I’m calling it 🙌
The year of the linux desktop is different for every one. For me it was 2003. Haven’t looked back since and everytime I’m forced to use Windows, I feel like I need to take a shower.
Xx-zones dbus_annotation and ext-tray get merged and implemented into kde and global shortcuts stop sucking and I’ll call it.
I have no idea what any of those words mean and that makes me want to stick to Windows.
The year of Linux on the desktop was the friends we made along the way…
They come around more often than the Olympics.
You can only abuse your customers so much before they move on. I have long enjoyed using Windows, but when they announced my perfectly usable laptop wouldn’t be able to get 11 thanks to no TPM, and I had to go through a complicated set of hoops to manually install it, that was my breaking point. I will keep Windows for some limited stuff on dual boot on one machine, but elsewhere I’m going Linux only
You can only abuse your customers so much
you’d think so… but the number of friends and family who still put up with this shit is incredible. Ads in the start menu, copilot popping up every time you press a wrong button on the keyboard, the entire task bar changing overnight with ads and stock tickers…
That last one pisses me off so much… “i dont want to learn linux!”… MF’er, microsoft just rearranged your entire task bar and start menu overnignt and you didnt seem to have a problem adapting your workflow… why would switching to gnome or KDE be any different?
For me, it’s
date +%s2025 already was, and it continues. The ecosystem and Proton have changed the game (no pun intended), and even normies are starting to switch.
I finally migrated from MacOS (other than Logic Pro) and Windows. Keep Windows around for some games but it is no longer first in boot order on any machine, and I am delighted.
Every time I boot to Windows it drags ass forever, updates, reboots, repeats, and by the time I can use it I am not even interested.
2026 shouldn’t be the year of any one specific thing; 2026 should be the year of teaching the less inclined how to be conscious with their data and go over methods for taking back their data from whatever service they might use.
Based.
Okay, but for real, 2027 is going to be a real banger for Linux desktop, I’ve got a feeling!
Gaming is the best commercial inroad I’ve seen, and exploding.
But I think the “kernel anticheat” thing is going to be a hard wall until Valve works it out. Unfortunately, big OEMs don’t want to ship a “gaming PC” that can’t run Fortnite.
I know that the market verdict is “eh who cares”, but I really dont think anyone should think that invasive kernel-level anticheat is at all acceptable.
There probably would to be a kernel API to check for anticheat measures. Even then, the OS being FOSS means that you can easily create rootkits, obviously. So secure boot etc will also be a requirement for Linux anticheat.
The real issue is devs not wanting to pay for hosting server side anticheat. I’d much rather have Valve convince them VAC is a good idea than to have them use intrusive anticheat measures or make Linux worse.
The real issue is devs not wanting to pay for hosting server side anticheat. I
Or allowing self hosted servers. With actual mods that just ban people who are being jerks, and basic anticheat tools shipped to them.
Whatever the issue and solution, the current state of the gaming market still makes mass linux gaming kind of impossible. Not from the anticheat games specifically, but from the OEM problem.
2026 I will continue to use the Linux Desktop. My current prediction and I’m sticking to it
Recent convert perspectives
Linux is that feeling of your computer not becoming worse every year. Windows and mac users dont know what that is.
✨I don’t get Advertisements built into my Computer✨
I’m like actually excited for updates to my operating system. That hasn’t been true for Android or Windows in years. The last I remember being excited for an update was iOS on my iPod Touch, but from what I hear, people aren’t even really that hyped for iOS updates any more.
Honesty mine gets better, the more I learn about my system the more I can optimize it to my needs
Mine gets worse, this is a me problem though. Writing automated scripts that I forget about or give non descript names to 🤤
You should try a normal distro like Mint or Zorin.
Arch and its forks aren’t stable distros and they’re best for experimentation rather than daily use.
Unbelievably ignorant take.
Arch and its forks are, in my view, the BEST options for a daily use desktop.
Please research the meaning of stability when applied to Linux before parroting stuff. Also, who mentioned Arch?
I think it depends a bit. Your first times with arch is definently experimental. You install it, you learn to configure things, and at some point you probably want to reinstall, because you have done something that makes the system be buggy. I reinstalled lots of times in the beginning.
But you learn proper Linux by using arch. At least if you actually do the install yourself by following the wiki. You will change a few things in a few config files and you will learn about Linux from that.
After that initial phase of reinstalling lots of times, you start to feel like you know the system intuitively. You know where the system looks for things, which files are read. Then you feel like you really like arch because now you dont break it anymore, and if you do, you can fix it.
Maybe its like that with other distros too. But for me, arch has been that journey. Im on a arch installation from december 2022 now appearently.
Linux desktop has been here for a while, wake me up when BSD desktops become more viable
FreeBSD has made a real laptop push recently and 15.1 is supposed to offer KDE out of the box.
Depending on your hardware, it is really viable now.
BSDs are mostly for servers. For personal, “home and office” use the best BSD in regard of hardware support and userbase is FreeBSD.
If you have limited time, please consider buying the BSD (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD, MidnightBSD etc.) a coffee once in a while, in order to really wake up some day and see the news of the year of BSD.
I mean its free. Installer are incredible easy. Steam says 90% of games are compatible. Libreoffice has all the features.
The last straw are manufactures delivering hardware with M$ bullshit preinstalled.
You can actually buy Linux computers from dell and Lenovo and they’re even cheaper because you don’t pay for the Microsoft license
Cheaper? Nah I want quality. And for the best, you have to pay more. Nothing is for free. /s
Yeah, that’s not a straw, though. It’s like a redwood. A forest of redwoods.
You can technically buy a Chromebook instead. Apparently they kick up a real fuss if you try to install your own OS on it though, Not that I’ve tried.
You just have to Flash coreboot, I have three chromebooks deployed with family, one with mint and two with Endeavour. Even Touch and audio drivers work for those specific models (Acer Santa and Asus Babytiger).
I got GalliumOS onto an old chromebook last year. It was a bit of a fight and there are a couple parts if you mess up it’s possible to brick it entirely. Gallium was specifically for chromebooks, it’s been discontinued last I knew, and getting a different os in there sounds even more painful to me… But yeah you can cram Linux into one!
I mean we have Slimbook for Linux Hardware
Long live the Executive 14 99Wh - you’ll pry mine from my cold dead hands
And Tuxedo and System 76
