Desktop Linux Desperately Needs A Media Strategy
By: James Mawson
Tags: Desktop Computing, Linux, Open Source, Marketing, Media Strategy

Who loves heavy metal? Me! As do many of my friends.

I did a double take the other morning, scrolling social media to see dozens of metalheads engaging at great length with Cardi B’s salacious chart topper.

I mean, I know these guys. They obsess all year long over obscure bands with unpronounceable names, unreadable logos and incomprehensible vocals. How had so many of them — all in unison — become engrossed by a pop star?

All I could do was ask a friend why this was. He laughed, then put it simply: “it’s been in all the memes lately.”

Setting the Agenda

If you also use social media, you’ll have watched things like this play out all the time. Folks invest themselves in all sorts of unlikely topics for no reason except a buzz in the news or culture.

A political scientist named Bernard Cohen once put it that the media “may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling people what to think about.”

Is this a frivolous way to decide what’s worth noticing? Maybe, but I also sometimes direct my attention on the same basis. Unless you’re so unusual that you never developed social instincts, you do too.

This happens so automatically, so effortlessly, that we often won’t even notice it.

What On Earth Does This Have to Do With Linux?

Well, browse to The Verge and put “linux” in the search bar. Here, I’ll do it for you.

Where’s Manjaro? elementary OS? KDE Plasma? Linux Mint? Where’s even Ubuntu? The most visible desktop operating system when you search for Linux news is Windows 10.

From the perspective of individual Linux users, that’s no big deal. Other websites — like this one — cater to us much better. But in terms of where the eyeballs are, The Verge is the big time. At the time of writing, its Alexa rank is 762. This means only 761 websites on earth are more popular.

Desktop Linux is similarly invisible on Cnet (Alexa rank #165) and Engadget (#1,008)

It has some presence on PCMag (#871), Techradar (#615) and Digitaltrends(#713), although the quality varies between superficial and dubious. The most visible desktop operating system when you search for Linux in these places is still Windows 10.

If the world’s highest traffic tech publications were your primary source of technology news — and for hundreds of millions they are — you could be forgiven for thinking that the biggest, most exciting new thing in desktop Linux is that it’s becoming easier to use on Windows.

It’s The Great Constraint

The ease of installation, the user experience, software support, drivers, elitism and toxicity, the library of games on Steam… Yes, these are all real things. The last thing I want is to discourage anyone trying to improve them.

Still, the incredible progress on all of these fronts has done almost nothing to grow market share.

Looming over all of this is a stark, simple truth: beyond our bubble, nobody knows squat about any of these things. They’re not even thinking about it.

Imagine You Were Displaying Fine Rennaissance Paintings in an Unmarked, Abandoned Mine

What would be the best way to get more people in? Would you buy another Botticelli?

Or would you try to find somewhere with lighting, signage, wheelchair access, located in or near to a town?

Our target audience spends zero minutes per week even thinking about desktop Linux. Until that’s fixed, no other factor can even come into play.

How Is This Media Presence So Bad?

Is it just a chicken and egg problem? High traffic tech websites chase mass audiences, so you’d expect them to cover the operating systems those mass audiences use.

If the coverage was proportional to market share, it should still appear in 1 in 50 or 1 in 100 stories about desktop operating systems. Maybe, when big news stories like Valve’s Steam Proton or Ubuntu 20.04 land, it could punch a bit above its weight for a moment.

You might also argue that Linux isn’t even meant for a mass consumer audience. That’s a great explanation as to why Arch and, arguably, Fedora struggle in this space. It’s less satisfying as to why Zorin OS, Gnome and Cinnamon fare no better.

I think there’s more going on.

It’s Too Much Work for Busy Writers

CNet and The Verge are totally littered with little stories like this one about a new Chrome extension.

It’s a perfectly serviceable story, providing real value to a small audience. It also shows that you don’t necessarily have to change the world to land headlines here.

By grabbing this one headline, this browser extension has outperformed Linux Mint, Manjaro and elementary OS combined in this tier of media coverage.

I think a big part of what’s happening here is that Google is extremely good at packaging their work up in a way that makes it an easy story to file. In this case, there’s this hugely detailed web.dev blog post and this video. All the writer had to do was write about it.

Journalists tell us that desktop Linux is different: release materials so bare, they don’t even include screenshots.

A publicity effort could make desktop Linux a breeze to report. It could assemble quotes, data and visual content in compelling story pitches, delivered to the most appropriate writers, all ready to go.

This makes it a much easier choice for a busy writer battling through the work day.

The Power of Established Norms

The next problem, while simpler, is more diabolical. These publications don’t run desktop Linux because they’re not in a habit to.

It’s not all that long ago that desktop Linux truly was too weird and difficult to interest a mass audience. That underlying reality has faded, but the habits built around it persist.

Once organisations form habits, they’re hard work to shift. That’s especially true when they seem to largely be working.

For writers under deadlines and pressure, following established norms feels easier. The writing itself is less effort; it also carries little risk of resistance or raised eyebrows from coworkers and superiors.

