The Year Of The Linux Desktop Already Happened

People always talk about the Year Of The Linux Desktop but you know what, maybe it has already happened.
Full Episode: • #221 The Best Linux Ti...
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#Linux #LinuxDesktop #OpenSource #FOSS
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[@pot3to444]

the year of the linux desktop was the friends we made along the way.

[@ssgtblackmamba7991]

I am one of the people who have said for years: "I'd switch to Linux if I could run my games hasslefree on it." Last year, I bought the Steam Deck OLED. And guess what happened a month later. Never looked back at Windows. Especially with the ai news, I don't think I ever will go back. EDIT: I'd like to add that, for me personally, 2024 is my 'year of the Linux desktop'.

[@LucasGabriel-xz8nk]

I hope you have a good time in Linux!

[@anima94]

I installed linux because win7 support ended, stopped dual booting now because of proton

[@happygofishing]

People will look back on the steamdeck launch/proton release date and mark that the year desktop linux changed trajectory. I know that I would have never been on linux if it werent for gaming.

[@ElMarcoh]

The year of the GNU Hurd desktop

[@thingsiplay]

Most people never hurd about it.

[@Lampe2020]

@@thingsiplay Oof! XD

[@gh0stcassette]

Hurd is amazing because you have projects like Redox that already have a (somewhat) usable kernel that started work in 2016, but Hurd (which predates Linux) is somehow not even remotely usable 💀

[@MAJEPHTIC]

Please stop with the dad jokes, it hurds.

[@fabricio4794]

@@MAJEPHTIC i hurd about that hahaha

[@BlueSparkzVideos]

I switched to Linux after I finally asked myself whether or not Windows was worth jumping through hoops every few years to remain in compliance. I did the research and discovered there really isn't any application that binds me to Windows. I also have older systems (not compatible with Windows 11) that I have no intentions of throwing away. They run Linux perfectly.

[@HalfEclipsed]

My switch to Linux was prompted by the realisation that Windows was only going to get worse, and I might as well rip off the band-aid.

[@crabsoft]

I've lived through many waves of techxodus in my life. Mostly, nerds coming from other games to my preferred game. Millions of new users doesn't make your thing better. They will slowly whittle it into a bastardized version of the thing they left. I dread the year of the Linux desktop for these reasons.

[@noname-ll2vk]

You nailed it.

[@GSBarlev]

As long as the GPL holds, there will always be refuges for those of us who want to beat back against the current.

[@oussamajilaliarbaoui1981]

The whole idea about a popular Linux simply makes the idea of investing hours into building a native version of x,y game or software more "appealing" to companies, making Linux even more stable. the agile nature of Linux would would simply allow to avoid any Linux distro that turns into a windows, which is instantly better than what we have right now.

[@pragmaticmero686]

The year of the linux desktop was yesterday

[@Gab-e4w]

*yesteryear

[@rjawiygvozd]

@@Gab-e4w in 3024, when openbsd will have 80% marketshare, people will read folklore about linux desktop yesteryears of yore and wipe their tears

[@xymaryai8283]

nah, its today, this year, this decade, its happening, it'll keep happening, it'll keep seeming like its not happening but do not be fooled, what you won't see coming, and i don't completely agree with LinusTech, is ChromeOS gaming, which even if you don't count it as Linux, will give a lot of people linux-like experience, that if they want to have more freedom with, will migrate to Linux _easily_

[@UltraZelda64]

The Year of Linux on MY Desktop was somewhere between 2002 and 2006. That is all that matters to me--I am happy to have broken free over twenty years ago, and to be honest... I don't care how "popular" it gets. And honestly, popularity has its drawbacks, so I'm happy with what we've got, a slow rise.

[@BloodblayeGaming]

I actually moved over to Linux right after I ordered my Steam Deck. I wanted to try it out and get used to how it operates and I never looked back. I even completely deleted Windows.

