I’ve read many articles on the reasons Linux isn’t running on everyone’s desktop yet. From “too much time spent just making it all work”, to “it doesn’t support the applications I need”. Whatever the reason, Linux indeed isn’t on everyone’s desktop yet, that much has become obvious. What hasn’t become obvious, to me anyways, is why did these people switch in the first place? Were they unable to get work done in Windows? Was there something they needed that only ran on a Linux desktop? Without questioning each person, my guess is their answer will be: “Because I read about it in some article.”, or “This geek at work brags about it all the time.”
I started using Linux because I wanted to learn about the Unix environment, and being a college student meant I couldn’t buy a million dollars worth of hardware. I could however, dig up a stack of floppies and install Slackware 2.3 on my system. I did it for the pure enjoyment of it, and to broaden my scope of potential careers. I stay in Linux because I like it, and given my type of work (Unix Admin), I’m able to get it done so much faster. I run Gentoo Linux on my work laptop, personal desktop at home, and file server at home. OpenBSD runs my firewall and Linux even runs my PDA. It’s what I do.
So why, for example, would someone that browses the web, gets email, and plays solitaire, want to use Linux? Certainly Windows is perfectly capable of doing those things. Was it too insecure, leading to privacy concerns? Was it too expensive or just plain full of bugs? Something happened to suggest changing OS’s, and I have to wonder, was it worth it? If they tried Linux to learn something, then I have to think it was a success. If they tried it because someone said it was more secure, then I again have to think it was a success. If they tried Linux because they were just plain tired of the way Windows did things, but felt Linux was too complex for them, well, what options do they have left? Learn to live with the Windows way, or learn to change Linux to suit your needs. (Yes, you could buy a Mac, which I think is a great option as well, but I’m leaving out the “Buy new hardware.” option on purpose.) I’m not saying Linux isn’t hard to use, or that it doesn’t require a pretty good understanding of what’s going on in the background. What I am saying is: What’s the solution worth to you?
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