Let’s say just like for example like MacOS. It’s awesome we have so many tools but at the same time lack of some kind of standardization can seem like nothing works and you get overwhelmed. I’m asking for people that want to support Linux or not so tech-savy people.
Perhaps someone could make a business of it then.
Chromebooks sold well enough. Google made $30 billion on that in 2023.
Anyone willing to put together a physical Linux machine, market and support it could take a chunk of that.
For me it was always a niche that wasn’t taken full advantage of.
Chromebooks never really made sense outside of schools and old people.
The OS is hyper limited to essentially just a web browser, and android apps (so just a web browser). Nobody wants to buy premium hardware to use with just Chrome. But at the same time it’s Chrome, so you really need at least a good chunk of RAM. So it really just limits you to the super light use cases, but those could realistically be replaced by a tablet.
The other day we saw an extremely odd device at malwart. They had a $270 laptop/tablet hybrid thing with a fairly nice OLED display, and a snapdragon CPU that should have been more that sufficient. But 128gb of EMMC storage, and 4 gigs of ram. Such wasted potential. It would make a nice RDP machine I guess.
No major OEM will do a consumer Linux PC because MS will punish them with Windows licence pricing. You’d have to be a newcomer that’s not beholden to MS. At the same time, you’d need a shitload of cash to start a hardware business with enough volume to get into big box stores. That’s why it hasn’t happened yet