2025 is the year of Linux desktop for me
yoyo-code.com
yoyo-code.com
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.
I think 1 or 2 could potentially be addressed by one of the companines who operates in this space now. SteamOS basically forces this by locking down the system (but provides the option to open it up I believe). System76 has their own distro. I can imagine RedHat or Oracle creating something similar for businesses if they really wanted to (which I doubt). Cross distro standardization and compat doesn't seem likely, though.
3. This depends a lot on the business, but these days a lot of this work moved online so I don't think it needs to be a big blocker necessarily.
To be fair, I doubt Linux will ever become dominant like Windows, at least not in the current form. I think that space is more likely to be addressed by other alternatives - notably Mac or maybe ChromeOS/Android. Partially because a most users simply can't utilize Linux unique features because they don't have a use case for them. The year of Linux desktop my view happens when it becomes a no brainer to use Linux if you're a power user.
Which are managed, planned and "standardized" --- more like Windows than Linux. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
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.