[aruggirello]

This. Where are "Linux evangelists" in 2025? GNU/Linux as a whole has never been in better shape to catch users fleeing from Windows, it surely looks like a much easier task than it was 15 years ago (even despite UEFI's additional complexity burden).

Spot on the +17% in lenovo shipments, but shouldn't we also care about the huge number of computers they're replacing - just because they're incapable of running Windows 11?

[gortok]

I use Windows for one reason only: Steam and best performance and compatibility for high resolution gaming.

If I didn’t want that, I wouldn’t be on windows at all.

The issue I have with Linux is that it’s 2025 and every single time I’ve created a Linux system in the past ten years, I have some sort of issue that I spend too much of my time figuring out. I am married, have three school age children, and have hobbies and I volunteer regularly. One of those hobbies is not “figuring out how to make Linux work.”

The downside of open source is you have to have the time to fix it yourself, and that lack of time is what keeps me from pursuing Linux, even though I am absolutely furious at the crap Microsoft is pulling lately, from shutting off ability to create a local account, to forcing OneDrive, to throwing Ads onto the desktop, to the telemetry and marketing spyware that is now standard on Windows 11.

[GreenVulpine]

I find it's the opposite nowadays. I run Kubuntu LTS on an all AMD system and most Steam games just work out of the box. No tinkering with the OS, takes 15 minutes to install and set up.

Compared to the hours and hours of battling Windows to get it to a usable state. Drivers, removing bloat, hunting for exes on the internet, dealing with low quality commercial software, etc. Then you get to do it all over again when a major update drops.

Performance is better on Linux too, I noticed a good 10-20% FPS uplift in some games. Found a random CPU review showing everything is slower under Windows. https://www.phoronix.com/review/windows-linux-amd-9950x-9950...

[jhanschoo]

What DPI scaling and multi-monitor setup do you use on Linux? This is pertinent as parent comment encountered issues with it on their setup.

[keyringlight]

Just speaking personally, but one thing I wonder about with the issues is putting aside the 'internet knowledge base' how much I've accumulated knowledge of how to gloss over all the little issues in windows that doesn't translate over, and whether that applies to other people in general. There's the common "I migrated grandma and pointed her at firefox and she's loves it" anecdote for users with little assumptions, so for different types of user it'd be an interesting project to catalogue what pain points they come across, major ones are likely well known but I expect it'd be really interesting to gather minor ones. How much is adaptation to the windows/linux "DNA" or ways of doing things that would cause breakage if they were changed and how much could be looked at by various projects.

[nobodyandproud]

Other than the “best performance”, Steamdeck fits the bill.

I’d also mention Windows isn’t a panacea. I’ve fiddled with driver upgrades and downgrades for various games over the years on Windows.

[politelemon]

True about open source though it's the only place where your computer is and feels like yours. Macs and Windows have you beholden to companies that have increasingly been user hostile and both have been keeping me in a constant state of revulsion.

That said, if you're having to fix your system constantly then something is off, as many distros have become incredibly stable. Of course I don't know your circumstances so can't say anything specific.

[card_zero]

On any Linux distro it feels somewhat like my computer belongs to a bunch of opinionated nerds, and none of them are me, and their motivations are peculiar. But also somewhat like it's mine, I must admit.

[dralley]

If your games work with Linux, which you can check on protondb, they typically "just work" and the performance is comparable to (sometimes even slightly better than) Windows. At least using AMD. Nvidia performance is good I've heard but getting everything to work together is still a bit tricky.

[futuraperdita]

> I am married, have three school age children, and have hobbies and I volunteer regularly. One of those hobbies is not “figuring out how to make Linux work.”

This comment literally asks him to go check to see if his games work with Linux, and that he needs specific hardware for that compatibility to be meaningfully successful. The alternative is he just uses Windows and plays his games. It's exactly the type of "extra steps" that he wants to avoid.

I use Linux systems daily, and every now and then I'll go FOSS-zealot enough to go rip my Thinkpad back out of the closet and port everything over. Then, I'm no longer interoperable with any part of society that isn't involved in a fringe movement of the Linux laptop, and then go back, somewhat disappointingly, to my MacBook Pro.

[pjmlp]

Unfortunately that is the standard behaviour every time some of us complain about Linux Desktop.

Just because we complain doesn't mean we are Linux newbies.

Many of us do use Linux at work, have been there since early days, myself kernel 1.0.9, do have multiple UNIX variants experience, what we lack is the willingness to keep doing the same over and over again on our free time.

Yet, a single complaint and there comes the same answer as back in the Usenet days.

[bigyabai]

It's standard behavior for a reason; gaming on Windows blows. It was user-hostile in the DOS era, user-hostile in the Steam Machine era, and it's user hostile today.

Go look at the reviews of the Xbox handhelds - every single one always mentions how bad the OS is. Windows is no longer a selling point outside the hyper-obsessive purist niche that is waning with the proliferation of hardware-based cheats. Gaming-based hardware is getting docked points for not running Linux as a standard, Windows 11 is a liability.

