I’m old enough to have seen this “flocking” several times. Some people stay and are pleasantly surprised. Most people go back a few weeks/months later, and leave a “Linux suxx” post behind them. I don’t expect this time will be any different, and that’s totally fine.
But this time Linux actually plays video games right out of the box. No trickery. Just install steam and the rest of the experience is smooth as butter
I’ve looked at Linux for years but it was always so intimidating to me. I finally installed it when my pc was being aged out of windows 10 and honestly it’s really fun to play around with even though I’m not super tech savvy. It’s easy enough to find a solution online if I run into any problems and everything is free!
I was one of those nomadic users, every year, since 1998 with Mandrake Linux.
I have always been in love with the idea of an open source OS, but if I couldn’t game and work on it, it wasn’t ready. Every year, until Valve made it easy to game on Linux.
I made the switch when Proton was released and never looked back.
My point is, every time users go back to Windows, they have their own personal reasons, but those will some day not be the truth anymore.
Gaming for me is the only thing I don’t use Windows for. But for gaming I still do. Because I mainly game in VR and that’s still so far behind on LInux :(
But I have 20 odd computers in the house so it’s easy to have one with windows around (two in fact, another old one with Win 10 LTSC for programming some old radios).
I love KDE for all the options it gives 🫶 I don’t like Gnome, Systemd and all the other redhat influences but they are easy to avoid these days.
Because I mainly game in VR and that’s still so far behind on LInux :(
This is a major sticking point for me too. I’ve got a dusty Win10 partition I haven’t booted in ages, and I was keeping it around mainly for VR, but then Microsoft had to go and just extinguish that too.
Monado is making impressive progress but it’s a huge pain because they have to reverse engineer stuff with zero help from the manufacturers, instead of simply interfacing with the hardware.
I refuse to let Meta have any of my money though. I hope a good affordable VR kit comes out that isn’t another hyper-proprietary blackbox.
I think it will. I agree about Meta, though I’m too much of a VR fan to not have one 😳 And Pico isn’t any better (owned by bytedance). Vive is very focused on business (like large events with multiple people running around with headsets) these days.
I don’t blame you. I’m even tempted to get a Quest-something unit secondhand or something, if only because I’m pretty sure they’ve cracked it a bit better on the Linux side.
They’re making some progress on WMR’s controllers right now but they’re the most troublesome. Hand tracking works now! But a lot of games expect button input.
Seriously, we just need a good code leak or something so that hobbyist VR peripherals become more commonplace. Right now everything is focused on establishing lock-in to walled gardens instead of interoperability.
VR hardware should be just like getting a monitor / keyboard / mouse / flight stick / whatever, but they want to make it closer to a smart TV / phone so they can push you to throw it out and buy a new one every 6 months.
Many people will definitely go back, but the percentage staying might be better this time around. Linux has gotten a lot more usable and stable for those tech inclinced enough to be able to install it thanks in part to proton, immutable distros, flatpacks, Wayland, and improved defaults. Mint and bazzite are pretty darn good for daily use. I’ve never stayed on Linux as long as I have with this run, and I really don’t feel much of a push to leave it. Most everything I want to do just works.
I agree, I notice more new blood around Linux compared to the previous “OMG, Micro$oft suxx, let’s all ditch Windoze!1!!” craze (I guess it was Win8.1 -> Win10, maybe?)
my buddy wanted to switch from w10 to mint and i tried to recommend kubuntu because of wayland, i told him mint will be laggy because he has many screens with different refresh rates and mint can’t handle that. he wouldn’t listen, installed mint, and a few weeks later went back to w10 raging how linux suxx it’s so laggy. could’ve just installed kubuntu but no, it had to be w10.
That’s an Nvidia issue, not linux.
oh, always thought it was an x11 issue and affected AMD too. well anyway he’s broke and he got a high-end nvidia gpu for next to nothing so I’m not going to even try to convince him to get another gpu
Linux usage has been trending up over time. It’s real.