[@chriss3404]

My coming to Linux was a combination of 3 factors. 1) I knew Linux users that could help to onboard me 2) I was willing to try really hard to learn 3) My Windows install broke twice in 3 months It wasn't a "move" that Microsoft consciously made to exploit their users that made me determined to switch, it was Windows failing me specific on a software Interestingly enough, a less technical friend of mine wants to try to use Linux as well after years of joking about it. What prompted this? Their install broke. People move away from proprietary software when it punches them in the face.

[@zoeyaaahmed203]

rare brodie praising gnome at 8:05

[@thingsiplay]

I paused the video at 0:13 to comment and can't wait to see his praise with my own ears.

[@thingsiplay]

@peek5548 :D First it was a typo, but then I left it. I was thinking we use to say "see" in the sense of the mind, not just with the eyes. In example "I see", after someone explained something. More like in a figurative sense.

[@thingsiplay]

Who says that the year of the Linux desktop can happen only once?

[@SnowDaemon]

The year of the Linux desktop will be the year that Best Buy sells Linux desktops out-of-the-box, right off the shelf. If "Normies" have to install their own OS, it'll never be a household system. And that will never happen until you can run ANY game on Linux that you can run on Windows; and also not until you can install Microsoft Office tools from a Linux App Store. Regardless of how you or I feel about the Office Suite, most grade schools and even Universities in the U.S. ** REQUIRE ** you to use it for class projects. (Which is the biggest bullshit ever, but true either way.)

[@STONE69_]

Once we get to 10% by late 2025 or early 2026, we will be getting so so so much more.

[@jamestillman5247]

not to mention stability and the ability to not crash or break your OS if you install the wrong. The average user is clueless as to how OS works and there needs to be safety rails in place to not screw up your machine , like in addition to an Atomi desktop that advanced features and installation methods obfuscated under an "advanced" switch and with a warning about the risk. Linux devs don't think like the average user they think like Computer guys which is fine but Linux will never increase in popularity until you take the median experience of the average joe into the equation AND have a compatible and polished experience.

[@STONE69_]

@@jamestillman5247 My son only 10 years old, installed Linux and has installed Windows. Its just simple steps, follow instructions and answer simple questions. ....If something does go wrong it can be redone and even reversed. If a grade fiver can do it most people can. ...You just have to convince yourself that you can do it.

[@jamestillman5247]

@@STONE69_ Firstly you missed my point. You are talking about "Installing" linux. I was talking about once you have linux installed all the different things you can click on and install via GUI that could potentially break your OS or at the very least cause you a headache, like gnome tweaks and other system settings that should be behind some sort of advanced sub menu to let the unexpecting person know they are about to look under the hood so to speak. I'm glad we got a point where a 5th grader can click next on an installer and that your son is smart enough and confident enough to get through it. There are grown adults not even on his level and I'm mainly referring to them. I am an IT professional and get to interact with people of all kinds frequently. Trust the median OS user is not at all welcoming of change or has any clue about how to treat an OS with a lot of options.

[@m4rt_]

I completely switched over to Linux quickly after Microsoft announced Windows 11, and I'm glad that I did, they have just been making things worse and worse.

[@chaoswolf9452]

what made me first try it was a windows 10 update a few years ago (I cant recall exactly what update) made my old t530 run soo bad, I could barely do web searches. After doing some research, I put Ubuntu on it (I later switched to mint), and it could do everything I needed it to do. I am planning building a new computer in the next month or so, and I will be Duel booting with linux untill steam gets the VR steam link working with Quest, then I will be just using Linux. I am a pretty casual user, I just want my machine to do what I tell it to do, Linux seems to me, like it does that better.

[@Haltroy]

there's a belief on some people that the apocalypse (religion one) already happened and we are going though it. saying "the year of linux desktop already happened" is similar to that.

[@Kawayolnyo]

Not yet, as Mint 22 and Zorin 18 are not out yet. It will hit when those two land.

