. From amitchoudhary0523 at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 16:00:28 2025 From: amitchoudhary0523 at gmail.com (Amit) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2025 21:30:28 +0530 Subject: Why is Linux desktop not popular among non-programmers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 9:01 PM Ralf Mardorf wrote: > PS: Somewhat abstract examples: There are so many areas, and for some > areas developers have to write software that depends on expensive > licenses, if the licenses are sold to open source communities at all. Or > very specialized hardware is needed, in such cases the hardware > manufacturers must first be willing to provide drivers themselves or > release the necessary information so that a community can provide > drivers without reverse engineering. I had written about the driver part few years ago in linux kernel mailing list. 20 years ago, I had added some features in wlan driver and I had sent the code but not in the patch format. So, the code was probably included in the driver but I am not sure if it was my code. I mentioned the above because I found that writing a driver in linux is not easy. Few years later, I developed some parts of a driver using VxWorks SDK and it was easy to develop drivers. Microsoft has also a SDK for developing drivers. In my opinion, manufacturers don't develop linux drivers because its not easy to find someone who can write a device driver in linux. May be only 1000 people in this world are proficient in writing drivers on linux. The solution to this is to make driver development easy on linux by giving a skeleton driver in which the developer can just fill in code according to his/her device. Or, may be a driver SDK, etc. It's rarely about the desktop, the > user eats what he has to if the necessary applications are available and > ideally also work well. > These days most of the non-programming people need only two major drivers - wireless lan driver and USB driver and these are available already in linux. The main point is that most of the non-programmers are used to Windows, so to migrate them to linux, there should be an user interface like Windows. I know there are few such distros but I think that there are so many diverse options in linux desktop that may be non-programmers get confused as to which one to use. If Linux foundation adopts one particular distro/linux desktop then may be it will easy for Windows users to switch to Linux. Regards, Amit -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From clanlaw at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 16:10:57 2025 From: clanlaw at gmail.com (Colin Law) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2025 16:10:57 +0000 Subject: Why is Linux desktop not popular among non-programmers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 28 Jan 2025 at 16:01, Amit wrote: > > The main point is that most of the non-programmers are used to Windows, so to migrate them to linux, there should be an user interface like Windows. I know there are few such distros but I think that there are so many diverse options in linux desktop that may be non-programmers get confused as to which one to use. > > If Linux foundation adopts one particular distro/linux desktop then may be it will easy for Windows users to switch to Linux. The main reason that most desktop and laptop PCs are Windows based is because most users don't care what the OS is, they just buy a machine and use it. Since stores generally only sell Windows or Mac based machines the typical user does not get a Linux option at all. Colin L. From amitchoudhary0523 at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 16:43:15 2025 From: amitchoudhary0523 at gmail.com (Amit) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2025 22:13:15 +0530 Subject: Why is Linux desktop not popular among non-programmers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 9:41 PM Colin Law wrote: > On Tue, 28 Jan 2025 at 16:01, Amit wrote: > > > > The main point is that most of the non-programmers are used to Windows, > so to migrate them to linux, there should be an user interface like > Windows. I know there are few such distros but I think that there are so > many diverse options in linux desktop that may be non-programmers get > confused as to which one to use. > > > > If Linux foundation adopts one particular distro/linux desktop then may > be it will easy for Windows users to switch to Linux. > > The main reason that most desktop and laptop PCs are Windows based is > because most users don't care what the OS is, they just buy a machine > and use it. Since stores generally only sell Windows or Mac based > machines the typical user does not get a Linux option at all. > I have heard this argument before but the point is that they don't sell Linux desktops because Linux desktops are not up to the mark. I had once bought a linux desktop from Amazon in 2015 probably, and when I just started using it, I got an option to update something and when I did that, few things got botched by the update and probably wireless stopped working. So, I returned it. Companies will definitely sell linux desktops if they can make profit from it. But it is very hard to convince a non-programmer buyer to buy linux because they also know that linux desktops are not up to the mark. On my linux desktop, the native file explorer is far behind the windows file explorer. There was one more issue that I encountered - I had downloaded zip file of openjdk to do java development because I didn't want to install java. However, this presented a problem - for associating the java jar file with java executable program I had to write a .desktop file. So, I had to learn how to write a .desktop file. On windows it is simple - you just right click the jar file and then choose java executable program to run the jar file and the jar files will then get associated with the java executable program (no need to learn anything). I don't use windows because it is insecure. It can get hacked. Although I will also buy an antivirus but still I think that windows can get hacked even if antivirus is there. Regards, Amit -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sampro_domains at yahoo.com Tue Jan 28 18:39:51 2025 From: sampro_domains at yahoo.com (Chris Kelly) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2025 18:39:51 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Why is Linux desktop not popular among non-programmers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1637761669.5518228.1738089591526@mail.yahoo.com> Regular users don't want to edit obscure config files using obscure syntax or work with the command line. Another issue is that there are lots of apps for various things, but few are any good. For a tangible example, compare Geany to Notepad++. Geany doesn't even do basic things like remember the last directory you