Hacker News Reader

Comment by alekratz | Hacker News Reader

> (Is it the year of Desktop Linux yet?)

I know this is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek comment but I would argue that the year of the Linux desktop was in 2022 when the Steam deck, albeit a non-desktop machine, was released. It's a pretty popular console and really forwarded the idea of playing video games on Linux being seamless. The state of gaming on Linux is/was one of the main reason why so many people are/were holding out on Windows, and with a few exceptions of massive games like Fortnite, it's basically here. Adoption, however, is a different story.

View on HN

I'm not entirely convinced about that. We'll see when a more generalized desktop distro comes along and gains traction with gamers. So far, Linux hasn't really made the jump from the Steam Deck to the desktop. I haven't seen a mass migration of gamers from Windows to Linux yet. As long as Windows offers even a marginally better experience, I don't think it'll happen anytime soon.

Additionally, there are still many types of software that either don't run on Linux or don't perform as well. I primarily use my PC for music production, and that pretty much rules out using Linux unless I'm willing to spend more time configuring things or risk potential compatibility issues.

I do wish I could switch to a Linux desktop without feeling like a second-class citizen in certain areas. I prefer writing web applications on Linux, but with WSL working well enough, I’m too lazy to dual boot just for that.

That said, I'm looking forward to installing Arch on my old laptop. I may be an adult with a full-time job, kids, and little free time, but I'm still a nerd at heart.

> As long as Windows offers even a marginally better experience, I don't think it'll happen anytime soon.

Judging by the direction Microsoft is going with Windows 11, I don’t think that will be too long :^)

For music production it’s more tricky. Personally, I’ve had some success with Bitwig (which just worked and picked up my old Novation Launchpad out of the box; I also think it works with Windows VSTs through Wine), but I admit that I’m not a pro by any means, and a more complicated setup might require some fiddling around. Hopefully this gets better with more adoption!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com