[@shaytal100]

I don't know if it happens next year or in 10 years or never, but there is a critical mass of Linux desktops that makes Linux to relevant to ignore. If this critical mass is reached, a few hardware and software developers will start to make sure their stuff runs under Linux as well. This then will enable more users to switch, because for some unhappy windows users the last hurdle that was preventing them to switch is gone. Then Linux becomes even harder to ignore for developers and a few more will make sure their soft- or hardware runs under Linux and so on. Maybe this is already happening at a slow pace? It won't happen over night, but Linux is not going away! I also don't think MS will go away anytime soon. Maybe they will release a "Windows" OS with a Linux kernel one day (far in the future) ? I could imagine that.

[@formbi]

4:10 Android and ChromeOS use Linux just as much as GNU, that's your brain on calling the whole OS by the kernel's name

[@maartenc6099]

My dualboot with windows ended with steam and proton...

[@compameqs]

The year of the Linux desktop will not be televised

[@STONE69_]

Sure it is, its being Televised on YT.

[@the1trancedemon]

9:40 tiling is ideal for users with large monitors, else maybe they can use xrandr to scale the screen to accommodate a good amount of tiles.

[@Rustmilian]

Xrandr doesn't work on Wayland...

[@the1trancedemon]

@@Rustmilian yes unfortunately it only works on xorg. i was trying to figure getting this done in wayland but could not find anything.

[@gobravo123]

Once I try Linux, I can't go back to Windows (Ubuntu & Mint).

[@zezba9000]

System76 making a ARM64 laptop would help a lot. Linux's needs hardware to sell itself and to advertise that hardware on social media Ad systems. This is the only way to compete in the marketplace. And this needs to happen for team humanity.

[@sharkuel]

I believe both System76 and Tuxedo will go that route, that's a no-brainer. Energy savings on Linux allways has been the bane of Linux on Laptops, and using the efficiency of the arm architecture seems the most logical route to go.

[@noot1337]

the year of the linux desktop got fucked for me because of fucking riot games. my social circle kinda relies on TFT so unfortunately I only have linux on my laptop now

[@autohmae]

I've been telling companies for over 20 years, make sure all your applications are web applications, could be on an internal intranet, doesn't matter. This greatly reduces the amount of management you need to do of desktop/laptops/ipads, etc. and centralizes the management of just the web applications. Also maybe some day makes it easier to switch to Linux on the side, often greatly reducing licensing cost.

[@fuseteam]

I said it once and i'll say it again; should chromeos flatpaks become a thing, chromeos will be a linux distro

[@SloppyPastrami]

Generally agree, but the windows EOL periods should be marking moments in time where every main stream distro makes a huge push to clean up the various user facing messes in their desktop envs. But they never do. I have used linux for long stretches of time over nearly 20 years; but never as the central system because the default user experience is terrible on every distro. In most instances spending hours trying to fix it is actually counter productive. And I am exactly one of those people who when MS pulls some scummy move does; in fact, go out and try to daily drive a linux distro. Currently with win10s upcoming death, I am trying popOS, and while its actually pretty good out of the box, there is still quite a bit of jank above and beyond the windows levels of jank there. There are a handful of big packages that keep me using windows but mainly it is really down to adobe cc and specifically PS and AE, Gimp is not even an option because its actually hot garbage ( though maybe with 3.0 it might make a blender style turnaround ) and there is no real alternative to totally replace AE on any platform. But I think VFIO has existed for nearly 10 years. and IMO is exactly what is needed to act as a macOS rosetta /windows back compatibility layer for people thinking of making the change to linux. Just good luck setting it up. Having to sift though guides, manually creating entire directory structures and handwriting config files was something win/macOS made great efforts to totally eliminate decades ago since its extremely error prone and most importantly, needlessly time consuming. Yet on linux ; in this and most other cases, it is still the only way to do MOST things. EDIT: i've tried to reply to @hoovysimulator2518 twice and for some reason its not showing up ( great job google) but ill try putting the reply in here, Krita is great for digital painting and drawing( which is where I use it) but it can't replace photoshop for professional retouching and image compositing ( which is where I need it ) I've install Natron once a year to see if its gone anywhere, but its still so instable and lacks most of the features I need to do film comp work, I do use fusion which will run in linux ( haven't tested it yet but it does have a native linux install ) For client 3d work I am actually mostly blender and houdini with some 3DSmax when I really need it. Blender and houdini both run in linux ( once again have not tested houdini in linux but I will get to it eventually ) but none of these can do what AE can in terms of 2d motion graphics. It would be great to run a VM with full access to the beefy hardware I run but sadly its not easy even though everything seems to be there in terms of capability. If trying to get it going is a multi day affair, its just not worth it and having tried a few methods to no avail, I just want something like qemu to have a simple wizard like vmware to get this going. And thats the main issue with so many tools in linux, There are so many examples of how to do these things well but the linux community can be so contrarian that they will ignore hard won good results just to be 'different'.

