Why aren't more people ditching Microsoft and instead running, say, GNU/Linux?

[Cowboy T]

I've professionally worked on half a dozen different unix flavors, installed Linux distros on dozens of machines. I would never use Linux as my main "daily driver" machine.

Windows isn't great, but I generally don't want to have to think when using my computer. Windows mostly works without the need for thought. Computers are largely entering the disposable good category, so by the time windows has issues due to accumulated errors it's easier and more effective to replace rather than repair.

Frankly as I get older and less tech inclined I do 90% of my "computer" activity on a phone. Another good option would be a Chromebook style box which has plenty of functionality for 99% of use cases outside heavy media manipulation or gaming.

Now, I find this rather interesting. I actually do use GNU/Linux as my "daily driver" and have since 2003 when I got rid of my last Windows 98 OS. However, your comment about doing 90% of your "computer" activity on a phone, I'm seeing this more and more. A few years ago, I replaced the factory stereo head unit in my wife's car with an Android unit, and it turns out that LibreOffice Reader is available for Android. Plug in a keyboard and mouse/trackball, and yep, you can do about 90% of your "computer" work from this car's stereo head unit! Since it's Android, for Internet connectivity, it can have its own SIM card, use whatever local WiFi hotspot that's available, or even tether to a smartphone. And it all works pretty well.

Therefore, that tells me that tablets or something similar like Chromebooks really can be a viable replacement for a full-blown desktop or laptop computer, for a lot of people. Just pop in a 1TB micro-SD card (yes, those exist now, and they do work well), and your local storage is well covered, too. Hmm....

[Cowboy T]

This is a big reason. Particularly when it comes to integration with other enterprise systems thanks to Entra AD and Intune. Another is familiarity. Learning the quirks of a new operating system is painfully annoying. Suddenly experts become beginners. No one enjoys that. My new employer runs Macs exclusively. It has been a major annoyance for me. Not only learning my new role but having to do it with a computer and OS that I am not all that comfortable using or familiar with. This has made the transition that much more difficult. Not something I would do by choice. I say that as someone who has been repairing Macs as part of his role for about a decade. Additionally, the "my system is better than yours" is bogus. Macs and, yes, Linux operating systems have just as many problems as Windows. I've seen the failures with Mac in a professional capacity for roughly the past 10 years. No operating system is perfect, and none are any better than the others. In the case of Linux, the sample size is so much smaller by comparison that the complaints just don't bubble up as much. Additionally, users of Linux tend to be much more tech savvy and figure out the solutions to problems they run into without having to broadcast them on as many forums. It is not an OS non-technical people gravitate towards.

The highlighted part above is also quite interesting to me, due to my own field observations. I have noticed that Microsoft keeps changing the UI and moving stuff all over the place with every new version of the Windows OS, ever since Windows XP. Windows Vista, then 7, then 8.x, then 10, then 11. They're all different. I hear people complaining regularly about, "where did they put the Bluetooth/Display/network/etc. this time?", all the time. So, people are essentially having to relearn a new OS with every new version of Windows. It drives a lot of my users at work nuts.

Apple has been much more consistent with the Mac OS X interface, and even that, when it first came out, was close enough to "Classic MacOS" (i. e. Mac OS 9) that I could adjust to it pretty easily. I'll give Apple that. Coming from a Microsoft Windows environment, yeah, it's rather a change, especially if you're technical, which it sounds like you probably are, like me. We techies are kinda expected to "figure stuff out", though.

Enterprise integration, I get it. There's lots of stuff at work that depends on Microsoft's ecosystem, including at my place of business.

I also would like to point out nearly all the people providing input on this are presenting some solid evidence and reasons for their positions, and I appreciate that. It's helping me understand better what the barriers are, so thank you for that.

[tacticalcity]

The highlighted part above is also quite interesting to me, due to my own field observations. I have noticed that Microsoft keeps changing the UI and moving stuff all over the place with every new version of the Windows OS, ever since Windows XP. Windows Vista, then 7, then 8.x, then 10, then 11. They're all different. I hear people complaining regularly about, "where did they put the Bluetooth/Display/network/etc. this time?", all the time. So, people are essentially having to relearn a new OS with every new version of Windows. It drives a lot of my users at work nuts.

Apple has been much more consistent with the Mac OS X interface, and even that, when it first came out, was close enough to "Classic MacOS" (i. e. Mac OS 9) that I could adjust to it pretty easily. I'll give Apple that. Coming from a Microsoft Windows environment, yeah, it's rather a change, especially if you're technical, which it sounds like you probably are, like me. We techies are kinda expected to "figure stuff out", though.

Enterprise integration, I get it. There's lots of stuff at work that depends on Microsoft's ecosystem, including at my place of business.

I also would like to point out nearly all the people providing input on this are presenting some solid evidence and reasons for their positions, and I appreciate that. It's helping me understand better what the barriers are, so thank you for that.

