2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop • Hacker News Board

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#501

Post by yokoprime » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 4:34 PM UTC

roxolotl wrote: post #4

“start menus made with React Native, control-alt-delete menus that are actually just webviews” Haven’t used windows in five years or so but I’ve kept hearing bad things. This really is the icing on the cake though. Yea the AI stuff is dumb but if a OS manufacturer can’t be bothered to interact with their own UI libraries to build native UIs something has gone horribly wrong.

I'm not maining windows, but i dual-boot it on my gaming pc (no BF6 on Linux). In all fairness, Windows is no better or worse now than it was 5 years ago. Its not like its suddenly become completely unusable (or more unusable, depending on your perspective). Copilot fluff is being injected a lot of places, but you can largely ignore it and use windows as before. I do feel like Windows is on some sort of life support, that its not the main focus of Microsoft. Again, this is not really new.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#502

Post by petabyt » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 4:36 PM UTC

I've spent the past 8 years going back and forth between Linux and Windows. When I switched back to Linux last year I was shocked how well steam/proton/wine worked compared to a few years prior. Valve is truly making incredible progress.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#503

Post by buo » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 4:40 PM UTC

yokoprime wrote: post #501

roxolotl wrote: post #4

“start menus made with React Native, control-alt-delete menus that are actually just webviews” Haven’t used windows in five years or so but I’ve kept hearing bad things. This really is the icing on the cake though. Yea the AI stuff is dumb but if a OS manufacturer can’t be bothered to interact with their own UI libraries to build native UIs something has gone horribly wrong.

I'm not maining windows, but i dual-boot it on my gaming pc (no BF6 on Linux). In all fairness, Windows is no better or worse now than it was 5 years ago. Its not like its suddenly become completely unusable (or more unusable, depending on your perspective). Copilot fluff is being injected a lot of places, but you can largely ignore it and use windows as before. I do feel like Windows is on some sort of life support,…

I have to use a Windows laptop for work; it was migrated to Windows 11 a few months ago. Win 11 is definitely, measurably worse than Win 10, at least in the configuration that my employer's IT forces on the machine. One example is that its UI is much slower (typing in the search box at normal speed often misses keystrokes, for instance -- never happened on Win 10).

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#504

Post by jeltz » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 4:42 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #491

markus_zhang wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is compensation really the issue? Like, people earning 160k simply can’t take a dive into the OS source code and make proper fixes, but people earning 250k magically can? I don't know. I know there are a lot of people who want to work on the OS source code, given the chance, but need some hand holding in the beginning. Companies in general are not willing to give them the chance, because they don't want to hand hold…

If you could earn $250k why would you settle for $160? There are reasons people do but still money is a powful signal

A kernel engineering job is much more fun than yet another backend web gig. A large part because when working with typical web coding people do not want you to do actual software engineering.

But the actual issue is that if you underpay people they will not feel respected and valued so they will either not be motivated or leave. So you cannot pay below market, but you do not need to pay FB salaries either.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#505

Post by ku1ik » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 4:43 PM UTC

Here's a copy of my Mastodon post [1] from Oct 2025:

---

I had a job interview yesterday, which happened via Google Meet.

Even though I use my desktop Linux workstation and Firefox 99% of the time for everything, my first instinct was to do this interview on a MacBook and Chrome, to avoid surprises and not look unprofessional if something doesn't work, which has happened in the past. Last year, when I was asked to share the screen during a daily, I had to say "um, I'm sorry, Zoom and desktop sharing don't work on my system."

But I thought I'd first do a test on my workstation, just to see if maybe I shouldn't be concerned anymore. I was sceptical.

The ideal scenario was that on my standard GNOME 48 / Wayland / PipeWire desktop I'd be able to use Firefox for this call, and AirPods, a Logitech webcam, and desktop sharing (5K ultrawide scaled at 125%) would just work with no tweaks whatsoever.

And it did!

