Why Linux is the go-to platform for developers and tinkerers
Why Linux is the go-to platform for developers and tinkerers
https://www.howtogeek.com/linux-is-still-a-developer-os-and-thats-why-it-wont-go-mainstream/
Publish Date: 2026-01-27 08:30:00
Source Domain: www.howtogeek.com
Linux fans like to dream of the day when Linux is a mainstream OS instead of a hacker’s tool. As much fun and useful as Linux is, it seems that Linux will still be a “geek” OS. Here’s why the Linux community should embrace this rather than fight it.
Linux is a developer’s workbench
In 1985, Paul Schindler, who was the software reviewer for the PBS show The Computer Chronicles, delivered a short editorial during the show’s episode on Unix, when observers were speculating that AT&T could unseat IBM as the dominant force in computing with Unix in the wake of the breakup of the Bell System. AT&T, now legally able to market computers and software directly, and Unix in particular.
Schindler poured cold water on the idea, comparing marketing Unix to mainstream computer users to trying to open a can of tomato juice with a screwdriver (starting at around 21:54 in the embedded video below).
Schindler’s main argument was that while Unix was a great environment for writing minicomputer software (a class of machine we would now call a server), the proliferation of different Unix versions even in 1985 made software portability difficult.
While Unix had made a splash in academia and Unix workstations were becoming popular in science and engineering, the fragmentation and lack of office software made it a tough sell in the business market compared to the ubiquitous MS-DOS systems outside of specialized applications.
Joel Spolsky, in a review of Eric S. Raymond’s The Art of Unix Programming, pointed out that at the time Unix was first developed, the division between developers and end-users didn’t exist in the minicomputer era. Users had to write their own software. Unix culture evolved to make things easier for developers through its command-line and pipeline design, even at the expense of end users, and Linux largely inherited this attitude.
Unix-like systems are so close to developers’ hearts that an…
