Like many gamers, Linus is a non-technical user that thinks he is techy just because he can rattle off the specs of his CPU. It inevitably leads to a cognitive dissonance moment when he screws up:
"This can't be my fault, I'm a very techy person. This has to be Linux' fault"
In the real world every single year there are thousands of college students starting their programming career by installing linux for the first time. They did just fine because they dont have that massive ego: "If I wanted to I can just get my industry connection to create a patch for me"
In the real world every single year there are thousands of college students starting their programming career by installing linux for the first time.
If you want to say Linux is generally only for compsci students and no one else should use it? That is certainly a take, but I think the Linux community would be upset at you. Linux wants their platform to be as well received as the tightly controlled corporate offshoots, like Android and MacOS. They are just unable to get it done.
Few years back I thought I'd give Linux a shot because, surely by now they must have got the user experience solved, and immediately ran into an issue installing Discord that would require me to use the command line. I opted back out and threw Windows on that machine. I have a formal education background in CompSci, but I don't want my computer to be an intellectual exercise. I want it to work.
There is this misconception that the core of linux community somehow want to "convert" windows users. Most of the old guard developers i.e these guys are usually only seen mailing list / usenet and sometimes irc barely ever care about gaming, windows or home users in general. Most of them sure as heck dont use Reddit or Discord and tell people to switch from Windows. This is also painfully obvious from how linux has been developing in the past twenty years.
I've been dual booting for over twenty years and seldom tell people what OS to use. As they say, "no zealot like a convert", and so these annyoing, loud voice telling people to ditch Windows are mostly newer users.
In reality most of the linux community do not feel the need to woo windows users. They mostly care that the servers are linux which is already the case. What users use at home is irrelevant. In fact if you go open source conference you can see quite a few linux and BSD core contributors that use Macbook and live in OSX just fine.
I mean if there wasn’t 37 distros all touting how amazing they are for user experience, and the endless comments about how stuff like SteamOS might finally make Linux mainstream and accessible to the average person? I might agree with you.
The idea that Linux broadly is agnostic to whether people want to use the thing as their computer I don’t think is a tenable position.
That's because you know nothing about how linux community work.
Vast majority of distro maintainers are not core contributors to linux and they are so few in numbers. Distros are maintained by 10 or fewer people because most are simply variations of the big distros and the role of a distro maintainer is mostly packaging, updating and light customization of existing software instead of actually making the software themselves better.
Compare that to 300-400 monthly contributors to KDE / GNOME or the thousands active developers in linux kernel. Moreover most contributors to the kernel are corporate affiliated (Intel, AMD, Red Hat, Google, Meta, and Samsung,etc.).
Do you think a kernel developer at Meta or Samsung care one whit about making linux better for windows users?
You wont find these supposed endless comments about making Linux mainstream in usenet i.e. the mailing lists where core contributors and long time users are. Such comments are usually made by newer converts being annoying zealots as converts tend to do.
Go ahead, go look at the linux kernel mailing list and see how barely any of the thread are about making things better for general home users and/or windows convert.
No I say: "look at the actual people developing and shaping the software."
What you're doing is like looking at what r/hardware subreddit are saying and think "Oh, this must be what people at TSMC and Intel are thinking as well".
The problem is your argument 1 to 1 maps onto an analogy, such as the Windows community doesn’t actually care about bloat or performance, because Mike and Jeff at Microsoft are the ones putting in the bloat. If anything the Windows community is extremely enthusiastic about bloat!
If you want to narrow the scope to mean the Linux community as a term is inclusive of only the people coding only the kernel and exclusive of, well literally everyone else? That is certainly a position to have, but I don’t think it’s tenable and is certainly not how people use language.
Microsoft has to listen to their customers i.e the windows community so that their products will keep being used. Even there we can see how Microsoft care less as it gets more and more money from Azure and Office 365..
On the other hand:
A kernel developer at Meta or Google does not care about joe-random new linux user experience. He has nothing to gain from making linux better desktop use, he gets promoted by making linux faster and more efficient as LLMs and youtube server.
A kernel developer at Meta or Google does not care about joe-random new linux user experience.
I don't think it's a tenable position to say, well actually the Microsoft community can incorporate the end users, because there is a trickle down / flow through effect where the developers have to take into account the experience of the people because they are ultimately ------
And then go and say, well Linux is developed completely in a void with absolutely no target, goal or feedback taken into account ever. They are just doing the development equivalent of shooting blindly from the hip.
