Linus his Linux challange

[ezzep]

Completely agree with you. The only thing I would say is that you forgot about Red Hat. They got bought by IBM, so now Red Hat has a huge funding partner backing them now. And I agree completely with your third point lol. So stupid that how many years has Linux had a GUI that we still can't just right click something and make a shortcut, let alone an executable, to the desktop?

 

For some of us, who are exactly like Linus, we are in a bad spot because we don't know programming of any kind lol. We know hardware, and we know how to troubleshoot, and this is the big thing that separates us from a lot of folks, not only do we know how to troubleshoot, we are willing to troubleshoot.

[Alexeygridnev1993]

7 hours ago, ezzep said:

The only thing I would say is that you forgot about Red Hat. They got bought by IBM, so now Red Hat has a huge funding partner backing them now.

RHEL has always been an enterprise-only product, and IBM acquisition didn't change that. Linux itself has more than enough funding partners in general, but desktop Linux has none at all.

[maplepants]

21 hours ago, D-reaper said:

The fact that Linus is jumping in head first without any forethought, is why it's not a pleasant experience for him. He's doing more advanced stuff which had revolved around Windows his whole life. And he's been trying to replicate that using Linux. It isn't going to work; especially with some of the hardware he has; to which those companies don't support Linux (or that well; AKA Nvidia). He needs to research what will work and what will not. Something tells me he's doing all this to show the POV of a new Linux user who does more advanced stuff on Windows already and is trying to jump right into Linux. It doesn't work.

Jumping in headfirst is kind of the point of the challenge though. The idea is to have two experienced Windows PC users true to just switch to Linux without any help beyond google. The setup is really similar to the "iSwitched to Mac" videos Linus made when the 5k iMac first launched. 

 

There's a lot of talk right now telling people unhappy about Windows 11 to "just switch to Linux". The point of these videos is to see what it's like to "just switch to Linux". It being really hard to "just switch" to Linux is a perfectly reasonable outcome for the challenge.

[D-reaper]

5 hours ago, maplepants said:

Jumping in headfirst is kind of the point of the challenge though. The idea is to have two experienced Windows PC users true to just switch to Linux without any help beyond google. The setup is really similar to the "iSwitched to Mac" videos Linus made when the 5k iMac first launched. 

 

There's a lot of talk right now telling people unhappy about Windows 11 to "just switch to Linux". The point of these videos is to see what it's like to "just switch to Linux". It being really hard to "just switch" to Linux is a perfectly reasonable outcome for the challenge.

"Jumping in headfirst is kind of the point of the challenge though." -- Sorry. But this challenge is flawed.

 

Tell you the truth, for some, like my mom, sister, or nephew, it was easy. Because they don't use much of anything beyond the web browser; reasons why Chrome OS has been successful. For those kinds of users who just want to web browse and stream, I would suggest Linux; especially if they don't want to buy a new computer because MS "told" them to if they want to use 11.

 

But Linus has a setup that he built with a Windows foundation for years. And now he's trying to swap out that foundation for another one without any forethought. It doesn't work. Which is why he can't "just switch to Linux." It's like expecting someone who doesn't have any forklift driving skills to just use a forklift.

 

Simplistic users (which is a vast majority), will not be using hardware like Linus does though. So them using Linux would be a lot easier of a transition if they aren't bound to stuff like Adobe. Like, how many people use a GOXLR? A small percentage. And how many care about gaming? Again, it isn't the majority of the masses. But gamers who do want to use Linux have to realize that if they want a decent go at Linux for gaming, they have to adapt their rig as such to be successful. I think this is the reason why most consumers prefer the game console approach. It's way easier than any form of PC gaming in general.

 

Even I, as a former Windows power user, had to find out what did and didn't work when I started with Linux on my primary rig. Took 3 months of dual booting between Linux and Windows 7 at the time. But what made it easier for me was the fact that I was using open source software on Windows long before I ever switched to Linux. Most of the time, it was just getting used to the new OS.

 

The only thing I occasionally had issues with, was my old Nvidia card. I put up with it. But then I switched to AMD last year and have had no issues since then. Now I know what hardware to avoid; typically, it's Nvidia GPUs.

 

So you see, one doesn't just switch to Linux overnight. That is what Linus is attempting to do and it's not working out for him that well. The more complex the user's setup is on Windows, the more complicated it will be for them if they are trying to use Linux. So they have to do some pre-planning.

