Better Marketing

[SteveR]

Microsoft and Apple are able to attract and keep users because they have a corporate structure with financial resources to keep their products in the mind of the public. While Linux and Mint may be vaguely known to many in the public, the public continues to view Windows and the Apple operating system as the only options available. Of course that is not true. Moreover, computer stores seem to only have Windows and Apple products on the shelf and available. For the public, Linux and specifically Mint are "invisible" for purchase as a consequence.

An obvious strategy would be to convince stores (such as Best Buy) to have staff knowledgable in Linux and offer computers preloaded with Mint as a purchase option.

Government (federal/state/local), school systems, and non-profit corporations would seem offer an immense number of potential Mint users. Most employees tend to use a limited number of office products. Unlike Microsoft and Apple products, Linux offers an excellent suite of office products (LibreOffice) for free and this would help hold down costs. A strategy related to this approach would be to "target" the purchasing managers to encourage them to invest in Mint since it would be cheaper than using Microsoft or Apple. Conventions anyone?

An out-on-the-limb suggestion. Is there a corporate billionaire, such as Elon Musk or even Jeff Bezos, who would be willing to "push" Mint through both advertising and product development? For many in the Linux community this suggestion could be a "red" flag to be rejected out-of-hand. These guys, after all have been successful by pushing their products. Consequently, they may not be willing to participate in a project where they do not directly benefit. Plus they may seek to take-over. Furthermore, they may not wish to aggravate either Microsoft or Apple, who they probably may have a working relationship with. Nevertheless, looking may not hurt as there may be a maverick (Since Jeff Bezos just got divorced, his ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos may be looking for something to do), out there who would see Mint as worth supporting.

[Colson P]

Remember that while Linux only holds a 2-4% market share (not including the many Linux users who are disguised as Windows/Mac users), Linux holds a huge market share everywhere else.
Android, which is derived from Linux, holds a nearly 90% market share of all smartphones. (Thanks, Google! ) Smartphones also outnumber desktops (slightly) as shown here:
https://gs.statcounter.com/platform-mar ... ile-tablet

Based on your idea, lets say Linux for desktop saw a 20x increase in usage over the course of a month. This will represent several problems:
-More people will try to distribute malware, spyware, and virus attacks that can attack Linux computers. ALOT more. We DEFINITELY don't want that.
-Linux support is still spotty with different hardware, such as wifi chips, graphics cards, accessories, etc. People will use Linux and get frustrated that they can't use their hardware and just head back to Windows or Macintosh, permanently ruining Linux's reputation with the outside community.
-Linux developers' servers can only handle so many people using their services; such an increase in usage might bring down the servers and leave everybody without the necessary services

I agree that Linux is a great operating system, but it isn't ready yet to go mainstream. Give it 10-20 years, though, and this might be a completely different story...

[Moonstone Man]

... People will use Linux and get frustrated that they can't use their hardware and just head back to Windows or Macintosh, permanently ruining Linux's reputation with the outside community.

[...]

... Give it 10-20 years, though, and this might be a completely different story...

Your comments indicate a failure to recognise the most salient point in a Windows vs Linux discussion viz. human nature.

Humans are basically lazy and a shortcut is often preferred over a longer or more difficult route from A to B.

Linux is not Windows.

The design philosophies of the two OSen are completely different. With Windows, the guts of the system are hidden from the user. The Windows user doesn't need to know anything technical in order to get from A to B. With Linux, the guts of the system are wide open for all to see and play with, consequently the path from A to B in Linux appears to many people to be an arduous route.

It is much easier and quicker to get from A to B if you don't need or want to learn a new way of going from A to B, and since humans are fundamentally lazy, they opt for what they already know.

Linux is already mainstream. People who have enquiring minds use it.

On the plus side, Linux Mint goes a long way to breaching the gap, but Linux Mint is still Linux, consequently, human nature being what it is, it is still Linux, and it is still perceived as I describe above. Getting the rest of the populace to use Linux will require a fundamental change in human nature, not an advertising campaign. Good luck with that.

[Ace864]

In spite, the popularity of Apple and Microsoft, there are still a lot of people that prefer to work on Linux. At the company I work for right now, everyone users Linux at the work computers. On my first day at work, I asked my manager why do they use Linux instead of Microsoft or MacOS he simply replied to me that Linux is harder to hack. Also, he said that there are low chances of catching a virus with Linux. I would say that I don’t see much difference in working on Linux and Microsoft, but sometimes we cannot download software for Linux. Now we need to start working on developing our website, and we are planning to use Kartra pricing. Hopefully, everything will fine.

[allanherrera]

"After reducings costs", in theory sounds a great idea, but in Govt.'s this doesn't looks OK, they want more money and if Linux sounds like "free stuff" for them, they will take it as bad, In El Salvador no Govt. took seriously Linux, until the leftists of Liberation Front, Put linux in the scheme making it look costful, with maintaining distro mirrors, and "Linux LIscences" (Really), this ball of corrupt people did the good thing of introducing Linux in Schools, Universities and even healtcare (until 2018 you could go any Govt. building and see everybody with Windows XP), my HIgh School now uses Ubuntu for the offices and Mint/Windows 7 for the students PC's .

