As Microsoft continues to turn Windows 11 into a vector for more Copilot stupidity nobody wants, a lot of attention has now been put onto Linux, which - thanks in no small part to Valve’s excellent work on getting Steam games to run mostly well with a very good success rate - now seems like it might actually have some viability as a desktop operating system. But how should you best broach the subject to people who might be interested? Here is a helpful step by step guide for anyone familiar with Linux on how to spread the word!

1. Don’t.

Leave people alone and let them use their computer how they want to. If they know and care enough about Linux to try it then they will do so.

2. Really, don’t.

In addition to the philosophical point above, you are setting yourself up for failure by recommending any technical product to anyone. Given the almost complete absence of any kind of support infrastructure around Linux for everyday users that does not involve posting on a forum until someone with an anime girl as an avatar takes pity on you, you are placing yourself in the role of being uncompensated tech support. Not only that, if and when - most likely when - something goes wrong or doesn’t work, it will be your personal fault.

Do not recommend Linux to people.

But what if the above doesn’t apply? What if they’re technically adept, but they’re expressing some kind of dissatisfaction with Windows? What then?

3. For Christ’s sake, don’t.

Have you ever posted on the Internet about any kind of technical issue relating to Windows? Have you ever suddenly felt your mentions reeking of fedora, and recommendations of Fedora? Everyone hates those people.

The fact remains that pretty much everyone with any kind of technical knowledge whatsoever has already heard of Linux. They may not have ever used it, but they have probably heard about it. What they have definitely experienced is people recommending it to them in any context as if it is a cure-all. It instinctively comes off as bullshit as much as any recommendation of anything as a cure-all comes off as bullshit - to them, Linux evangelists are like the people who hawk CBD products as life-changing miracle cures only with fewer social skills.

Yes, even if tempered with some mild criticism (“yeah the installation is a bit rough but afterwards I dropped twenty kilos and was able to bench press entire cars and now I’m a millionaire. Lunix truly is the superior operating system.”)

And the thing is - if someone is technically capable of understanding Linux, and they have a problem that could be solved by Linux, odds are very good that they have already considered Linux and decided that it does not suit them, for whatever reason.

But OK, what if this person hasn’t heard of Linux? What about then, huh?

4. For the last time, don’t.

By and large there are a few main groups of computer users we should discuss in some detail.

1. Normal people

These are people who use their computers to do computer things. They use the Internet to look on Facebook, send emails, do banking and maybe use Excel or Word to do some sort of productive task. Their computer to them is an appliance. They care about it in the same sense as they care about their washing machine - they are happy when it performs the tasks they have assigned it and less happy when it pisses water all over their kitchen floor.

These people are probably fine with Windows. They may express some frustration or annoyance with it but they do not actually care, if they even acknowledge “Windows” as a discrete product at all, as opposed to just an unfortunate fact of life. They also don’t care that Linux is “free” because their computer probably came with Windows so, as far as they are concerned, it is functionally free. They are also the most likely to treat you as tech support, inasmuch as they already do not.

Do not recommend Linux to them. If you feel the need to recommend any computer-related product to them, it should be a Mac.

“But Linux can run a browser just fine and that’s all they really need” shut up. So can a Mac, but the advantage there is that Apple is an identifiable entity that can provide tech support and has a half-competent UX design team.

“But I bet you could just install Linux Mint/Ubuntu/SuSE/etcetc and they will be able to deal with it just fine” SHUT UP. Have you tried teaching people who know nothing about computers to use computers? Rearranging familiar UI elements is often enough to disorient people (that’s half the reason Windows 11 has had the poor reception it has!), making them deal with GNOME or Cinnamon or KDE or whatever will be like you have changed their computer’s language to one written in cuneiform. More to the point, why try and make them switch? What do you think they will gain from this?

2. Professional/prosumer users.

These are people who are essentially Normal People++. They do the Normal People things plus some professional work - photo editing, music production, software development maybe, but in any event some sort of activity using specialist applications.

Do not recommend Linux to them. The toolchains for this do not exist on Linux as they do on Windows. No, GIMP is not an equivalent of Photoshop in any sense that matters. It’s a perfectly fine photo editor in a vacuum but giving it to someone as a drop in replacement for Photoshop is like giving someone a car where all the controls have been put into random unfamiliar places and telling them they can drive it just like they did their Honda Accord.

(Most pertinently, it is also called “GIMP”, which is the worst name for any software package to ever exist ever. I just checked and even the menu doesn’t use the acronym because clearly someone has realised that it’s a really, really bad name.)

Once again, this is a job for Apple. Apple has sewn up the professional and prosumer segments in many ways. But otherwise they are probably using Windows for a reason and they should be let be.

3. Gamers and enthusiasts

These are people who are maybe more technically-minded than the first two groups but not necessarily that invested. They probably watch Linus Tech Tips and/or GamersNexus and own at least one deskpad from either. They can probably Google to solve problems that come up with their computer.

Do not recommend Linux to them. Linux gaming has come an awfully long way - my personal gaming PC runs Arch! I’m very happy with it! I am literally writing this in Nano! - but it is not 100% there or even close to it. Many things are jank or require fiddling to get running, and some things just flat out won’t work - such as, some of the most popular multiplayer games on the planet. Windows is still fundamentally a more cohesive platform for modern gaming.

These people are absolutely in the category of “knows about Linux but isn’t interested” and they will not enjoy you proselytising to them. Leave them alone.

4. Nerds.

These are people who care about computers as a thing and enjoy using them for the sake of using them. They probably also have an LTT deskpad but claim it’s only for the looks, in much the same way as every sold copy of Playboy is assuredly just for the articles.

Do not recommend Linux to them. They already know about it. If they are not already running it then that is for a reason. They know that reason better than you do. They will not appreciate being suggested it again.

“But what about some other group of people” there aren’t any. All of the above should not be recommended Linux. The upshot of this is; don’t recommend Linux to people.

Here, as a final suffix, are a list of arguments that do not work for recommending Linux to people, so you shouldn’t use them if you decide, against all advice, to try and do something that you categorically should not do i.e. recommend Linux to people, which you should not and must not do:

  • “It’s open source!” (I do not care about the internal workings of my toaster, I just want it to make my toast)
  • “It’s free as in beer!” (Windows is functionally free of charge and to the extent it is not it is a sunk cost)
  • “It’s free as in speech!” (RMS-spiel is some of the most deeply offputting stuff in the world to anyone who is not actively obsessed with computers)
  • “It’s more stable!” (Compared to Windows 9x, yes, but that has been dead and buried for over two decades, and justly so)
  • “It’s just like Windows!” (Then why change?)
  • “It doesn’t spy on you!” (Neither does Windows in any ways ordinary people care about, perhaps if GNOME had telemetry it wouldn’t have such aggressively awful UX)
  • “It doesn’t have Copilot!” (You can turn Copilot off and to the extent anyone cares it is just a mild annoyance)
  • “It helps you learn about your computer!” (Yes in much the same way as daily driving a Rover 75 will get you intimately familiar with head gaskets whether you want to be or not)
  • “It has equivalents for everything you use!” (I already use the things I use why would I want “equivalents”)
  • “It’s faster!” (very debatable whether taking less time to achieve a worse output is a good thing)

Next up: no LibreOffice is not a drop-in replacement for Microsoft Office and anyone who claims otherwise is lying to you.