Microsoft was a lot guiltier of this in the past than they are in the present. Windows 8 for example was a nightmare. Most people skipped it. Going from Windows 7 to 10. The transition from 10 to 11 was rather painless. Most the changes were superficial at best. And things generally were where you expected them to be. Especially on things the average end user would use. What changed the most, is that it got faster and the ability to search for things on the system itself got better. I was not looking forward to the change. But making it and feeling comfortable with it took about 1-3 days. Since it came out, I transitioned between 10 and 11 for work on home on a regular basis. Sometimes multiple times a day. At the time, I worked in Technical Support.

Mac logic for things has always thrown me a little. I can remember 30+ years ago when I first had to drag a CD into the trash bin to eject it had me thinking it would delete all my files. That still exists, and there are lots of examples of things just like that with a Mac. Once you're comfortable with those things, it becomes normal to you. You can't imagine it being any other way. But it's not intuitive, which is something Mac users constantly claim their system of choice to be.

End of the day, it comes down to what you are used to and comfortable with. Now I am having to transition between a Mac and a PC on a daily basis. Which mean I constantly hit the wrong shortcuts for both every time I try and do anything. Gotta wonder how many years I'll be doing that for. Oh, and did I mention I am learning Linux CLI as a major part of my new role? My resume will look awesome when I am done. But it's a lot of frustration. A lot and lot of frustration.

[Cowboy T]

You're learning the Linux CLI? On a Mac? I thought it would be the BSD CLI, since Mac OS X is FreeBSD-based. Fortunately, once you learn one, it's pretty easy to transition to the other. I go between Korn Shell (ksh) and Bourne Again Shell (bash) pretty easily, as I also use OpenBSD and FreeBSD. You're going through the same sort of learning that I had to go through; you'll get it, and it'll make a lot of sense. And then you'll wonder why Microsoft spent all that money and energy reinventing the wheel with PowerSmell instead of just going with ksh or bash, both of which already existed and work great. Ah, well.

You're right in that "what you're used to" does matter to most people. I grew up on PC-DOS back in the day and MS-DOS later on. I used to really like Microsoft, don't get me wrong. Even was a Windows NT evangelist back in the day. Ran Windows NT Workstation as my daily driver, which worked very well, and I encouraged others to run NT Workstation as well. Ran 32-bit OS/2 before then. Anything UNIX-y scared the daylights out of me back then. Wasn't used to it yet.

We currently run Windows 10 at work. That was another drastic change from Windows 7 (we skipped 8). Windows 11, they still moved some things around which I personally found really annoying. I guess if all you're doing is Web surfing and such, then it's close enough. But like you, I actually *use* my OS. I wish they would just leave the frickin' interface alone. That's the thing about MacOS; for Microsoft-accustomed folks, it's definitely a change, but once you learn the MacOS interface, it stays pretty consistent across OS versions.

That's the thing about, say, the LXQt desktop for GNU/Linux and *BSD. It looks so much like Microsoft Windows 7 (which was actually a decent UI) that I just told people, "it's the new version of Windows". They sat down and used it without any problems. Only later I told them it was "Linux", and they said, "but I thought it was just for techies! Everybody says that!" They had to admit that "what everybody says" isn't always true. :-) Basically, I gave them a UI that looked like a dead-ringer for what they were used to, and they had no problem with it. They don't run AutoCAD or any other similar specialized software. They do basically office productivity and Web surfing.

So, it can be done in a lot of cases (not all, per the above posts, but a lot), and experience has taught me that it can be done more easily that a lot of people who write tech magazines want to report. We need to remember that those magazines depend on ad revenue from the likes of Microsoft. That's a huge part of their budget.

[Big Chudungus]

Marketing, conditioning and reinforcement.

momentum. IBM made MS the Govt standard, so it became the business standard, so it became the private standard. MS seems to make secret evil side deals with important Software firms like Solidworks to "build in a Windows system" in exchange for...???....MS not constantly doing crappy little things to break the Application?

I heard about some "Windows emulator" a while back but not recently, and even if it was around stuff like Solidworks is still squirrelly enough I'd often be wondering "is it me, or is it SW, or is it because I'm trying to run it via this Open Source emulator with zero support?"

IMO Trump could crack down on MS nonsense like OneDrive ransomware as a legit National Security issue. Both overt NS and "making the USA less competitive". I'm predicting a few years, or months, there will be a big scandal about trillions worth of important American corp, and research, data being stolen by "suspected Red Chinese, possibly with Russian help" hackers via OneDrive.

[yellowsulphur]

GNU is looking a bit Rusty these days.

[Cowboy T]

GNU is looking a bit Rusty these days.

Not so sure. I find Debian's version of GNU (specifically, GNU/Linux, in my case), which I'm using right now, to be pretty rust-free.

Now, if you mean the FSF, then I might agree with you.

[Evolved]

I’ve got Linux on a couple computers of mine and I enjoy it but I believe it’s mostly that it’s become so popular to use Windows that barring Microsoft really screwing up so badly to where people are forced to switch, it’s really Microsoft’s game to lose more than anything. Windows is to computers what gasoline is to cars at this point. There’s some folks who have switched but the market share is vastly Windows for the foreseeable future.

