Linux is the most popular os in the world.
Because of Android smartphones. Desktop not so much.
Add in VirtualBox for using favorite legacy Windoz Apps onn tgheir native best version of legacy Windows.
In my opinion, its the fact that there are countless number of distros which create market fragmentation and thus confusion. There is no such thing as Linux on the desk top. There is linux running ubuntu or fedora or whatever.
Microsoft has Windows. It may be home or enterprise but its the same OS, just with features turned off so it works the same.
Almost all of those other problems would be solved if there was a big enough market for software and hardware developers to give linux more attention but the market doesn't grow big enough because of the fragmentation and confusion.
Fear and Ignorance are the primary issues here.
bkmk
In short, it doesn’t do what Windows does.
After decades of development.
It will always be a techie world, great (even superior) to Windows in the things that it does for interwebs and servers, but it has always been like a Caterpillar Tractor (Linux) when people want a Ford Truck (Windows) or a Range Rover (Apple/Mac)
It’s a fair and obviously well-informed column although he rationalizes nearly every shortcoming. ‘It’s good but...’
In my view Linux has always struggled a bit from a lack of a dominant player synonymous with the OS. Red Hat might be a real or perceived brand leader but while enthusiasts might enthuse about this or that distro it is, as the column suggests, absolutely bewildering to someone who might very well be interested in an secure, stable Windows alternative but who gets slammed with choices and vagaries as soon as they walk in the door.
Microsoft support is, in a word, abysmal. Like Apple, they save billions by essentially throwing support cases to the wolves - or, in this case, the other users. Incredibly, many Windows/Microsoft end users, MVPs or otherwise, are willing to help out - for free - and their help is almost always faster, more accurate and clearer than anything offered up by Microsoft employees (*wink wink*) who are, too often, non-native English speakers usually in India. Their ‘help’ is often a series of useless links, outdated information, attempts to fend off the query and general bureaucratic box-ticking uselessness. They simply don’t know their own product. However, because Windows is Microsoft and Microsoft is Windows at least there’s a single point of gathering for exchange of info (thousands of independent forums notwithstanding).
The Linux community are knowledgeable to a fault but they are also often prickly, impatient and demanding bordering on hostile. Requests for layman-caliber information are often greeted with the equivalent of STFU Noob or a flood of indecipherable jargon. Linux users are strong advocates for their OS but their manners are often lacking.
Really there’s only two reasons:
Not pre-installed
Too many distros
Being not pre-installed you lose the entire casual user market right off the bat. They will use what’s on the computer and nothing. These folks won’t even install a different browser, forget a different OS.
And with so many distros, and of course the religious wars that go on where ever distros are discussed, the slightly past casual users that want to experiment are scared away.
None of the rest of that list matters as long as those two issues hold. Because you need to actually install Linux to run into the rest of this lists, and those two factors keep the bulk of the market from ever installing.
The best Desktop Unix box for the masses exists. It can be purchased from Apple with the Mac.
For better or worse, Apple won Desktop Unix years ago.
In 1984 I bought my first computer. I was torn between buying a Commodore 64 or the new Atari 1200xl. I bought the Atari because it had the superior hardware. Unfortunately everyone I knew had the Commodore and most of the available software was for the Commodore. My hard lesson was for any computing platform software availability is an essential consideration.
For this reason alone Linux has been, remains, and may always be a tiny niche platform...
I haven’t messed with it for years, and have been in tech for ~25 years.
How about: 1) It is (was?) non-obvious, and overly difficult, just to install software.
The company I work for are slow adopters (I should just say slow!). They are only now beginning their Win-10 migration plan. It’s a mess because it isn’t very well thought out and they’ve done a lousy job of performing the ramp-up details.
A number of mission-critical apps aren’t compatible with Win-10 (mostly due to versioning). As a workaround they’re scrambling to provide VDI workarounds. It’s a perfect opportunity to start adding Linux workstations into the environment but they won’t even consider a pilot program.
So there’s your Number 11: Entrenched and myopic thinking on the part of IT managers
If there was a flavor of Linux that worked as well as macOS or even OS X, had professional audio apps, plugins & virtual instruments written for it by 3rd party vendors who specialize in pro-audio applications—I’d use it 24/7.
Till Linux has the quality & at least a 3rd of the quantity of pro audio applications that Windows or macOS does, it’s completely useless to me.
As far as pro audio goes, Linux is barely past the Windows 95 era, in my opinion.
For the vast majority of people, Windows just works. I have custom compiled Gentoo distros, so I got all techy about it. But the truth was, for the vast majority of what I do, Windows was good enough, more than good enough. There was just no compelling reason to go with Linux for me.
I use the computer for useful work. I don’t like to fiddle with operating systems. The OS should just work, and not get in my way.
When I got my first computer I called a unix distributor and he quoted 999.00 per computer. I said that DOS was only 65.00 and he said that Unix was better. I went with DOS. END OF STORY.