Note: The term Linux usually refers to the Linux kernel, but this article uses it to refer to operating systems built on Linux kernel. An operating system comprises more than just a kernel; here we speak of Linux as an OS for brevity.

Due to Windows and MacOSX’s penetration into the mainstream market, Linux has fallen to the wayside in terms of adoption. But that hasn’t stopped enthusiasts from creating strong communities for the OS online, most of whom swear by Linux for all their tasks, conveniently ignoring the problems with their ‘miracle distros’. 

Linux community vs Microsoft and Apple

For hardcore Linux users, Microsoft represents everything wrong in personal computing. From forced updates to Windows’ NTFS formatting system, everything is fair game for these self-proclaimed power users. When not spouting baseless paranoia about how Microsoft is tracking everything you do on your ‘inferior’ Windows PC, they’re arguing amongst themselves on why their distro is better than the other.

Any user fed up with Windows and looking to shift to Linux might have moderate success installing and setting up one of the easier-to-use distros out on the internet. However, one of the biggest obstacles that any new Linux user will find difficulty in surmounting is the toxic community the ecosystem has built around itself. 

User Prize_Barracuda_5060 on the Linux subreddit accurately captured this sentiment in their post, stating: “I tried using Linux on my main computer as a beginner and faced several issues. But when asking the community or searching the internet, I would only find hate comments by the so-called spawns of arch and tiling window managers rather than solutions to my problems and ways to prevent it from happening in the future.”

Linux power users have a history of telling new users to just ‘RTFM’, an oft-repeated phrase that translates to ‘Read the F***ing Manual’. Newcomers have often had this thrown at them whenever they ask any basic queries regarding the OS. But, this is just one of the few ‘unpleasant phrases’ that newbies hear all the time when it comes to Linux tech support. Norman Jobling, a self-proclaimed Linux user, encapsulated this sentiment perfectly, stating: “I think there’s this ‘you should already know that’ and ‘work it out yourself or you’re stupid’ mentality among a lot of the Linux purists and that’s why it will never be a mainstream desktop OS.”

Linux community vs…Linux community?

The communities that each distro has collected over the years have collectively become one of the biggest repellents for new users, along with being a point of contention for those actively involved in using Linux OSs. 

Even members of the community have called out this fanboyish behaviour, where Linux nerds regularly split themselves apart on how their specific set of distros and utilities is better than every other option out there solely because it suits their use cases. These users have had the spare time to compile their list of preferred softwares, debugging and fixing issues at every step. 

This leads to a sense of technical superiority and extreme tone deafness when it comes to things that people actually need, like an intuitive GUI or an OS that just works. The Linux community thrives on belittling others for their choices while trying to convince them that their set of choices is better, solely due to the amount of time they spend to set up their system in the exact way they want it. 

According to these enthusiasts, using any OS apart from the free and open-source Linux is the highest form of insult, as the user is supporting ‘greedy corporations’ by using closed-source operating systems. Even though Windows and Mac trump Linux in terms of usability, support, and stability, the toxic community disregards these factors completely and forces Linux on users unwilling to use it.

Although, these bad apples do not make a majority of the community surrounding Linux, since many forums are actually friendly towards new users, the negative users create enough noise in the community to turn newcomers away from the platform, thus creating a negative perception of the ecosystem.