 

The thing I don't get is that people put this pressure on Linux to act exactly like Windows, but want to ditch Windows altogether. Meanwhile, this pressure isn't there when using Mac OS; because they know that Mac is "different" and NOT Windows. Likewise, the same should be applied to Linux.

[ezzep]

20 hours ago, Alexeygridnev1993 said:

RHEL has always been an enterprise-only product, and IBM acquisition didn't change that. Linux itself has more than enough funding partners in general, but desktop Linux has none at all.

I think you are mistaken my friend. Looks like a desktop to me. Xandros, Linspire, Opensuse, who else am I missing that has or had options to buy and have a desktop experience? Or support? Xandros is the "had" of the bunch. Linspire relaunched this year or last year? Opensuse has always had an option to buy, if you want. Just like a home user license for windows, minus the stupid machine restriction.

[tylnesh]

Long time listener/viewer, first time poster. Full disclosure, I'm a full-time Linux user since 2007 both at home and at work. I do have some experience with Windows, due to providing support and creating tools for a graphics design studio, which uses CorelDraw for vector graphics. In addition to this, I'm the current admin and one of the more active members of the Ubuntu Czech and Slovak community. With all this out of the way, I'd like to share a few of my thoughts.

 

First of all, I love that LTT is creating content bringing Linux (desktop) coverage to the vast masses of its viewers. However, I was a bit disappointed with the choice of the two (three) distros, Manjaro, PopOS (I refuse to use the ridiculous spelling) and, to a lesser degree nowadays, Linux Mint has a very vocal fanbase, but somewhat small teams maintaining them. I understand that when researching using Linux, a new user will get flooded with recommendations from poor quality articles, listicles and biased forum posts that will claim that their tiny distro flavor is the best gaming distribution, but the sad fact is, that most distributions offer little added value over their base which is usually Fedora, Arch or Ubuntu/Debian. Often times, their "optimizations" or tweaks also result in weird bugs, library version misalignment, etc. I'd say that the reason Luke had superior experience over Linus is that Mint devs, being more experienced and arguably responsible are more likely to keep on top of their changes from Ubuntu/Debian base.

 

I was a bit sad that neither Ubuntu nor Fedora has been chosen by at least one of you guys, because as far as a new user's experience, they are by far the most polished and bar that, have the best support simply due to size of their userbase and the companies funding them.

 

I don't want to talk badly against other distributions, but Manjaro has had some issues in the past and their idea of ensuring stability boils down to withholding updates for some time, hoping that the Arch-proper users will find and fix any breaking bugs in their updates. This usually works fine, unless you use AUR (Arch User Repository), which counts on the user having up to date Arch installation.

 

All that being said, I am very glad that Linus and Luke has done this challenge and I hope they are not opposed to revisiting it after some time. Even right now, changes are being implemented thanks to the problem you have exposed, which makes it a better experience for current and future users. Even if just for that, the Linux desktop community owes you its gratitude. Please, don't listen to the vocal toxic minority that will hate anybody for any reason. They are everywhere, but in our community, sadly, they seem to be more visible.

 

Obligatory note: Not a native speaker, sorry for any grammar errors.

 

 

[maplepants]

18 hours ago, D-reaper said:

So you see, one doesn't just switch to Linux overnight. That is what Linus is attempting to do and it's not working out for him that well. The more complex the user's setup is on Windows, the more complicated it will be for them if they are trying to use Linux. So they have to do some pre-planning.

We agree that "what happens if I just try to install Linux on my gaming PC" was the point of the challenge. But we just disagree that this is all that valuable of a series. Therefore, I'm going to make the pitch that this is in fact a good series concept.

 

If you look up any online guide for switching to Linux from Windows, none of them start with the kind of caveats you're giving here. They don't say "step 1. begin your multi hour research process to ensure that every piece of hardware you own is properly supported on the Linux distro you want to use". I found an example mainstream guides from PC mag and it does not mention hardware compatibility at all.

 

This reddit post on linux4noobs is a good representation of the typical community advice, since the OP doesn't mention hardware at all we just one commenter saying 

Quote

To me, it's simple. You shouldn't switch to Linux if:

...

3. you own hardware that is not well supported on Linux

...

But even in this thread, ostensibly for noobs, makes absolutely no effort to tell a new user *how* they might go about finding out if they have hardware compatibility issues. I think it's fair to say that a completely new user who has heard of Linux and wants to throw it onto a spare SSD and try switching will have no idea that hardware compatibility can be such a hassle. 

