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It was the "growth of Linux on the desktop" that broke my suspension of disbelief. If there was going to be any year where Linux made strong gains it should ha

It was the "growth of Linux on the desktop" that broke my suspension of disbelief. If there was going to be any year where Linux made strong gains it should have been 2025 with the forced retirement of the "forever OS" Windows 10. But the needle barely moved at all. The author paints a nice picture but there's a lot of wishful thinking and projection there.

at1as 9mo ago
Steam is continuing to make it easier to leave Windows for gamers. And my comment about desktop usage is based on these projections: https://www.webpronews.com/linux-breaks-5-desktop-share-in-u-s-signaling-open-source-surge-against-windows-and-macos/ https://www.webpronews.com/linux-breaks-5-desktop-share-in-u...
mikkupikku 9mo ago
Every time a new version of Windows drops there are legions of Windows users who say this is the final straw, they're keeping their old version until the updates stop then they'll use Linux. And every time that doesn't happen, they just keep going back to Microsoft like it's some sort of domestic violence situation. Their standards forever dropping, getting slow boiled like an apocryphal frog. I've seen this repeating over and over for the past 20 years at least. At this point I don't even have sympathy for Windows users. They choose their lot.
- atomicUpdate 9mo ago
  > Their standards forever dropping And yet their standards still haven’t dropped low enough for Linux to be an acceptable replacement. I don’t think that’s a knock on the Windows user, but an indication that Linux desktop (and its replacement applications) still isn’t user-friendly enough for most people.
  - dsego 9mo ago
    It can never be user-friendly enough if how windows does things is the yardstick. Windows users bemoan about how terrible Macs are all the time just because things are done differently, and they don't even try to figure it out. If it doesn't work like windows it's not good enough.
    - direwolf20 9mo ago
      Why can't we make Linux work like Windows? Modifiability is supposed to be a benefit of open-source.
      - at1as 9mo ago
        The ASUS laptop I bought has a litany of issues: blue screens, audio dying, won't wake from sleep. MSFT, Nvidia and ASUS all blame each other. I have a feeling modern Linux on this machine wouldn't be worse than what it shipped with. The days of fighting for 3 days with audio or printer drivers after an install are mostly behind us.
      - scheeseman486 9mo ago
        If you install a distro that uses KDE Plasma, you're already most of the way there. Not just because of it's design similarities to Windows but it's the desktop environment that's been getting the most financial support lately and has seen the most rapid improvement. I personally prefer it at this point. Dolphin blows away explorer, window management is more slick and more flexible out of the box and it also happens to be deeply customizable.
      - mikkupikku 9mo ago
        If Linux isn't uploading their FDE keys to Microsoft servers by default, Windows users will get scared and start crying. Needless to say, their tastes and desires should never be entertained.
  - mikkupikku 9mo ago
    I hope Linux is never suitable for windows users, who's tolerance for abuse is matched in magnitude only by their lack of taste. You have no idea just how over I am with the very premise of Linux evangelism. I will go as far as find reasons or even just flimsy pretexts to oppose and criticize any change to Linux calculated to win over Windows users, because being co-users with such people is plainly against my own interests. My lack of sympathy extends to full blow gatekeeping. What is "Linux for normals" besides Android anyway? If that's the crap you actually want, use it. But no, that's not good enough, you want to bring the riff raff into real distros to stink up the place. I hope this never works.
    - CrimsonCape 9mo ago
      I was ready to install Linux. I installed a new 1TB ssd in my laptop. I shrunk the windows volume using Windows' Disk Management. Then I started reading the Arch wiki on this task. It forced me to learn things like MBR vs GPT. Then it said Windows by default makes an EFI partition way too small so I have to re-create a new partition by temporarily mounting EFI, saving the files, deleting the EFI partition, and recreating a new one. This seems like a horribly complex task and I can envision about a million unwritten things that can go wrong that the answer would be "well duh, that's obvious if you had any experience with linux disk partitioning. I myself bricked a dozen PCs." Deleting the EFI partition, if it goes wrong, by definition my system would be bricked until I could figure things out. Also, everything must be typed into terminal exactly with no error and one chance. (If the typo causes the command to error, phew. if the typo causes something else to happen, beware) So yes, I have a lack of taste.
      - eudamoniac 9mo ago
        How does someone browse this forum and get to the point of installing Arch without intimately understanding that Arch is infamously, abnormally difficult to install? Proving GPs point perhaps
      - yoyohello13 9mo ago
        Downloads distro famous for its manual install process, complains about how manual the install process is…
mxuribe 9mo ago
