Microsoft has ended support for Windows 10, and one of the most popular Ubuntu-based Linux distros is celebrating its "biggest launch ever" after a spike in downloads from former Windows 10 users.
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.
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!
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 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.
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
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’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.
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!
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 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.
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.