I know the question is memey and played out, so first off I shall apologise.
BUT! I’m making a video for the start of the year where I talk about this question from different angles and I’d really like other people’s views on it to gauge the general thoughts about this so I can cover it more widely.
My premise is that it’s kind of a Schroedinger’s year for Linux desktop, it both was and wasn’t. Clearly the end of 10 did create a lot of movement towards Linux adoption. And I have personally installed Linux Mint for a lot of my friends and family members that I never expected to want to make the switch. Statistics also show a significant increase in Linux traffic.
At the same time the change isn’t life-changing for the ecosystem and we didn’t see a lot of software houses move for more Linux development. The apps that never worked in Linux… still don’t work with Linux and we haven’t seen any major announcements unless I’ve missed it. However, for the vast majority of the users it’s all there. People often cite Adobe products as the big missing piece, but I think people also vastly overestimate how many people actually use them since they are very specialised for creative professionals.
The main crux is that it has never been defined what “the year of the Linux desktop” actually would entail, so the answer is different for each and every one. I’ve seen a bunch of people argue both sides of the argument with very good points, which highlights the impossibility of answering the question.
But I’d like to hear your thoughts, with the caveat that whatever you write might influence my script, so don’t say anything you want to keep mum for your own uses
I think the major reason the majority of users aren’t using a non-Windows solution is simply the mindset of ‘I don’t want to change’.
The majority of ‘not available on Linux’ is because the developers (like game anti-cheat) simply don’t want to (for whatever reasons). And not being a developer, I can’t say how valid that is.
Yer there weren’t that many that changed and since not in headlines no one cares (autocomplete wanted me to type cashews here lol) anymore as per usual
I would kill for cashews right now, doordash screwed up my order (no rice and a tub of what I assume is meant to be curry) - store will be shut soon so tonight I have toast and butter with a splash of hot sauce (can’t spell the word that begins with W)
My take on that question is that there will never be THE year of the Linux desktop. Adoption is a slow process, and the rising Steam Linux gamer numbers show this very well.
The only way we get a Year of the Linux Desktop in the way that it is a sudden, undeniable huge shift towards Linux is if the pope grants sainthood to (Saint) Linus Torvalds. Otherwise, we need to be content with having won everywhere except the desktop.
Should there be a “year of the Linux”? I mean if say 50% of the Windows users go to Linux then Linux is not the “niche” it now is, it will be almost mainstream. Do we want that to happen?
part of me say yes the more people use Linux the better it is for adoption and more developers will bring there software available to Linux
Another part of me says no way, Linux should stay that “niche” it is so it keeps its small scale it is
If you take sources like this into account, at least in terms of the market share for operating systems, there hasn’t been any significant changes for linux. On the contrary, these numbers won’t even support a slow but steady growth rate within the last 12months, but stagnating numbers instead (~4%, highest 4.27% in April) with a slight downward trend in the last months (2.95% in November).
There is no trace in terms of the end of support of Windows 10 in this overall market share statistics. Only when you look into the distribution of the various Windows versions for the last year, most Win10 users seem to have switched to Win11 as the numbers for Win11 surpassed Win10 back in July for the first time as it seems like.
In short, I wouldn’t spend much time on finding an answer to the question if this year has been “the year” of the Linux desktop. Linux is still in 3rd place … and isn’t mainstream, yet. We’ve got way too many distributions to choose from, at least out of the perspective of novel users. It requires some research from their side to find the right distribution and the willingness to take up the learning process.
I had a door dash grocery delivery a couple of days ago and one of the items was soy sauce, it was literally the thing I needed to make my stir-fry and guess what, out of stock and substituted…
with Mint Sauce!
I mean I like mint sauce, don’t get me wrong but in a stir fry!?
Well, at least in terms of the steam hardware survey… it is yet to be determined when the new steam machine would be released to market. And which kind of impact this new hardware will have on the gaming market and therefore on the Desktop market as well.
Additionally, It’s not certain that Steam OS 3 would be supported beyond that scope. If so, there will be some limitations I guess. The major question at hand is more or less, for how long that launch might be delayed, due to the current price hike for memory. Some sources say that the memory market itself wouldn’t be back to normal until the 3rd quarter of 2026.
There was greatly increased adoption of Linux in 2025. As a percentage of the existing user base, it was huge.
However, as a percentage of the overall market, it was tiny.
It was likely the best single year in history for the Linux desktop. However, it certainly didn’t bring Linux into the mainstream.
That being said, the consumer desktop market is shrinking as a whole as more people start to rely solely on mobile devices so the long-term future of the desktop is somewhat unclear to begin with.
Well ok…