> ... If there was going to be any year where Linux made strong gains it should have been 2025 with the forced retirement of the "forever OS" Windows 10. But the needle barely moved at all. I beg to differ...I have a feeling the needle will indeed move, but it won't be a single big jolt. Overall, I think it will be oh so very slow over this and the next couple of years. Sure, some percentage of windows users will migrate over...but i think the bulk will keep using windows until the machine literally dies, and will ignore as many error messages and warning that microsoft displays to them. ...and that death of windows usage will take time, hence why i think it will take time...but i do indeed feel that the needle will move...its just that its only beginning now, but not yet ending. ;-) Time will tell of course.
- endorphine 9mo ago
  > I beg to differ...I have a feeling the needle will indeed move, but it won't be a single big jolt. [...] Then it seems you're not disagreeing with parent: they're saying "needle barely moved", you're saying "it will move". They're talking about the present; you're talking about the future.
  - bigstrat2003 9mo ago
    Technically, the parent is saying "the needle barely moved, therefore it will never move appreciably in the future".
idibiks 9mo ago
Valve's the main force here, AFAIK. I do think it'll make a big difference for home users. Home PC gaming, outside a handful of much-smaller niche use cases that're full of Windows-only software, was the only notable reason for a home user to have Windows at all, after the rise of Chromebooks and iPads to serve the rest of the home market. Valve's made ditching Windows for PC gaming viable for a high proportion of those remaining must-have-Windows users, which means Windows is hanging on to the home market by its fingernails. Just about all it has now is momentum, and that's fading. I also don't think any of that matters much, because it's done nothing at all to the enterprise market, which is still full of Windows and other Microsoft stuff and that shows no sign of shifting.
FloorEgg 9mo ago
I really want to switch from Windows to Linux but it's not an easy transition. For one, I am in a season of heavy workload and little free time. So I need to wait for my next period of reduced workload. Second, I am not desperate for a new PC yet and it's hard to justify spending the money at this time. Roughly my plan is to get a new PC this summer and start with a dual boot approach. So at first it will be more like going from 100% Windows to 80% Linux 20% Windows or something. Over time as circumstances afford maybe I can do away with windows altogether. Just one data point - I am someone who has been using windows for over 30 years but Microsoft pissed me off so much in 2025 that I have a committed to switching even if it takes me years.
microtonal 9mo ago
I feel like the needle is moving, but maybe not because of the retirement of Windows 10, but other factors: * Proton got really good and the Steam Deck is making inroads for Linux on the desktop. We are at the point were even gaming publications start to say: you could as well run Linux. * The disintegration of the 80-years long transatlantic alliance. This really has a lot of people thinking about their big tech dependence on the east side of the ocean (and perhaps Canada?). Currently a lot of OwnCloud pilots are being started in European universities and other organizations. I see more and more people in my country buying Fairphones, the adventurous people even with /e/OS. There seems to be more interest in the Linux desktop. The change is not very fast yet, but awareness is increasing and the ball starts rolling.
- mxuribe 9mo ago
  You have great points here! Not only is linux a destination for folks who currently and historically might have used Windows....but beyond linux and the operating system itself, there's a whole massive opportunity for other open source *software* that sits atop the operating system, and that is where migrations (away from Microsoft stuff, etc.) will also happen...maybe not all at the same time...but yeah, awareness has increased and i think will keep rolling forward - even if slowly. I really hope that migration to opeon source software happens too! As an American I'm super disgusted with the current administration and the awful things they are doing...but I'm also a big supporter of open source and an advocate of every group's sovereignty....so if increased digital sovereignty for many nations (and my good friends all over the world), plus more software freedoms for everyone globally is one of the unexpected manifestations...then that's wonderful, at least something good comes out of the current chaos! As Europe, Canada, other nations start pilots for using their own instances of open source software (like Owncloud,etc.), i welcome that and wish them all the best!!!
scheeseman486 9mo ago
I'm in a few Linux communities and they have grown somewhat over the last couple years. There's definitely been a swell of users moving over, if not a wave.
9rx 9mo ago
> it should have been 2025 with the forced retirement of the "forever OS" Windows 10. Still too soon, no? Windows 10 continues to work just fine. The layman using it doesn't really care — and probably doesn't even realize — that it isn't supported anymore. Only when they start to have trouble will they start to care. Eventually a time will come when they want to use some new software that won't work in it, or what have you. When that time comes, that will be the true test.

