this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2025
390 points (99.5% liked)
Linux
59681 readers
667 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Huge win for Linux. Steam Deck was the first volley, but this hardware is an all-out assault on Windows' gaming dominance. MS is asleep at the wheel and making worse and worse software. I'm a 20 year Windows user and I'm planning my exit. If I were a gaming executive, I would assume 5 years from now that a smaller percentage of Steam users will be on Windows than there are today. I would want a damn good reason for my company's next game to not have full Linux support.
Microsoft will either:
My money is on #4. Windows will probably be the #1 desktop/laptop OS for the next 20 years, but we could enter a world where Linux and MacOS are each 10% or more of the market. Steam shows 95% Windows but that's for a gaming-focused market.
Valve isn't perfect. They're still a corporation. But if every company was as evil as Valve, we would achieve near world peace. They've contributed amazing things to open source through heavy investment.
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/
How can I help?
Embarrassingly, make a Windows 10-like OS. (More specifically, a window manager, probably.) Or have an affirmative vision for the future (non-Windows 95-derived) like Niri or (fascist-adjacent) Omarchy. 15+ years ago I booted my first distro. I ran Ubuntu with Unity on a side PC for years. Good for single screen use. I daily drove Debian for 3 months in 2018 but never got it to look more modern than Windows 2000. I never "enjoyed" it. This matches my thoughts. https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/10/deduplicating_the_desktops/
Going to try out https://www.anduinos.com/ and Zorin. Have done distro hop roulette for months and a lot of them are unsatisfying. KDE looks close to how I want but runs slow e.g. https://lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz/post/58790510
I'm big on super+arrow to move windows from one screen to another. I rarely need more than 4 active windows per display. But my big problem with tiling is that I like seeing the windows I have open at the bottom of my screen. (this was for my laptop but similar points https://lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz/post/58681232 )
My side OS on my main PC is Mint with MATE, but I also don't gel with it. Ran it on a family PC for years and it did the job for casual use. Random gripe off the top of my head I think applies in MATE: sorting is in byte order, not in brain order. Many linuxes sort
10, 1, 2instead of1, 2, 10. MATE and Xfce (iirc) have terrible file operation handling compared to Windows or (the gold standard?) Teracopy in Windows.Every default GUI archive/extract program in Linux sucks, that I could find. I prefer Peazip but even 7z-gui (the stock one) is good. Even native windows zip support feels more pleasant. This goes back to a bazzite/omarchy philosophy of shipping software that is good, instead of defaults that suck.
Oddly enough I kind of respect AntiX + IceWM, as well as Lxqt / Lubuntu more than most of the crap modern WMs I've used.
SSH key exchange / setup is a fucking nightmare and I don't know why I'm copy pasting keys into text files or piping multiple commands together for the 50% odds that my OS setup allows it. I still don't really understand the Linux threat model where passwords on a local account make sense. (Is it to prevent local scripts from escalating to admin?)
I've run Linux servers for 5 years and I run WSL, but nothing clicks per se. I'm always more at home in Windows. Niri feels close to what I want, but too high a learning curve. I may make a post about it someday.
https://social.linux.pizza/@BigHeadMode/114843921051139964
There is a mix of very precise issues with very detailed examples but also a thread of not being "comfortable" which makes it challenging for me to make practical suggestions.
If that's OK I'd suggest to start with the top 5 problems you have then I, and hopefully others, can give potential paths forward.
One generic advice though the learning curve might feel threateningly high but I'd argue it's if you consider this a short term adventure. If you think about the next year or so, discovering the intricacies of a distribution or shortcuts for a desktop environment look like a bad investment of your time. If now you consider this, especially as you mentioned managing servers for years, relying on WSL, etc a long term investment. If you imagine than in 10 years, heck even 50 years, console, servers, VR headsets, desktop, phones, tablets... all run Linux (which to be clear basically is the case now, even before the Valve recent announcement) then it's a totally different dynamic. I don't mean "behind the scene" kind of things, I mean today you can use
adb shellon your standalone VR HMD, on your video projector, on your phone, etc. You can also have the console on your Mac laptop. It doesn't make learning easier, it's just a lot more motivating IMHO.Also on that topic, my "trick" is to write down notes. It can be actual notes or just my ~/.bashrc or ~/bin in a more pragmatic day to day solutions. They do add up, day after day, years after years. Each challenge once overcome can be composable and a new opportunity to do more.
Has Microsoft ever innovated?
Don't be such a ridiculous fucking hater you blind yourself to reality
Barring literally everything else, this steam box shares its lineage with the Xbox, not Sony or Nintendo's products. Speaking as one who ran xbmc on their classic first-gen it's nice to see things coming full circle to "everything is just a media center pc, bitches".
I would call Visual Studio Code a success story for them
They were innovative in hiding their money from the tax man
Windows 95, 2000/XP, and 7 were all very nice OSs. DirectX and whatever other APIs helped PC gaming. Windows Phone 8/10 are an interesting paradigm I wish still existed. The Xbox 360 blades dashboard (and later the NXE) ushered in an era we're arguably still living in. WSL.
https://social.linux.pizza/@BigHeadMode/115402987550130007
It's a privately own company, and it shows. Linux and open source just wins, because it allows to set these symbiosis with partners instead of treating everything as competition, my way-or-the-highway-style.
Hear hear. I'm a 35 year DOS -> Windows user (personally and professionally) and already actively working on my exit.
I think I remember reading comments indicating that lots of (indie?) developers are taking the strategy of ensuring that their games work well on WINE/Proton instead of specifically developing for Linux. That makes sense economically for a small company at this point. 5 years from now will probably be a different story than now though, like you said.