[gnrlst]

I'm not so sure. It's a chicken egg problem: if developers get so frustrated that they suddenly start building great experiences on Linux, the users will flock there. It won't be a fast exodus, and it won't be clear cut, but it will set in motion a transition. Developers follow demand, but users follow supply. If enough developers create supply elsewhere, and that supply gets interesting, users will come.

[m4rtink]

One can already see it in some areas with the popularity of containers, with many developers choosing Linux as other operating systems have poor to no container support (often nothing more than running them in a Linux VM).

Stupid anti-developper practices of proprietary OS vendors will result in only more developers migrating to Linux distros.

[jeroenhd]

Microsoft has pretty much solved this with WSL/WSL2. I hate the obsessive stalking and much of the redesign of Windows 10, but at it's core, it's better for many general consumers.

As a developer, I run into Windows' superior dealing with low-memory situations quite often. My work dev machine has 16GiB of RAM, but my full-stack development work is pushing my system past the 16GiB mark easily now. Coworkers using Windows have similar problems, but their system slows down whereas mine completely freezes for 30 seconds at a time while the system struggles to find some free memory.

For the people who would tell me to "just get more RAM": it's out of my hands, and 16GiB should be more than enough for this type of work anyway. Most software written these days, especially tools aimed at developers, seems to think everyone has 128GiB of RAM and that bad memory handling can best be solved by buying more hardware.

With Gnome 40 and systemd 248, the Linux experience will become just a tad more friendly for both general users and developers, but there's a lot of improvement that can still be made to the Linux experience.

[kaba0]

Try out zram, it compresses memory in-memory and is a real life-changer. On <=8Gib systems it is mandatory for regular use.

[threeseed]

Many OEMs including large ones like Dell have built Linux desktops and laptops over the years. No one buys them.

It’s not because of the lack of apps but because the basics are so poor e.g. broken sleep mode, driver instability, poor battery life, changing UI etc

[wayneftw]

> No one buys them.

Pfffft. OK! Clearly this is incorrect... We have whole companies like System 76 built around selling Linux desktop systems. We have whole divisions of PC manufacturers for selling Linux desktop systems. If nobody was buying them, they'd cease to exist.

Non-developers largely don't buy them, that's all.

Also, many developers are aware that Linux runs on anything, so a large portion of Linux users just install it on whatever hardware they already have. The rest buy systems from Dell, System 76, etc. or build their own.

> because the basics are so poor e.g. broken sleep mode, driver instability, poor battery life, changing UI etc.

Developers obviously buy pre-built Linux laptops that have none of these sleep/driver/battery problems. I work with some of them. If one makes a sensible choice and uses a desktop environment like XFCE, they would notice that there's much, much, much less instability in the UI when compared to Windows, macOS, Gnome or KDE.

Personally, I prefer desktop systems and I have never had to spend more than 40 minutes getting Linux running on any desktop PC that I've tried it on outside of my Mac Pro from 2012, which was only problematic because it's not a real PC with a normal BIOS or boot procedure it's a locked down Apple terminal.

I've seen way, way, way more problems with macOS and Windows than I have with people running Linux in our office. Certain mice and keyboards won't even work on a Mac!

[mixmastamyk]

Been using the dev models for almost ten years, none of those are a problem. Ubuntu Mate is a good choice for a stable gui.