[@SloppyPastrami]

@hoovysimulator2518 Krita for digital painting and drawing is great but it is not a photoshop replacement when you do professional retouching and image compositing. Blender is great for 3d work and I am in it 70% of the time with the rest being Houdini (which can run in linux native) and 3ds Max ( which cant ) but it too is not a replacement or even an option for taking on after effects for the typical motion graphics that I have to do on client projects. For video comp I now use blackmagic fusion which can run in linux but I have not yet tested for performance. My hope had been that hardware pass though would have gotten to a point where it was just a check box in something like qemu along with a wizard that makes the process of picking what hardware to use easy and giving clear feedback about BIOS settings needing to be enabled. Instead its back to 1995 and dealing with idiosyncratic text and xml files to maybe, kinda-sorta set things up but then when it doesn't work, well that's just linux, right?

[@SloppyPastrami]

@hoovysimulator2518 Krita is great for digital painting ( which is where I use it ) but it is not an option when you do professional photo retouching and compositing. I have tried Natron over the years and it is still pretty janky, lacks tons of features and is far too unstable to make it usable even in windows so its not an option over blackmagic fusion ( which does run in linux ) and having used nuke professionally is only slightly behind it for my live action compositing use case. I actually do almost all my 3d client work in Blender and houdini ( both of which can run in linux but I have not gone ahead and tested houdinis performance in popOS ) but again blender can not handle 2d motion graphics tasks as well as After effects and in many cases it can't do them at all. It would be great to run the handful of apps that are tied to windows in a VM with full access to the beefy gpus I have but sadly it does not seem to be an easy thing to do.

[@markusjohansson6245]

Respectfully, Linux on desktop will never happen (outside a few entusiasts). I installed Linux for the first time around 1994 when I studied at university. I have tried to use it multiple times over the year as primary os many times but I always ended rebooting to windows (and I strongly dislike windows at its core). Unix on desktop already happend, and its called MacOS. Today I use mac on my laptop for everything except gaming. Even if Linux gets more game support the community does not know how to do a clean user experience. Whats needed is a complete restart of the frontend and I doubt the community has the competence to make it good.

[@KrishnaDraws]

My prediction (based on anecdotal evidence): Linux hits 10% usage next year.

[@pichincho7]

The day what ninja trader works in linux or webull in another distros other que ubuntu based without necesity of virtual machines or bottles or wine Linux will be mainstream, actually I am not trading futures because I use Fedora and I can't change it.

[@cybernit3]

I play this game Tanki Online MMO using Linux I get 165 fps with Firefox (with 1 or 2 monitors plugged in), but I tried google chrome and only get 60fps. I have 2 months 4k@60hz and 1440p@165fps (I play tanki with this). When I have both monitors plugged in, I only get 60fps with Chrome, but get 165fps with only 1 monitor plugged in. I am using Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Gnome (Wayland) and wondered how to get chrome to work. I also plug the 60Hz monitor into the iGPU hdmi port and the 165Hz monitor to my graphics card (7800xt). I don't know, but seems Firefox is doing something right. I wonder if KDE Plasma 6 (wayland) would work better; but Firefox seems to be doing something right over Google Chrome. I wonder if anyone here knows how to get Chrome to work at 165fps?