 

That's why I think there's value in structuring the challenge this way. Lots of people with older than 8th gen intel CPUs will be told over the next few years "just switch to Linux" and these YouTube videos will be there as a great map of the challenges one might face. You don't need to roast your install by making some rookie mistake if you can just watch Linus do it and can learn from his mistakes.

Edited November 30, 2021 by maplepants
grammar

[Alexeygridnev1993]

5 hours ago, ezzep said:

I think you are mistaken my friend. Looks like a desktop to me. Xandros, Linspire, Opensuse, who else am I missing that has or had options to buy and have a desktop experience? Or support? Xandros is the "had" of the bunch. Linspire relaunched this year or last year? Opensuse has always had an option to buy, if you want. Just like a home user license for windows, minus the stupid machine restriction.

1) RHEL pricing starts at $299. This is over 50% more expensive than Windows 10 Pro. And they're not selling licenses to OEM partners. This pricing only makes sense for commercial use. Linspire was just s Windows XP ripoff.

 

2) A server system with GUI installed on top of that != desktop system. That is exactly what many distro makers absolutely fail to understand. You need to do so much more than just install a GUI to make the system good for desktop use. For example, as I mentioned above, an AppStore which makes sense (and not just a paper-thin layer over the command line), a bunch of simple features like the ability to create the desktop shortcut from GUI, and so on.

[D-reaper]

4 hours ago, maplepants said:

We agree that "what happens if I just try to install Linux on my gaming PC" was the point of the challenge. But we just disagree that this is all that valuable of a series. Therefore, I'm going to make the pitch that this is in fact a good series concept.

 

If you look up any online guide for switching to Linux from Windows, none of them start with the kind of caveats you're giving here. They don't say "step 1. begin your multi hour research process to ensure that every piece of hardware you own is properly supported on the Linux distro you want to use". I found an example mainstream guides from PC mag and it does not mention hardware compatibility at all.

 

This reddit post on linux4noobs is a good representation of the typical community advice, since the OP doesn't mention hardware at all we just one commenter saying 

But even in this thread, ostensibly for noobs, makes absolutely no effort to tell a new user *how* they might go about finding out if they have hardware compatibility issues. I think it's fair to say that a completely new user who has heard of Linux and wants to throw it onto a spare SSD and try switching will have no idea that hardware compatibility can be such a hassle. 

 

That's why I think there's value in structuring the challenge this way. Lots of people with older than 8th gen intel CPUs will be told over the next few years "just switch to Linux" and these YouTube videos will be there as a great map of the challenges one might face. You don't need to roast your install by making some rookie mistake if you can just watch Linus do it and can learn from his mistakes.

Again, if their use cases are simplistic and they just want to web browse at no extra cost, what the heck will they care if Linux grants them just that? A lot of these people could get away with using Linux.

 

BTW, a lot of those articles are crap. And Reddit is full of idiots. I'd say a Youtube video talking about hardware on Linux would be a more viable option. You have some decent Linux veterans on there. Like this guy:

 

He even made a video with Jay in response to Linus' attempt at jumping all in on Linux:

So, I'm still going to say that Linus has a more unique hardware setup than most people would. Even a lot of gamers are not running around with a GOXLR. For the most part, gamers would just have to get used to the install process for setting up new games. But if they are planning to switch up their GPU any time soon, an AMD card would be better to use; especially after my experiences with Nvidia.

 

I mean, it says a lot if even Linus himself says that Nvidia pretends to care about their gamer base. As a company, Nvidia became way too full of itself. Maybe it's time to rethink things. Meanwhile, people keep on feeding the monster.

 

I think with Steamdeck using an AMD APU, this information will start spreading more. Then people will come to realize that Nvidia isn't there to provide support (that involves no hassle) to anything Linux related. It's pretty obvious that Valve saw that.

[lacek]

1 hour ago, D-reaper said:

 

So, I'm still going to say that Linus has a more unique hardware setup than most people would.

Even a lot of gamers are not running around with a GOXLR. For the most part, gamers would just have to get used to the install process for setting up new games. But if they are planning to switch up their GPU any time soon, an AMD card would be better to use; especially after my experiences with Nvidia.

Nvidia vs AMD seems not to matter for this challenge. Obviously he has a non-standard setup from the persoective of "most people" or even "most gamers", most people doesn't stream. He has standard setup, which is "bought" for such tasks. This is slightly non-standard as most streamers save money here and there. And for Linux you have to check compatilibity and support before you buy hardware. Moving from Windows and keeping the hardware may be sometimes problematic, even with much more basic hardware.  This is a serious limitation in Linux deskop experience. Even worse if there is no product of certain category with good Linux support. And sometimes manufacturers claim Linux support even if they do not provide drivers, and the generic driver allows just some basic functionality.

