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2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

xeiaso.net

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Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really only Photoshop is the big gaping hole I feel as a linux user. Gimp is just atrocious. There is a desktop webview of PhotoPea, but it's not the same.

2.5 hours of battery is a serious gaping hole imo.

I removed the batteries in our laptops because we use them like desktops all the time and it's one less fire hazard to worry about.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#152
Wait, does Xe not know about this? https://www.thurrott.com/dev/330980/microsoft-to-replace-all...

But more seriously, it's pretty ironic to see all of these posts on HN, a supposed "tech" community, about switching to Linux, especially the comments describing how it defied their low expectations (tacitly revealing their own lack of prior first-hand experience). You never would have seen this on Slashdot 20 years ago, where dual booting Linux (or some BSD, despite it dying) was the minimum "geek cred" to not be seen as a poser.

And this was at a time when distros were far less user-friendly and had far more hardware compatibility issues and far less support for running Windows software.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#153

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…

Most charts I've seen indicate Linux already passed 5% usage worldwide.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#154
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?

But those weren't entirely done with a webview. They were just embedding views where it made sense, like rendering a section that looks like a document (with fancy hyperlinks woooo) or render a preview of the file you selected in the main (native) view of explorer.

Now we are talking about entire apps being built with that stuff, down to the window border (or lack of it). It's impossible to have a consistent looking and working OS with this approach. It's impossible to share code between these things and the actual native apps, and often things have to be written from scratch and end up using 10x memory than the native solution.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#155

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…

> The terminal is going to be a non-starter for your average computer user.

My wife is the average computer user and has used Linux apps for years and never opened a terminal once.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#156
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If your opinion mattered, you would work at Microsoft setting the targets that the Start Menu team need to meet to hit their bonuses/not get fired.

But you don't. So it doesn't.

(I've pinned Visual Studio to the start menu.)

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#157
post #22

Yeah. I feel the same way. If not for the fact that my gaming PC pulls double duty as a work PC, I'd seriously consider ditching Windows 11 for Bazzite. I worry that we are edging closer and closer to a similar phenomenon with macOS as well. Apple seems intent on squandering every bit of stability and sanity that macOS used to represent. Maybe now that Alan Dye is gone, we will at least see the abomination that is Li…

I game on standard Kubuntu, not a custom distro but to each their own.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#158
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.

It takes over five seconds for task manager to open on my Windows 11 work laptop.

Yep, Windows performance on my work laptop reminds me of computing in the 90s: waiting and resource management.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#159
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.

Whenever web dev comes up, we got people saying it's fad-driven development where a new framework comes out every week. Those people have never done real native development. React and Angular have been the solid stable bedrock of web frontend for ten years, and the churn is nothing compared to Windows, OSX, Android, and iOS UI dev.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#160
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'd say about less than .00000001 percent of the world is in the same use case as you.
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