[@keksmlg]

Chrome vsyncs at the lowest refresh. Firefox vsyncs at highest refresh. On chrome you can disable framerate limit via a command line launch flag, but it's bad as it will try to go up to 1000s of fps and it will actually break things like buggy web menus and animations that depend on the refresh rate. Firefox has an about:config refrest rate flag for setting a custom fps limiter so it's more controllable than chrome which doesn't have a set limit without compiling from source and changing the refresh value

[@florianfelix8295]

Could just be how the game is optimized maybe

[@cybernit3]

@@keksmlg Ya, I noticed with just my 165Hz monitor plugged in Chrome will do it perfectly, but 2 monitors nope back to 60hz. Ya, Firefox works pretty good, atleast 165fps in that browser game. I tried chrome commandline flag like disable frame limit and runs horrible...plus heats up the computer alot. Firefox is doing something right with a wayland desktop I figure, Chrome maybe is just geared towards X11. Google Gemini AI told my try --disable-gpu-compositing (With this I got Chrome to goto 100fps still no 165fps) and even tried --force-refresh-rate-throttle...

[@keksmlg]

@@cybernit3 it's not a graphics stack issue, it is a chrome vs firefox issue. They both handle their interface refreshing differently. The big difference is that firefox has a configurable limit with "layout.frame_rate" while chrome doesn't have a configurable limiter, you have to path and recompile it to change the part that handles FPS to limit the frames to a specific value. Wayland actually applies VSYNC by default to everything on your screen but that's irrelevant to your issue, which is based on how browser engines were designed to handle framerates. Browsers actually start having rendering issues when you use higher framerates due to untested race conditions on poorly developed websites. That's the reason they frame-limit in the first place as. The same issue exists with those browsers on any operating system, not just linux, so it's not graphics stack related.

[@zeebpc]

do you need antivirus or firewall or any security at all on linux? what about arch linux?

[@MrHyde911]

Yes

[@hopelessdecoy]

A lot of distros come with a firewall already, No real need for an anti-virus, one exists but that alone tells you how much it is needed.

[@fatrat600284]

​@@hopelessdecoyViruses exist for Linux tho, it's not like 2007 when there were no viruses for Linux.

[@SzásaTabasov]

@@fatrat600284Not as many as in Windows though

[@paultapping9510]

antivirus no, firewall, yes. Most places recommend installing ufw and then forgetting about it. For the vast majority of normal desktop users, that is belt and braces. You can harden your system further, but it's not really necessary

[@mr_hardy5329]

The Year Of The Linux never will happen.

[@Electrodudimanche]

Games have been a major leading software for operating system and hardware improvements since windows 95 on x86 PCs, and looks like other computers were also heavily influenced by games, thinking about amiga, Zx spectrum for example. As much as adult movies were and still are for the cinema side of things.

[@BlooAlien]

"The Year of the Linux Desktop" for me was around RedHat v5 / Windows XP / Windows 7 era, and that Desktop was named "KDE". Been using KDE pretty "religiously" ever since, even through the KDE 4 fiasco. There's been bumps in the road (like the aforementioned "KDE 4 fiasco") but overall it's been by far the best desktop environment I've used, and I've tried *many* over the years on a *wide* variety of PC (personal computer) platforms going all the way back to Commodore 64 / Amiga and Apple ][+/c/e/gs.

[@GSBarlev]

The Year of the Linux Desktop for me was 2006 with Dapper Drake-heck, most of my games and productivity applications ran fine through WINE and CrossOver (Gabe Bless CodeWeavers). I stopped PC gaming around 2010 and didn't start again until 2022, so I was blissfully unaware that gaming on Linux was ever a bad experience. 😂

[@peterixxx]

Yep. For me, it was right around the time between KDE 3 and 4. My GPU got messed up and Windows would 'red screen of death' on boot. Linux worked.