 

Linux heeds a way to easy port drivers from other OS (easier said than done), thousands of skilled enthusiasts willing to invest lot of time to run "yet another pcie card" (not going to happen) or manufacturer's support (not going to happen, as it makes no financial sense).  Even super pro-linux people, when they actually need device X for work they are usunally fine with getting a separate Windows/Mac machine to use that device. In case of my company we wanted MS Teams that works well, not the way it works in Linux (official Teams client is shitty).

[lacek]

3 hours ago, Alexeygridnev1993 said:

1) RHEL pricing starts at $299. This is over 50% more expensive than Windows 10 Pro. And they're not selling licenses to OEM partners. This pricing only makes sense for commercial use. Linspire was just s Windows XP ripoff.

"E" in RHEL stands for "Enterprise". So surely it makes sense for commercial use, as this is actually the target audience. RHEL is not really meant for daily desktop use - just see how old the software there is (but "very stable").  You know there is much more expensive Windows 10 Enterprise, right?

 

[Alexeygridnev1993]

28 minutes ago, lacek said:

"E" in RHEL stands for "Enterprise". So surely it makes sense for commercial use, as this is actually the target audience. RHEL is not really meant for daily desktop use - just see how old the software there is (but "very stable").  You know there is much more expensive Windows 10 Enterprise, right?

 

You are exactly right. I qas just replying to a comment which claimed that RHEL was viable as a desktop system.

 

And yes, I know you can purchase Windows of a higher tier than Pro.

[maplepants]

24 minutes ago, D-reaper said:

BTW, a lot of those articles are crap. And Reddit is full of idiots.

You're 100% right here. Especially about Reddit being full of idiots, that one I know from being one of the idiots. But the reason it's a good idea to make a video that follows this advice isn't that it's good advice. It's a good video idea because it's common advice.

 

They've made loads of videos doing something you shouldn't do like; build a Hackintosh, daisy chaining thuderbolt hubs, buying knock-off CPUs. The video discussing the common advice to avoid used mining GPUs was also worth it.

 

I'm not arguing that Linus' strategy was a good choice because it was the optimal switching to Linux strategy. Rather just that it's a good strategy because if you punch "switch to linux" into google, this strategy will dominated the first page of results.

 

36 minutes ago, D-reaper said:

You have some decent Linux veterans on there

These are very cool videos, and I very much enjoyed them. They're probably right that people wanting to switch to Linux should just buy a whole new PC after doing the research to make sure that every piece of hardware you're getting is well supported in their distro. But Jay's point is really important that even if this advice is correct, it's not what the community tells prospective new users.

 

Honestly, if these Learn Linux TV guys were what came up when you search for "switch to Linux", then I'd agree that the challenge had a flawed premise. But based on the actual results that I still see now when searching "switch to Linux" I think the challenge format is one of it's strengths not a weakness.

[D-reaper]

2 hours ago, lacek said:

Nvidia vs AMD seems not to matter for this challenge. Obviously he has a non-standard setup from the persoective of "most people" or even "most gamers", most people doesn't stream. He has standard setup, which is "bought" for such tasks. This is slightly non-standard as most streamers save money here and there. And for Linux you have to check compatilibity and support before you buy hardware. Moving from Windows and keeping the hardware may be sometimes problematic, even with much more basic hardware.  This is a serious limitation in Linux deskop experience. Even worse if there is no product of certain category with good Linux support. And sometimes manufacturers claim Linux support even if they do not provide drivers, and the generic driver allows just some basic functionality.

 

Linux heeds a way to easy port drivers from other OS (easier said than done), thousands of skilled enthusiasts willing to invest lot of time to run "yet another pcie card" (not going to happen) or manufacturer's support (not going to happen, as it makes no financial sense).  Even super pro-linux people, when they actually need device X for work they are usunally fine with getting a separate Windows/Mac machine to use that device. In case of my company we wanted MS Teams that works well, not the way it works in Linux (official Teams client is shitty).

It's not up to Linux. And it's not Linux's fault either. This is a matter of needing more manufacturers to support Linux. Linux can only do so much if the hardware manufacturers don't support it. But the basis of this is that no OS supports all hardware; not even Windows. It's doesn't exist. This is a myth that needs to be busted.

