[progforlyfe]

Every month more and more people switch to Linux and I just love it. I'm tired of one company controlling the core operating system of 85% of desktop computers and users being at their whim.

You want proprietary programs? Alright, fine, one can argue for that. But the central, core operating system of general purpose computers should be free and fully controllable by the users that own them!

[jillesvangurp]

It's a form of Stockholm Syndrome for most people. They'll have some bit of software they imagine is irreplaceable because they have some special use case that means that they just have to tolerate the relentless abuse. Or some other excuse. Whatever. It all boils down to people being afraid of change.

Most of that fear is not all that rational. It's not unlike kidnap victims falling in love with their captors. Your mind just tries to make the most of what fundamentally is a really messed up situation. You'll tell yourself it isn't that bad or that the next update will fix it or that you can get some magic software thingy that makes it go faster. Whatever.

Once you realize you are being abused, you can make some choices and do something about it. Most tools can be replaced if you look around a bit and do a bit of research. And virtual machines on Linux can run Windows just fine if you have one or two things that just really need it (been there done that). There's also wine and proton which aren't half bad these days. And they work for lots of things other than games. You can dual boot. Etc. Try it and find out. The absolute worst case is that you have to go back to being a lame abuse victim here. You'll feel extra bad because now you know. The best case gets you out of that abusive relation ship for the rest of your life. Life is too short to get subjected to this kind of abuse.

[neogodless]

This might have some merit for some people.

But the talk of abuse is also heavy-handed.

I've spent months testing and trying out RAW photo editors, and months trying out Linux gaming.

Linux is incredible, but my experience with Windows is still better. As many that still use it can attest, you can disable almost any annoyance. It's extremely stable. Things just work including brightness controls, fractional scaling, high refresh rates and high FPS gaming, and my favorite RAW photo editing. I could switch to a less enjoyable experience with Linux but I choose not to after extensive evaluation. I don't spend any money on Microsoft services, no Office or OneDrive subscription.

But my decision isn't permanent. My hobbies, software use, gaming selection, etc. can change over time, and Linux is getting better while Windows is getting worse. If it's ever "abuse" and I can have a better experience with Linux, I won't hesitate to change. But it's also a lot of effort to try out alternatives, and dual booting is slow and annoying. Plus when I dual boot to Linux Mint the kernel fails to boot every other time and I have to select an older one, reboot, select a newer one, reboot. It's a huge waste of time. A bad experience and I have chosen to avoid it and try again in another year or two.

[bobsterlobster]

I don't think it's Stockholm Syndrome, rather it's a classic case of sunken cost fallacy. For me at least, that's what it was. I had invested so much time in Ableton (~14 years) and didn't feel like starting from scratch with another DAW. And let's be real, no one likes that kind of friction.

It had to get worse to finally break the inertia and also make me realize that it's only going downhill.

[zamadatix]

I've dual booted for over a decade at this point and I still need to switch back and forth for different things.

[petcat]

> Every month more and more people switch to Linux

We've been hearing this for decades and yet the home Linux userbase is microscopic and somehow even smaller than ever. Unless we're going to count Google's Android and Chrome OS. Those are the only Linux-based distributions that have ever gained market share over desktop Windows.

[fundatus]

Somehow I think the stars might be aligning this time though. People are genuinely fed up with Windows and governments around the world are loudly thinking about how to reduce dependence on US tech. And then there is Proton which makes it much easier for Gamers to jump ship. To me it feels like there is more momentum than ever for this.

On the other hand I am also a realist and I don't think that Linux will take over the Desktop, but it will certainly have its biggest growth year ever in 2026.

[deaux]

Go and download the archives of Reddit, there are plenty of torrents out there. Filter to a sub like r/gaming. Relative frequency graph of Linux mentions. You'll see a magnitude increase over the last 12 months compared to years before. It's real.

Must admit, not sure if the data torrents are uptodate now that Reddit anti-scrapes so hard to raise their premium on the exclusive contract to the highest bidder, OpenAI.

[bobsterlobster]

Calling 4-5% marketshare microscopic is not fair. I get it if it was still stuck at 1%, but it's growing, and the rate of growth has been increasing too.

[GoatInGrey]

As phones replace desktop computers for non-technical users, leaving a concentration of "skilled" users, my suspicion is that the pattern will resemble the quote "Slowly, then all at once."

[tempaccsoz5]

Have a look at the Steam Hardware [and software] Survey [0] results. Linux has been trending upwards whist Windows has been trending down for a wee while. And the population this looks at is primarily interested in gaming, which means that this is despite a compatibility layer being needed for a large amount of the software used. I imagine in other communities (software, old people) it's trending much faster.

E.g. I recently installed Linux Mint for my grandma so she could use email and an up-to-date web browser on her old laptop that can't run (secure) Windows anymore. The UI differences are marginal for her, and she can do everything she needs to much better than she could before (which was not at all).

[0]: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

[dralley]

I mean, this is literally false? Desktop Linux userbase is growing, it's bigger than it has ever been even without including ChromeOS, and more OEMs are shipping devices with desktop linux than ever before (Valve's suite of devices, multiple laptop vendors including major ones like Lenovo, a few SteamDeck competitors)

[HendrikHensen]

More and more desktop apps are just becoming websites. More and more desktop apps are using Electron rather than some native app. Windows is slowly becoming a dumpster fire in terms of usability and issues. Most games these days Just Work on Linux without any tinkering.

While I hardly think that this year will be "the year of the Linux desktop" or whatever, but if these trends keep going, I really foresee Linux market share growing, slowly, each year, until it's not so microscopic anymore.

[vikramkr]

I mean - steam deck was a pretty significant inflection point quite recently. Making gaming viable on linux via a popular consumer product is a huge deal and starts to kill one of desktop linux's single biggest barriers to adoption.

[ManlyBread]

According to the Steam Hardware Survey (https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...) only ~3.6% Steam users use Linux and these statistics include the Steam Deck users. SteamOS accounts for ~26% of Linux users, which in turn brings down the count to ~2.6%. For comparision, MacOS is ~2.1% of the market share at the moment. Wake me up when Linux gets to 10%.