You must make Linux look costful for any Govt. take it seriously for stealing some money of the people.

[Ferran]

These are my suggestions for better "selling" GNU/Linux to everyone:

One of the reasons why GNU/Linux intimidates is the installation process. Although this topic has been greatly improved currently, the installation of GNU/Linux must be able to be done in the most elementary way possible. . E.g. offering language, keyboard and regional time settings in a single window with default opcions.

It should also offer an "a la carte" hard disk formatting with options: "students", "development", "companies", "gamers", "family", "general", etc. so that the hard disk can be sized as efficiently as possible without the user having to think about anything other than pressing an option. Obviously, we will also need an "expert" option to be able to perform the disk formatting manually, at the bottom.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

[exiledangel420]

My oppinion is as follows, There is not enough publicity with or without money being involved. The reason google was able take linux turn into the andriod(By Stealing Java Code From Oracle, they rewote their own code later on)and capitalise on the phone market is they had the money to do so. I'm 80s/90's child and all I heard about growing up about and used was windows, and apple. You want to effect real change start with the schools. Because me being from poor family it was where I touched my first computers. It was an apple of course. But as I grew up I never had computer at home. Not intill I was able buy one for myself. So education is key in a manner of speaking but not to teach the kids about linux as much having them use linux. It would change the platform entirely if you got it in more public schools or in kids hands in anyway. I was in my mid 20's before I ever touched a linux operating system and that makes a difference to how its viewed.

[Pierre]

it's not just an Better Marketing Idea, either,
as it's not that hard to find any Linux alternative, to most Windows issues.

it's more of an Profit Scenario, than anything else.
as that Windows System was marketed as an Profit Making Exercise.

thus, until someone, has an better method of realizing an Profit, from the Linux System,
then it will not get any better marketing scenario . .

in the main, most folks, will find the Linux alternative,
only when they perceive some issue with their Windows based machine.

[Frank Pereny]

it's not just an Better Marketing Idea, either,
as it's not that hard to find any Linux alternative, to most Windows issues.

it's more of an Profit Scenario, than anything else.
as that Windows System was marketed as an Profit Making Exercise.

thus, until someone, has an better method of realizing an Profit, from the Linux System,
then it will not get any better marketing scenario . .

in the main, most folks, will find the Linux alternative,
only when they perceive some issue with their Windows based machine.

To your point, I think any product in general needs to give people VALUE. Different people have value in different things. Why do apps like FaceBook succeed even though they are basically just an advertisement / data acquisition tool? Because most people value what it does, free communication and positive feedback loops on content.

Today, clearly Linux has proven value to different groups of people, myself I value data privacy and I don't want large corporations determining what is installed on my computer and how my data is used. I don't want software pushed down my throat clogging up my machine forcing me to toss perfectly good computers in the trash every 5 years.

But to make Linux mainstream it needs to add value in the following areas:

Ease of use
Works out of the box
High compatibility applications
Safety Net Capable (e.g. you cannot easily break the system by screwing around with /bin)
Needs to look fantastic out of the box
Intuitive and "dumbed down" control out of the box

The problem is some of these key areas are exactly opposite to what Linux is. Someone else made a good point in another post about computers being an appliance to 90% of people. To them, a computer is just a fancy toaster. Doesn't matter if it's the best toaster in the world, if it looks rusty out of the box they don't want to polish it up they will toss it and buy a new one. They want it to work out of the box by just plugging it in. They want it unbreakable so that they can't possibly blow it up.

[Pierre]

An out-on-the-limb suggestion. Is there a corporate billionaire, such as Elon Musk or even Jeff Bezos, who would be willing to "push" Linux through both advertising and product development?

there an Guy called Mark Shuttleworth who made his Fortune in South Africa,
and then founded his Canonical (company) that markets the Ubuntu Linux System,
which itself is based upon the Debian System.

this LinuxMint System, in turn, is based upon that Ubuntu Linux System . .
and thus, this LinuxMint System, should get some sort of "push" from that Ubuntu Linux System base.

[mgrot]

It is much easier and quicker to get from A to B if you don't need or want to learn a new way of going from A to B, and since humans are fundamentally lazy, they opt for what they already know.

I think it's more comfort/familiarity issue, not lazyness. People do things "the hard way" because they were familiar with doing it that way. A lazy mentality would be to do things using the least amount of effort.

Yes Mint could use some better marketing. That's true. They also need funding for that. Mint is free, remember? Min't can't compete with multi billion dollar companies like Apple and Microsoft when it comes to advertisement.

And say they did get an influx of funding. It would be my preference that the funding would pay full-time developer salaries to increase support and make the system as stable and as compatible as possible.