used. There are probably dozens of text editors for Linux. If a few of those devs had instead just contributed to Geany that would be far better. Likewise with video editors. Decades ago I worked with Adobe Premier on an old Mac. I haven't seen a Linux video editor that's as good as that version of Adobe Premier. The closest is Shotcut, and it's pathetic by comparison. As with text editors, there are dozens of video editors for Linux and none of them are any good. With Drupal things sort themselves out much better. Lots of modules have overlapping functionality, but the best projects tend to get the most contributions. (I'm NOT looking for text editor or video editor suggestions, I'm just pointing out one of the perils of OSS). On Tuesday, January 28, 2025 at 02:39:22 AM PST, Amit wrote: Hi, I have been programming since 1998 mostly in C language and Linux. I use Debian Linux and my user interface is GNOME Flashback Metacity (I don't like the GNOME 3 interface). Even Linus Torvalds was critical of GNOME 3 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME). According to the following website (https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide), linux desktop has 4.13% of the desktop market share while Windows has 73.41% market share. So, it looks like non-programmers have not yet embraced Linux desktop. Some people will say that it is because of marketing by Microsoft and Apple but I don't buy this answer. I am listing the no. 1 reason that I believe is behind the un-popularity of Linux desktop among non-programmers (I know some people won't like it): I don't think Linux desktop development teams (GNOME, KDE, etc.) are interested in increasing the usage of Linux desktop among non-programmers. The main reason for coming to this conclusion is that Linux desktop development teams don't ask people (non-programmers) what they want, they just go ahead and do what they want to do. An example of this is that the GNOME development team went ahead and created GNOME 3 without asking the users (non-programmers) whether they would want this kind of user interface or not. In my opinion, GNOME 3 is less user-friendly than GNOME Flashback Metacity. Recently, I opened a discussion on Discord to talk to GNOME developers and I told them that GNOME Flashback Metacity is more user-friendly than GNOME 3. They got hurt and closed the discussion thread. Then I also got angry and forced them to delete the whole discussion. But, if Linux desktop development teams are really interested in increasing the share of Linux desktop among non-programmers then they have to think from non-programmers point of view. They should also ask non-programmers as to what will convince them to use the Linux Desktop. My analysis is - Microsoft Windows is insecure, Apple is costly, so Linux desktop(s) should become very popular among non-programmers but it is not. It looks like there is not much will to make Linux desktop popular because where there is a will, there is a way. I am sorry if I have offended anyone. People don't like constructive criticism these days. Regards, Amit -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss at lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From noloader at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 19:58:36 2025 From: noloader at gmail.com (Jeffrey Walton) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2025 14:58:36 -0500 Subject: Why is Linux desktop not popular among non-programmers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 28, 2025 at 12:46 PM Amit wrote: > > On Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 9:41 PM Colin Law wrote: >> >> On Tue, 28 Jan 2025 at 16:01, Amit wrote: >> > >> > The main point is that most of the non-programmers are used to Windows, so to migrate them to linux, there should be an user interface like Windows. I know there are few such distros but I think that there are so many diverse options in linux desktop that may be non-programmers get confused as to which one to use. >> > >> > If Linux foundation adopts one particular distro/linux desktop then may be it will easy for Windows users to switch to Linux. >> >> The main reason that most desktop and laptop PCs are Windows based is >> because most users don't care what the OS is, they just buy a machine >> and use it. Since stores generally only sell Windows or Mac based >> machines the typical user does not get a Linux option at all. > > I have heard this argument before but the point is that they don't sell Linux desktops because Linux desktops are not up to the mark. Also see articles like "Microsoft Antitrust: “The Linux Threat on the Desktop” (2006) and Predatory Response," . > I had once bought a linux desktop from Amazon in 2015 probably, and when I just started using it, I got an option to update something and when I did that, few things got botched by the update and probably wireless stopped working. So, I returned it. > > Companies will definitely sell linux desktops if they can make profit from it. But it is very hard to convince a non-programmer buyer to buy linux because they also know that linux desktops are not up to the mark. > > On my linux desktop, the native file explorer is far behind the windows file explorer. > > There was one more issue that I encountered - I had downloaded zip file of openjdk to do java development because I didn't want to install java. However, this presented a problem - for associating the java jar file with java executable program I had to write a .desktop file. So, I had to learn how to write a .desktop file. On windows it is simple - you just right click the jar file and then choose java executable program to run the jar file and the jar files will then get associated with the java executable program (no need to learn anything). > > I don't use windows because it is insecure. It can get hacked. Although I will also buy an antivirus but still I think that windows can get hacked even if antivirus is there. Jeff From amitchoudhary0523 at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 07:31:03 2025 From: amitchoudhary0523 at gmail.com (Amit) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2025 13:01:03 +0530 Subject: Almost all C++ STL data structures in one C library (generic_doubly_linked_list_library.c). Message-ID: Hi, I have implemented a C library (generic_doubly_linked_list_library.c) that can be used as a C++ STL list, map, set, stack, queue, deque, multimap, multiset, unordered_map, unordered_set, unordered_multimap, and unordered_multiset (basically almost all C++ STL data structures). So, instead of implementing your own linked list, etc, you can simply use this library and speed up your development. This library can be found at these places: * https://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=173781880224049&w=2 * https://github.com/amit0523/generic-doubly-linked-list-library Regards, Amit