- NTSync coming in Kernel 6.11 for better Wine/Proton game performance and porting.
- Wine-Wayland last 4/5 parts left to be merged before end of 2024
- Wayland HDR/Game color protocol will be finished before end of 2024
- Nvidia 555/560 will be out for a perfect no stutter Nvidia performance
- KDE/Gnome reaching stability and usability with NO FKN ADS
- VR being usable
- More Wine development and more Games being ported
- Better LibreOffice/Word compatibility
- Windows 10 coming to EOL
- Improved Linux simplicity and support
- Web-native apps (Including Msft Office and Adobe)
- .Net cross platform (in VSCode or Jetbrains Rider)
What else am I missing?
There’s more than a few reasons why Linux can’t make the jump to holding a dominant position in the desktop market.
One is simply preinstallation. For companies (and therefore the general public) to adopt the Desktop Linux, they’d need it simply to be installed for them, with a Desktop Environment like Gnome or KDE.
Secondly is updates. As much as Linux users tout the control they have over when and how updates take place, and how much Windows users will always complain about having to update their systems, until system updates on Linux are made automatic (or at least given the option to be made automatic), there cannot be a mainstream Linux Desktop. This means updates that happen very much like Windows, no administrator/sudo password, just happens on reboot regularly.
The reason for this is mainly that the average user would never update unless forced, and then when something inevitably breaks, they are left, as always, frustrated that their computer just didn’t work as expected forever without any upkeep, understanding, or updates.
Lastly is support. And this is multifaceted. By support I mean software support by companies like Adobe. I also mean a much farther reaching swath of random devices that literally plug and play like on Windows.
As an aside, I’ll also say that since there is a move towards Wayland, there also needs to be a No Configuration Necessary way of running Nvidia on Wayland. This is less a Linux issue, and more a Nvidia one, but until pretty much any and all hardware works on Linux the way it just works on Windows, this sadly affects Linux Desktop adoption as more and more of the Linux Desktop ecosystem moves towards forcing Wayland adoption.
Finally I’ll say that the Microsoft corporation at large obviously relies mainly on Corporate Adoption of its products and services, and that the Windows Desktop is simply one part of that greater whole. Their approach to competing with Apple and their walled garden ecosystem has been to slowly but surely create their own, its just so much larger you forget there are walls. They have done this by absorbing more and more of the tech ecosystem either by acquisition, invention, or otherwise. Examples ot this include Bing and All Search Engines that Use it, the pushing of TypeScript into JavaScript Development, the predominance and proliferation of VSStudio/VSCode in modern software development, their heavy involvement with OpenAI and aggressive pushing of AI products/services, their acquisition of Github and subsequent further expansion of influence over software development and distribution, and much much more.
Despite the privacy invasion, enshittefication of the user experience, and their various other ways they have mistreated their users specifically via the direction they’ve taken Windows, Microsoft has established itself as THE Desktop, as THE Workstation, and as THE company that comes to mind when the average person mentions “computer”, and the majority of people associate computer related productivity and play with Windows.
For all the advances made to Desktop Linux, especially in recent years, it is unlikely that Linux Desktop adoption will ever proliferate to the kinds of mainstream adoption that its accolades desire. Until Linux (or at least a Linux distribution) can demonstrate what I’ve mentioned above (preinstallation, automatic/automated updates, and wide spread software/hardware support from various 3rd party vendors) along with demonstrating a work flow/user experience that is somehow both familiar to the user and also better than the experience on Windows, then the day of the Linux Desktop will never come.
This aforementioned demonstration, btw, would have to become obscenely apparent to the average every day computer user who just wants to get their work done, play a Video Game, and watch Netflix, all without having to ever even know what a terminal emulator is.
I love Linux, and I think the Linux Desktop is not only a superior user experience, but is just better in general than Windows. But the average user I’ve encountered generally hates their Computer if it doesn’t work as expected 110% of the time. Linux, and honestly computers, will never be able to do that, but the closer the Desktop (and user facing GUIs more broadly) get to creating that illusion of “it all just works all the time”, the more adoption you’ll see.
