 Is Linux primarily for developers? That's the topic for today because this has been a common criticism of the GNU slash Linux operating system over the years. Windows and Mac, they're just for normal people. The average do. They're for your grandmother. You can give anybody, anybody a Windows computer or a Mac computer and they'll be able to figure it out and use it because it's just so beginner-friendly, so easy to use. Linux is this difficult thing with a high barrier of entry. It's because it's not for regular people. That's the criticism. It's not for the average desktop computer user. Linux is primarily for developers. That's a common criticism that people throw out there and I see some people in the Linux community, they try to fight that stigma that Linux is only for developers. No, anybody can use Linux, which they're right as well, but we do have to come to terms that Linux is primarily for developers. At least, you know, what is the biggest demographic as far as Linux users, Linux desktop users? I would argue that developers are probably most represented as far as the type of people that gravitate to using desktop Linux. I remember many years ago, Steve Ballmer, who was the CEO of Microsoft at the time, he was actually really trying to get developers to give Windows and a lot of the Microsoft products a chance. I remember him famously shouting one time, developers, developers, developers, right? He wanted developers to give these Microsoft products a chance because so many of them were using free and open source operating systems such as the GNU slash Linux operating systems, the BSD operating systems. They weren't using Windows and that was a problem then, it's still a problem for Microsoft, right? It's because so many developers do work with Linux. One of the things about Linux, there's a high barrier to entry, which does prevent people like your grandma, right? She's not going to jump through some hoops to install some of these Linux distributions that require a lot of command line stuff, maybe you even have to write some scripts or something to install the thing properly, whatever it happens to be. Some of these Linux distributions are kind of tough to get through the installation if you're inexperienced with them. But here's the thing, a high barrier to entry that scares normal people, it doesn't scare developers at all because they're used to everything they do in life as a high barrier to entry. They're always trying to tackle difficult tasks, so that's why developers, they just eat Linux up because it doesn't scare them at all. Their average desktop computer user, he's not used to having to solve dependency problems, right? He's trying to get through dependency hill and trying to track down bugs. He's not used to searching Google for error codes and things that he received in the terminal, but a developer, this is just part of his daily life, right? He has no problems doing that. As such, there was a recent study on Stack Overflow just a few weeks ago, maybe a few months ago, I forget when the study came out, but they did a survey of everybody that used Stack Overflow, which is primarily for developers, right? And they found that 40% of those developers used Linux both at work and at home. Now that's not 40% of them used Linux either at work or at home, 40% of developers used Linux both in the workplace and on their personal machines at home. That is a huge reason why Linux is so popular on the desktop because there's so many millions of developers around the world and nearly half of them are using Linux on most of their devices in the workplace and at their house. But that survey goes even a little deeper than that because other than that 40% that used Linux on all their machines pretty much, there was an additional 15% that answered the survey that they use Windows, but that 15% that used Windows use the Windows subsystem for Linux, right? So they're essentially using Linux on Windows. So really it's like 55% of developers are using Linux in some capacity. And to be honest, you don't really need a survey to know that Linux is extremely popular within the development community because look at all the tools available on Linux. Think of all the tools that developers use. Think of IDEs. Every major IDE that I can think of has a Linux version, right? They all have a version on Linux. Why do they have a version on Linux? Because most developers have to use Linux in some way so they have their IDEs all available on Linux. Even Microsoft and VS Code, they have a Linux version, right? This is something Microsoft back in the day and back in the Steve Ballmer era probably would never have dreamed of, but Microsoft's a little different now. They've embraced Linux. They don't see Linux as really much of a competitor anymore. They see Linux and the free and open source ecosystem as a way for Microsoft to potentially leverage it and make some money off of it. You've got all these IDEs. You've got all these programming language and related programming language tools and debuggers and everything that are all available on Linux, right? It would be weird if somebody developed some kind of tool specifically for programming, software engineering, software development, and it