No joke - I've used Windows (and a bit of OS X) my entire life and am old enough now that I didn't think I'd ever be able to switch. A few weeks back I hit the point where I had to upgrade from Windows 10 to 11 and just could not stomach the UX so in frustration I setup Kubuntu w/ Plasma... and it's been amazing. I've tried switching before without the same luck and I think agents like Claude/Codex/etc are the only reason it has stuck this time. Something that's always been unique to Linux is that if there's something I want to change I can generally do that, but now when I want something customized I can _actually_ do it instead of just slotting it into the infinite "if only I had time" bucket. There are quirks for sure (I'm looking at you, PipeWire) but the tinkery-ness of Linux on the desktop went from being friction to a super power for me just this month - maybe others will catch on next year.
I've distro hopped and DE hopped a lot before settling, but it's been amazing for me as somoeone who has switched over from Windows. It just doesn't get in the way, is super familiar for me, AND lets me do a lot of things I wish I had in Windows.
I was worried about the "choice fatigue" due to it being super configurable and all, but honestly the defaults are so sensible I haven't really had a reason to tinker with it much if at all.
+1. I switched from Pop OS to Debian + KDE last week, and KDE has been solid. I too read a handful of articles calling out the choice fatigue, and other than a few tweaks (maybe half an hour?) I was ready to go. I run old-ish hardware (circa 2013) without any issues.
Something notable is that the all the hotkeys felt 'just right'. I had to tinker a bunch in Pop OS to get satisfying hotkey combos, and the COSMIC upgrade reset them all.
If only, this will only happen when regular consumers can get GNU/Linux desktops and laptops fully working on shops like Media Market, Saturn, FNAC, Dixons, Publico,....
Until then it will be computer nerds buying from online shops, building their own PCs, or running Linux VMs alongside Windows and macOS.
Android, ChromeOS, WebOS have succeed among users, exactly because they are consumer OSes, where the use of Linux kernel is an implementation detail, and are available everywhere.
The PC market doesnt care what nerds do. But the PC market has a niche that it does respond financially to, and thats gamers. Gamers have long felt the pull factor of Linux, with games becoming easier to run on the platform. But now Windows has delivered a heap of push factors, with Windows chewing more memory, and that memory being used for intrusive AI tasks.
If market forces respond as they do for gamers, we will be seeing a lot of peripheral manufacturers at least ensuring their devices are covered by a generic driver on Linux, and eventually those gamers will be installing linux on their parents computers to avoid expensive memory upgrades. Games publishers are likely to take notice. And at least small PC retailers will be offering customs without Windows, assuming a couple of the big hardware guys dont start offering it too.
I made the old joke tongue in cheek, but it does have legs tbh. This is basically a perfect storm, that any previous management at Microsoft would have fired half the business to prevent. Focusing on optimisation rather than bloat would be a better strategy. But IIRC the management of Microsoft believe the cloud is the future and were thinking desktop was dead anyway.
The conditions were set in 2025, but 2026 is probably when we will see the greatest amount of switching.
No joke - I've used Windows (and a bit of OS X) my entire life and am old enough now that I didn't think I'd ever be able to switch. A few weeks back I hit the point where I had to upgrade from Windows 10 to 11 and just could not stomach the UX so in frustration I setup Kubuntu w/ Plasma... and it's been amazing. I've tried switching before without the same luck and I think agents like Claude/Codex/etc are the only reason it has stuck this time. Something that's always been unique to Linux is that if there's something I want to change I can generally do that, but now when I want something customized I can _actually_ do it instead of just slotting it into the infinite "if only I had time" bucket. There are quirks for sure (I'm looking at you, PipeWire) but the tinkery-ness of Linux on the desktop went from being friction to a super power for me just this month - maybe others will catch on next year.
KDE is SO GOOD.
I've distro hopped and DE hopped a lot before settling, but it's been amazing for me as somoeone who has switched over from Windows. It just doesn't get in the way, is super familiar for me, AND lets me do a lot of things I wish I had in Windows.
I was worried about the "choice fatigue" due to it being super configurable and all, but honestly the defaults are so sensible I haven't really had a reason to tinker with it much if at all.
+1. I switched from Pop OS to Debian + KDE last week, and KDE has been solid. I too read a handful of articles calling out the choice fatigue, and other than a few tweaks (maybe half an hour?) I was ready to go. I run old-ish hardware (circa 2013) without any issues.
Something notable is that the all the hotkeys felt 'just right'. I had to tinker a bunch in Pop OS to get satisfying hotkey combos, and the COSMIC upgrade reset them all.
Its crazy how Microsoft has created so many linux users. I am converting my windows setups to Mint over the next few weeks.
If only, this will only happen when regular consumers can get GNU/Linux desktops and laptops fully working on shops like Media Market, Saturn, FNAC, Dixons, Publico,....
Until then it will be computer nerds buying from online shops, building their own PCs, or running Linux VMs alongside Windows and macOS.
Android, ChromeOS, WebOS have succeed among users, exactly because they are consumer OSes, where the use of Linux kernel is an implementation detail, and are available everywhere.
The PC market doesnt care what nerds do. But the PC market has a niche that it does respond financially to, and thats gamers. Gamers have long felt the pull factor of Linux, with games becoming easier to run on the platform. But now Windows has delivered a heap of push factors, with Windows chewing more memory, and that memory being used for intrusive AI tasks.
If market forces respond as they do for gamers, we will be seeing a lot of peripheral manufacturers at least ensuring their devices are covered by a generic driver on Linux, and eventually those gamers will be installing linux on their parents computers to avoid expensive memory upgrades. Games publishers are likely to take notice. And at least small PC retailers will be offering customs without Windows, assuming a couple of the big hardware guys dont start offering it too.
I made the old joke tongue in cheek, but it does have legs tbh. This is basically a perfect storm, that any previous management at Microsoft would have fired half the business to prevent. Focusing on optimisation rather than bloat would be a better strategy. But IIRC the management of Microsoft believe the cloud is the future and were thinking desktop was dead anyway.
The conditions were set in 2025, but 2026 is probably when we will see the greatest amount of switching.
Until Valve removes their dependency on Windows developers for content on GNU/Linux, that doesn't matter.
Most professional studios have no reason to care, and change the status quo.
Most would rather stick to game consoles and mobile games than move a finger to support GNU/Linux, when not targeting Windows.
History doesn’t repeat itself but it certainly rhymes!