[macksd]

Instead of thinking of Linux for non-technical users, I think you can actually segment non-technical users into people who use a computer and people who use a browser. People who just use a browser for virtually everything (i.e. people who can use a Chromebook and think that it's basically the same as a normal laptop) are actually very common and can use Linux just fine. I had a friend who needed a home computer but was desperately poor. I gave them a machine I picked up at a garage sale with Ubuntu on it. They've been using it for years and have never looked back. After they had been using it for a while I mentioned something to them about their computer having an unusual operating system, and they really didn't have a clue what I was talking about. Because they had never paid attention to the operating system beyond the clicking the browser icon.

Now yeah that's not true for people who will want to plug in different printers all the time, and install Microsoft Office specifically, etc. Surprisingly I think it's actually the people with a medium amount of technical knowledge that have the most trouble adapting to Linux.

But even as someone who virtually never uses anything but Linux, I don't really get the constant drive to have this "year of the Linux desktop". It works fine for me and I love it. I make my smug comment when Windows and OS X users have problems but I'm not in a rush to help them with their problems or give them new ones. If you're bothered enough by the mainstream options to switch, you can learn a few new things. If not, I don't see the problem.

Edit: and I think Linus focuses too much on Debian here. Even in 2014, Ubuntu was already a very easy to use and out-of-the-box distro. Even Fedora was pretty good. My distribution doesn't package Zoom, but if I go to their website and click install I get the right binary and the experience is comparably easy to Microsoft Windows installers. If you're on a fringe distro, you almost certainly love the power that comes with (and requires) building everything from source regularly. So again, I don't see the problem. If you want to be included in Debian, using Debian's shared libraries doesn't seem like an unreasonable policy. It's quite easy to ship an application that is easy to install and upgrade independently. Google Chrome is another app that does it super well. More people would do it if there was demand, but there isn't, and I don't think that's just an app packaging problem at all.

[schmorptron]

For Zoom: Even better, you just type flatpak install zoom or snap install zoom and get a community maintained version that has many potential incompatibilities taken care of. Or any user that doesn't want to use the terminal can just search gnome / ubuntu software and find zoom in there and click install.