wasn't on Linux. That would be really strange. As much as Steve Ballmer had this dream that one day Microsoft would attract all the developers, developers, developers, really Linux has all the developers, developers, developers, right? That's okay. Just because all of these developers use Linux and because they're all using Linux for various reasons, they're also primarily the ones that are building Linux. They're the ones that are creating a lot of these GNU slash Linux distributions. They're the ones that are making them better. They're the ones that are actually trying to do work to make Linux not just better for themselves, the developers. They're also doing a lot of work trying to make Linux better for just the average Joe. But as much as all of these developers and these distro maintainers and package maintainers, software engineers and all these people start working, really, they're trying to build Linux in such a way that we can attract new Linux users from Windows, from Mac. They're trying to build this software in such a way to extend this olive branch. Hey, what you thought Linux was or maybe, in fact, Linux was this back in the day. It was strictly for developers. It was strictly for IT professionals. It was strictly for the server. Linux is not that anymore. Now, Linux can actually replace Windows on your machine. And that message, it is slowly being heard, but it's not being heard by everyone. And it's not, we're not seeing the change that many of us wanted to see as quickly as we'd like to see it. But I think we're eventually going to get there. And the reason we're going to get there is because in a lot of ways, just the average desktop computer user wants a lot of the same things that developers want. The things that are attracting developers en masse over the Linux, I think a lot of your standard desktop computer users would find compelling. For example, why do developers gravitate so much towards Linux? Well, Linux can be an ultra stable operating system, especially some of the ones that are used typically on servers, things like Debian stable, Ubuntu LTS, Red Hat, Slackware. I mean, these are just rock solid stable operating systems, far more stable than Windows or Mac could ever be. That attracts developers, of course. But I think that would also attract just your average computer user. Another reason developers love Linux is because it's free and open source, which means it's free as in cost, free as in beer, right? But there's no licensing fees. You don't have to pay for the operating system. That's nice. Saves you a little money. Also, it being open source free as in you can do anything to the source code you want. You can modify your operating system. You can customize it. You can use it for any task you want to use. It's entirely yours to do what you want to do with it. Developers love that you, the average computer user. I bet you'd love that too. Developers also like the fact that Linux comes with a lot of pre-installed software that these developers would use anyway, like on a daily basis. Things like language compilers. Developers need these things. These compilers, of course, compile software. And many of the language compilers are already there on Linux. They're not there on Windows, right? These developers would have to go jump through a lot of hoops to go get these things installed on Microsoft Windows, the same thing with Mac as well. But that's not the case on Linux. And this is the same thing for you, the average desktop computer user, not with compilers necessarily, but these Linux distributions that will come with software already installed that you would probably want anyway. Most desktop Linux distributions, they're going to come with a web browser already installed, an office suite already installed, multimedia players already installed, et cetera, et cetera, right? Where on Microsoft Windows, of course, Microsoft Windows comes with a suite of software, half of it, though, is not really active programs. They're trialware, right? It's one of these things. This program is going to work for 30 days. After that, you need to buy it. And typically that's going to be Microsoft related software. Or if it's not Microsoft software, they're getting a cut of the proceeds in some way. That's why that adware is sitting on Windows. You don't get any of that stuff with Linux. Linux comes with software pre-installed, ready to use, no strings attached. Programmers and developers, they really love Linux for its power, its speed, its flexibility, its versatility. Do you see where I'm going with this? You, the average computer user, would you like all of that? Do you want power, speed, versatility, flexibility? I bet you do. So is Linux for developers? Yes, Linux is for developers. Linux was built primarily by developers. And Linux is used even to this day, primarily by developers. But it's not only for developers. I'm not a developer. I've been strictly a Linux user for 15 years now. Why? It's because everything that attracted those developers over to Linux, I want to. I want freedom. I want customization. I want stability. I want security. I want privacy. Now, I just want to be respected as a computer user. Developers demand that. You should too. Peace, guys.