Ya keep hearing about it, but it seems to never happen.
Anecdotally, and just from my personal experience, I messed with Mandrake and RedHat in the 2000s, and then didn’t use them much because they weren’t up to par with Win NT/2000, IMHO. I did use Linux a bit for the LAMP stack as I was into a bit of webdev back then.
Ran XP until late 2022, then got a “new” pc with Win 10.
Ran about a couple years with Win10 before switching to OML.
OML is, IMHO, light-years ahead of Win10 in terms of stability, functionality and customization.
I truly feel for the poor saps who are gonna be stuck with Win11.
As M$ BloatOS and MacOS FruitcakeOS keep skirting (and occasionally overstepping) the line of intolerable enshittication, I think that there’s a good chance of the Linux Desktop era arriving in the near future, as the whole “lock-in” to a given ecosystem is, in the end, a failing strategy for the longer term.
I suppose it depends on what we mean when we say “year of thelinux destop”. If we mean a sudden huge shift in desktop market share I’m not sure it will ever happen. Most peope I talk to seem apathetic about privecy, security, adds, bloat, enshittification and any other reasons why you might want to escape windows or mac. It seems that this it just the way all things go, and it’s just easier to take the path of least resistance. However, I do see linux desktop growing steadily over the next few years because of more and more stupid decisions like windows trying to obsolete perfectly good computers. I have convinced several friends to try linux instead of buying new computers, they seem quite happy to have saved some money but don’t seem to much care that adds and bloat have gone away and aren’t much interested in switching to more privacy and security focused apps and programs. For the most part they’re content to have something that works. But, a crowd draws a crowd, Its one thing when I say i’m using linux but another completely when my friend who still refuses to buy a smartphone because it’s too complicated says he has switched to linux and finds it just as easy as windows. If his computer dies he will probably just go and buy one with windows 11 or maybe 12 by then preinstalled, because its the easiest thing to do. But I think thats ok, because some of his children and grandchildren will have switched as well, and maybe they will stick with it and convince their friends to try it. So yeh I agree
“Year of the Linux desktop” is more a meme than a serious statement. However, we are seeing Linux gradually gaining marketshare. For instance, it hit close to 3% on the Steam hardware survey.
Statcounter currently show’s that Linux’s share of the desktop market is currently 5.24% in the US and 3.9% Worldwide. I have seen articles saying that the rate of Linux adoption is trending up. Steam is a big part of it, but I’m seeing articles reporting that more and more people are trying Linux so they don’t have to buy new PCs. I personally know 3 or 4 people that switched to Linux in the past couple months because their PCs are fully capable of what they need them to do and they don’t want to buy new ones. Most people’s usage is all web based anyway(email, online banking, etc), so they aren’t really going to see much of a difference. All they need to be able to do is fire up their preferred web browser.
Consider how Linux has zero marketing when compared to Microsoft and Apple. One big problem is the overwhelming majority of desktop computer users believe their only two options are a Windows box or an Apple box. Few people know Linux is an option and those that do, know about that option because they know someone who has a Linux distro running at home.
I was at the annual vintage transportation show yesterday, where all the collectors bring together their classic and antique cars, trucks, vans, and buses for one big all-day show. I should have wandered around asking, “have you heard about Linux” just to see how many sideways eyeball stares I could get in 8 hours.
Last week my father-in-law indicated that his aging Dell laptop, which is older than my kids, would need to be replaced soon and was going to want my help with that. Consider my options.
- Windows 11
- MacOS
- Linux
He’s been running Windows for decades and needs to be able to use TurboTax. It’s not the year of the Linux Desktop for him.
That is strictly a choice on his part. There are alternatives to TurboTax, as well as a browser-based version. Kinda like folk who refuse to learn The GIMP because they want Photoshop.
What’s missing from the browser based TurboTax that he needs? I’ve been using it for years with no problems.
Gimp works for most users, probably 90+% of users. But it’s not going to fully replace PS for professionals. There are other options, in some cases using multiple other apps, that can replace PS if someone is sick of Adobe and/or MS. Currently Adobe is facing an FTC lawsuit over deceptive subscription practices and a class action lawsuit for secretly collecting and selling user data.
Explaining Computers has a video from about a year ago showcasing alternatives to PS. And a recent video about Gimp as an alternative to PS.
I’m sure there are many more videos by many content creators about PS alternatives if you search on YT, Rumble, etc, I just happen to really like Chris’ videos and have followed him for many years.
I have done my own taxes for decades. Every year, I do it in the web browser. I never use Google Chrome. I haven’t used Firefox in years. Unlike most people, I have to file taxes in two states, plus federal capital gains. A punishment for investment property and other investment income is tax filing becomes far more complex than for the average American.