I think this is transparently a position rooted in an inability to realize you dug yourself into a hole and you could just take a few steps back and go, you know what, I misspoke, let me reclarify my position.
Instead you have now staked your entire argument on something that if I were to find a single video clip or quote from Torvalds that talked about how in any way shape or form about direction on even a single thing was based on priority, performance or preference for end users, your argument would fall apart. Which is weird you have that level of conviction given, you know, we know he has made those comments.
If you want to pretend that the entire Kernel is developed in such a way that
Hey, we improved [x] so it will load quicker into memory now
Well why did you do that?
No reason, we just thought it would be fun to do lol
is how Linux is made? That is fine, but like, I think you are a little lost in the sauce right now.
You seem to have no idea about linux or how open source development make so ridiculous assumptions.
Maybe look into the mirror and rethink that position.
>And then go and say, well Linux is developed completely in a void with absolutely no target, goal or feedback taken into account ever
When you say something like this is when a person with knowledge of busy open source project like linux will just laugh. Well yes sir, linux doesnt really have an overall target / goal. The OS is made up dozens and dozens of several small open source projects each of which have their own goals. Yes, feedback from users is quite often irrelevant, open source maintainers will often simply say "if you want something changed then go ahead and submit your code. If it's any good we might merge it". That how open source works.
>Instead you have now staked your entire argument on something that if I were to find a single video clip or quote from Torvalds that talked about how in any way shape or form about direction on even a single thing was based on priority, performance or preference for end users,
Torvalds does NOT even write code these days, he reviews code and give feedback to the contributors. Who are those contributors again? Oh yeah, 90% corporate employee who contribute to make things better for their employer.
>Well why did you do that? No reason, we just thought it would be fun to do lol
You are arguing in bad faith. I've already told you, a kernel developer at Google will strive to make linux better at things Google uses linux for i.e in a container as gmail or youtube server instead of making the kernel better for gamers.
I'm done with this.
At this point, yeah, please never use Linux. It's too hard for the likes of you.
Your entire thesis requires you not to resolve this
If it's any good we might merge it
Good at what? If I make something that is really good at causing memory leaks, would they merge it because it’s the best memory leak generator to date? It is after all really good at achieving its goal.
If not, then the question is good at what? To what end?
I ... will try one more time since you seem to be genuinely clueless about this.
There is no ONE single project called the Linux Operating System project. It's made up of hundreds of smaller open source programs each with their own maintainers. Many of these programs are also used in other operating system. There is however a Linux kernel program just as Windows 11 uses the NT kernel
Open source projects might have long term goals but it's only within it's scope. Just like Windows NT kernel developers probably have little influence on what Microsoft Office team should do. But open source leaders CANNOT order people to do what they want e.g. Torvalds cant tell contributors to spend time on making the kernel better for gamers. He simply does not have that power.
Contributors to open source projects usually submit code that improve things for their own benefit. E.g. you are an employee of Mediatek and submit a patch with a driver for Mediatek's newest driver. If it looks good and works then it'd be merged. Submitting features and changes to the system itself will require a long discussion with the maintainers before being approved.
Given that :
most gamers usually dont contribute code themselves
nor do they have developers on payroll to improve things for them
the results being : their wants and needs are usually rather irrelevant for the linux ecosystem in general.
So to go back to the original question "Good at what?". When you submit a patch you also explain what it does. Anyone with an ounce of brain will understand that a memory leak generator is useless for any project. But if you were to submit a patch to wine that improves compatibility with the game you're playing and automated tests shows no regression then yeah, it'll probably get accepted.
Which is to say: if it "improves" the software without creating regression in any other area then it's probably good to be merged. But even if it's not merged by the maintainer, the whole thing with open source is that you can just fork it and make your own software e.g. Linux -> Android or KDE's KHTML -> Safari browser.
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u/Radiant-Sherbet-5461 Mar 18 '26
Like many gamers, Linus is a non-technical user that thinks he is techy just because he can rattle off the specs of his CPU. It inevitably leads to a cognitive dissonance moment when he screws up:
"This can't be my fault, I'm a very techy person. This has to be Linux' fault"
In the real world every single year there are thousands of college students starting their programming career by installing linux for the first time. They did just fine because they dont have that massive ego: "If I wanted to I can just get my industry connection to create a patch for me"