I work in IT. IMO, the civilian population moving to Linux is inevitable. As Linux finds itself and good ways to do things that don't require people to know bash, or customize options by manually editing config files, things will push that way.

IMO, it will happen, but not quite yet. We're seeing the initial push of the privacy conscious and those that want to avoid becoming a product. It's good, but we're not there yet. We're also seeing some pretty major players, most notably valve, pushing for consumer goods that are unashamedly Linux under the hood. This is, slowly but surely, pushing forward compatibility for apps running on Linux.

We probably won't see any line of business apps adopting a Linux build any time soon, and business in general actually wants the majority of what Microsoft is pushing for.... Along with government institutions (for their own needs), and more. I don't see business moving towards Linux anytime soon... Not beyond it's current role in server operations.

As stuff like steamOS get better and better, and find ways to solve problems in consumer friendly ways, that knowledge will feed back into existing Linux tools. We'll get to a point where Linux will be as plug and play as Windows, and that's when we actually have a good chance of migrating a lot of personal PCs to Linux.

The Battle for the workplace is still a long way out. Well after the Linux home PC is commonplace. People at the office will simply have more experience with Linux, and push for being able to use Linux at work and eventually that's going to start to happen... Probably not in our lifetimes.

To me, it's only a matter of time. Unless Linux undergoes a hostile takeover and unforeseen bullshit happens, it will happen.

Switched my home PC to Linux (Manjaro) over a year ago and had little issue getting it to run what I want. Steam works great these days. Wine has come a long way but I don’t end up using it.. though might try to run Foobar now that I think of it.

I hear the fleet management argument though. I got a MacBook at work because I couldn’t stand windows 11 and it’s claim on all virtualization (have to disable security features to get VMs access to hardware virtualization), and I don’t envy our IT department having to deal with Jamf.

1. Sony won that generation.
2. The games are still being made for Windows. The time it takes to lose that whole platform would allow them plenty of time to correct their path.
3. Microsoft are crooked AF.... They've been keeping their monopoly status for over 30 years. They won't let that change.

I hope those that are iffy about the jump away from microsoft look at valves steam machine and realize they can also use it for more than games. Make a smooth transition from oh this thing only does games to oh I can use it as my PC.

Nah, price killed PS3 and with Windows, OEM's eat the cost anyway. If its cheap, people will buy it. MS isn't making things harder for developers, they aren't increasing the price of windows, they offer support to orgs, they offer a whole suite of software for them too, they aren't going anywhere. They'll lose out some of the consumer market, but thats not where they get their money from anyway.

While I run Linux on a desktop, I've always owned a Windows laptop. I decided last week that instead of ever running Windows 11, I'm going to buy a Macbook and dual boot it with Linux. Yes I know I can run Linux on any number of PC hardware laptops, there are occasionally windows only utilities needed to run firmware or some other proprieatry application. If I can know I can always fall back to OSX for system updates and running proprietary commercial software, I'll know I never need to touch Windows 11.

May when Microsoft realizes Windows 11 is Vista 2.0, Windows 12 may be great. With Linux and OSX, I don't see myself coming back to Windows even then though.

one can hope, but I think it's a long shot. Most of my normie friends aren't going to switch even if microsoft assigned a live person to sit next to them and monitor their usage. "it needs to just work, and i know how to use it" they say (or something along those lines).

That seems like a very different situation.

And Microsoft might be right this time. My mid size organization for example is locked in to microsoft, we use the Office suite, AD, Teams, their ERP system, Windows servers, Windows desktops, outlook, etc.

I would love to go the Foss route but let's be real, the costs that would save would quickly be overshadowed with learning to set it all up.

Let me know if I'm wrong here, I really am open to moving over but it's a massive undertaking.