[D-reaper]

2 hours ago, maplepants said:

You're 100% right here. Especially about Reddit being full of idiots, that one I know from being one of the idiots. But the reason it's a good idea to make a video that follows this advice isn't that it's good advice. It's a good video idea because it's common advice.

 

They've made loads of videos doing something you shouldn't do like; build a Hackintosh, daisy chaining thuderbolt hubs, buying knock-off CPUs. The video discussing the common advice to avoid used mining GPUs was also worth it.

 

I'm not arguing that Linus' strategy was a good choice because it was the optimal switching to Linux strategy. Rather just that it's a good strategy because if you punch "switch to linux" into google, this strategy will dominated the first page of results.

 

These are very cool videos, and I very much enjoyed them. They're probably right that people wanting to switch to Linux should just buy a whole new PC after doing the research to make sure that every piece of hardware you're getting is well supported in their distro. But Jay's point is really important that even if this advice is correct, it's not what the community tells prospective new users.

 

Honestly, if these Learn Linux TV guys were what came up when you search for "switch to Linux", then I'd agree that the challenge had a flawed premise. But based on the actual results that I still see now when searching "switch to Linux" I think the challenge format is one of it's strengths not a weakness.

I wouldn't say you have to buy a whole new PC (Unless it's a laptop with Nvidia giving you issues). Just make adjustments on your hardware. Start basic and then add other devices to the mix after checking that they work on Linux. But in my experience, basic AMD laptops and Intel laptops will work out of the gate with no issues. This is why I avoid anything Nvidia now. Things are pretty much guaranteed to work that way. That, and I avoid Realtek WiFi cards; the support is barely decent on those for Windows either. Realtek components (generally WiFi cards) are typically cheap too.

 

But let's just see how things play out for Luke and Linus. I am sure someone is going to be dying their hair like the Windows logo colors.

[lacek]

14 minutes ago, D-reaper said:

It's not up to Linux. And it's not Linux's fault either. This is a matter of needing more manufacturers to support Linux. Linux can only do so much if the hardware manufacturers don't support it. But the basis of this is that no OS supports all hardware; not even Windows. It's doesn't exist. This is a myth that needs to be busted.

Yes not 100%, but clearly Mac/Windows supports much more consumer hardware than Linux does.   And for "electronics equipment" (oscilloscopes etc), they quite often have windows-only software. There is sigrok on Linux, but it is community driven.    When I go to a computer store, and buy a piece of hardware, do I really have to check if there are Windows drivers? Not really.   There are counterexamples, some hardware has Win 7, win 10, but no Win 8 drivers (e.g. AMD A10-9700 processor), but there are  between rare and non-existent. 

[D-reaper]

7 minutes ago, lacek said:

Yes not 100%, but clearly Mac/Windows supports much more consumer hardware than Linux does.   And for "electronics equipment" (oscilloscopes etc), they quite often have windows-only software. There is sigrok on Linux, but it is community driven.    When I go to a computer store, and buy a piece of hardware, do I really have to check if there are Windows drivers? Not really.   There are counterexamples, some hardware has Win 7, win 10, but no Win 8 drivers (e.g. AMD A10-9700 processor), but there are  between rare and non-existent. 

Well, sometimes when it comes to picking out devices, it pays to be prudent. Even if you are a Windows user.

[finest feck fips]

3 hours ago, lacek said:

clearly Mac/Windows supports much more consumer hardware than Linux does

macOS supports almost no hardware at all, which is why installing it on hardware not made by Apple is a whole thing. However, more consumer hardware manufacturers for certain classes of devices support macOS than support Linux.

[D-reaper]

8 minutes ago, finest feck fips said:

macOS supports almost no hardware at all, which is why installing it on hardware not made by Apple is a whole thing. However, more consumer hardware manufacturers for certain classes of devices support macOS than support Linux.

Funny how that goes. Huh?

[Alexeygridnev1993]

Everything related to audio and video production will get MacOS support as a priority, as this is what Macs are mostly used for.

[lacek]

16 hours ago, finest feck fips said:

macOS supports almost no hardware at all, which is why installing it on hardware not made by Apple is a whole thing. However, more consumer hardware manufacturers for certain classes of devices support macOS than support Linux.

Yes, obviously Apple does not support making hackintoshes.  Deal is if you have a mac, everything that you can connect it will likely work as far as we discuss consumer hardware: phones, cameras, video camera, microphone, capture cards, external disks,   usb gadgets.    Surely CNC machines are another story.

