But the Linux PC is just getting started?
this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026
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I continue to convert friends and acquaintances to Fedora on a weekly basis. The Windows PC dying is a good thing for everyone. Linux will live on.
Speaking of the cloud.... Soon, the only group that'll be using Windows Server is Microsoft, and it'll probably only make up 1% of their total computing power. The rest will be going to Linux. Because .NET just performs better on that, too.
Linux people just don't get it.
You keep viewing this as a binary option. Either the people use Windows, or they use Linux.
Then you make the connection that "Linux operates this function better, therefore it's the better choice, therefore people will choose it."
But that's not true at all.
What I predict is a total collapse of the home PC market. So people won't be running Windows or Linux. They'll be running Android or iPhone/iPad.
Most people don't do the things you do with computers. They don't need it. They open a browser. They laugh at cat memes on facebook. They check their email. Maybe watch some youtube.
So if google can provide all that with a tablet, or cell phone, why sell PCs at all? Do all the computing offshore, in data farms, and you just connect to the cloud.
This in turn would actually make Linux adoption plumet. No one can install Linux on their PCs, if no one has PCs, because stores don't carry them.
You think it's not possible? Ask someone in the 90s if stores would ever stop selling CDs, and nobody in the future would own their music. Yet here we are.
Thats what the corporations want. You don't own hardware, you don't own software, you don't own your house, you don't own anything. You have no rights. You pay the corporations for them to allow you to exist.
Thats where everything is headed.
Counterpoint: Everything is a pc with enough community moding. My playstation is a pc, The steamdeck is a pc. Also the Chinese are making a lot of progress with their local pc market and they will not fall into the American trap of making everything cloud based. Chinese memory is already available to a lot of parts of the world. America wants to move backwards but it doesn't have to be that way everywhere.
You're right, of course.
And with the death of PC, the browser won't be far behind. And with apps, delivered through restricted app stores, being the only thing left, the absolute fantasy of grassroots Internet counterculture somehow saving us will fall to the cyberpunk dystopia most people seem so eager to bring about.
It's just a matter of time.
The personal computer market is not going anywhere. It may get smaller, but there will always be enough people who want to do their computing on their own hardware that there will be a market for personal computers. The market has only been affected by other personal computing devices. Personally, I don’t think many will be interested in cloud desktops. They’ve existed for a long time, and I don’t know anyone who uses them. Why on God’s green earth would I want to lug around a laptop just to not use it to be a laptop?
The kind of people who would be interested in cloud desktops are the kind of people who already get by just fine with a Chromebook. And how are you going to convince those people to instead spend not only $200 on a device, but then also $30/month on a cloud browser?
Unpopular but there is a point here
A PC is just a server in a different box. Sure, home compute may become more niche, and Best Buy and Walmart might even stop selling consumer desktop PCs. But with enough open source software and stubbornness, the option to run your own hardware isn't going anywhere.
That's what I love about Linux, it is a desktop, it's a media player, it's a server, it's a backup device, it's a router, it's a firewall, it's everything everywhere.
I think most people in the 90s could easily see that something would replace CDs, because CDs replaced tape and vinyl in their lifetimes. Also, CDs have not disappeared, and neither has tape, or vinyl. Or, live music, for that matter, or buggy whips.
While most people don't use a PC, plenty do, and they use them for things that are either impossible or extremely inconvenient to do on a phone or tablet. Professional design of practically anything does not happen on a six-inch screen, for instance.
People could see something replacing CD's but few saw that in effect nothing would replace CD's because music ownership itself would end.
I'll believe that when either Android or iOS aren't steaming piles of garbage.
Also games, form factor, etc.
But thats my point. Android and iOS WILL be steaming piles of garbage. But they'll be about the only options. So it's either use them, or get left behind socially.
Games will be left to consoles.
Linux MIGHT survive in a zombiefied way with the steamdeck, but 99% of people will never change distros.
And corporations don't care about giving you options for form factor.
Why would they be the only options when there'd be so much consumer demand for laptops, etc.
Because if microsoft switches to a browser only format, as in, there is no such thing as windows 12, they have no reason to make an OS.