Crashing through this means pitching stories that are so compelling and clickable, so well backed by data, video and/or visual assets, it would be crazy not to run them.

As publications grow more used to the idea that desktop Linux is part of their coverage, winning headlines will become easier.

Winning Media to Win Mind Share

Are you sceptical that a bit of media would immediately prompt readers to rush out and buy Linux laptops? Hey, me too!

Even hardcore Linux distro hoppers –who make a game of exploring new operating systems — will hear about a distro many times before trying it. The average Mac or Windows user is not a hardcore distro hopper and their resistance is orders of magnitude larger.

Being visible on major tech websites is a great way to start people on that journey, to get them curious, thinking about it, willing to hear more. In business jargon you call this “top of the funnel” marketing.

There are many persuasive, rational reasons to prefer desktop Linux for those willing to give attention. But non-users, almost by definition, have their attention elsewhere. Linux needs first to engage at a much deeper level of intuition and instinct for the rational appeals to be given a chance.

This is where a media buzz really comes into its own. It’s not just that many potential new users are looking at these websites, they understand intuitively that so many others are looking there too. That makes it almost unbeatable as social proof, and that influences all of us, even when we’re not particularly aware of it.

Winning Media to Win the Board Room

Desktop adoption is also a matter of countless business decisions along the way.

Things like:

hardware and software vendors deciding it’s an important platform to support,

big and small retailers prominently displaying Linux options in-store and online,

managed service providers pitching it to their clients,

consultants recommending it in reports

and so on.

It’s tempting to assume that, because these are business decisions, they’re too coldly calculated to be swayed by anything so airy as media buzz. But as advertising legend Rory Sutherland puts it: “If businessmen are so rational, why do they all play golf?”

They’re humans, as subject to deep psychological motives as you and I.

Business decisions can have consequences for a decision maker’s job, prospects of promotion, and reputation among those they deal with every work day. That’s emotionally rich territory.

Moreover, as organisations grow and establish, what counts as rational for the individual decision maker takes on its own character.

While wondering what’s optimal for the whole business, they also quietly ponder:

What does everyone else want? (see the Abilene paradox and the Keynesian Beauty Contest)

What would be less hassle for me personally?

How do I avoid blame if it all goes horribly wrong? (defensive decision making)

These are all big reasons to prefer publicly visible norms that feel safe, to not stick your neck out.

This is why the most popular technology media is such an important opportunity for desktop Linux. Again, it’s not just that key decision makers can see it there, they intuitively understand that many others see it there too.

To be clear, it’s unlikely that great headlines alone could suddenly reposition desktop Linux as a new default. Neither would they instantly persuade key decision makers, busy with their own priorities, to switch over.

But they are amazing groundwork.

So the next time someone pitches desktop Linux in a meeting, email, phone or video call, the intuition that arises feels less like “What is she saying? It sounds scary and terrible” and more like “You know what? I’m going to hear her out.”

Winning Media to Win Fame

A much bigger media presence also makes the projects, businesses, and individuals at the centre of the desktop ecosystem more famous. Fame creates its own luck.

Entrepreneurs and established businesses pop up to present deals. Some work out, and grow revenue to amplify open source development.

As desktop Linux brands grow in fame, more career-motivated, talented folks will want them on their CV. These contributors will bring a greater diversity of skills, backgrounds and perspectives.

Who Would Do It?

This is the headache. In a fragmented ecosystem, it isn’t clear cut who would be responsible for this sort of work.

Certain projects might be able to go this alone. This makes particular sense for those attached to a profitable business. They’ve scope to make big wins all for themselves.

This sort of piecemeal approach wouldn’t produce as many headlines as a campaign behind desktop Linux as a brand in its own right. That really sounds like the work of an industry association.

So far, no existing association seems to see this kind of work as a big priority. You could spend all day picking apart why that might be.

I’ve previously suggested some kind of commercial consortium to market desktop Linux. Businesses that sell to this market could combine with the tech giants most disadvantaged or threatened by the Windows monopoly (some of those are huge) to field a modest budget for a range of activities including PR.

If there’s a different way to make it happen, no problemo! The important thing is that someone takes this on.

The Most Difficult Part is Already Done

Desktop Linux is software worth noticing. Doing that is the really difficult, time-consuming, expensive bit.

All that’s missing is the right pitch to hit the tech media big time.

It’s like running a full marathon only to give up in the final yard.

Media Strategy in Context

A media strategy isn’t the whole answer to the adoption problem — or even to the visibility challenges.

When you ask folks what operating system they use, it’s staggering how many reply they have a Dell or HP. I’m not sure how any level of media coverage could make an impression with them.

Still, winning our rightful place in the media is a magnificent chance to move the needle. It’s remarkably straightforward, and offers both short and long term rewards. If the right commercial forces are properly harnessed, it should also look very affordable.

Back in high school science, we did an experiment that showed if you increase a substance’s surface area before dropping it in a test tube, it pops and fizzes much faster.

I humbly submit that, if we greatly increase the surface area that desktop Linux has with potential new users, that reaction will pop and fizz much faster too.

The alternative is that so much great work continues to be done in darkness. Wouldn’t that be a pity?