this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2025
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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.
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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/
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.
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
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
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
They were innovative in hiding their money from the tax man
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.