The only group who is discussing the pros and cons of different operating systems are Linux users. They are interested in examine the difference between the ext4 and the NTFS filesystem and they are asking why Linux on the desktop never was a success. The average Windows user doesn't has such problems. He is using a computer not with a technical background but he is interested to playback multimedia software. The operating system needed to run edutainment software is never seletected by the user but by the producer of the CD-ROM.
The trick is to see operating systems not from a computing perspective but as media history. The standard users is entering a store and buys a game. For example a vocabulary trainer to improve the English skills. On the CD-ROM box there is written that this game needs the Windows 8 operating system. The user has this operating system so the product is compatible. He buys the product and use it at home.
The reason why million of normal users have decided for the Windows operating system but not for Linux is because they are attending a discourse in which Windows based edutainment software plays an important role. They are consuming a certain sort of educational information. In contrast, Linux users are attending a different sort of game which is working with a different bias.
The LInux operating system can be interpreted as a media artifact as well. A media technology is some kind of dialoque about something. In case of Linux the dialogue is driven from a producer perspective. The idea is to create computer programs and content under a GPL license and the Linux community is discussing about the details of this plan. The media dialogue around WIndows multimedia CD-ROMs is based on a different goal. Here is the idea that the user gets amused and can relax by buying a CD-ROM. Windows software is seen as the logical step after the invention of the music CD and home entertainment products.
media history
The advantage of the term “Media history” is, that it describes a large amount of different communication technologies from the past. Well known mass media are journals and books. But board games, video, television and radio can be defined as media history too.
The perhaps surprising fact is, that software can be defined as media history as well. An intro for the Commodore 64 is not only pure computer code written in the assembly language but it has a social context. The intro is produced and consumed with a certain purpose. The same is obvious for classical media artifacts. A printed newspaper doesn't contains only of the printed paper itself, but a newspaper has a producer and a consumer who are repeating a certain behavior during the interaction with each other.
One interesting point in comparing operating systems like Windows and Linux against each other is, that in most cases these technology are not interpreted as media technology but are described from their own understanding. That means, Linux is explained a software which was written in C and Windows is also a software product written in C. This point of view ignored the context why Linux or Windows is used by a large amount of users.
Instead of focussing on the Windows operating system itself, which is distributed under the brand name Windows 10 and is stored on a DVD, the more elaborated perspective is to focus on the media products which are based on this operating system. This is equal to the software sold in stores and consumed by a larger audience. Windows based multimedia software was the first computer based media artifact. It has become popular in the early 1990s. Describing the transition towards WIndows based multimedia CD-ROMs helps to understand what the Windows operating system is about.
Before the advent of the Microsoft dominated PC the media history contains of music CDs, VHS video casette, printed newspapers and colored books. VHS video and the music CDs was an electronic media format because it requires electric current while a printed newspaper doesn't need electricity. With the advent of the IBM PC plus the Microsoft operating system in the 1990s a new sort of media has become visible. It was called software which was running on computer systems. In the beginning software was distributed on 3.5 inch floppy discs later the CD-ROM was invented. Around this computer technology new sort of media publishing companies are built from scratch. Their buisness model was to use the computer for distributing media to the consumer.
A software publishing house, which is producing a CD-ROM for the WIndows 98 operating system can't be called a computer company but it's at foremost a media company. Instead of using printed paper, they are using the Windows 98 system calls to create an electronic book. The advantage of the Windows ecosystem is, that it's working with a classic understanding of media. At first the WIndows PC is standardized. Secondly the content is produced by media publishing houses.
It make sense to see the Linux ecosystem as an anti pattern to Windows based multimedia publishing. Linux is based on two idea: First the idea is to boycott the existing Windows programming standard but provide a Unix API. Secondly the idea is that anybody can become a producer and media is generated without a copyright.
The reason why Linux based operating system never become popular on the desktop is because this understanding of media is way to advanced. From the self-understanding of the Open Source community they are trying to overcome the existing Windows driven media production cycle. And this kind of goal is a very demanding one. It's too much for most of the consumers who are focussed on classical media production.
Let us describe the pipeline of classical WIndows based multimedia CD Rom production. The idea in the 1990s was that a commercial company simliar to a newspaper company is producing a CD-ROM, and this product is sold in the computer store to thousands of consumer for a fixed price. Bascially spoken a multimedia CD-ROM is an electronic book. Which means, it's copyright protected and was produced by experts on this field who are doing it in a commercial context.
A Linux user would argue that this kind of media artifact is obsolete. It has a lot of problems and Linux is the answer to overcome this outdated understanding of a multimedia CD-ROM. The question is what is the alternative to a Windows based edutainment CD-ROM? The alternative is called the Internet. A website is some kind of CD-ROM which is shown on the desktop PC. It's not wonder that Internet centric computer systems like Android smartphones and Google chromebook has become very popular. It's not enough to describe only the underlying operating system which is the Linux kernel, but the more interesting description is based on the ecosystem around this technology. An Google chromebook is used to display websites on the screen which are created with Javascript, HTML5, the PDF format and with H.264 videos. The normal user isn't focussed on the Linux kernel but he is interested in these websites. The interesting point is, that a website which is displayed on a Google chromebook is programmed different from classical Windows based multimedia CD-ROM.
Similar to windows based software, a website has to be programmed, but the programming langauges and the standards are different. What is different two is the pricing model. Most websites are available without any costs but are sponsered with advertaisment. From a media history perspective, the Internet is the logical next step after Windows based CD-ROMs. The prediction is, that Windows operating system and the ecosystem around it will disappear while Internet based technology will become more important.
Let us listen to Linux advocates why they are rejecting the Windows operating system at all. The main reason is, that they are not following the price model of commercial CD-ROM multimedia products. The reason is located in the information explosion. In the early 1990s the amount of media products was small. In the local computer store the total amount of CD-ROM was smaller than 100. How many websites exists in the year 2020? Right millions of them. It's not possible to burn all these websites on CD-ROM and distribute it for 5 US$ each to the consumer. Nobody has the storage space to collect hundred of CD-ROMs. That means, Microsoft based content production isn't compatible to the information explosion. And the consequence is, that it will fail. Or it has failed in the past but similar to the printed newspaper it's sold as long as possible to the consumer.
Multimedia
The term multimedia was introduced in the mid 1990s and describes a desktop computer which is equipped with colored monitor, graphics card, cd-rom drive and sound card. It's interesting to know, that the pipeline for producing content was focussed on the Microsoft operating system. That means, 99.9% of all Multimedia CD-ROMs since the 1990s are Microsoft Windows compatible. That means, the Microsoft multimedia PC was a playback platform for commercial media producers.
With the advent of the Internet the situation has changed drastically. The webbrowser has replaced the former Microsoft PC and every device which can display a website is a multimedia PC. The result was, that Android smartphones, Mac OS X PC and Linux PCs can be seen as a multimedia PC as well. From the consumer perspective there is no need to ask if the consumer has a Microsoft PC but the smallest common standard is, that he has access to a webbrowser.
What we say today is some kind of transitition from old digital media to internet media. WIndows multimedia CD-ROMs are sold, at the same time the consumer is paying for commercal internet based content and he has access to free content in the internet as well. The most important breakthrough after the Microsoft Windows operating system was the google search engine. It has become to a standard used by the world, no matter which sort of computer system they own. The interesting feature of Google is, that it's not a certain programming language or a software framework but it's some kind of online library which collects information.