Pretty sure Ubuntu does hands off updates. And neither arch or Ubuntu required me to do any configuration to get Nvidia graphics working aside from the driver selection in the installer
On X11, Nvidia is pretty close to plug n’play (unless you install multiple kernels, but even then it isn’t so bad). Wayland has been a stuttery mess for Nvidia for a while now and there’s a long standing issue up that hopefully will be resolved in 550 release.
That said, linux desktop environment developers will likely have to adjust a large amount of environment variables (more than they probably have already) that thus far have had to be set by the User by hand. One has only to look at the Hyprland docs on setting up Nvidia to see the extent to which the bulk of the configuration is set on the User as it stands right now.
I’m on Wayland
deleted by creator
no automatic updates
Well it’s really not entirely true unless you’re on a rolling release (which most people should if they can do basic system administration themselves). Unattended updates were a thing in traditional Linux distros with frozen release cycles since forever. On any Ubuntu-based system it’s a matter of switching a toggle, and I think it could’ve been Mint that enabled that by default (I’m not sure) at least for security updates, because users never updated their systems. They can still be done much quicker and more transparently than Windows does that, without ever forcing users to reboot in any given time.
The problem is also that once in like 5 years you absolutely have to upgrade system to a newer version to keep it updates in such scenario. Popping up a dialog with info that your system goes EOL and you’ll loose security updates and one click upgrade button should be enough.
Yeah, Fedora has the closest I’ve seen to this, as they do a rolling release distribution cycle, but with a major update every year. It’s still too hands on for the average Windows user from what I’ve seen.
That said, in the particular case of the Fedora upgrade, I’ll admit I get lazy in the other direction. If I can accomplish a task from the terminal, 99.9% of the time, I’ll do it simply because it’s exponentially faster.
it is unlikely that Linux Desktop adoption will ever proliferate to the kinds of mainstream adoption that its accolades desire.
And if it does, the acolytes will hate it and start pushing for BSD adoption, because there’s a huge streak of hipsterism in the Linux community
Ah BSD, the OS that probably doesn’t have an NSA backdoor in it because it’s just not worth their time, lol.
the pushing of TypeScript into JavaScript Development,
TIL that Typescript was developed by MS. It’s “free and open-source” though, i’d say the hability for them to cripple it are minimal?
GitHub was a blow though and it’s why i recommend CodeBerg at every chance i get. They’re on mastodon: @Codeberg@Codeberg@social.anoxinon.de
I’d say Ubuntu is probably the distro closer to being the “desktop linux”, Canonical’s been trying to be like MS for years.
Yeah, I generally agree with all sentiments. TS is handy at times, but working with poorly written .d.ts types from 3rd party libs is Hell.
The MS acquisition of Github is sad imho. Using alternatives is nice. I’ll eventually get around to self hosting a Gitea or cgit instance.
Ubuntu, Mint, and PopOS are probably the closest to a mainstream Linux Desktop from what I’ve seen, and perhaps one day one of those really will take the mantle and push the Linux Desktop forward into the mainstream, but I just don’t see it. I do hope I’m wrong though.
This aforementioned demonstration, btw, would have to become obscenely apparent to the average every day computer user who just wants to get their work done, play a Video Game, and watch Netflix, all without having to ever even know what a terminal emulator is.
That sums it all up. The average user wants a PC that just works. Terminal is a big no for the average user, and while we dont get gui ways of doing everything an average user does, it will be a big barrier. Even calamares needs to be waaaaay simpler (like a “i have no idea what im doing, configure it all for me” option).
Pop has automatic updates now.
nice doctorate thesis bro
I think we should be thankful for having users contribute long-form thought-out content like this, instead of ridiculing them.