Complain until the cows come home, really. It just makes you look that much dumber next to the 8-year-olds installing and playing Metroidvanias on their Steam Deck.

[pjmlp]

Those 8 year olds are enjoying Proton, and will be very sad teenagers when Microsoft decides it has been enough.

[Ferret7446]

You don't really need to check any more. Games just work, unless it's a competitive multiplayer FPS with kernel anticheat. In theory you should check but I've not run into any issues for years now.

[dralley]

It takes like 2 seconds to check if a game is supported. How is that different from checking the recommended system requirements.

[gortok]

And if the game isn’t supported? What then? Not buy it? Buy another PC and use windows for that?

Last time I tried a dual boot UEFI system with windows and Linux on separate drives, I spent three weeks trawling message boards for half answers from DenverCoder9 only to give up.

[c0balt]

> Not buy it?

That is a solid option but alas voting with your wallet can be difficult (social reasons etc.) The only thing that needs Windows for me is Valorant. Everything else runs on bazite.

> UEFI system with windows and Linux

That is weird. Were you trying to have some selection with grub?

Just having two drives and selecting a boot device in the Bios/Uefi of the MB has worked stable for at least four years with this configuration. Make your default Linux or Windows and only use the MB for one-time boots of the other one.

[yread]

Indeed, writing this on a laptop with Linux that cant sleep and gets random crashes with blinking caps lock about once a week. Whether its Realtek ethernet adapter can run at its nominal 5gbps on a 6.14+ or <6.10 kernel without CPU soft lockups is an open question

[Gud]

This assume some default state where Windows is trouble free, which is clearly not the case.

[gortok]

I’m not assuming that at all.

When windows has a problem, I am confident there will be a driver fix and windows/the manufacturer will update the driver and I download an update and I’m fixed, and I’m confident in this for a few reasons:

1. Microsoft spends a lot of time and money on driver compatibility.

2. Manufacturers are incentivized to make sure their stuff works on windows.

3. The time and money has been spent for ease-of-updates and on customer service (having notices and communications that there is a problem and it will be resolved).

When this has happened to me on an Ubuntu or Debian based system, it’s typically been surfaced through a GitHub or random forum post, with consulted instructions to fix, if there is a fix. When the instructions don’t work, I need to spend more of my time figuring out why. And this happens for even mainstream hardware.

I’ve never had trouble free windows, but the time to get the problem resolved is a lot less and generally requires little to no time on my part, which given my state in life, is what I want.

[Gud]

Ok, that has not been my experience with windows at all.

[pjmlp]

I have been hearing evangelism since Windows XP days, when DX 10 drivers were Vista only, when driver model changed, when Windows 8 went to WinRT, when Windows 10 introduced telemetry, when....

In the end, Valve had to come up with Proton.

Signed ex-FOSS zealot.

[ac29]

Of all of the things that are a challenge on Linux, UEFI isnt one of them. I'm curious what you mean.

The term might come up in Linux distro installers but the ones I have used recently all handle it fine (Arch, Debian, Fedora). Secure boot is even supported without hassle by all the major distributions. Once Linux is installed the user definitely doesn't need to care about the pre-OS boot firmware.

[trenchpilgrim]

If anything I UEFI is _easier_ on Linux than Windows. Especially if you aren't dual booting and can use EFISTUB.

[pjmlp]

Not on the Gigabyte Brix I bought and for whatever reason could only boot from Windows formatted M2 drives, regardless of how many UEFI partition flavours I tried.

[bigyabai]

RMA. Don't stick with faulty hardware because you're lazy or stubborn, brand loyalty rewards no one.

[pjmlp]

If you knew half the story regarding RMA, nah never again.

[trenchpilgrim]

We hang out in different circles because a surprising number of my non-tech worker PC using friends are trying out Linux and liking it. The only thing holding most of my friends back at this point is kernel anti cheat.

[CaptainOfCoit]

Games using kernel anti-cheats + Ableton + Unreal Engine (editor + plugins) not running properly on Linux are the three only things stopping me from removing Windows fully from my desktop.

[Melonai]

Are you still having bad issues with Ableton? I did until recently, but now with Ableton in a fairly simple Bottles setup it works quite well (for me, at least).

Do you have more specific needs where the normal way doesn't work? I'm no music producer, so there's lots of stuff I probably don't even know about, would love to hear your thoughts. :)

[CaptainOfCoit]

> Are you still having bad issues with Ableton? I did until recently, but now with Ableton in a fairly simple Bottles setup it works quite well (for me, at least).

Could you share the config somehow so I could try it out? Last time I tried to get it to work I couldn't get it to recognize my audio interface (USB class compliant, Steinberg UR44), and the UI was very glitchy.

I don't think I have any special needs compared to others, do fairly basic things. Which version is it that you've tried it with? Tried v11 years ago I think, and v12 when it was just released, but not since then.

[SubmarineClub]

I’m on Windows 10 and can’t upgrade to 11 even if I wanted to - my hardware is too old to be supported.

I’ve already messed around with a Fedora dual-boot, but now I’m fully planning to go 100% Linux once I get around to building a new computer.