 

That said there are hardware classes that support Linux/BSD system first: some network gear, and disk controllers (e.g. LSI )list not just "and Linux" as a supported OS, but proudly list like 15 version of different Linux distros (like RHEL) and Unix (various BSDs, Ilumnos etc...) and "and Windows 7,8,10".

"Normal people" use windows and hardware for normal people would surely work on Windows, and perhaps on other sytems

"Linux" is suported money-wise by cluster/server operators, Google, Intel....  so this is where money goes for drivers development

"Mac" is used often by audio/video people, at least they used to be a large noticeable group, but now it is "also normal people".

Normal people do not assemble computers, they buy computers and perhaps reinstall the OS that was meant to be used on them in the first place. Normal people buy USB gadgets. And Gamers are also Windows based. There is little point in Linux gaming. "You can do it" but little added value there, except for ideological reasons.

[D-reaper]

2 hours ago, lacek said:

Normal people do not assemble computers, they buy computers and perhaps reinstall the OS that was meant to be used on them in the first place. Normal people buy USB gadgets. And Gamers are also Windows based. There is little point in Linux gaming. "You can do it" but little added value there, except for ideological reasons.

Well, if more manufacturers sell computers with Linux, that would change. Wouldn't it? Manufacturers like Dell and System76 do.

[linkboy]

1 hour ago, D-reaper said:

Well, if more manufacturers sell computers with Linux, that would change. Wouldn't it? Manufacturers like Dell and System76 do.

It doesn't matter how many manufactures sell computers with Linux if you can't find them. The average consumer, who Linux needs to gain market share in order to be a successful desktop OS, buys their computer from places like Target, Wal-Mart, or Best Buy. They have no idea that a company like System76 exists, or that Dell (or Lenovo who sells Thinkpads pre-installed with Linux) sells computer with Linux pre-installed.

 

The other issue is that the average consumer doesn't know what Linux even is.

 

You also still have the software issue. Until companies start to bring their software over to Linux natively, it's still going to have issues in the desktop space. Programs like LibreOffice and GIMP are incredible programs for being free, but MS Office and Photoshop they're not. Running a program through a compatibility layer like WINE, no matter how good it is, will never be as good as native code.

 

People aren't going to buy Linux enabled computers if the software isn't there to back it up, and retailers won't stock something if people aren't buying said product.

 

 

[D-reaper]

4 hours ago, linkboy said:

It doesn't matter how many manufactures sell computers with Linux if you can't find them. The average consumer, who Linux needs to gain market share in order to be a successful desktop OS, buys their computer from places like Target, Wal-Mart, or Best Buy. They have no idea that a company like System76 exists, or that Dell (or Lenovo who sells Thinkpads pre-installed with Linux) sells computer with Linux pre-installed.

 

The other issue is that the average consumer doesn't know what Linux even is.

 

You also still have the software issue. Until companies start to bring their software over to Linux natively, it's still going to have issues in the desktop space. Programs like LibreOffice and GIMP are incredible programs for being free, but MS Office and Photoshop they're not. Running a program through a compatibility layer like WINE, no matter how good it is, will never be as good as native code.

 

People aren't going to buy Linux enabled computers if the software isn't there to back it up, and retailers won't stock something if people aren't buying said product.

 

 

Sure. But manufacturers just need to promote themselves and their Linux laptops to the big chains. Apple and MS does it. Why can't they? And the average user may not know what Linux is. But they unknowingly use it regardless. Look at Chromebook for example. That's based on Gentoo. Anyone can give a Linux distribution a new name after all.

 

Out of all the computers I fixed in computer tech over the course of 7 years, not a single one of those customers used Adobe products (I'm not kidding). The people who use Adobe stuff are more specialized users than the average consumer anyways (who use it for a living). So most average consumers only care about web browsing and streaming. And in fact, the customers I helped were happy that they didn't have to pay for another office subscription because I installed LibreOffice for them. And the odd person I recommended Krita to because they were really wanting to paint. But they didn't want to pay for a monthly subscription to use Photoshop; they saw it as kind of ridiculous. They were happy that there was an alternative.

 

The thing is, people who know about the open source loophole just need to bring it to other people's attention so that those people know that it's there. That's what's missing.

 

So given this, those average consumers, who are not hardcore gamers or designers, wouldn't have an issue using Linux. That's because they are more simplistic users. And in my experiences of helping customers, that's a lot of them.