PieFedThese things will make the Linux Desktop much bigger in 2026!
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:35 Sponsor: ProtonVPN
01:42 The Rise of AI (yes)
05:30 Steam Machine
09:25 Cosmic Desktop
12:03 Wayland Transition is done
16:36 Tuxedo Computers
#linuxdesktop #linuxdistro #linux
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Local llm's are awesome during the winter. When I need extra warm feet, I just open my gpt4all tool and type "Please produce more heat in the room".
Pat :verified_blobcat_blue:@thelinuxexperiment Really, the 2020s are the DECADE of the Linux desktop.
Fred og ro@thelinuxexperiment Left out a big incentive imo: End-of-Windows10 #endof10 leaves lots and lots of computers that can be migrated to Linux. Save money and stop e-waste!
OTOH, migration isn't for your normal user just yet which makes me excited for the #steam machine. Regular users will not even realize they will be running Linux.
Tyxxumi think that this could be a huge year for linux if valve is able to get some kind of fluke marketing push that really takes their value to the next level in order to get these flagship linux products into more peoples' eyes and hands
Felix@thelinuxexperiment Nice video.
But, while I appreciate your hope, I think you overestimate the impact of the Steam Machine. Windows gamers have had a large userbase for decades and most companies did not care. PC versions came late and ran like sh...
That changed recently, because these companies need money and cannot afford to ignore PC gamers anymore. But Linux gamers probably will stay irrelevant for them.
That said, I hope I'm wrong.
@dideldum @thelinuxexperiment Game publishers don't care much about PC gaming because they try to avoid piracy as much as they can. Publishing their games on PC have the chance of getting their game cracked. This is why they usually don't care much about PC gaming.
Drew NaylorThe "AI" stuff is why I've been thinking since late last year that 2026 and not 2025 will be the year of the Linux desktop.
2025 is the year of Linux. I don't know how people still cannot say this. I mean look at the achievements: 5-6% world wide Linux market share on desktops (you have to dig deeper into statcounter statistics and filter out strange behavior as on India which is probably a result of bots), we have a record of 3% market share on Steam gamers (it ignores people like me who mostly playing GOG games). Linux also became mainstream. I don't mean it as in market share, but how it is represented in the public. A lot of Windows users switched and speak about their transition, others speak about that they will do soon and even huge YouTube channel are speaking about. Moreover Gamernexus made the first GPU-tests on Linux and is speaking about how happy he is to work together with Bazzite developers and he is very happy to continue the investment and work, another German hardware newspaper is starting GPU tests in January next year, but the decision was made this year. And end of Win10 support is also the begin of Linux for people who cannot run Win11 on their systems or who just do not want to install Win11.
I define the "year of Linux" as the year when the mainstream realizes that Linux is a valide alternative. That does not require the mainstream to actually using it, but it is like a point of no return. I think from 2025 on there is not much that could stop Linux growing until in unspoken amount of years Linux becomes the most used system on desktop. 2026 is just a follow up of the success of this year and Steam Machine and all the other things are just accelerating what happens anyway at this point. But btw, I also do not think that Steam Machine is that big deal. Performance-wise it is not that great and the price will be relatively high, especially since RAM is super expensive right now and will stay high for the next years.
On the other hand and more important Valve will contribute a lot of necessary work into the Linux eco system. Being able to play Windows games on Linux ARM64 without much trouble will also make Linux phones more interesting, especially if projects like Liberux Nexx will success. Linux phones aka pocket computer themselves will not be ready for the average user, just to create no misunderstanding.
Sco :progress: :flag_mm:@thelinuxexperiment I definitly went to full linux on my Surface, and now on my desktop. My desktop for the end of Win10. I am going to miss that Start menu, but glad for the lack of trackers. And i --love-- the customization. I have an extension that gives me options that help with my reading problems. One that lets me control the media being played from the panel. I am just having a really good time.
VashlexMy guess is that SteamOS will increase the Linux Desktop market share, but not because people want to use it as a PC. There will be enthusiasts like you and me but most just want a gaming rig and do no not mess with PCs at all. But if it will be considered as a viablr platform for Multiplayer that would be totally fine.
