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Originally Posted by ApK
Manufactures have and do offer Linux systems. My point is that the reason preinstalled Linux systems have not become the runaway best sellers that everyone is clamoring for, like Android tablets have, is PARTIALLY because Linux is still harder to to learn and use than Windows or Mac.
If it was "just as good" and "just as easy" on top of taking $100 or so off the cost of a system, there should be a iPhone-esque crowds lined up to buy them....
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There is more to it than that. Microsoft has leveraged it's massive influence to force OEMs to bundle Windows even (at one point) with systems that shipped with Linux.
The Windows Tax. We never saw prime-time Dell commercials showing off Linux because of OEMs, while offering Linux, wanted to stay in Microsoft's good graces. They were not about to lose favorable license terms for Windows by pissing off Microsoft.
Linux hasn't always been as easy to use as it is today, but saying that alone is responsible for it's lack of market share is not looking at the whole picture.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bbpo8
I sympathize with what Sgt.Stuby was getting at. I think he is right that the Android OS on tablets really isn't open the way that Linux is open.
Does it matter?
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No, they target different audiences.
Saying "Linux" is too broad. Linux runs on everything, Serves and Mainframes to phones and watches. AndroidOS, ChromeOS, these are consumer, computer illiterate, tools. Ubuntu is a desktop OS designed to compete with Windows. I would be comfortable running it, but most people are not. And it's not because it's too different, it's because they are scared of anything different. I've seen Windows users freak out and not be able to drag and drop files in Mac simply because they were too scared to try. But they're not that different.
It would be nice if Android were more open, and older devices could be easily unlocked and updated to a new, 3rd party, version. Maybe one day.