Agreed. I don’t care enough to read it all. But to anyone who does. Nice.
nice tweet of support sis
There one glaring issue. Most people don’t really even know what an operating system is and some of the people I talk to think Linux is a manufacture.
I literally bring up Linux to my friend when they are having trouble getting windows to work and they say I think I have a linux. They mean it’s a Lenovo but they seem pretty confused about the idea of installing a different OS on their machine. This isn’t just older people but 20 something year olds (about my age).
It’s funny to me but I try to be patient and help them with their problems anyway.
Confusing Linux with Lenovo is pretty funny.
My ex wife turned out to be a Lenovo. She and her new girlfriend seem very happy. /s
Must of been how they used the little red nub.
Bro - sounds like you missed an opportunity to dual boot!
I have Linux in a Lenovo… What does it mean???
Lenovo’s, especially the older Thinkpad T-series (such as the Thinkpad T440) are excellent Linux laptops, they’re durable, upgradable and offer a smooth ootb experience with Linux systems (down to open source drivers for their fingerprint readers)
So it means u prolly don gud
wow I have never heard people being this ignorant. that sounds funnt, and a bit sad. too bad I have hp and not linux
I can’t blame them. There’s a lot out there that I still remain ignorant of. I’m sure we’re all a bit ill informed here and there.
Is it just me or has using a brand name as a regular noun become really common? For example, Android-based devices are just referred to as “an Android”.
No. Nobody cares, no matter what MS does. They can literally crap on users faces and they’ll happily lick it as long is Windows is the supported platform. And it will stay like that for decades to come.
We can expect some growth, because the tech savvy PC enthusiasts might want to look for alternatives, and if the desktop Linux is good enough, some will stick to it, some will go back, as it was always for last 30 years.
Yeah it’s tough to expect general users to switch. I would just like linux to go over 5% threshold so that companies seriously consider it.
Dethrones? No. Not in the sense it will overtake Windows in numbers.
Grows its gamer ‘market share’? Absolutely.
I honestly don’t care about dethroning windows or anything related to it. All that matters to me is that my Linux system works the way I need it to…
You say that because you don’t realize the benefits:
- Better support for Linux with any new PC hardware on day 1. This includes things like USB devices, monitors, KVMs, UPS, everything.
- Better support for all commercial software in general. More software will become available and it’ll be higher quality.
- Vendors will be forced to test all their stuff on Linux which means it’ll all become more reliable and less glitchy.
- There will be more diversity in software and distros which means widespread attacks (aka hacking, worms, viruses, etc) will have less success and smaller impacts.
- The more Linux users there are the more Linux developers will result. It’s also much easier to start learning how to code on a Linux desktop than it is in Windows.
- Better security for the entire world. Linux has a vastly superior security architecture than Windows and a vastly superior track record. The more Linux users there are, the harder it will be for malicious entities to break into their PCs which translates into a more secure world.
- It’s much easier (for experienced users) to troubleshoot and fix problems in Linux than in Windows. This will lead to support teams everywhere getting frustrated whenever they have to deal with Windows users (this is already the case for many software vendors, haha). Therefore, it makes support people happy and easy going. Who doesn’t want to reach a happy, helpful person for technical support instead of the usual defiant/adversarial support tech? 😁
- The worst sorts of hardware vendors won’t be able to get away with their usual bullshit. For example, if there were enough Linux users HP wouldn’t be offering extremely invasive 2GB printer “drivers” because their Windows customers would know enough Linux users that they’d be rightfully pissed and not depressively submissive like they are now.
- When you do have a problem it will be easier to find a solution because the likelihood that someone else already had it and posted a solution will be higher (though admittedly this factor doesn’t seem to do much for Windows currently because of how obtuse and obfuscated everything is in that OS).
