[mangecoeur]

I’ve seen this repeated and it’s just not true. Very non-expert users can use it just because its reasonably stable and they just don’t do that many things, as long as they have a working web browser they are fine (thats the premise of a chromebook). But anyone getting work done will quickly run into things they can’t do.

I’ve come to think a better benchmark for linux having “got there” is, can i run an architects office on ubuntu ?

Architects:

- need access to industry standard, graphics and processing heavy software

- need to exchange files with many other companies, so need inter compatibility

- need things to just work, they are not interested in fiddling with the guts of their os just to make things work

- work in contexts where cost of software is a drop in the ocean in the budget of a project, so the add value of running on linux has to be more than “you get some software for free”

Thinking about reaching a state where you could run an architecture office on ubuntu raises the bar a lot on what still needs to be improved

[jordanpg]

Agree. This notion of hoards non-technical people using Linux is just plain silly.

Obviously this doesn't work the moment these "non-technical people" venture even slightly outside a narrowly defined box of use cases.

[monsieurgaufre]

Your moving goalpost is a pretty specific. What makes architects that important to be the defining demographic for success? Surely not their numbers. Not even sure macOS could meet this requirement.

[mangecoeur]

two reasons: 1 is im very familiar with the field and 2 i think it’s both common enough not to be dismissible as a weird edge case (you’ll find at least one architect in most towns and the construction industry as a whole is massive) and demanding enough to set a meaningfully high bar for productivity.

But you could swap in many of other industries