If you are a Linux protagonist who has been around as long as, or longer than, I have, you have seen responses like these over and over as to why Linux distributions will never go mainstream on the PC desktop:
- “Linux will always remain a niche platform because it does not have a native release of Adobe (Photoshop / Creative Suite / etcetera)!”
- “Linux does not have Microsoft Office and Microsoft Office power users require Microsoft Office!”
- “The web portal at (insert portal here) needs Internet Explorer. There is no native release of Internet Explorer for Linux, so no one will want to use Linux!”
- “Program X does not have a Linux version or equivalent!”
- Or other claims along the same lines …
Yes, these comments usually do have exclamation points to show how emphatic the claimant feels about the statement. I think these claimants have the equation backwards. All of these cases are what is known as a “niche market”. How many people using PC systems need to use Adobe Photoshop? How many Microsoft Office users are a “Microsoft Office power user”? How many end-users of a PC system need to go to a web portal that requires Microsoft Internet Explorer? (I will ignore the fact that many of these “IE only” web portals usually work just fine if one fakes the browser string with Firefox or Opera.) How many people need to use Program X on their PC? I am thinking, “Not that many.”, for all the above.
To me this suggests that the Microsoft platform is the niche platform:
- Do you “need” Adobe (Photoshop / Creative Suite / etcetera) for your job? Then you are a niche user.
- Do you “need” Microsoft Office because you are a “power user”? Then you are a niche user.
- Do you “need” access to an IE only web portal? Then you are a niche user.
- Do you “need” to run Program X on your PC? Then you are a niche user.
The vast majority of PC users do not need, or want, any of the programs that are often claimed to be the problem holding back adoption of Linux on the PC desktop in the mainstream. In my experience with the few end-users I have switched from Microsoft to Linux, some of them did have special needs that precluded using Linux on their desktop PC at this time. The others have zero problems using a Linux desktop PC.
These latter are people that do not try to solve PC problems themselves. They call a “computer guy” when they have problems. They would call a “computer guy” even if they ran Microsoft systems and had a problem. They have no “need” for any of the niche usage scenarios above. They are perfectly content that they can send and receive e-mail, access FaceBook, play Flash games, browse web sites, use personal finance software and make a simple spreadsheet with LibreOffice. All from their Linux based desktop PC.
One of these Linux desktop users is also a Skype user and there are “millions” of Skype users “out there”. Skype usage is less of a niche market than it used to be. That is going to be problematic once Microsoft kills Skype development for other platforms in favor of its own software now that Microsoft owns Skype. The “embrace, extend and extinguish” paradigm is still Microsoft’s bread and butter. But if Microsoft does what I suspect, Skype will end up being merged into some Microsoft based software. At that point our smart FOSS developers will likely figure out a way to inter-operate with the Microsoft software from FOSS programs. However, this “problem” would be non-existent if end-users were aware of and used FOSS communication projects like Ekiga.
So, that said, how do we get from where we are to the mainstream desktop?
The “problem” with adoption of Linux on the end-user desktop is not these niche usage scenarios. As I see it Linux adoption is a fourfold problem, apathy, education, marketing and pre-loading agreements.
- Apathy – Okay, there is not much we can do about this one. If an end-user is apathetic about what operating system is on his or her PC just let it go.
- Education – There are still many people who have no idea what Linux is or can do for them. I still meet people who have not even heard the term Linux. When I can, I give them a brief overview of what Linux is and then give them a Live CD distribution to play with. Those of us who are Linux professionals can take the opportunity to present Linux systems at local Chamber of Commerce gatherings and local technology shows.
- Marketing – There is no one company marketing Linux to the masses on a large scale. We will see no advertisement on television or in print from an “Apple” that offers an alternative to Microsoft. Most of the “Linux Big Boys” are only marketing to businesses. Actually I think this should be one of the jobs of The Linux Foundation. But until that organization takes on major advertising, we can use local media and continue to use positive “word of mouth advertising” to “market” Linux.
- Pre-loading Agreements – Microsoft has pretty much sewn up the pre-load venue with major PC manufacturers. Sure, some of these manufacturers give a slight nod to Linux and offer a few systems with Linux pre-loaded. But I am not content with the puny offerings from these major manufacturers. (Of course since my company builds custom systems with Linux pre-loaded this should come as no surprise to our regular readers.) I do not expect this to change any time soon. So, no consumers are likely to see a Linux based PC from HP, Dell, etcetera on the shelves at Best Buy. The only way I see to overcome this at this point is with education and marketing. If we can create a demand for Linux systems like Apple has done for Apple systems, the end result will be Linux systems on the shelves at major retail outlets.
There are people who should stick with Microsoft or Apple systems for their niche usage. For the rest of the PC user base, Linux on the desktop is ready to go.
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Oops, I had a typographical error in the first sentence.
Fixed now. 
