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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

#581

Post by ruszki »

grugagag wrote: post #150
etempleton wrote: post #121

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…

>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. So you debloated your windows but at any update you have to spin your wheels and try to remove any crap they put back in. At any time there’s the possibility you can no longer remove x or y. The vast majority don’t have the energy to play this game or don’t know how to.

It’s quite funny, that I was in a very similar thread here a few years ago, where it was flat out stated that everything worked on Linux. Just like how many people state it now. When I commented that, but for example dpi scaling is still broken to an unusable level, I got a ton of unhelpful comments, either recommending basic things, or just “it works for me”. Then now, most say that everything started to work in the past year, and how great the improvement was. I know these people are probably different, but it’s funny how the general sentiment is always “everything works now, but it was shit a year ago”.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#582

Post by ptx »

pjmlp wrote: post #422
trinix912 wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember a thin book describing changes to the API in Vista and 7 compared to XP and it was really thin. Just a few extra APIs to be able to show controls in the taskbar preview and things like that. Win32 is a stable API and I hope they don't let anyone from the Windows 11 modernization team touch it.

Except for anything that came after XP, you need to at least make use of COM. WinRT can be avoided if you don't do any modern stuff like the new context menu, WinUI, or Windows ML.

And those new APIs (at least the context menu API) apparently require a "package identity", which requires a signed MSIX installer, which requires paying for a code-signing certificate, unless I'm missing something in the docs.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#585

Post by ptx »

devinprater wrote: post #233
jsheard wrote: 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.

I hate that so much. When blind people are trying to start JAWS (the screen reader) by typing "jaws" into the start menu and pressing Enter, it will sometimes pull up a Bing page on Jaws the movie instead. And the blind person is just sitting there waiting for the screen reader to start. I tell people to use the run dialog for that reason. Sucks but that's what you have to do in the age of inshittisoft.

They are apparently replacing the run dialog with a new "Modern Run" dialog, so we can look forward to that also not working properly:

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/after-30...

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#586

Post by harel »

prmoustache wrote: post #447
harel wrote: post #427

Maybe I'm more tolerant, but for me Linux was ready for the desktop in 2005 and windows 11 is ok for what I use it for (cubase and games). When I switched my laptop from Windows XP it was a test. 3 years later I noticed I didn't boot back into windows not even once so concluded the test successful. My desktop later was windows only because cubase (and later steam) runs on it, but I honestly don't mind. However, I had…

Linux and freebsd have been ready for the desktop for me in 1998 already.

Yeah I know, I spoke to "you" around that time and a bit earlier, but I wasn't convinced enough to switch. It seemed like arcane magic to me then.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#588

Post by ojr »

ivanjermakov wrote: post #359
ojr wrote: post #354

Windows still have the gamers. A lot of anti-cheat system completely block out Linux users. The Year of the Linux Desktop will still be a meme at the end of this year as well.

Except ProtonDB website reports that completely blocked games make up 3% of the top 1000 Steam games. Meanwhile, 84% is perfectly playable (some with minor tweaks). https://www.protondb.com/

Valorant, Fortnite, Call of Duty, Apex Legends, Destiny 2 and Rainbox Six Siege are not supported on Linux, how much of those 30 games of 1000 are some of the most played games? I already name 20% of them.

Re: 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop

#590

Post by hasperdi »

close04 wrote: post #522
sylens wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows Phone 7 was doing well; for some reason they did a breaking change with Windows Phone 8 and broke app compatibility. I will never understand that, they kneecapped themselves despite being multiple laps behind Apple and Google already…

The reason was moving from the CE kernel to the NT kernel between WP7 and WP8. This was supposed to make developers’ lives much easier when porting Windows 8 apps. The minimum hardware requirement had to be bumped and old WP7 devices could never meet them.

At the very least they could've created some kind of translation / compatibility layer, to ease the transition
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