at1as 9mo ago

Steam is continuing to make it easier to leave Windows for gamers. And my comment about desktop usage is based on these projections: https://www.webpronews.com/linux-breaks-5-desktop-share-in-u-s-signaling-open-source-surge-against-windows-and-macos/ https://www.webpronews.com/linux-breaks-5-desktop-share-in-u...

mikkupikku 9mo ago

Every time a new version of Windows drops there are legions of Windows users who say this is the final straw, they're keeping their old version until the updates stop then they'll use Linux. And every time that doesn't happen, they just keep going back to Microsoft like it's some sort of domestic violence situation. Their standards forever dropping, getting slow boiled like an apocryphal frog. I've seen this repeating over and over for the past 20 years at least. At this point I don't even have sympathy for Windows users. They choose their lot.

atomicUpdate 9mo ago
> Their standards forever dropping And yet their standards still haven’t dropped low enough for Linux to be an acceptable replacement. I don’t think that’s a knock on the Windows user, but an indication that Linux desktop (and its replacement applications) still isn’t user-friendly enough for most people.
- dsego 9mo ago
  It can never be user-friendly enough if how windows does things is the yardstick. Windows users bemoan about how terrible Macs are all the time just because things are done differently, and they don't even try to figure it out. If it doesn't work like windows it's not good enough.
  - direwolf20 9mo ago
    Why can't we make Linux work like Windows? Modifiability is supposed to be a benefit of open-source.
    - at1as 9mo ago
      The ASUS laptop I bought has a litany of issues: blue screens, audio dying, won't wake from sleep. MSFT, Nvidia and ASUS all blame each other. I have a feeling modern Linux on this machine wouldn't be worse than what it shipped with. The days of fighting for 3 days with audio or printer drivers after an install are mostly behind us.
    - scheeseman486 9mo ago
      If you install a distro that uses KDE Plasma, you're already most of the way there. Not just because of it's design similarities to Windows but it's the desktop environment that's been getting the most financial support lately and has seen the most rapid improvement. I personally prefer it at this point. Dolphin blows away explorer, window management is more slick and more flexible out of the box and it also happens to be deeply customizable.
    - mikkupikku 9mo ago
      If Linux isn't uploading their FDE keys to Microsoft servers by default, Windows users will get scared and start crying. Needless to say, their tastes and desires should never be entertained.
- mikkupikku 9mo ago
  I hope Linux is never suitable for windows users, who's tolerance for abuse is matched in magnitude only by their lack of taste. You have no idea just how over I am with the very premise of Linux evangelism. I will go as far as find reasons or even just flimsy pretexts to oppose and criticize any change to Linux calculated to win over Windows users, because being co-users with such people is plainly against my own interests. My lack of sympathy extends to full blow gatekeeping. What is "Linux for normals" besides Android anyway? If that's the crap you actually want, use it. But no, that's not good enough, you want to bring the riff raff into real distros to stink up the place. I hope this never works.
  - CrimsonCape 9mo ago
    I was ready to install Linux. I installed a new 1TB ssd in my laptop. I shrunk the windows volume using Windows' Disk Management. Then I started reading the Arch wiki on this task. It forced me to learn things like MBR vs GPT. Then it said Windows by default makes an EFI partition way too small so I have to re-create a new partition by temporarily mounting EFI, saving the files, deleting the EFI partition, and recreating a new one. This seems like a horribly complex task and I can envision about a million unwritten things that can go wrong that the answer would be "well duh, that's obvious if you had any experience with linux disk partitioning. I myself bricked a dozen PCs." Deleting the EFI partition, if it goes wrong, by definition my system would be bricked until I could figure things out. Also, everything must be typed into terminal exactly with no error and one chance. (If the typo causes the command to error, phew. if the typo causes something else to happen, beware) So yes, I have a lack of taste.
    - eudamoniac 9mo ago
      How does someone browse this forum and get to the point of installing Arch without intimately understanding that Arch is infamously, abnormally difficult to install? Proving GPs point perhaps
    - yoyohello13 9mo ago
      Downloads distro famous for its manual install process, complains about how manual the install process is…

mxuribe 9mo ago

> ... If there was going to be any year where Linux made strong gains it should have been 2025 with the forced retirement of the "forever OS" Windows 10. But the needle barely moved at all. I beg to differ...I have a feeling the needle will indeed move, but it won't be a single big jolt. Overall, I think it will be oh so very slow over this and the next couple of years. Sure, some percentage of windows users will migrate over...but i think the bulk will keep using windows until the machine literally dies, and will ignore as many error messages and warning that microsoft displays to them. ...and that death of windows usage will take time, hence why i think it will take time...but i do indeed feel that the needle will move...its just that its only beginning now, but not yet ending. ;-) Time will tell of course.