Added later (5 AM local time): Yikes! Looks like I hosed the theme settings while trying to fix a comment glitch. Oh well, another lesson in “Don’t click buttons to see what they do.” At least I finally got the site mostly legible again. I apologize for any problems this may create for our readers. I will get things straightened back out later. I’m already way past my bedtime for an old guy.
I guess it is time to talk to the theme authors again. It appears the theme is not supporting direct, nested comment replies after a recent update. I can make nested comments from the admin theme, but not on the public pages. Boo!
Oh ho! Looks like it is a CKEditor <> theme interaction. I disabled CKEditor for comments, and now can post a nested reply by clicking the word REPLY in a previous comment. Sorry for the problems folks. I’ll get it fixed or just leave CKEditor disabled for comments. I should not try to fix problems when I am tired like I did last night.
I use Windows because I need it to run Microsoft Visual Studio, so I can program for Windows. It is very much, as you say, a niche usage. It is the only reason I use Windows.
In fact for everything else I use Linux, and Windows runs in a Virtual Box VM.
You are quite correct Windows is a niche market, that, due to the Pre Load Agreements, has the appearance of a major market. I suspect that Microsoft realised this very early on, and made sure they were guaranteed sales by negotiating these pre Install agreements.
You did however miss one market, that has been of major importance to Microsoft, and which has guarateed sales in a fairly large niche market, gamming. This may become less of a Microsoft owned niche over time, as the independent game developers are releasing Linux versions of their games.
Hi Tracyanne, thanks for your niche usage scenario.
I left off gaming because, even though that is a large niche, it mainly is a specific demographic that only or mostly cares about games. Specifically 3D, First Person Shooter (FPS) games. The people for whom I am writing generally do not fall into that demographic. Once gamers want to grow up and join the Big People, then they will be part of the group I am trying to reach. 
Hey now, I’m a 41 year old gamer and having raised 5 kids, I take a little offense to the “Once gamers what to grow up” part. I agree 100% with the rest of your article, but if it weren’t for the gaming industry, I would have never been interested in computers as a young boy and never made it into a career for myself and my family.
That said, I find Linux a fine platform for gaming. I play all the modern FPS and MMORPG games just fine on my Linux laptop and so do my wife and kids.
The problem is that every one wants to get 1000 fps out of their computer and it becomes more of a speed race than actual game play. I was involved with the CPL for many years and played on nothing but Linux software and did quite well, I might add.
Hi Joe,
Heh, I too am somewhat of a 51 year old “gamer”, with my own family as well. However, at my current point in my life journey, gaming is no longer my raison d’être.
At one time I ate, slept and breathed Gaming. Then I grew up in my mid 40′s and finally realized gaming, specifically 3D computer gaming, is just a way to avoid / escape Real Life. That is what I meant by “grow up and join the Big People”.
I used to use linux… now I’m back to win7 at home, and mac at work. They both just work. no more compile… remember where hacky little config file is to change networking… no more fiddling forever to get 3d graphics to work…. no more rpm dependency nightmares.. and don’t get me started on iptables.
Mark,
You appear to be trolling, but that is okay. It gives the rest of us a chance to address these non-issues with modern Linux systems. Thanks man!
Hey Mark,
When did you switch back to Windows? 1997? That old compiling software and manually editing config FUD hasn’t been relevant for some time now. Get advise on choosing a distro that fits your needs and works well with your hardware and you’ll never need to use the command line. You might want to because it’s so powerful but that’s a different issue.
Linuxrich, Mark has never used Linux. You can tell, he’s repeating FUD that was certainly never true in 2000, when I first started using Linux. And isn’t true now, as my next door neighbour, and several of my customers have discovered in the last few days.
Very nice article and promising. Hope many desktop and laptop users will understand this fact in time.
[...] Open Source: Niche Markets, Linux and Microsoft If you are a Linux protagonist who has been around as long as, or longer than, I have, you have seen responses like these over and over as to why Linux distributions will never go mainstream on the PC desktop: [...]
Mark, things have changed considerably in the Linux world since you last tried it, whenever that was. I’ve had various Linux distributions installed on my computer at home for almost seven years now and not once have I ever had to do my own compiling. I’m currently running CrunchBang and I love it and have no plans to go back to Windows — EVER.
Linux is now quite a viable alternative for many end users. Most of the machines used at my place of work are Ubuntu – with only a few “niche” users needing to have Windows installed.
The biggest niche that has been raised over and over again is the gaming niche – although I believe that this is becoming much less of an issue as the console market has taken more of the gaming market share in recent years.
If only developers would have the bravery, or perhaps the budgets, to develop games that work on linux as well as on Windows, and consoles. Then there might be a more even playing field.
Playonlinux and windows “emulators” plug this gap a little – but performance hungry gamers are not going to be satisfied until games run as fast on linux as they do on windows.
That’s not something any hacker would even think, let alone say. We have to find out.
And the worm has turned. Linux now “just works” more so than MS. No downloading drivers for the new hardware, etc.
Hi Joe,
Heh, I will modify that to say, “Don’t click buttons to see what they do while working with a live site.”