Bryan (he/him) 🇺🇸 🏳️🌈I appreciate Wayland is improving, but I still don't fully understand the compelling point of switching from X11. The core benefits often cited seems somewhat arbitrary or are benefits that are only relevant to a subset of users.
More importantly, the switch still comes with significant trade-offs for core functionality. You immediately lose out on essential and universally used features like seamless RDP functionality and other remote screen-sharing features that were fundamental to the design of X11. While third-party workarounds are emerging, it seems counterproductive to replace a decades-old, working standard with something that breaks compatibility with such critical, widespread features.
Just because something is new doesn't make it better, and for most people, Wayland is not better (yet).
RDP is not a universally used feature. Way more users will benefit from HDR, proper multi-monitor support, proper VRR, fractional scaling, and security improvements.
Also Gnome and Plasma both have built-in RDP that works on Wayland.
You’re right, RDP is not a universally used feature. However, I was speaking from my experiences and it is something I like to do. When you say “way more users will benefit from HDR, proper multi-monitor support, proper VRR, fractional scaling, and security improvements” you’re still speaking about a very small subsect of Linux users.
Lets break down the Linux desktop user base into two (even though there are certainly more) groups: Stability/Low-End Users and Gamers/Hardware Enthusiasts.
The Stability/Low-End user: Wayland offers marginal, often invisible security benefits (as their threat model is low) but comes with tangible costs: instability in critical tools, increased complexity for screen sharing/RDP, and a forced reliance on a modern, resource-intensive compositor. The trade-off for this group is net-negative.
The Hardware Enthusiast: Wayland is a net-positive, delivering visible features like VRR and fractional scaling. This is a small, albeit important, crowd.
I do not have an issue catering to the enthusiast crowd, but forcing the transition from a decades-old, proven mature standard (X11) for a replacement that breaks compatibility with essential features for one group while only delivering tangible benefits to a small subset of the other is what makes the change feel counterproductive and premature. Wayland is the future, but we are being forced to live in the immature present while the developers slowly rebuild features X11 had out-of-the-box.
X11 has not been replaced yet, there are still plenty of options for X11 desktops. Users that have a specific need for features only on X11 should continue to use it until Wayland meets their needs.
I dont see why users with low-end machines benefit less from the security of Wayland. I’m also not sure what you mean by instability in critical tools or how RDP being part of the desktop environment adds complexity. In my experience RDP over Wayland is identical to X11.
I’ve also not heard of Wayland compositors being more resource intensive than X11. From what I’ve seen, Wayland offers better performance compared to X11.
I definitely think there are some use cases that Wayland doesnt support, but I think the fast majority of users will either notice nothing when switching (in which case theyll still benefit from the better security), or will recieve active benefits for newer hardware. Those whose needs are not yet met by Wayland should wait until they are before switching.
I appreciate your point that X11 is still an option, but my frustration is with the default experience and the painful trade-offs users face when being pushed to Wayland.
I personally switched back to X11 after using Wayland for quite some time out of frustration with RDP reliability. Your experience with RDP on Wayland is a complete opposite of mine. There are many people having the same issues. RDP works on Wayland if you have the right hardware combination and if you stand on one foot at the 14th minute of any given hour while facing north by north west. It is unreliable.
Wayland needs more time to bake. It will eventually be better, which is the promise of Wayland. But I dislike being pushed and (what feels like) forced to it before it is ready.
The complexity for the user arises from the architectural shift that broke the decades-old, seamless network transparency of X11, forcing developers to jury-rig remote access back on top using new, specialized, and often consent-gated protocols.
When I speak of "instability in critical tools" I refer to the breakage of global utilities (color pickers, accessibility tools, xkill) that rely on the X11 global access model. Wayland replaces this with specialized protocols like PipeWire, which are slowly and inconsistently implemented across compositors and applications.
On "resource usage" Wayland is generally faster on modern hardware, but it requires a full compositor. For stability users on older machines, running an un-composited X11 environment offered the maximum possible resource efficiency; a configuration that Wayland simply does not allow by design.
Wayland is the correct direction for modern graphics, but it is currently solving developer-centric problems (code maintainability, VRR support) at the expense of the established stability and out-of-the-box functionality required by a large portion of the general Linux user base.