endorphine 9mo ago
> I beg to differ...I have a feeling the needle will indeed move, but it won't be a single big jolt. [...] Then it seems you're not disagreeing with parent: they're saying "needle barely moved", you're saying "it will move". They're talking about the present; you're talking about the future.
- bigstrat2003 9mo ago
  Technically, the parent is saying "the needle barely moved, therefore it will never move appreciably in the future".

idibiks 9mo ago

Valve's the main force here, AFAIK. I do think it'll make a big difference for home users. Home PC gaming, outside a handful of much-smaller niche use cases that're full of Windows-only software, was the only notable reason for a home user to have Windows at all, after the rise of Chromebooks and iPads to serve the rest of the home market. Valve's made ditching Windows for PC gaming viable for a high proportion of those remaining must-have-Windows users, which means Windows is hanging on to the home market by its fingernails. Just about all it has now is momentum, and that's fading. I also don't think any of that matters much, because it's done nothing at all to the enterprise market, which is still full of Windows and other Microsoft stuff and that shows no sign of shifting.

FloorEgg 9mo ago

I really want to switch from Windows to Linux but it's not an easy transition. For one, I am in a season of heavy workload and little free time. So I need to wait for my next period of reduced workload. Second, I am not desperate for a new PC yet and it's hard to justify spending the money at this time. Roughly my plan is to get a new PC this summer and start with a dual boot approach. So at first it will be more like going from 100% Windows to 80% Linux 20% Windows or something. Over time as circumstances afford maybe I can do away with windows altogether. Just one data point - I am someone who has been using windows for over 30 years but Microsoft pissed me off so much in 2025 that I have a committed to switching even if it takes me years.

microtonal 9mo ago

I feel like the needle is moving, but maybe not because of the retirement of Windows 10, but other factors: * Proton got really good and the Steam Deck is making inroads for Linux on the desktop. We are at the point were even gaming publications start to say: you could as well run Linux. * The disintegration of the 80-years long transatlantic alliance. This really has a lot of people thinking about their big tech dependence on the east side of the ocean (and perhaps Canada?). Currently a lot of OwnCloud pilots are being started in European universities and other organizations. I see more and more people in my country buying Fairphones, the adventurous people even with /e/OS. There seems to be more interest in the Linux desktop. The change is not very fast yet, but awareness is increasing and the ball starts rolling.

mxuribe 9mo ago
You have great points here! Not only is linux a destination for folks who currently and historically might have used Windows....but beyond linux and the operating system itself, there's a whole massive opportunity for other open source *software* that sits atop the operating system, and that is where migrations (away from Microsoft stuff, etc.) will also happen...maybe not all at the same time...but yeah, awareness has increased and i think will keep rolling forward - even if slowly. I really hope that migration to opeon source software happens too! As an American I'm super disgusted with the current administration and the awful things they are doing...but I'm also a big supporter of open source and an advocate of every group's sovereignty....so if increased digital sovereignty for many nations (and my good friends all over the world), plus more software freedoms for everyone globally is one of the unexpected manifestations...then that's wonderful, at least something good comes out of the current chaos! As Europe, Canada, other nations start pilots for using their own instances of open source software (like Owncloud,etc.), i welcome that and wish them all the best!!!

scheeseman486 9mo ago

I'm in a few Linux communities and they have grown somewhat over the last couple years. There's definitely been a swell of users moving over, if not a wave.

9rx 9mo ago

> it should have been 2025 with the forced retirement of the "forever OS" Windows 10. Still too soon, no? Windows 10 continues to work just fine. The layman using it doesn't really care — and probably doesn't even realize — that it isn't supported anymore. Only when they start to have trouble will they start to care. Eventually a time will come when they want to use some new software that won't work in it, or what have you. When that time comes, that will be the true test.