[sigstroker]

Now, I find this rather interesting. I actually do use GNU/Linux as my "daily driver" and have since 2003 when I got rid of my last Windows 98 OS. However, your comment about doing 90% of your "computer" activity on a phone, I'm seeing this more and more. A few years ago, I replaced the factory stereo head unit in my wife's car with an Android unit, and it turns out that LibreOffice Reader is available for Android. Plug in a keyboard and mouse/trackball, and yep, you can do about 90% of your "computer" work from this car's stereo head unit! Since it's Android, for Internet connectivity, it can have its own SIM card, use whatever local WiFi hotspot that's available, or even tether to a smartphone. And it all works pretty well.

Therefore, that tells me that tablets or something similar like Chromebooks really can be a viable replacement for a full-blown desktop or laptop computer, for a lot of people. Just pop in a 1TB micro-SD card (yes, those exist now, and they do work well), and your local storage is well covered, too. Hmm....

So just when you've had enough of Microshaft intruding, you replace it with... google? LOL

[Dan_Eastvale]

I like Windows, IOS, and Android.

Compatibility with the world

[Cowboy T]

So just when you've had enough of Microshaft intruding, you replace it with... google? LOL

Who said I did? LOL ;-)

[Reno-Kid]

15 years ago I was running Linspire. You could easily load and run many Windows applications in Linux. It was pretty awesome for novice users. I think even better was the BeOS system which was pretty awesome. BeOS could run on Intel and Apple boxes. MS took the BeOS threat seriously, and drove it to bankruptcy.

[Cowboy T]

Yes, I remember what happened with BeOS. Microsoft did the same thing to DR-DOS. DEC won the court case, but by that time, the damage was already done.

It seems to me that a lot of why so many people stick with Microsoft OS's, despite the problems with MS Windows, is a combination of preloads on PC's and the resulting "network effect".

Just glad I no longer am on the Microsoft treadmill, with all that spyware reporting my every move to the "mothership". But that's me personally.

[SactoDoug]

IMO, the road to getting wider Linux adoption is getting people to use Free Open Source Software (FOSS). I had been in the MicroSoft camp for decades since my first PC with MS DOS on it in 1991. I started using open source software in the late 2000's because I was broke and it was free. The last piece of the puzzle for me was gaming. Steam fixed that for me with Proton. I don't play these competitive online games that require kernel level anti-cheat. The hundreds of games in my Steam library work on Linux including many recent titles like Elden Ring, Balder's Gate, Doom Eternal, etc.

I use Linux Mint. It reminds me a lot of the simpler UI of XP or 7. Things work great out of box. It can get complicated if you start doing more advanced things. 90% of what I do is easily done in Linux Mint. The few things that I do need Windows for I can do in one of my Windows virtual machines I created in Qemu/KVM. For example, I have proprietary software for my keyboard that will only work in Windows. I installed it in the VM and it works fine. I use my other Win11 VM for work where if my ISO office decides they want to spy on my machine, they will only see the VM.

IMO the operating system should not be front and center. The applications should. The OS should run in the background and be as unintrusive as possible. MS has committed the cardinal sin of turning Windows into spyware. They lost my business. It looks like it is only getting worse. When I go into my Win11 VMs I can see not only the spying but also Windows pushing ads in the OS. How absurd is that. Even Android is not pushing ads in the OS.

[amd64]

IMO, the road to getting wider Linux adoption is getting people to use Free Open Source Software (FOSS). I had been in the MicroSoft camp for decades since my first PC with MS DOS on it in 1991. I started using open source software in the late 2000's because I was broke and it was free. The last piece of the puzzle for me was gaming. Steam fixed that for me with Proton. I don't play these competitive online games that require kernel level anti-cheat. The hundreds of games in my Steam library work on Linux including many recent titles like Elden Ring, Balder's Gate, Doom Eternal, etc.

I use Linux Mint. It reminds me a lot of the simpler UI of XP or 7. Things work great out of box. It can get complicated if you start doing more advanced things. 90% of what I do is easily done in Linux Mint. The few things that I do need Windows for I can do in one of my Windows virtual machines I created in Qemu/KVM. For example, I have proprietary software for my keyboard that will only work in Windows. I installed it in the VM and it works fine. I use my other Win11 VM for work where if my ISO office decides they want to spy on my machine, they will only see the VM.

IMO the operating system should not be front and center. The applications should. The OS should run in the background and be as unintrusive as possible. MS has committed the cardinal sin of turning Windows into spyware. They lost my business. It looks like it is only getting worse. When I go into my Win11 VMs I can see not only the spying but also Windows pushing ads in the OS. How absurd is that. Even Android is not pushing ads in the OS.

+1 Linux Mint.
I've set up all my machines with LM. Installed LM on new SSDs, and use SSD backplane racks so I can easily swap in my Windows SSDs if I need them. SSDs are dirt cheap now, I use them like USB keys. I do everything on LM except for image and video editing.