[@fuseteam]

It should be noted that the freedom of linux is in the choice of distro, a linux distro is not obligated to be modular ;)

[@fabricio4794]

What a Epic Crossover,Broda Robin toghether with Mike excited. is the"cuppy of coffy"like aussie language...

[@danielfernandezaguirre]

I've used Linux for work and personal for years and yet I don't understand why Linux users keep dreaming of the "year of the Linux desktop" it won't happen ever and it doesn't need to either, some said that "when Microsoft and Apple mess up everyone would change to Linux" and guees what ? windows has beeen crap spyware since 8 and mac os becomes more restricted and limited every generation and yet people will still use them anyway I use windows for gaming despite my love for Linux also. Just stop it and understand that Linux is and always will be a niche and it is fine like that otherwise believe me that governments would mess it up if it ever became mainstream

[@Lampe2020]

Dell and some other mainstream computer manufacturers actually have Linux preinstalled on some of their laptops if you choose that in the configurator. And there are several companies like Tuxedo Computers and Slimbook that focus on making Linux-compatible computers that ship with Linux out of the box.

[@TheDecodedMatter]

And Microsoft is the reason behind it. That's the way I see it.

[@naranyala_dev]

yeah, more legend dialog

[@no_name4796]

Linux will never become significant, unless it becomes easy to get a laptop with linux preinstalled in a physical store. Most people just want to get something working and not think about it. Linux adds that extra step of having to install it and then pray all components work right (i am lucky enough to get 99% working, but i still have bluetooth which fucking stutters, and i wasted days trying to solve that, invain)

[@thingsiplay]

It's easy to get a Steam Deck. And there are Linux preinstalled laptops too. Linux is significant, just not in same league as Windows. So we are heading in the right direction. And having Windows isn't something working and not to think about at all, so this argument no longer is valid to me. It's not like using Windows is painless or anything. The install process of Linux isn't that of a big deal, its mostly something unknown and not 100% compatible to all software or games they want access. I always had problems with Bluetooth, regardless of any operating system and hardware. Not a fan of it. My experience with Bluetooth however is years ago on outdated hardware and drivers, so not sure how good it is now. In my experience Bluetooth is problematic on all systems I ever encountered.

[@noname-ll2vk]

Setting up windows on a preinstalled consumer pc takes hours. Many reboots. Have to strip out all the nagware that helps subsidize consumer windows pcs. Then install quality antivirus after dumping the McAfee or Symantec trash. I used to do that as part of my job. Took less time to start fresh and install windows. Which took hours with endless reboots.

[@noname-ll2vk]

"Linux" is an abstraction for the entire software stacks and distros and package pools. It doesn't exist therefore it can't do anything. Windows and OSX are physical products you can buy. If you want preinstalls of a Linux distro on laptops system76, tux machines, Dell and Lenovo all offer those. I think Framework does too. Laptops have always required getting right ones. Thinkpads generally good. Get what the devs use a reliable formula. But random laptops with proprietary drivers etc? Or lower end consumer grade? Will be spotty results. For stuff prone to using proprietary drivers you have to buy right laptops, this has always been the case. Same goes for printers. If the drivers aren't free and open source there's no magic tricks to get stuff working.

[@Bunny501]

I really love how GNOME looks and feels like. I use Forge for tiling, but it has been low-key abandoned. It's functional, but very buggy. I know a bit of JS and tinker with it, but it's fundamentally broken. I hope that when gnome comes out with its own tiling it will be much easier to create robust extentions. Or Cosmic comes out

[@paultapping9510]

gTile works and is maintained. I'm not sure if it's got exactly the same feature set, but it's pretty good imo.

[@stevenrichman7101]

MS Office not working on Linux natively is the last hurdle, after that most users should have all they need. (And no, really casual user want their proven MS office and nothing else unfortunately)

[@sharkuel]

And onlyoffice is a legit solution that I even use on my work Windows machine instead of the office suite from windows!

[@tomsanton440]

To me, the year of the Linux Desktop was in 2016, because that's the year I switched 🤷‍♂️