Microsoft’s announcement of the hardware requirements for Windows 11 caused quite a stir recently. In particular, the TPM 2.0 and processor requirements exclude a lot of perfectly-usable hardware. I’ve heard folks in the Linux community say this could be an opportunity for Linux to make inroads on the consumer desktop. I disagree.
In free/open source software, we have a tendency to assume that other people care about what we care about. That’s why our outreach efforts often fall flat. As I wrote in February: If we want to get the general public on board, we have to convince them in terms that make sense to their values and concerns, not ours.
The idea that Windows 11 will be a benefit for Linux is founded on the idea that people care what operating system they’re running. They’ll want to upgrade to Windows 11, the thinking goes, but realize they can’t. So this is an opportunity for them to try Linux instead.
The logic is sound, but the premise is flawed. The average user does not care—or maybe even know!—what operating system they have. They care about what the computer does, not what it is. They’ll keep using it until Microsoft drops support for the OS…and then they’ll keep using it well beyond that. That’s why Windows XP had a greater install base in August 2020 (6+ years after support ended) than Windows 8. It’s why Fedora Linux 20 machines still show in repo data a dozen releases later. And it’s not just consumer devices. EPEL 5 still had plenty of activity long after RHEL 5 reached end of life.
For most people, the way they upgrade their operating system these days is by buying a new computer. So it never matters to them if their current computer can run the new version.
Do I like this move by Microsoft? No. I also didn’t like it when Fedora considered changing the CPU baseline last year. Thankfully, the community agreed that it was not the right decision. But whether I like it or not, I don’t expect that it will provide any meaningful boost in Linux desktop adoption.
We’ll have to find other ways to make inroads. Ways that resonate with how people use their computers.