Here is the browser requirement page:
Yes, Linux is not on the list. There is an easy way around this. Don’t tell them that Linux is being far more useful than Windows.
I really don’t see a problem here. Does anyone else?
I had no idea that was even a thing. Thanks.
The other main obstacle is that only the niche computer brands like TUXEDO or System76 sell computers preinstalled with any sort of Linux distro. The average person is not going to go out of his/her way to DIY a bootable USB drive and install a Linux OS.
It’s why there was a notable uptick in Linux marketshare after Valve released the Steam Deck.
I can’t argue with that.
Only to add: Doesn’t Dell, HP, and Lenovo offer a Linux distro installed as a factory option on their models aimed at the business market? They do make a point of not promoting it to the public.
I wonder how much the Chromebook fiasco plays into this? What was that? When Google partners started to offer Chromebooks, but marketed them as a 100% compatible replacement for Windows, which they were not. Anyone who tried to run Windows executables quickly found out that they were an operating system with a browser user interface and everything was done online using Google apps, requiring a constant Internet connection.
Ever since that happened, hardware companies have been very wary of marketing alternative operating systems to the public.
Developers are the same way: “Runs on PC or Mac!” Hmmm, what’s PC, oh Windows riiiight.
There are three reasons why the Linux desktop may never be completely used and understood:
- The perception it should compete with Microsoft instead of standing on its own
- FOSS projects funded by indifferent or competitive sources.
- The way computers are marketed to the public.
The first point has absolutely cheapened what a Linux desktop could be. Freedom and ownership. Most people that consider a Linux distro do it for two reasons: financial and ideological. Sometimes they are even intertwined. This is why Linux distros are very attractive to people that hate Capitalism.
The second point deals with driving the projects and foundations to make decisions that benefit the donors and not the users. If a tech oligarch throws money at a foundation and puts conditions on how it should be spent and what technologies to further, then the foundation and its project are enslaved. The oligarch gets a tax break, and is in a position to make FOSS go in the direction they intend.
The third point has more to do with how consumer electronics are marketed as a whole. Cheap, magical black boxes that you just replace when they stop working. That can be by design or as a result of negligence. The manufacturer really doesn’t care either way, so long as people keep buying the latest product. As a result, consumers don’t have time to really learn how to use the device, and the manufacturer can dictate how the device should be used across a wide reaching social and educational structure. This means, no repair or ownership for consumers. Just rented experiences they have absolutely no control over.
Manufacturers will build whatever the consumer demands. Right now, most consumers want cheap, disposable junk. Anyone who wants something that lasts more than a year or two is the exception. I find out every time someone tells me that I need to replace my five-year-old cell phone because it is “old.” “Why don’t you get a new Windows 11 (Spyware OS) computer?”
What happens when the manufacturers don’t listen to consumer demand?
Remember the 1970s and early 1980s when Detroit failed to listen and continued to cut costs by building junk vehicles that required a brother-in-law who was a mechanic, had crappy fuel economy, and were lucky to make it to 100,000 miles? The Japanese responded by cranking out high demand vehicles that didn’t need a tune up every other week, would easily make it beyond 100,000 miles, and had excellent fuel economy.
When it comes to anything electronics, the overwhelming majority does not want to learn anything. They want the equivalent of a microwave oven that is easily replaced when it quits working. They will still place a metal spoon inside it, despite decades of warnings to not do that.
I don’t blame the manufacturers. I blame the end users, their parents for failing to teach economics, and the public school system for failing to educate them. Everyone needs grandparents who lived through two decades of hard economic times. Unfortunately, my grandparents are long gone.
It’s really all downstream of devalued currency. No one would spend $5,000 on a smartphone that was manufactured here. Very few people even spent the $2,000 Librem was asking for their US supply chain phone. There isn’t the education there about how to completely utilize the purchase, either.
I agree about the lack of civics and economy in education, but we also shouldn’t rely on a school system we are forced to pay for. It will never be in their interest to educate children properly, only to find new and creative ways to steal more money.
Putting the same people who tax us and pass laws that we must obey in charge of educating children is a truly obscene conflict of interest.
Agreed, but people (mistakenly) want convenient and trouble-free lives. Working at that is difficult, so subsidizing it to an indifferent third party was more attractive.
That is why I am glad I had grandparents living with us to educate the grandchildren. They knew the schools were not going to do any educating. According to my grandmother, schools not educating children goes back to the 1920s. When blaming the schools, be sure to include the poor parenting skills of the parents who expect the schools to do everything for them.