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2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

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Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#111

Post by sylens »

sho_hn wrote: post #59
sylens wrote: post #14

If this wasn’t HN, I would swear that my personal recommendation algorithm has gotten Linux desktop-pilled and that’s why I’m seeing so many posts like these every day. But in reality I think there is a groundswell of momentum happening here, and with component prices rising, I only see this continuing as more people look to breathe new life into older hardware.

KDE's income from individual donations has doubled recently, and many of the comments we get with donations are from recent Windows switchers. As I wrote on HN just yesterday, I've been working on the Linux desktop for 20 years and the momentum has never been higher. 2026 will be fun.

Thank you for reminding me that I should set up some recurring donations to the teams powering my Linux experience

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#112

Post by Macha »

reincarnate0x14 wrote: post #71
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.

Pretty standard for Microsoft lately. The old stuff is still there, we're adding a completely new stack adjacent to it so now you can live with the worst of both! The Windows 8 tablet interface and the Win11 wtfever that is still sometimes kick out a dialogue box unchanged since Windows XP. One can only imagine what the product managers of like .NET think of all this.

> Pretty standard for Microsoft lately. The old stuff is still there, we're adding a completely new stack adjacent to it so now you can live with the worst of both! The Windows 8 tablet interface and the Win11 wtfever that is still sometimes kick out a dialogue box unchanged since Windows XP.

At least in Windows 10, there was even still the occasional Windows 3.1 file picker hanging around in the really dusty locations

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#113

Post by prhn »

I only really ever play one game, so that's not a blocker for me.

I would have switched by now but film and audio production software, including VSTs, don't seem to be greatly supported on Linux. I'd love to hear from someone if you are successfully doing this.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#115

Post by sho_hn »

sylens wrote: post #111
sho_hn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

KDE's income from individual donations has doubled recently, and many of the comments we get with donations are from recent Windows switchers. As I wrote on HN just yesterday, I've been working on the Linux desktop for 20 years and the momentum has never been higher. 2026 will be fun.

Thank you for reminding me that I should set up some recurring donations to the teams powering my Linux experience

Thank you very much in advance!

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#116

Post by assimpleaspossi »

KronisLV wrote: post #26
7e wrote: post #6

They're going from Microsoft to... Linux. From bad to worse. Just use macOS and get on with your life.

I’m not sure about that. To me, Windows has been the best experience with gaming (yes, including the stupid bullshit anti-cheat software that shouldn’t exist in the way it does, the devs making it truly only support Windows), the desktop experience has been tolerable, especially with PowerToys and FancyZones in particular and that one registry change to restore classic context menu. Still feels like fighting against…

>>Tried FreeBSD for one of my servers too but hardware support wasn’t wide enough, not sure what the desktop situation there is like.

Hardware support is plenty wide enough. Just buy the hardware that supports FreeBSD and that's most of it. Same with the desktop and I've run servers and desktops for 25 years using easily found, common, name brand hardware that runs FreeBSD.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#118

Post by bawolff »

publicdebates wrote: post #98
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.

Am I missing something, or hasn't Microsoft done this since Windows 9x with apps like Explorer and Control Panel heavily using web views internally rather than "native" WinAPI GUIs?

Remember when Active Desktop! Was the shiny new thing?

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#119

Post by darubedarob »

jsheard wrote: post #84
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.

Typing "Visual Studio" into the new start menu may randomly trigger a Bing search for "Visual Studio" instead of running it, but on the other hand that makes Bings KPIs go up so it's impossible to say if it's bad or not.

Objectively it wastes developer time making the OS in a non linear way more expensive for companies. Its like a minthly subscription for ever more minutes.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#120

Post by gorfian_robot »

windowsrookie wrote: post #43
Dfiesl wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m going from macOS to linux currently. It was the hardware obsolesence that kicked things off but I definitely wont miss the constant nagging about my iCloud being full

Just turn off iCloud sync for the things you don't use and you won't fill it up. I sync passwords, notes, find my, calendar, contacts, and safari. Currently using 800MB of the free 5GB.

yeah. fuck iCloud.
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