I actually agree, Linux is well past the point a minimally tech competent person can use it fine, but it doesn't solve the fact that even if Linux was flawless, there is still a switching cost in time, relearning a new system, and worst (best?) of all of you decide you are willing to do all of that now you can get entirely lost in the weeds picking a distro. I used Linux all through university, then went back to windows out of convenience and needing to use it for work anyways.

Until one day I got so frustrated with constant settings resets, reboots at the worst times for software updates that fail, highjacking my pc after every update for a guided tour of the latest things Microsoft decided to break, and telemetry that can only be disabled with an obscure registry hack that changes every few months, I just couldn't anymore.

Linux has been good enough as a daily driver for a while now, but even with proton I don't know if the pull factors towards Linux will ever be strong enough for most people. For me though the push factors away from Microsoft had gotten so strong I couldn't take it anymore.

MS has inertia on its side, and its abusive marketing and lock-in strategies of the 90s. Remember when you couldn't buy a PC without Windows from most vendors? Meaning you were paying MS, even if you immediately uninstalled it?

The long term outcome of that is that 90+% of industry still buys Windows PCs. And non-industry: once non-techie people are on an OS (Windows/MacOS), many don't move off it, though Apple's ecosystem has been a good carrot+stick.

One of the more interesting indicators is (even though desktop software is in decline) - the number of apps that are Windows and Mac and maybe linux, and the increasing number of apps that Mac-only or Mac+Linux but do NOT have a Windows download. Something unimaginable in the 90s and 00s.

MS are certainly accelerating adoption of other platforms due to their own mismanagement.

2026 is the year of Linux on the Desktop!

> At this point I'm convinced that no matter how much or little Linux desktop is improved, its market share is solely dependent on how much Microsoft fucked up.

Lifelong Windows user here. If you could get the kind of driver support you have with Windows for just whatever the fuck you have lying around, I'd probably use my Ubuntu laptop as more of a daily driver.

>Linux people said things like this in 2019 too.

They've been saying it since it was competing with Windows XP at least.

Having no one to ask if you can't get things to work was a big issue until LLMs came along. You can ask things online but people are reluctant to keep asking and/or keep explaining what they've tried.

I'm sure the lone Linux experimenter just gave up some place half way configuring the HP printer.

I don’t know if Linux has improved a lot in the last few years. I’ll observe, though, that it always feels like it has for the first few years you use it, since it becomes intuitive and natural.

Agreed. 2026 was the year. The degradation of win 11 , forced win accounts everywhere. I switched to Linux Mint, and I haven't switched back. Missing out on a few random games that aren't supported yet, I decided it was time to get rid of windows on my desktop.

I do have one windows machine still, and thats my simrig, this is a purpose built computer+rig specifically for iRacing and iRacing have said that they won't support linux, and so w/ that, I'll keep it in windows, until they change their position.

Yep, see also "lies, damn lies, and feedback on arch linux":

https://www.bitecode.dev/p/lies-damn-lies-and-feedback-on-ar...

Whenever Steam released Proton is when Linux started to get way better. I used to daily Linux at work in 2017 onwards. Been dailying at home since 2022.