There’s actually a lot more reasons but that’s probably enough for now 😁
better security for the entire world…
The moment Linux takes over as a dominant desktop/laptop OS we’ll start seeing a metric ton of the windows hackers follow suit to attack us. We’ll end up in a situation where they’ll probably go after some random kernel bugs that nobody else.has found yet or just don’t think are critical/exploitable. Or they’ll just attack the biggest, most widely used distros, going after people using them and any derivative distro similar enough for their malicious tools to work on it.
In general though, it would be a good thing for Linux to become a lot more prominent in the desktop/laptop market for general users. Especially since I imagine thanks to Linux being open source, people would be able to stop these malicious actors from doing damage much quicker (even though I imagine the majority of normal people switching over would almost never update because they’re used to forced updates and not having to do it themselves).
People don’t realize this enough.
There will be just as many vulnerabilities found with Linux distros as there are with Windows as soon as there’s real interest in finding them.
Not saying we should stop linux adoption or anything, but there’s a massive illusion that Linux is more secure. It isn’t.
Right now it’s sort of up to Nvidia and Wayland. Desktop sound is in good shape, desktop color (profiles and matching) and fonts are not there yet. Ray tracing and hdr have proven how much of a second class citizen desktop Linux is, so right now the most important factor is the SteamDeck for pushing the envelope to implement new tech. Chinese and German goverments moving to Linux helps but to be honet, I think that the “office and browser” use case is pretty well covered.
Possibly. But it’s also pretty common in many instances of technology adoption that as more users come, the quality gets worse, and while open source doesn’t have to worry about a shareholder-driven profit motive driving it, it’s still easy to wind up with a muddled focus. I wouldn’t expect that Linux and all of the associated software projects that make the functional desktop are going to be an exception overall. If you’re an open source developer working on a project now, basically any user is some form of power user, and it’s easier to find consensus of what to prioritize on a project not only because Linux users tend to be better about understanding how their software works and are actually helpful in further development, they’re also likely to direct development towards features that make software more open, compatible, and useful.
Now fast forward to a future where Linux is the majority desktop OS, those power users are maybe 5% of the software’s user base, and every major project’s forum is inundated with thousands of users screaming about how hard the software is to use and, when bug reports and feature requests are actually coherent, they mostly boil down to demands for simpler, easier to understand UIs. I can easily imagine the noise alone could lead to an exodus of frustrated developers.
Some things are better for NOT trying to be the answer for everyone.
Ah yes, this year is definitely the year of the Linux desktop. For real this time!
There’s a real opportunity here and we can either take it and run or we can let it pass us by.
You know what gets ppl to use Linux? 100% Software compatibility out of the box and OEM who preinstall Linux distros.
Barely anyone outside the bubble oft techies and enthusiasts cares. You have to BRING it to the users. For most oft them comfort is king after all.
Anybody seriously believing this has a misunderstanding of how little people care about what OS they use and how much they care that it works the way they expect.
Most people don’t. But if they keep chipping away their customers, Linux might reach a threshold where it’s more convenient to switch.
The problem is usability for non power users. As a server environment nothing beats it but man the UI on these apps have some horrendous defaults and the CLI is everywhere. KDE still can’t get rounded corners right.
Though I agree with your overall point, I can’t see why rounded corners (or the lack of it) might be a noticeable issue.
Whenever I install Linux on someone’s computer, the first thi that they ask is always “why aren’t the corners properly rounded? I can’t use this!”
(No, this has never happened, but it would be funny, I’d get to smack them over the head)
What else am I missing?
Global Linux usage stats vs global Windows usage stats for PC Desktops.
Linux is roughly at 3.88% market share. You don’t think we can bump Linux adoption to 99.9% in the next six months?
We just have to keep writing these “Year of the Linux” posts every year.
You mean 50.1% !
We say this every fucking year! Come on, this is getting ridiculous! Stop it! There will never be a year of the Linux desktop and if anything, this post shows why.
So much of the Linux community is utterly detached from what really matters to most users and focus on things that 80% of people won’t ever understand, care about or even use.
