As Torvalds pointed out in 2019, is that while some major hardware vendors do sell Linux PCs – Dell, for example, with Ubuntu – none of them make it easy. There are also great specialist Linux PC vendors, such as System76, Germany’s TUXEDO Computers, and the UK-based Star Labs, but they tend to market to people who are already into Linux, not disgruntled Windows users. No, one big reason why Linux hasn’t taken off is that there are no major PC OEMs strongly backing it. To Torvalds, Chromebooks “are the path toward the desktop.”
hardware compatibility is only one part of the problem. the other is binary compatibility. vendors are not going to ship binaries for a range of linux distributions and versions. vendors are not going to ship source code. and if they do, it’s going to be a pain to get it to compile (e.g. trying to compile epson scan 2 on arch right now and grappling with a boost version that is too new).
flatpaks