As a percentage of desktop users or percentage of any users (including people who use their phones mainly)?
as a percentage of desktop users per a number of different benchmarks
Could it be that desktop usage in general has gone down? That people use their phones and tablets for browsing and similar tasks. Then Linux would have a bigger share, but maybe not because there are more users.
I guess it is the year of the Linux desktop for at least some people.
I’ve used Linux desktop in various forms for just over two decades, this has to be the fourth time it felt like Linux was having its chance to seize marketshare. Each time it ends up not being the mass adoption that people hope for but it feels like the community grows each time so I think it is neat nonetheless.
Anecdotally, I was tinkering with it earlier this year and finally stopped being lazy and flipped my main PC over. After I talked about it enough in my friend chat, three more friends followed suit and a fourth is going to soon. It’s not just the end of supporting Windows 10, it’s all of the repeated bugs, glitches, and AI garbage Microsoft has been pushing everywhere so aggressively. People who would likely only rate themselves as “mildly” tech savvy are sick of it and willing to make a move, I feel.
I’m ok with that. You hit a point where a community sustains, and is good. Lemmy is a great example of that. Often, when it grows past that, it can become… unsavory.
Often, when it grows past that, it can become… unsavory.
Exactly! Like the Internet, Linux is for anybody! . . .but not necessarily everybody.
Year
Of
I’ve been a Windows user since 95. I tried a few times to move to Linux, but basic user unfriendly problems always brought me back to Windows. Now there’s no option to go back. Linux Mint has had some bumps, but I’m properly motivated to jump over those hurdles now. I’ve become a proud Linux user this last week. Finally free of Microsoft’s gravity.
Welcome brother or sister or nb thing inbetween! This is the way!
Windows 8 is what pushed me to Linux. Linux is better than ever. Proton is just amazing.
Dare we say it …?
Always… 2026 is year of linux desktop
I finally dumped Windows for KDE Neon on my desktop and my Surface about 5 months ago now. Never looked back.
Which surface do you use? And what features are missing still?
It’s the Laptop Studio 1, and strangely enough, it’s about flawless! The Surface kernel drivers are really good, and my model just so happens to have full support. The only gotcha is that howdy (Windows Hello style unlock using IR camera) doesn’t really work with KDE Plasma. The touchscreen will also pick up your palm as regular touch input, but a good palm glove solves that.
I’m using it on my laptop as a teacher. My gaming PC with steam is linux. I see improvements in performance every half year.
Had a student want to use it. I told him he needs to dual boot. Keep his options open. Then time will tell whether he will make the great leap.
Dual boot should be default suggestion for everyone trying Linux out. No pressure, just try it.
VMs are a solution too, depending on what you use each OS for. I’ve worked some jobs where my main work machine was Linux, but would sometimes need to use Windows-only software, and would just run it on a VM.
Said software must not be resource-intensive, or else you’ll have to do GPU passthrough, which not only adds a heap of complexity, but also requires a dedicated GPU.
Also, I think it’s much easier to teach dual boot (just install Linux, most installers will do the rest automagically) than proper VM setups.
Still, for experienced users, Windows VM is a brilliant option.
Yeah, can’t be GPU-intensive, but with modern CPUs, virtualization is pretty cheap. One application I had to use was Altium, and its 3d view was pretty laggy under a VM. I prefer KiCad. VMs seem easier than dual-boot to me, but that might just be out of familiarity.
After several months of experimenting with different distros, I just yesterday made the full-time switch to Linux Mint. I’m pretty happy with it so far, I’m just wondering why I hadn’t done it sooner.
I didn’t have the patience to try out a few, but luckily Fedora has met my needs without annoying me as much as windows did. Though I am feeling a bit of an itch to try out some of the others, but am currently just chilling in this local minimum of effort and not regretting going from windows to Fedora one bit.
Is there a dumbie sheet or cheat sheet . I just feel lost on linex.
Just ask people here, people just love anyone who switches over to Linux and want to learn about it. Because we actually love this operating system. Its so good.
When my kid started using Linux, once he knew how to start programs and install things, we went through where the files are on the file system and how to get there in a terminal. I think thats a good starting point so you understand the foundation of the system.
