Why Linux Hasn’t Gone Mainstream Yet

Jun 06

Why Linux Hasn’t Gone Mainstream Yet

linux geek.png Editor’s Note: This post was written by guest author Pieter De Decker, who is also the developer of the free USBsyncer and iPodCALsync! Feel free to read past articles that Pieter has written.

Even though Linux is more user-friendly than it ever was, it has yet to catch on with the average Joe. Having used Ubuntu Linux for over a year, I’m pretty familiar with both the graphical interface and the terminal. I’m gonna play devil’s advocate and try to uncover what’s keeping the crowd away from Linux.

You can’t just go and install anything you find on the net

When you use Windows, you get used to the fact that any piece of software you find on the net is compatible with your operating system. Sure, many sites are dedicated to finding cool Linux software but I did miss being able to try everything I came across. Even though I find myself uninstalling these things afterwards in many cases, I still missed being able to play around with these things. Joost is a perfect example in this category.

There are Linux-compatible alternatives out there for every Windows app, but they’re not always good enough to replace them.

Linux has a dedicated community of volunteers that work on all sorts of cool applications in their spare time. Not every app however is ready to compete with their Windows counterparts just yet. For example, I enjoyed using Pidgin/Gaim but I did miss a couple of features, most of which are hard to develop without some help from the companies running the IM networks. I’m a loyal MSN user so I had to miss out on winks, backgrounds, audio/video chat, games and all that stuff that makes Windows Live Messenger have such a big memory footprint. Or how about video editing? Until this day, I haven’t found an open-source alternative that is good enough to replace Pinnacle Studio. Although this is mostly due to the fact that Linux developers have a lot less resources, that excuse is not going to get Windows users to switch.

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