Wayland should not be the default when you first install a Linux distro at this time. Yes, Plasma and Gnome mostly work on Wayland, but they work better on X11. Think of the user who tries Linux for the first time after switching from Windows because their older system is not supported by Windows 11. That user will benefit more from the stability of X11 than the newness of Wayland. Yes, they might not get HDR, but chances are they don't even know what that is.
The transition is premature. Wayland should not be forced onto others any time soon. Let it cook and mature. Let the enthusiasts continue beta testing it.
RDP works on Wayland if you have the right hardware combination and if you stand on one foot at the 14th minute of any given hour while facing north by north west. It is unreliable.
I really couldn’t find discussion on major issues with kRDP for gnome remote desktop, but I’ll take your word for it. I personally have not had issue with kRDP.
The complexity for the user arises from the architectural shift that broke the decades-old, seamless network transparency of X11, forcing developers to jury-rig remote access back on top using new, specialized, and often consent-gated protocols.
The majority of users do not need remote desktop, so this does not change that Wayland is better for the majority of users. I don’t understand how implementing a Wayland protocol specifically for the purpose of remote desktop is jury-rigging, if anything it is the complete opposite. The two largest Linux desktops both support remote desktop with standard RDP, so I don’t know what you mean by specialized protocols.
When I speak of “instability in critical tools” I refer to the breakage of global utilities (color pickers, accessibility tools, xkill) that rely on the X11 global access model. Wayland replaces this with specialized protocols like PipeWire, which are slowly and inconsistently implemented across compositors and applications.
And new tools will be developed to perform these utilities for Wayland. There are plenty of Wayland color-picker. Accessibility is poor on Linux in general, and Wayland definitely does need improvements. The WIP accessibility protocol and projects like Gnome Newton make me feel that it won’t be long before Wayland’s accessibility features far surpass X11. In the meantime, accessibility is absolutely a reason I’d recommend some people to still use X11. Xkill really shouldn’t be used as much as it was, as it only kills the connection to a process, not the process itself. Gnome, Plasma, Hyprland, and likely more have implemented their own features for properly killing a stuck window.
PipeWire is not a Wayland protocol, it is a completely separate framework that can also be used with X11. There is no modern desktop that does not properly support Pipewire.
For stability users on older machines, running an un-composited X11 environment offered the maximum possible resource efficiency; a configuration that Wayland simply does not allow by design.
Machines old enough to face this issue are nowhere near the majority. These old machines should continue to run X11 if it works better for them.
Wayland should not be the default when you first install a Linux distro at this time. Yes, Plasma and Gnome mostly work on Wayland, but they work better on X11. Think of the user who tries Linux for the first time after switching from Windows because their older system is not supported by Windows 11. That user will benefit more from the stability of X11 than the newness of Wayland. Yes, they might not get HDR, but chances are they don’t even know what that is.
I just really disagree on all of this. I don’t know what stability X11 would offer a new user over Wayland. The average user does not need remote desktop. More users are going to have an HDR monitor or dual monitors with different refresh rates than those who need RDP. Plasma and Gnome do not work better on X11, which is why both are prioritizing Wayland. X11 might be better for a small percentage of users with specific use cases, but it is certainly not better for the average users. I know many people who have started using Linux recently, and none of them have had a use case that would match X11 better than Wayland. If a user does not have a particular reason to be using X11, they should 100% be using the technically superior, actively developed, and vastly more secure option. Switching to X11 is a trivial process in most distros, generally a drop-down menu on the login page. The majority of users should not be given a worse experience out of the box so that a few do not need to change this.
We have clearly reached the point where our contrasting real-world experiences define our positions. For me, the current instability and incompatibility with critical tools and workflows makes Wayland unsuitable as a default, and I prioritize stability over new features for the general user. That is why I run Debian on all of my systems. For you, the VRR/HDR benefits and the theoretical superiority of the architecture outweigh the current frustrations.
I am just done debating. We obviously just live in different realities.
Win 10 EOL and AI being slapped into Win 11 made me move to Linux. No regrets, really. Sure, some things require a little tweaking, but most things that most people do is easily done on a larger distro.
Wow.
Way to miss the most obvious driver: Increase of malicious features in M$ windows.
I strongly doubt the rest will have much impact, except the steam machine.
I expected better from this.