Have you used Linux? If so, what was your experience like?
Would you run it as your primary system? Why or why not?
A few years back my computer gave up its ghost at the worst conceivable time. We were in a bit of a financial crunch (having just dropped money on a new home) and a new computer was simply not in the budget. SO set up a "pie" machine he had (Orange Pie?—NOT the Raspberry thing) for me to do some basic stuff at home and for about five months that was my home computer.
The experience was overall mixed, but leaned heavily into the negative. Firefox worked. That was nice. LibreOffice was good enough that now I'm back on a real system I still use it because the newer MS Office UIs (with that idiotic "ribbon") tick me off. Much of the time things seemed fine.
"Seemed" is the key word there.
Because when it was running normally (not including times when its speed was simply not high enough: that's not Linux's fault) it was ... fine. Not great. Fine. I could find files. I could do office stuff. I could even limp along in some online games I played back then (MUSHes), though the tools available for that were utter crap.
The problem is that it would occasionally stop running normally. And that's when the flaws (and flagrant user-hostility!) of Linux came to the forefront.
Some examples:
- The wifi part of things would frequently just ... stop working, without any clue why. Using the configuration tool for it did nothing. Indeed it showed no error. It just didn't work. I'd have to whine at SO (he's an engineer) and he would wrestle with it a while, and it would work once again. When I peeked at his working, it consisted of a bunch of files with utter gibberish in them.
- There was no consistency whatsoever in user interfaces. (Windows is getting this way, so I'm actually looking for an alternative ... it's just that Linux isn't it!) Some programs were slick (the aforementioned Firefox and LibreOffice, for example), but most of them looked like a toddler saw a GUI application once and, from incomplete memories, tried to make one of their own. Even within individual apps there was often no consistency in how to do things, where to look, etc. Across apps? Fuggeddaboutit!
- If something went wrong (like thumbnails not appearing in the file manager) the solution was invariably "open up a 'terminal' and type some random shit". (Or, in my case, wait for SO to come home and have him do it.)
- This is presuming that you could find instructions. It seems procedures for solving things in Linux-land change more often than the makers of it change their underwear. If the instructions were more than six months old, there was a very good chance they wouldn't work because "modern" Linux (read: newer than six weeks old) does things differently (and that usually with minor, trivial changes that only serve to frustrate, rather than actually seeming needful).
What would it take to get you to do so?
Its makers remembering that 99.44% of computer users view their computers as tools for getting their work done and not as an end unto themselves. If I have to open up a "terminal" and type random, meaningless bullshit to fix a problem your system has already failed the UX thing. There's nothing wrong with making a system that is its own end for those who want it, I should stress. Just don't then pitch that system as a viable end-user product. It's ludicrous.
(This is about the point someone will say "Android is based on Linux, so you already blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda hur hur hur..." to which I just roll my eyes and ignore—and likely block—the disingenuous nitwit.)
Do you feel it’s a solid option?
No. Not now, and given what I've seen of the community, not ever. The problem with Linux is largely social and cultures don't change quickly.
Are there any changes that you’d think would benefit consumers and aid with adoption?
Hire designers with actual UI and UX expertise. Streamline all the major, important tools based on these designers' inputs. Make sure those designers aren't soliciting input only from the echo chamber of people who already use Linux. Make the tools that don't match the designer streamlining available for those who want or need them, but don't make them the default.
And, above all, listen to your users' complaints. The reflex most Linux users seem to have to any criticism of it, no matter how minor, is to launch into the attack with "RTFM" (as if there even is a meaningful manual to read!) or other such dismissive hand-waving to somehow ... make normal people like Linux better by being treated like shit?