I've been using Linux on the desktop for over 20 years (on and off, but mostly on) and I know how to hold my Linux systems, but the situation with Bluetooth audio and desktop sharing in previous years has been... spotty. I was less worried about AirPods — I switched to PipeWire ~3 years ago and so I know Linux audio has been rock-solid and pretty much solved already. But desktop sharing used to be hit-or-miss, highly dependent on whether you used X11 or Wayland, further complicated by the use of Flatpaks.

Since my test went well, I did the interview on the desktop machine. It went smoothly, with no surprises.

Therefore, I announce 2025 as the Year of the Linux desktop :)

[1] https://hachyderm.io/@ku1ik/115388713511052943

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#506

Post by cjbgkagh » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

markus_zhang wrote: post #488

cjbgkagh wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think uncompetitive compensation is the dominant factor in Microsoft’s decline. Up there with stack ranking. They claim that it’s 30% cheaper to live there but then they go and capture most of that 30% for themselves. It is my opinion that developer ability is on a Pareto distribution, like the 80 20 rule when 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. The job market is more liquid for those that are extremely p…

I still think there are ways to hand hold people a bit and grow an ordinary engineer to a better one who is fit for system programming in maybe 12 months. Otherwise as you said the only way is to offer the best compensation so that people don't leave. But again those people probably would leave for different reasons (culture e.g.).

Compensation is the easiest way and probably the most essential. It is hard to maintain a good culture when your best keep getting poached away with large sums of money. If Microsoft was the only game in town then sure they could get away with paying less, but they're not so they cannot.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#507

Post by CivBase » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

handbanana_ wrote: post #214

I really don't understand what is different about my installs of Windows 11 compared to what I read in all these types of articles. I have zero issues with the platform day in and day out with heavy workloads like Pro Tools and Unreal Engine devkit. Games run without stutter and issue, all my features are snappy, Explorer loads instantly, etc. Even search is performant and gives decent results. I have tweaked a few s…

Windows can be a good desktop OS. It just takes a lot of work to get it there. And you have to keep putting in a little more work with each update.

I set up a lot of PCs and what has astounded me is how much less work it takes. Unlike with Windows, most of the defaults are fine. I don't have to scour through all the settings after a fresh install. I only need to install half as many apps. I don't have to run powershell scripts to debloat everything. And I don't have to worry about updates undoing all the changes I've made in the future.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#508

Post by kshanowski » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

Glad linux works for many. Personally I've switched to windows 10 ltsc on my work laptop. Main reason for it was the scaling issues with hidpi monitors that I connect/disconnect frequently. I think scaling is better on win and no issues with any blurry app or font or anything related. I also think its faster for my tasks, supports hibernation and has better power management. The other thing was that I'm a tinkerer and under linux I've lost countless hours with optimization and tweaking. I've always monitored and had to had everything under control. Windows takes it out of my head, so I could finally work. Still linux on my desktop tho.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#509

Post by einpoklum » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

roxolotl wrote: post #4

“start menus made with React Native, control-alt-delete menus that are actually just webviews” Haven’t used windows in five years or so but I’ve kept hearing bad things. This really is the icing on the cake though. Yea the AI stuff is dumb but if a OS manufacturer can’t be bothered to interact with their own UI libraries to build native UIs something has gone horribly wrong.

I am forced to use Windows 11 at work on my laptop (produced in 2023). When resuming after hibernation - from the time I press the power key and I see the the release-lock prompt screen with the password/PIN box - that's maybe 5 to 10 seconds; but from that point, until the OS actually responds to key presses and shows characters typed into the text box - well, that takes between 2 and 3 _minutes_.

And that's just one example. I curse Microsoft every day.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#510

Post by markus_zhang » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 4:55 PM UTC

cjbgkagh wrote: post #506

markus_zhang wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think there are ways to hand hold people a bit and grow an ordinary engineer to a better one who is fit for system programming in maybe 12 months. Otherwise as you said the only way is to offer the best compensation so that people don't leave. But again those people probably would leave for different reasons (culture e.g.).

Compensation is the easiest way and probably the most essential. It is hard to maintain a good culture when your best keep getting poached away with large sums of money. If Microsoft was the only game in town then sure they could get away with paying less, but they're not so they cannot.

Yeah you have a point. I wonder what the NT kernel team looks like nowadays.