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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

#121

Post by etempleton »

I do think Linux is accessible to many more people, but I would not say it is ready for the masses. The terminal is going to be a non-starter for your average computer user.

But, with that said, I started seriously using Linux for the first time in 2025. I bounce between Debian, Windows 11, and MacOS, and Debian is probably the most refreshing to use. I don’t find Windows 11 as oppressive as other seem to, but I have turned off most of what people cite as the issues. I find MacOSs Liquid Glass redesign to be more aggressively bad.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#123

Post by gerdesj »

ktpsns wrote: post #3

Best luck! My year of the Linux desktop has been 2006, so it's now 20 years (with a short 5yrs relapse around 2012). I never look back. (Similarities to smoking cessation are neither coincidental nor intentional, but unavoidable.)

Mine was a few years earlier (YoLotD). Sadly, I kept up with the fags until 2018 ...

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#125

Post by Normal_gaussian »

prhn wrote: post #113

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.

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

I play loads of games; its mainly AAA multiplayers that aren't able to run on linux due to kernel anti-cheat - nearly everything else runs well with minimal effort using proton via steam (either installed via steam or imported as a non-steam game).

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#126

Post by cjbgkagh »

easton wrote: post #72
cjbgkagh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The decisions reg UI frameworks are largely due to internal political conflicts, mostly between DevDiv and Windows.

From the outside looking in one wonders why this is allowed to continue. Microsoft’s old school “developer tools for money” business is slowly dying (because Visual Studio proper is less popular than its ever been since so much is targeting web), you would think they’d reorganize and move .net and GitHub and stuff into their cloud team and yeet whatever toxic leadership is preventing Windows from using Microsoft’s ow…

It’s a largely dysfunctional org creating largely dysfunctional software, I.e. Conway law. Dysfunctional orgs tend not to be capable of fixing themselves, especially without external threat. Satya Nadella, like many CEOs, seems mostly interested in impressing his peers and these days that means fancy AI, before that it was Quantum chips.

Microsoft has produced some great technology and when I was last there I was definitely focusing on getting as much of the good stuff out into open source as possible.

Back in the early V8 days the execs imagined JavaScript would keep getting exponentially faster, I tired to explain with a similar investment anything V8 could do dotnet could do better as we had more information available for optimization.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#127

Post by Macha »

jama211 wrote: post #102

This post does examplefy what we’re seeing, a general indication of some swelling of momentum but I bet it’s still going to be from 2% to maybe 3 or 5% at most until Linux can fix a few things about the community, issues with install difficulty such as dual booting and other issues, and the technical knowledge barrier to entry until more distribution with hardware comes along. Although of course system 76 and steam d…

Regarding the Steam Deck, Linux is _already_ 3% of Steam users: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey, while MacOS is under 2%.

I think it's also maybe worth pointing out that "non-enthusiast desktop OS user" is a segment that is shrinking. A lot of the people that aren't going to Linux are just going to smartphones only rather than buy a new laptop for Win11.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#128

Post by tormeh »

cogman10 wrote: post #65
tormeh wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much this. I bet the Xbox/games division would be up in arms about it, but they got told to spend less money and also not to bother the important people. The Windows people might care, but with how bad they've been shepherding the OS I'm not so sure. Nadella is focused on AI and Azure. Bet he could hardly care less.

Yeah, it's all AI, Azure, and Office 365. Everything else is basically a forgotten product by microsoft. Even xbox is basically dead at this point.

Honestly I get the Xbox apathy. There's not that much profit in being what, third or fourth place? After Steam, Playstation and Nintendo? Depends how you define it, I guess, but to me they're in fourth place. Microsoft needs to either cut their losses or invest a ton of money. It looks like they will pick some weird thing in the middle, keeping Xbox on life support. Probably some unhappy compromise internally.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#129

Post by gerdesj »

markus_zhang wrote: post #12

“They've managed to take some of their most revolutionary technological innovations (the NT kernel's hybrid design allowing it to restart drivers, NTFS, ReFS, WSL, Hyper-V, etc.) then just shat all over them”. Well said. I wonder what the kernel team thinks about it.

ReFS riffs on reflinks - take a gander at XFS.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#130

Post by sgc »

gorfian_robot wrote: post #110

my 2017 mac air is getting real long in the tooth. I'd definitely considering switching to *nix with it but everything I keep reading is that process is not so easy.

Write a strongly worded letter to the manager (apple). It's easy on other hardware.
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