I’m a long-time Linux hacker and I’m currently running Pop! OS on my laptop and dev box. It’s the best distro I’ve found yet that Just Works (but naturally still allows for all the customization I might want).

Honestly, I kinda suspect the tariffs are speeding this up. I recently upgraded my desktop due to the suspicion that prices are gonna go bonkers shortly and since I was basically rebuilding it anyway, I went ahead and switched my last windows PC to Linux. Been a lot smoother than I had suspected, highly recommended.

I’ve also run mint and ubuntu, but this was very smooth.

The only problem so far are I get a crackling in my headphones in at least one game (guild wars 2), and I’m not sure how to diagnose that. One of the related problems of windows being so dominant is the internet is full of SEO slop for windows problems

Given the popularity of the Steam Deck, the Xbox handheld would have to come free with the purchase of any Xbox exclusive game to stand a chance in that sphere, I think. The fact that it’s Win11 immediately turns me off and I say this as someone who still uses Windows.

I put KDE plasma on my elderly Mom’s surface laptop. She uses it mostly for organising photos, and she’s loving it. She complained that windows always “messes with her settings”. If she gets it, you can too.

I’m doing my part! Moving to a new country in a few days, part of the prep for that was to ditch my Windows desktop and I’ve been setting up a Linux laptop. Arch with KDE Plasma is so far the most enjoyable experience I’ve had with an OS

I’ve tried at various times to switch to Linux in the past. I’m enough of a turbo nerd you’d think it would have been easy for me but it was never quite there for one reason or another. This latest attempt though hot damn it’s all smooth sailing. I’ve even converted one of my friends to Mint and making progress convincing people who don’t want to use Windows 11 to just make the switch

OSes are sticky as hell. People don’t like switching.

Every time they buy a new device they have to switch back to linux, because that device with very few exceptions ships with MS.

Easy effects (flathub) helped improve my sound a lot

really? I found the customization for Pop/COSMIC extremely limited.

Until they want to play a multiplayer game with their friends, that doesn’t work because of Anti-Cheat

It’s my understanding that anti-cheat CAN work in Linux and does with some games. The point is still valid of course. If a specific game someone wants to play doesn’t work, that’s going to be a frustrating experience. But still I foresee the percentage of Linux gamers will continue to grow. And gaming companies increasingly making sure to use anti-cheat software that does work with Linux, as that market share is becoming too large to ignore.

Like I said, it allows for what I want. I don’t need to “rice” a setup that I’m trying to use to Get Shit Done. These days, the only time I’m rebuilding Linux from scratch is when I’m literally building an OS for a project.

I find Ubuntu to be buggier than it used to be, and snaps are inherently broken.

Mint stands between Ubuntu and Pop! OS, but is still fiddlier than what I want for a daily driver.

Won’t miss those years tweaking Windows to uninstall or disable bloatware and malware. I don’t mind if more or less people migrate to Linux, I’m just grateful to those who are making and improving such amazingly good distros.

And if we take this as an actual attempt at a better handheld experience, then this is just further proof that competition breeds better products for consumers.

As people already stated in the comments, this may not be a permanent change for some (they find out something like destiny 2 refuses to work on Linux without bans, some other tools needed for certain use cases are not there yet or windows only), but I think is super important people understand there are alternatives, and not only windows or Mac. Hopefully gives more people awareness that something else is out there. And would be really cool if we had more of the user base that is on the verge to throwing away the machine because of windows 11 restrictions and instead, gives machines a second chance.

At that rate we reach 100% Linux users in 34 months. (50% in 27)

I’d call that quite significant.

… what rate are you talking about?

I am going to assume the other person’s numbers were right but it honestly doesn’t matter

422k people per month? That is 0.3% per month. 2.89 + (0.3*34) = 13.09. 13% after almost 3 years. Which… that honestly still seems high but I could almost see it if SteamOS gets enough coverage by the various influencers and runs on every handheld form factor gaming PC that isn’t MS or Sony branded. And if the next attempt at Steam Machines actually gains traction and they take over a chunk of the console space ahead of the PS6.

Or are you talking about compound interest? Which… I think even Activision and EA would call you crazy for assuming. Also I am not sure if the math actually holds for that either but I can never remember the simple math to represent that.

Also it is completely unrelated but I’ll just add: I personally don’t consider SteamOS gaining a significant market share to be “linux” any more than I do Android or consider Mac to be “BSD”. Yes, they have common ancestry (and varying levels of shared kernel and libraries) but it rapidly starts creating walled garden issues as developers prioritize one distro over the other to an obscene degree. And… I think we can all agree after the past few weeks that GabeN can indeed do wrong when it is in his/Valve’s financial interest to do so.

Anyone know if CP2077 runs better on Linux than Windows?

By much? With HDR?

Sorry for the drive by comment, but this is like the one game my 3090 can’t quite handle to my satisfaction. I’ve thoroughly disabled the thing from rendering in Linux and don’t want to undo all that… But if I could get like another 10% over Windows, that would be incredible. Even 5% would be awesome.

What do you mean OSes are sticky as hell? I’m currently on Arch, but only because of the AUR. I’m thinking of switching to gentoo because people keep putting malicious packages on the AUR so I might as well do gentoo

Beware some issues if your hardware isnt popular, I have freezing on all kernels past 6.136-2, so I’m stuck there. (test them all every update, no matter what I get hella random freezing requiring a power button restart) It is very stable and fast tho, kinda scary thinking the bug never gets fixed tho, still new to Linux and assuming it’s bad to not update the kernel longgerm.