Doesn't matter how much demand there is for something. If the product doesn't exist, and would take at least a decade to develop, companies won't develop it because they only think in 3 month short term profit cycles. It's hard to sell your investors on the idea of a product that won't be ready for 10 years, with no way to guarentee hardware will even exist to run it when it's ready.
And you could say "Linux", but people don't understand Linux. If the option is Linux or nothing, they choose nothing. Thus the evaporation of the PC manufacturing.
people don't understand Linux. If the option is Linux or nothing, they choose nothing.
People don't understand windows either. People, in the monolithic sense of the word, are dumb as hell. That doesn't mean they won't switch their habits if others do. They'll just do it because it's now the popular thing, not because they have a compelling ethical reason to do so.
Microsoft going browser only would be a great reason to switch ro Linux.
I hope the enterprise customers start to catch on soon. How much productivity is lost every time 365 goes down for 4 hours? The fucking world stops. Soon they’re going to want their own hardware again.
We need to stop failing you younger generation and letting them iPad and ChatGPT and think that’s what computing is, that big tech is always going to be this benevolent hug box.
Teach your fucking kids that the only reason the have a school Chromebook is because Google is trying to capture them. Yea, like a predator.
To some extent, they view the downtime as better than their own downtime.
If you have an outage, but there's news articles all over the place saying everyone has an outage, you point to that and say "whoops, well what can you do?" You blame someone else and everyone is in the same boat.
Meanwhile if you have your own downtime, no one is as understanding.
Umm... I was just making a joke.
CPUs are already so advanced a basic one is far beyond what most people need.
The laptop form factor will still be popular though. As for the OS in it. people will buy whatever the store offers. You see Google is combining ChromeOS and Android. Whatever Microsoft and Apple do to their OS, people will just buy it.
Are you saying that games will all be running on cloud-based apps, soon?
Linux on what hardware? 10 years into an era where buying RAM, GPUs or SSDs is becoming a distant memory, digital sovereignty will be toast. We will own nothing but maybe some old timers that are unaffordable to maintain.
I'm talking about Microsoft's own servers and their cloud infrastructure. Not PCs as a whole.
EDIT: Misunderstood your comment.
As far as cloud infra goes, rumor has it that a lot of Azure's underlying shit is on Linux already. Would explain the cross compatibility work with WSL, PowerShell, .Net, etc over the past decade or so.
Original response
It's a wonderful dream, but you underestimate how many systems' server components are still built to run on Windows Servers, and I've yet to find a vendor that doesn't support it.
Plus the extremely long tail of places running legacy software for as long as fucking possible because they refuse to spend money on newer shit.
"Soon" is relative. I think it's more likely that containerization will make the underlying OS matter less and less. It'll end up being a matter of licensing, support, ease of management with existing tools, that sort of shit. Ultimately the suits want someone to be able to yell at, even if raising a ticket with Microsoft is like pissing into the wind.
As far as cloud infra goes, rumor has it that a lot of Azure’s underlying shit is on Linux already. Would explain the cross compatibility work with WSL, PowerShell, .Net, etc over the past decade or so.
Honestly, I've always wondered that if that was the end goal. Nadella has a server background. And as someone who once unintentionally got handed a Windows Server-based hosting plan years ago (long story), I can tell you it sucked. I don't blame him for seeing the writing on the wall.
Love the end summary:
If you want control over your privacy, your data, how much you’re paying for compute, and your PC, Linux is the best way forward.
Yep. Heck, I have a Mac mini on my desk I'm using right now…running Asahi Fedora. 😁
Apple silicon or Intel? I've always had a super hard time getting anything but macos to run on AS.
Asahi is a Fedora "remix" for Apple Silicon…currently only M1 & M2 supported, but apparently M3 is roughly working now so support is coming soon.
Good to know! It's been a while since I've tried.
Thoughts and prayers.
No to both. I don't give them thoughts nor prayers.
ALL computers are fucking dying, because manufacturers only want to produce components for data centers and get that good AI money...
The Windows PC would be dying a slower death without those things. The Windows PC is dying from excessive bullets to the foot.