And then go though a basic Linux command line tutorial to learn about the common tools for listing files, filtering results, renaming and deleting files etc.
You can do that stuff in a graphical file manager too but you dont really get that understanding of how things work until you do it in the terminal.
The terminal commands is where I feel lost. I feel like Im trying to hack the main frame.lol just a bunch of typing and no clue what it means.
For all their faults, LLMs are pretty damn good at basic trouble shooting of Linux. Ideally prepare context for them with installation details. Use CLI client, recommend opencode CLI, plan agent is good to inspect the commands it will plan to run and let’s you inspect and think through what it is doing. Can also ask for clarifications along the way.
It’s not perfect but very good.
I do free infinite troubleshooting on matrix, I have over 15 years of experience
Is that a help service?
I guess? I don’t know what you mean I just help people on matrix in dm’s for free, my matrix is on my profile
That answered the question. I appreciate that. I’ll save this. Thanks
If you are new I suggest bazzite, and get lutris to install windows apps outside of steam. It takes care of most of the stuff and to install software, on bazzite you use “sudo rpm-ostree install <package name>” and then reboot because bazzite uses an ostree system, or just get it in a flatpak if available. Between bazzite and knowing how to install packages outside of the flatpak repository, that should cover most of your bases for a few years and you can learn other stuff when you have the inclination. ChatGPT is really knowledgeable about Linux since it’s open source. It’s often much faster than digging through forums just be specific when you speak to it.
Also if you get your setup in a decent shape, you can shrink the partition and image it with dd with a single command, and then compress it to have a full system backup, which is basically your own image. Then you just write it back with a program like etcher later if you screw up your system and then just reexpand the partition to the full drive. If you get bazzite though you won’t have much need to use the terminal or install anything outside flathub which will keep you from breaking the system. Also update the system occasionally, to get security fixes once a week or two is probably fine if you don’t have open ports to run a server and aren’t running random software.
Is this satire?
Seriously, if I was new to Linux, coming from Windows, asking for a cheat sheet or Linux for dummies manual, everything you wrote would sound like absolute gibberish to me.
If this was someone’s response to me when asking for advice I’d immediately reinstall windows where at least (from the perspective of a typical end user) they speak words that make sense.
It’s the easiest way to get into Linux if you need good GPU support and I assume most people play video games. Bazzite is what finally got me into Linux because it mostly just worked out of the box which is something most Linux distros I tried before that never did. I would always end up breaking them in a day or two trying to get the GPU driver installed or something. Bazzite is really good for beginning users. Not the greatest for mid tier when you are trying to gain a deeper understanding because it replies heavily on containers and file system overlays.
Also you have to remember that for people who aren’t ultra Linux nerds. It’s an incredible amount of work to get Linux to work. It’s often days of painful configuration and research per machine. This, and a lack of gaming support is the main reason I think most people avoid Linux, which is why I suggest bazzite, as the shit just works distro.
I’m all for Linux adoption. However, seeing less tech-literate people feel as if they have to choose between an unsecured device and spending money they don’t have on a new Windows 11 machine really makes me angry.
Most won’t understand what no more security updates mean, and some overreact and get really worried.
I really really hope, Zorin brings up a screen and says that it has detected a “legacy application” when it proposes better alternatives…
Bro I’m not going to wait 15 seconds to read that article fucking cloudflare, takes years to complete on a smartphone.
I have been preparing the move to Linux for years, switching to FOSS cross-platform applications on Windows and installing Linux on my secondary machines. A few weeks ago I made my work machine dual boot with the intention to remove Windows completely. I find that I never log into Windows at all already, and my Debian Trixie + KDE Plasma experience is the same in many areas (mainly because I use the same applications as before) and vastly better in others.
There were issues I had to solve but nothing major. It is true that Windows has been very stable and efficient for me, but people forget that when this happens it is the result of many years of learning, fine-tuning, decluttering and getting used to Windows. You get to that stage with Linux very quickly, and it feels much better.
Yeah, turns out people don’t like surveillance against their will…
