 So there's been a lot of talk lately about who Linux is for like who should use Linux? And a lot of the stuff is spawned by the Linus Tech Tips Linux gaming challenge and how much of a problem Linus has had using Linux, but this is not a new question like Who is Linux perfect for it's something that people have been asking for pretty much the whole time there's been Linux and there's no actual answer because Really Linux is for everyone Linux can be for anybody who wants to put the effort into learning it the thing is is that recently there's been a lot of talk about Linux only being for developers and This is such a wrong-headed idea That I don't even really know where to start is Linux good for developers the answer to that question is yes Obviously Linux is good for developers. Is it better for developers than Windows? I don't know. I'm not a developer I can't answer that question a lot of developers seem to think so so they use Linux and I'm happy for them I'm glad that they had that opportunity But I don't think that we can go so far as to say that Linux is only for developers We can't also say that Linux is for new users either because it's not really meant for Super new non-technical users. It's just not Linux is not that operating system. It's not that easy to use Especially for the type of users that would come and not be willing to put in the effort to learn it because as I've said before Linux is not Windows and therefore you can't treat it like Windows or Mac OS for that matter So is Linux only for developers if it's not for Very new non-technical users, then it has to just be for developers, right? No, I don't think so at all I think Linux is for people who are interested in putting an effort into it because the one thing that we Universally agree on or at least I think we universally agree on in the Linux community is that Linux takes some effort to learn Like you can't just come into it and know Everything about it and know how everything works because some things work different than what normal people are used to So you have to put some effort into learning it You also have to have some level of responsibility for your own system It's not something that you have to do on Windows when something goes wrong on Windows You call somebody to fix it or you're technical enough to fix it yourself But mostly you call someone to fix it or you nuke and pave I mean, I know when I was just a little lad fixing Windows usually entailed just Reinstalling Windows and I know that is the case still for a lot of people so on Linux you have a responsibility to Learn how to maintain your system. It's not something that really exists on Windows And I think that that does create a barrier of entry for who is Eligible, I don't want to say eligible to use like because anybody can use Linux But I think it does create a barrier of entry for the perfect Linux user the perfect new Linux user because If you just if you switch to Linux and you're not interested in putting that effort into and this is something that I've talked about many times before If you're not willing to learn and willing to have an open mind of about how things work You're never going to succeed. So that level that Barrier entry has kind of ruled out a Large portion of the computing market because the vast majority of people when they want to use a computer They just want to turn it on and use Google Chrome and and navigate through Google photos or whatever That's all they want to do They don't want to have to think about actually maintaining their You know their computer in any way they don't want to have to learn a new way of doing anything whether it's you know interacting with a file manager or Learning how to install software or do updates They don't want to learn how to do any of that stuff because chances are They didn't learn how to do any of that stuff on Windows either like they the vast majority of people Probably don't know how to update their Windows machine That's the reason why Windows is so forceful in doing updates for their users because the vast majority of them will never do it themselves On Linux nobody's gonna force you to do anything You're gonna have to learn to do that yourself and if you're not willing to do that Linux isn't for you But Linux isn't just for developers. That's a fallacy if Linux was just for developers The gaming market for Linux would be really really small like there'd be no reason for steam proton to exist because there's just Not that many developers out there that would be interesting and also all the games that are on steam I mean there obviously there's quite a bit of crossover there because a lot of developers are gamers But you can't tell me that the level of interest in Linux gaming is simply because the developer community likes games There has to be more than just You just those people, you know So I think that the the Linux community actually encompasses a lot of people that aren't developers people who are Into content creation of all all sorts of types whether it's music whether it's video whether it's writing You know a lot of that kind of stuff Whether it's gaming there are a lot of people who use Linux because it games it can game now Obviously those aren't the normal people Most normal gamers use windows But there are those people so I don't think you can argue that Linux is just for developers It's just not something that you can argue because I don't think it's true I haven't seen any evidence that the only people that are Surrounding me in my Linux community are developers In fact, I'd say most of you who are watching this probably aren't developers and you probably use Linux now Whether or not you use Linux as your daily driver or you use in some kind of dual-loop mechanism I don't know I would say that there's a good portion of you out there who still use windows on a daily basis and Because of work or whatever and you use Linux on your home computer or whatever I Think that that encouples encompasses a lot of people who are just Enthusiasts and not necessarily people who sit in front of a Haskell machine all the day and trying to do some Haskell So that is really kind of a rambly video I know but I just wanted to cover that topic because it's been brought up quite a few times in last week or so a Lot of Linux youtubers are talking about this now because we've seen The outcome of a of a new Linux user switching to Linux who seems to be unwilling to learn a different way of doing things We've seen that outcome now a lot of people are also calling a lot of us Linux youtubers elitists and I don't think a Linux elitism is a thing, right? It is there like there are a sizeable portion of the Linux community that doesn't want new users at all or they want the barrier to entry to be so large That it only a trickle of people will come ever come in Those people do exist but the most of us here aren't interested in Shutting people out the most of us are interested in bringing people in but We're interesting in doing so in a way that is going to ensure that when they start using Linux They have a good experience and you're never going to have a good experience if you come into Linux unwilling to Take at least some steps to learn it because Linux is a different thing than what you're used to It does things differently It doesn't mean that you can't do things on Linux It doesn't mean that the only thing you can ever do is for developers That's just utter nonsense, but it does mean that you do have to put some effort into it And it that's the reason why a lot of us are cautious about who should use Linux Because not everyone is willing to put in that effort So that is it for this video if you have thoughts or comments You can leave those in the comment section below make sure you hit the subscribe button and like button I really do appreciate everybody who has already done so you can follow me on Twitter at the Linux cast You can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash Linux cast before I go. I'd like to take a moment to thank my current patrons Devon Chris east coast web gen 2 is fun, too Patrick all primus today Marcus Maiglin Jackson of tool Steve a Mitchell art center amitaus Merrick camp Joshua Lee J Dogs the VSTs rock Peter a crucible. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time