We focus on this and meanwhile, little quality of life features constantly get ignored when these are the real things that users will encounter and that will piss them off. They get treated as trivial. They get ignored in favor of other things.
Somebody mentioned it here. I saw it and I didn’t need them to mention it to want to say it. It’s already something that’s pissing me off. On Fedora for my Framework Laptop there is no way to adjust the scrolling speed on my trackpad which is moronically fast.
We are on the 40th release of Fedora, the 46th release of GNOME, and somehow this still isn’t baked in. I still have to go look around and use the fucking terminal to do something this basic. When some of them try Linux and will eventually push them to go back to Windows. And when users complain about this, what do we get? A bunch of elitists telling them to fuck off to go back to Windows, which I also saw as responses to this complaint about the trackpad.
Listen, Linux is an amazing project and I love it. I daily drive it. I don’t use Windows anywhere in my life. I haven’t touched OS in like two years at the very least. So many things that we are celebrating as brand new things that are finally working properly are things that already work by default on Windows and have been for years. We’re not going to convince people by mentioning that, “oh, we fixed this thing that’s been working forever on Windows.” It works on Linux now. People need more than this.
You want to know the sad truth? Here we go. We, collectively here, users of platform like Lemmy, are a vocal minority who are detached from the reality of most users. We care about ads, we care about privacy and so on, but the reality is most that people don’t. Most people won’t even notice that those things are there. For so many people, Windows is just the thing that stands between them and launching Chrome. It already works for them. There’s no reason for them to switch.
We are all way too invested in what runs on our computers and we forget that we are just us. Most people are not like us. Privacy scandals stop us from using stuff like social media and so on, but it clearly hasn’t stopped most of the world.
People heard about the shit that Meta was and is doing. Did people stop using Instagram? No, they didn’t. People know what Google is doing, how many of them switched to DuckDuckGo? A clinical moron turning the platform into a far-right haven didn’t stop most users from using Twitter.
The API bullshit didn’t stop most users from using Reddit. Sure there were protest, but I guarantee you that 99% who took part in the blackout just went back to it after. A lot of us didn’t. We left. We’re here now. But we’re still a tiny minority.
Ask a Firefox user did telling Chrome users that privacy was important ever worked? I’m sure you will get examples of it working but it’s a minority. Most people don’t give a shit and they use Chrome.
I don’t have a solution. I’m sorry, I made this long-ass comment but I don’t have much else to say. I don’t have a good solution to this problem.
Lol and we’re forgetting the biggest QOL feature of all: actually coming installed with pre built computers.
Chrome OS was the only one to ever make a dent.
Without that this will always be a “power” user OS. People just want it to work.
Seriously. I think Linux users expend 10x the energy worrying about ads on Windows than actual windows users. If you’re used to seeing hundreds of ads / day on the web, why the hell would you care about an occasional onedrive popup.
Re touchpads totally agree as well, I installed fedora kde on my mom’s abandoned laptop a couple weeks ago and it was atrocious. Limited gestures, no configurability, no smooth scroll, no scroll momentum except in apps that implement it manually, scrolling speeds totally off. I managed to fix most of these, but regular people can’t be expected to.
Battery life, for another is unpredictable and quite bad. Most people I’ve talked to seem to assume performant/light = efficient when it comes to Linux. This is not the case. Once again, solutions exist, but they are not accessible to a regular person.
When windows 10 stops working is the better chance. Even then, not convinced it’ll be year of Linux.
I once ran a poll on Reddit asking why people switched to Linux. More people responded it was because Microsoft launched a new hated version of Windows than Microsoft discontinued an old beloved version. ie more people switched because Win 8 came out than Win 7 died.
I get the sense that both of those two things are somewhat true here. They’re getting rid of 10, and people want to avoid 11.
I’m pretty sure 95% of people don’t even know what Windows is. It’s just part of the computer to them.
In my family, my parents’ generation either worked in IT and spent some of their careers writing macro-assembly on punch cards, or they have no coherent answer to the question “what is an operating system?” For this latter group, I’m going to be their sysadmin either way, and I no longer sysadmin Windows.
