from Hacker News

2025 is the year of Linux desktop for me

by panstromek on 5/25/25, 10:29 AM with 6 comments

• by d3Xt3r on 5/26/25, 4:43 AM

  For me, it was 2023, when Bazzite came out and I installed it on my ThinkPad - I loved the whole concept of immutable distros and having to never worry about updates again. It was solid enough to be used for both gaming and productivity.Regarding the latter, I loved how much KDE and the overall ecosystem matured. Eg, I was able to add my Brother printer in exactly 3 clicks - no driver was needed either. I mean, how cool is that?

• by jqpabc123 on 5/25/25, 12:52 PM

  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

  Linux still lacks 3 really significant "desktop?" features that Windows provides:

  1) Standardization --- Which distro and which desktop? Pick one? This would be a no brainer if they were all compatible but they're not. Variety is good? Maybe for a hobbyist, not so much for business.

  2) Backward compatibility. The only real constant with Linux is change. Pick any distro/desktop and try running a desktop app from 10 years ago --- if you can find one.

  3) Specialized business apps. The reason these are lacking on Linux --- see #1 and #2. It's harder to develop, support and market such apps on Linux. Linux is an inherently hostile ecosystem for a software "market".

  With regard to the desktop, business drives Windows, hobbyists drive Linux. Still true after all these years.

• by sylware on 5/25/25, 10:53 AM

  I am writing a wayland compositor which suits me.

  This is, indeed, a strong signal of an inflexion point.

  Simple interface designs which do a good enough job are so much important. But it is so hard to keep them stable in time. There are always lunatics and toxics (whatever their reasons) which will want to extend/break/etc: they abuse the fact that, sometimes, critical mistakes (in the end) will have to be corrected... and to make it short, they see mistakes all-the-time/everywhere for their own agenda.

• by theandrewbailey on 5/25/25, 10:57 AM

  Since Windows 11 is such a dumpster fire, a few months ago I decided to delete Windows 10, too. Glad to know I'm not the only one. I've been dabbling in Linux for about 20 years, and have been running it pretty much everywhere (including my laptop) for maybe 15 years. Since Valve has been doing the Lord's work in porting everything to Proton, I decided that it's finally time to pull the trigger. As expected, it's been remarkably great.