Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

Agree. In addition, I don’t believe that significant amounts of switching was ever going to happen without desktop Linux becoming more like its commercial counterparts. One has to remember that most computer users use computers as tools and don’t relish having to learn a whole new set of conventions.

There will always be more “Linuxy” out in the weeds desktops for people who want them. Most people who want that built their own setup anyway, making whatever the big DEs do more or less moot.

> Article mischaracterizes the experience of running x64 apps on Windows on Arm, which is Rosetta 2-like at this point, but whatever

Where is the translation layer that lets me seamlessly run x64 apps on Linux on Arm?

Linux is already winning some important battles:

-no ads

-no tracking

-no vendor lock in

-no preinstalled or unremovable crapware

That's enough for me. Yes, it's not perfect, but you're simply allowed to say no.

It's 2025. The "year of the linux desktop" has been a meme for years. No one says it in earnest. No one is having init or DE wars. And while there is plenty of healthy discussion about flatpak and other alt forms of software distribution, this is exactly the kind of innovation and experimentation that leads to the usability improvements the author wants to see. Linux is doing just fine, and I'm glad there are multiple options to accomplish similar tasks.

I HIGHLY agree with this article and IMHO all the comments bashing Gnome just don't really get it. For all of it's faults, I still roll with Ubuntu/Gnome every day because it just freaking works, gets out of my way, gets the job done, and doesn't require a weekend of tweaking software to get everything working just right.

I don't care at all for the SystemD/whatever else flame wars. Sure if you work on these systems you probably care deeply about the differences but please realize that most of your end users do not give a shit. The same goes for the various packaging systems, I prefer to still use DEB's when I can but at the end of the day it really just comes down to how easily can I get the apps setup on my computer to get my work done, myself and most other users also don't really care.

What I care about are things like: why is multi monitor support still half assed? why does full screening my chrome window crash my monitor? why is it that half my installed apps don't conform to my theme? why is it that when I switch on X window manager instead of Wayland my wallpaper goes away?

But it seems that the folks that actually work on Linux don't care about these issues because when I ask why VSCode crashes my monitor, all I get is answers telling me to use vim or emacs, or when I complain why the themes look all janky all I get is: "well this wouldn't be an issue if you used .

The vibe I get around these issues is that it's below most Linux developers as they are too busy arguing about some flag in the kernel or whether to use systemd or not. But those same people bitch and moan why "Year of the Linux Desktop" hasn't come yet. Figure out that these issues are not below you, they are the issues that people care about. Fix those issues and I'm positive that adoption will go up.

Sorry for the rant.