Luckily I don’t really play multiplayer games so I don’t need to worry about the anti cheat issue.

[raw_anon_1111]

So 2025 is going to be the “Year of Linux on the Desktop”?

[cbm-vic-20]

"Linux on the Desktop" is great. I've been using it since 1994. "Linux on the Laptop" sucks- I just want my laptop to sleep and awake properly, without draining the battery. I'm old enough that I'm done spending time twiddling kernel parameters in an attempt to get all of the onboard devices working, including sleep.

[trenchpilgrim]

> I just want my laptop to sleep and awake properly, without draining the battery.

To be fair this is _also_ a massive problem on Windows too, because of Windows Modern Standby encouraging laptop makers to replace ol' reliable S3 sleep with the terribly broken modern standby stuff. Macbooks and certain Framework models are the only laptops left with reliable sleep.

Old video but nothing's really improved since: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHKKcd3sx2c

[whatevaa]

Not a laptop, but steam deck sleeps perfectly. So it's not a Linux problem, but a laptop problem.

[CaptainOfCoit]

Meanwhile, Microsofts cannot even get their own Surface line with Windows on them to not wake up while in your backpack.

[xethos]

Hell, my Pinephone Pro slept perfectly well as well. Beta-level hardware without a major company behind it, and sleep still worked reliably.

At this point I expect sleep to work better on Linux than Windows machines.

[NaomiLehman]

I just want a laptop that has almost zero latency between the CPU and RAM and at least 300GB/s RAM bandwidth for data science. Not much choice there, unfortunately.

[raw_anon_1111]

“Linux on the Desktop” is a 30 year old meme about this being the year that people will leave Microsoft en masse and install Linux.

[willis936]

I know many people (myself included) that stopped using Windows altogether this year. Even accounting for biases, this is a very bad year for Microsoft.

[raw_anon_1111]

“People you know” is anecdotal. We can look at broad base market share trends.

[willis936]

We don't have that data. You are quibbling on sample size but making no argument on effects. Make the case that this is a good year for Microsoft.

[pjmlp]

We have the data, it is about 4% market share of people on planet Earth using GNU/Linux desktops.

https://www.accio.com/business/operating-system-market-share...

[willis936]

"March 2025" is not indicative of what happened in 2025.

[dehrmann]

When the desktop environments unite and a single distro rises up as champion, the year is nigh.

[karlgkk]

> GNU/Linux as a whole has never been in better shape to catch users fleeing from Windows

It’s still in really bad shape, from a consumer perspective.

[Jare]

My recent experience with Linux Mint on a new PC is the opposite. I went from USB installer to a fully functional system with drivers, chrome, my fave web pages, and my fave games on Steam and Battlenet, etc running flawlessly without ever doing a single "techie" thing.

On Windows 11 I had to figure out that I needed hop on another computer to search, download and copy via USB some motherboard and wifi drivers before I could even access the Internet. A number of things in the system remain rather quirky and not entirely reliable, including video playback of all kinds.

If I was setting up a PC for say my dad tomorrow, I'm finally at the point where I'd rather give him Linux than Windows.

[hypercube33]

I have a laptop running Zorin I'm probably going to flip to Mint if the new release doesn't fix my stuttering issues otherwise I had the same experience. Also bazzite on an AMD desktop and my steam deck are a breeze to use.

[karlgkk]

“Works for me” is the rallying cry of Linux desktop users.

Did they fix full screen video playback?

[trenchpilgrim]

I'm not aware it was ever broken? Been using desktop linux for 15 years.

[karlgkk]

Tearing is a consistent complaint that shows up even on recent versions of mainstream desktop distributions.

[izacus]

They're right here and are organizing campaigns to switch to Linux: https://endof10.org/

Did you even look before you threw out a lazy negative post?

[gjsman-1000]

The “Linux demographics” were a bunch of 20-30 year olds who are now 40-50.

Same with the “Free Software” crowd - those 20-30 year olds are now 50-60.

Aging demographics that broadly failed to attract any interest from the next generation. Honestly though, why join? There’s nothing inherently attractive about either community. Hang out with toxic gamers on Discord and join a team, or hang out with toxic old nerds still on IRC for ideological purity. I know which one wins. Even professionally, I’d rather join a model train community.

[pjmlp]

You're being downvoted, however you're exactly right.

Speaking as one of those 40-50, I firmly believe once our generation is gone all those ideals will be gone as well.

Also everyone that thinks Valve will stay the Linux white knight after current management is gone, is in for a surprise, who knows what they will do with their assets.

[futuraperdita]

This comment is getting downvoted for what is likely its tone of ageism, but I don't think that it's completely wrong: the original FOSS-activist community is now a group of oldheads and hasn't successfully made the same generational shift that maintained its original philosophy. Looking at any rant from Torvalds, the Linux programming community has often held technical elitism before inclusivity. "Open source" over "free/libre software" has found success not because of its personalities and community but rather because it is a meme that can be appropriated for your own. The counterculture I see in GenZ+ that is most interested in working with FOSS/public technologies is politically aligned differently and has more pragmatic goals (e.g. will use major commercial communications platforms such as Discord).