Everyone in my generation are pretty computer literate; I think I program in the most languages but my cousins all know what file systems are, could put together a household budget in Excel, know how to install software etc. A few of my cousins are in that “mostly use Windows for gaming and Ubisoft/EA aren’t great companies” phase where Linux is still a bit inconvenient.
My niece, the only representative of her generation in my family, has a reasonable child’s grasp on computers. She’s used iOS and ChromeOS and Windows and Linux, so I’m pretty sure she understands the same hardware can run different software. Not sure how deep that understanding goes but she’s a kid she has time to learn.
Definitely. The context just seemed to be people who know what OSs are.
I dual-booted for a while & was on Microsoft Windows 7. I was using it less & less–usually just to play specific game. When MS Windows 10 was announced with an all new set of privacy invasive features on by default & 7 was going to be phased out, & as I got older with less time I wanted to spend with games, I decided to completely pull the plug on Microsoft & saying that there were enough games out there that worked on Linux (Proton infancy) that if Linux support wasn’t out of the box, I would just choose something else. The same will happen with some folks as 10 support is pulled–where if I thought 10 was too privacy-invasive, 11 + Recall is a nightmare.
Yeah, my hypothesis is that most of the folks who will object to Windows 11’s bullshit enough to switch to Linux already have by now. There likely will be another bump in transitions at Win 10’s EoL but not as many as who have switched since the rollout of Win 11 already.
It is a good list ( from an “alternative to Windows” point of view ). In particular, you make a good case for the gaming side of things.
Unfortunately, even if that is all Linux needs, the hordes take time to arrive. The big impact of changes this year will be seen in the migration numbers 3 years from now. The biggest opportunity is probably the Windows 10 EOL and that is not until the end of next year. By then, many gamers will have Windows 11 capable hardware.
I do think that gamers and devs are the two groups likely to lead the charge on the next wave of Linux adoption. .NET dev in particular already has a lot of momentum on Linux with the transition from desktop to cloud and the primacy of Linux in container based workflows. Things are not quite there yet for .NET mobile dev on Linux. I bet most .NET devs that have left Windows are using Macs these days though. That said, that means they are already using tooling quite easily migrated to Linux including bath Rider and VS Code as you say. In the cloud, .NET must be “deployed” more to Linux than to Windows by now.
That last point is the most important I think. Windows is no longer the most important platform for Microsoft—Azure is. Microsoft is quite happy to let you use Linux on Azure. In fact, Azure pipelines and .NET itself are faster on Linux at this point. It is still “developers, developers, developers” for Microsoft but it is now more cloud than desktop. That changes the role of Windows at Microsoft.
I think it is perhaps less what we think about Windows and more about what Microsoft thinks about Windows that matters.
The other crown jewel is Office. Office 365 is a subscription. It is increasingly a “cloud” offering as well. Soon, they will not care about Windows as a delivery vehicle for Office either.
As Windows starts to matter less strategically, the question will increasingly be how to monetize the Windows user base more heavily. That is more ads, more data mining, more AI, and an increasingly crap experience. More and more, Windows Product Managers will be rewarded for their short-term gains and incremental revenue. Stewardship of the platform will move further and further into the background.
That is how Linux will win.
It won’t be this year though.
My personal definition of “the year of the Linux desktop” is when we hit a market share % that starts to convince companies to take Linux support seriously. I don’t think we’re that far off from that happening and if Microsoft keeps adding in these terrible “features” to windows, more people will move over. Is 2024 the year for that? Probably not but I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens before 2030.
You forgot “Recall”.
I wanted to make a wordplay here, but I couldn’t find one.
Anyway, a lot of people are worried about the OS remembering everything you are doing like it’s taking screenshots all the time.
For my part, that would be a big no-no.
Recall does things that weirdly, a malware would have done back in the day.
