Linux in the Mainstream, Who’s Really to Blame?

Today while browsing I recently found this article where someone wrote about his frustrations trying to install Firefox 3.6 in Ubuntu, and felt that the difficulty he had was a prime reason for the failure of Linux on the desktop. I was so completely annoyed after reading his piece that I thought I would post an “answer” of my own, but it transformed into something different. What are the real reasons why Linux has failed to go mainstream?

Reason #1: User Ignorance
First of all, let’s clear the air a bit on the article I linked to above. When it comes to Ubuntu, it is not a rolling distribution. You cannot expect to automatically have the newest major version of anything until the next version of the distribution is released, which happens every six months. The same holds true for Firefox. You will probably have Firefox 3.6 automatically when Ubuntu 10.04 comes out should you choose to upgrade, but you will not get Firefox magically on release day without breaking Ubuntu’s release policies.

This is why research is so important if you decide to use Linux. If you want the latest Firefox immediately after it is released, anything but a rolling release distribution is not for you. There are, however, third party repositories set up to offer you things like the newest Firefox in Ubuntu, but it isn’t supported. If you’re using a rolling release distribution (such as Arch), you can usually expect things like Firefox within a week to find themselves on your machine.

If you go to download Firefox 3.6 for Linux, you will get a compressed archive with a bunch of files in it, not anything to install. This is not the fault of Linux, but Mozilla refusing to compile the browser for the most common distributions. Blame Mozilla for this one. I’d love to be able to download it and install it too.

This is the first reason why Linux has failed to go mainstream, user ignorance. Quite a few people out there have a preconcieved notion on how things are “supposed to be” and then get angry when things aren’t the way they think they should be. This closed-mindedness hurts Linux more than anything. Just because Windows does it a certain way, doesn’t mean that everyone else should do it that way too.

The bottomline is this: If you are going to use an operating system other than the one you are using now, research it first and at least figure out what the differences are, as well as the type of release model it uses. I’m going to get Firefox 3.6 automatically when I update my Arch box after the mirrors sync. It doesn’t get any easier than that!

Reason #2: Bad Press
A couple of years ago, I had trouble getting SLI to work in Linux. To be fair, I had issues getting it to work in Windows too. I didn’t think it was necessary to write an article slamming Windows for my inability to get it working or even write one slamming Linux. That’s because I find that bad press doesn’t help any operating system. There’s certainly a fine line between having a computer problem and bashing an entire operating system over it, rather than seeking help in any one of the thousands of message boards out there.

As I read the stories from my newsreaders each day, this is a common occurance. People often get frustrated about something and then they’ll write an article about it, slamming the product. It’s perfectly fine in my book to give something a negative review because it doesn’t work at all, but it’s not okay to bash an entire operating system because you can’t get a particular program installed.

Bad press hurts. In the case of the Firefox article I mentioned above, I don’t know if I should blame the author for being extremely misinformed or the publishing company for allowing it on their site. Either way, bad (uninformed) press hurts everyone.

Reason #3: Lack of Marketing
Linux doesn’t have any marketing, or at least I’ve never seen any. Everywhere I look I see commercials for Windows 7, and how all these seemingly average people have somehow had a hand in designing it. Putting the inconsistencies of those claims aside, it’s no wonder Linux hasn’t caught on. I fondly see Linux as a superior system in every way, but unless we start airing a “I helped design it” series of ads of our own, no one will even know it exists.

That’s not to say that extreme progress hasn’t been made. I can go to Dell and order an Ubuntu laptop if I wanted to (and I did) so that’s some really good progress. It’s only uphill from here, but as long as Microsoft and Apple are drowning everyone in ads, those products will always be the first to come to mind.

Reason #4: Lack of Third Party Vendors
The typical Linux software repository has thousands of awesome apps. Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin, Gimp, Amarok, Open Office, and a bunch more are all a single install action away, if those programs aren’t already included with your distribution. The problem remains that some of the most popular apps (especially commercial games) are Windows only, and may or may not work with the compatibility options in Linux (Crossover, Cedega, Wine, PlayonLinux, etc).

Being a gamer, this part stings me personally. Two of my favorite games are Oblivion and Fallout 3, both of which do not have native Linux support. I was able to get them both working in PlayonLinux, with some pretty good performance too. In fact, most of my games I am able to play in Linux using some form of compatibility hack or another. It may not be as easy, but you can get anything to work if you try hard enough.

For the average person though, using one of the aforementioned compatibility apps is not readily apparent. They put the disc in, and it doesn’t work, and that’s all they care about. I believe that if more third party software companies released games for Linux, it would make it a more viable platform for gamers. I’ll even go as far as to say that this element of Linux could probably be curbed with some really good (and easy to use) game development software to encourage developers to enter the Linux world.

Final Thoughts
All operating systems have problems. All operating systems have benefits and weaknesses. I think that’s an important point to remember. The reason that Linux isn’t mainstream isn’t because some doofus had a problem installing Firefox, it’s just lack of marketing, bad press, lack of commercial games, and user ignorance. On the plus side, Linux is a wonderful platform filled with thousands (millions?) of helpful people that share a common interest: they just want to use their computer, darn it. I think that’s ultimately why Linux will always be “mainstream” in my book.