As Torvalds pointed out in 2019, is that while some major hardware vendors do sell Linux PCs – Dell, for example, with Ubuntu – none of them make it easy. There are also great specialist Linux PC vendors, such as System76, Germany’s TUXEDO Computers, and the UK-based Star Labs, but they tend to market to people who are already into Linux, not disgruntled Windows users. No, one big reason why Linux hasn’t taken off is that there are no major PC OEMs strongly backing it. To Torvalds, Chromebooks “are the path toward the desktop.”
What does he mean by this?
I struggle to believe Chromebooks will meaningfully contribute to more people adopting Linux, because Google is more interested in getting people to adopt Google instead.
From my perspective, he is probably referring to chromeOS’s crosvm container, which virtualises a debian install (or other distros). Since Chromebooks are popular in schools, predominantly in the USA but even still globally, students are likely to attempt to gain further functionality out of their devices, and hence experiment with Linux, get used to it and possibly install it on different devices (or on that same Chromebook through the mrchromebox firmware) in the future.
Edit: alternatively, he could just be referring to flooding the market with cheap Linux laptops for specific purposes like education workflows or standard consumer workflows, just like how Chromebooks achieved that footing in the market.
Linux as we know it being very customizable and having many choices will never work for mass market. If Linux becomes a truly mass market consumer OS then it will be within walled garden of a large corporation like Google or others.
Everyday people want a computer with a brand name they recognize and for it to just work with all the big name software they know already. They likely won’t even know they are using Linux, it’s something us nerds will know but to them they are just using Google, Microsoft, Meta, or whoever else gets Linux to mass adoption.
problem is, a “linux” from google/microsoft/meta will solve 0 problems we have today with windows
I imagine he means things like Chromebook, rather than Chromebook itself. Mass-market consumer hardware which comes with Linux by default
The Steam Deck. It’s been my daily PC since I got it.