This headline couldn't be more absurd. Who cares... computing ceased being desktop-centric 12 or 15 years ago.
2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop
221–230 of 658 posts
Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop
#222For the last few days I was trying to revive an old MacBook Air for a non-techie friend. It had 4 GB of RAM.
It had Catalina on it and was completely unusable. Hovering on anything would bring up the spinner which would take a couple of minutes to resolve itself.
I tried reinstalling the OS, which didn't help. The top recommendation was to revert to Mojave.
Finally, after three days of struggle, I gave up and installed Linux Mint.
The difference is absolutely unbelievable. Even heavy applications like LibreOffice and Zoom are snappy.
Apple makes such good hardware. I felt really sad about the state of their software compatibility with older machines.
So, I don't know about the rest of the world, but I know one more person will be using Linux in 2026!
Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop
#223If 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.
I think it's a lot of different factors coming together. The success of the steam deck has really breathed life into the linux gaming scene - certainly for me personally, that was the main blocker to switching from windows.
That, plus (what feels like) a lot of recent advances in Linux. When I tried it... 2-3ish years ago? I recall e.g. fractional display scaling being basically nonfunctional. But when I tried again early 2025, it pretty much Just Worked (arguably even better than it did on windows), I just had to manually enable wayland. Pretty sure even that's just the default nowadays.
Which basically sums up my personal windows -> linux pipeline: bought a steam deck, was impressed at how well it ran my steam library; had my old laptop finally die on me, ran my life off the steam deck for a while; decided to eventually build a new machine, and figured I might as well try installing linux from the get-go. Everything worked fine on the first try, and I ended up not even installing windows.
certainly within my friend groups, I'm seeing more and more people entertaining the idea of making the switch as well. Admittedly, that's primarily "tech-savvy" folks though.
Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop
#224I 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 has no idea what a terminal is and does not care - she rocks Arch and has no idea what that means. The people that attend my uncle's PC clinic to have their "Win 10 that won't run Win 11" converted to Linux don't care either. My Dad's PC will shortly be running Linux after I've taken him through MSOffice -> Libre Office + Scribus + (E…
it's funny because it's Linux (and especially KDE) that has bridged that gap so long ago. I told my dad just open up sftp and edit the files. He's on windows of course. There's some convoluted thing. I totally forgot he cant literally just put in the URL and edit the file in kate!
Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
`apt-get update` bricked your system multiple times? How, by filling up your disk? That doesn't install or upgrade any software. It just updates the local cache of the registry. I believe you that there was a real problem I'm just confused about how it happened. I've been unable to login after filling my disk before, I wouldn't call the system bricked because I was able to fix it by mounting the disk on another compu…
It was apt-get upgrade, then. Whichever command updates all packages on the system. I must have misspoke, I don’t use Debian-based systems all that much anymore. I remember it had a particular fondness for deleting old kernel versions, failing to install the new kernel, and thus bricking the system on boot. Alternatively, uninstalling the entire WM because one package had a conflict.
Weird! Sounds like maybe `apt-get dist-upgrade` or `apt-get full-upgrade`. `upgrade` shouldn't uninstall anything or update your kernel as far as I know. `dist-upgrade` or `full-upgrade` could do either. If your `/boot` partition was exhausted or you lost power in the middle of a kernel upgrade, that could leave the system in a broken state.
At any rate, sorry you had such a frustrating experience.
Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop
#226I’d love to be a fly on the wall at Microsoft right now, to see if they are in red alert to get users back, planning subterfuge by breaking APIs used by Wine or what have you, or if they are taking it as a loss. I recently jumped to Debian/KDE as a daily driver, and it feels great. I am coming after many years of running Linux via cli on my home server. I am also unironically enjoying wobbly windows.
I think they have moved on to other sources of revenue, so I don't think they care that much anymore.
Funny, not to oversimplify, but this is basically how IBM exited the consumer market
Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop
#227If 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.
Indeed, it's the Linux super power. I've mentioned this before but my favorite linux adventure was, being a borderline penniless college student, having broken Toshiba Tecra 8000 from 1998 with a dead hard drive. But it had a working CD drive and USB port, so I got Puppy Linux 4.0 on a CD, booted from a CD, and installed to a 1gb USB stick and set it to boot from USB. I had Dillo for a web browser, a stripped down ve…
Hah. Feh, I still use that once in a while. It is one of very few image viewers that can lock in pan and zoom and then look over multiple frames.
Good for checking which photo of a dozen is clearest, while zoomed in 800%.
Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop
#228I've been using a system 76 laptop for the past 3 years. Runs perfectly, no surprises. Unfortunately, I need a mac for work because the laptop service folks do not know what to do with linux and do not have a relationship with a vendor like system76. Pros: The best development experience you can have. Everything is native linux. There is no beating that. This of course will be a problem if hobbies/work use windows. I…
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.
I thought the same about Gimp, until I sat down and tried to learn it's workflows. Once you adjust, it's pretty great. imo, ymmv, obviously.
Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop
#229Considering how the load at Linux Mint's forums has recently increased to the point that some of it is being re-directed to gitHummed (a minute ago there were "3362 users online :: 35 registered, 3 hidden and 3324 guests" >10 secs to respond, needed to login), it appears that distro at least is seeing a lot of newcomers.
Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop
#230my 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.
I've been on linux since 2014; I'm an ocassional user of windows, booting into it with much regret to deal with client's issues. I generally dislike working with MacOS... but for someone used to macOS I see no meaningful degradation of the kind there is with windows - your time is better spent earning/buying/setting up an m series mac air.
I am holding out for an M5 air!