- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
Vidya is just the tip of the iceberg of Linux's "plans for market dominance" woes. Aside from the obvious "Windows is preinstalled so it dominates the market" ordeal, everything that Torvalds mentioned about desktop Linux still holds true to this day.
The so-called "friendly and open Linux community" has this strange internal conflict with what it is that they want and how they want to accomplish it. To me it seems that all they care about is that people who use Windows should use Linux no matter what as long as the StatCounter and Steam Survey numbers shift towards a higher Linux percentage as ultimately those are the only two counters that are anywhere close to showing how popular desktop Linux is, and they are always extremely small, so they feel insecure and whenever they have any significant bump they will run around celebrating them. Don't act like it never happened either, happened when Steam Survey showed more Linux users due to Steam Deck and it happened when StatCounter hit the mythical 5% and everyone celebrated that as a huge win.
Thing is that no, no one will be willing to ditch absolutely everything just to move to Linux like many Linux users wish the world to work, because most people aren't tied to an ideology of using one OS over the other, and if they were to make the change, then this OS has to meet their practical requirements of what the OS is capable of and if it meets their needs. Coincidentally, the Linux community seems to refuse this reality, so whenever people try to convince other people to switch to Linux, they never mention any issues that are unique to Linux, but instead only point to Windows issues that don't exist on Linux. Lying by omission, because if they were brutally honest about all the drawbacks of desktop Linux that still exist then they would validate the truth behind those userbase numbers, which is something they want to reject. All that matters is more people using Linux, period.
And whenever you point out that this mentality is fundamentally flawed, you will be faced with denial and attacks, a defense mechanism to avoid accepting that yes, there are fundamental flaws with desktop Linux that stem from Linux users being too focused on the ideological part of it rather than the practical, pragmatic part of it, and that ultimately it's the Linux community that's dragging desktop Linux down. It's the Linux community that develops desktop Linux, and they are the ones that refuse to bring Wine up to a standard where you don't have to mess around with it's configuration to get your Windows software running. They're the ones that can't decide whether to use X11, Wayland, or develop XLibre and use it in their distros. They're the ones that can't decide whether or not to use systemd, and if they don't use systemd, which subset of tools to use, where differences between them can cause issues that will draw away software developers even further leading to the Linux desktop software ecosystem to be a barren desert that no one would be willing to switch to. They're the ones acting like the vegans of the Internet, inserting themselves into discussions that don't mention Linux to praise how amazing and woe-free Linux is and how everyone should switch to it. They're the ones that say that "the entire Linux community isn't like that" even though no matter where you go online this is exactly what you're faced with, and that's what ultimately forms the opinion about Linux in the masses. They're the ones that refuse to accept this and try and change their image due to their "community friendliness", leading to them getting irritated when reminded of what it looks like to most people. They're the ones that constantly compare desktop Linux to Windows as their main competitor then turn around and say that "Linux isn't Windows" and that you're irrational if you're expecting Linux to be like Windows even though that's always how it's presented to you: Windows but better.
It's an endless cycle of the exact same shit, and if the Linux community was actually smart, they'd go "fuck off we're full", they'd end with their evangelization and constant war with Windows, actually be concise with the "Linux is not Windows" statement and stay in their little 5% userbase niche, not trying to achieve something they'll never will without radically changing the way they approach this war and without radically changing desktop Linux. But as you already know, this will never happen. I'll get the exact same stickers from the exact same users, be told the exact same statements of how I'm wrong, and no one will ever learn anything.
