For decades, we've joked, "Is this the
year of the Linux desktop?" And to a lesser degree, is Apple finally sick of
selling iPods with cellular modems and ready to take a bite out of Microsoft's
desktop market share. But it's always been just that, a joke. Even within the
niche communities that embrace Windows alternatives, the year of is less of an
optimistic projection of future success and more of a masterpiece of
self-deprecating observational humor that we've spent so long debating the
timeline for this grand event that even the deepest believers are no longer sure
that it's ever going to happen. Because in spite of every monumental improvement
in the competition, not to mention in spite of every Microsoft stumble,
Windows remains as dominant as ever. Or
does it? I say it doesn't. And not only
are the cracks appearing, but they're starting to widen in a way that could
put the critical mass that drives widespread adoption just around the
corner. So, it might not be the year of the Linux desktop, but seeing one
colossal failure after another, it's starting to feel like the year of
Windows humiliation. And I think that Microsoft knows it. My proof, Microsoft
themselves, they're not stupid. They see all the same signs that I do. And after
years of Windows and crapification, they finally dropped the facade and published
an open letter to the community promising to do better this time. Please
take me back. So, what prompted that?
Can they turn the ship around or is this all just too little too late? Let's talk
about what's going on right now and talk about how uncharacteristically seriously
Microsoft is treating it. And let's talk about our sponsor,
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linked down below. I want to get this out there before we go any further. As a
lifelong user, I certainly have my share of gripes with Windows, but I'm also no
hater and for every complaint is also a
counterpoint. I mean, sure, search is a giant swimming pool full of dog water,
but how about firing up compatibility mode and running software from my
childhood? That's outstanding. So, I'm not rooting for Windows to lose. I'm
just observing that if nothing changes, that could be an inevitable outcome. And
before you say that's crazy, history is kind of on my side here. Once upon a
time, Windows web servers were a thing. Now, the most recent data from W3X has
it at less than 10%. And that's just one
of the platform wars that Microsoft has lost over the years. According to the
New York Times, in 2007, Microsoft was estimated to have over 60% market share
in pocket PCs. Now, that's a big fat
zero. But that was the past. Let's talk
about the now. Going across the major Windows user groups, starting with
gamers. I know that not everyone plays games, but gamers are a loud and
therefore disproportionately important demographic because a loud audience can
work both in your favor and against it.
On the surface, there's not a ton of danger signs here. Thanks to its broad
support for most titles, its often lower prices, and its unparalleled access to
modding tools that enhance the gaming experience, learning to navigate the ins
and outs of Windows has become something of a right of passage for young PC
gamers to feed their habit. And once they're on the Windows platform, many
gamers end up stuck due to kernel level antiche and copy protection systems that
either only work on Windows or that developers choose to only implement on
Windows. And yet gamers are leaving
Windows in numbers that we have never seen before. Tom's Hardware observed
last year that while Linux market share was languishing for years in the 1%
range, 2022 marked a significant turning
point with Linux then surpassing 2% sometime in 2024 and 3% in 2025.
What happened to build this momentum? Well, I'll tell you. After the
catastrophic launch of the original Steam OS, a Linux- based Windows
competitor back in 2015, Valve spent
just about the next 10 years quietly funding the development of the Proton
compatibility layer, a software that translates Windows Direct 3D API calls
over to Vulcan, an openstandard graphics API that runs crossplatform, including
on Linux. This development finally came to light alongside the Steam Deck, a
Linux-based handheld gaming PC running Steam OS 3.0. To say that the gaming
world was blown away would be a gross understatement. For the first time, any
random normie could quite literally pick up a Linux gaming PC, find a Windows
game, and press play. It didn't work all
the time, but the intrepid open source gaming community, now with deep pocketed
corporate backing, saw an opportunity and has been hard at work taking
everything that's great about Steam OS and the Steam Deck and making it
accessible across a wider range of hardware through gamerfriendly Linux
distros like Basite and Catchio OS.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has been doing seemingly everything in its power to
turn Windows into a giant ad for One Drive, Xbox Game Pass, and Edge Browser.
Ads that I can't simply dismiss and then never see again. I think this Reddit
user put it better than I ever could. Stop asking me. The answer is the same
as last time. So, while Valve is only
estimated to have sold somewhere in the neighborhood of about 4 million Steam
Decks, the groundwork that they laid has resulted in an explosion of Linux usage
amongst gamers with the latest Steam survey putting Linux at about 5% market
share for the first time in history. Now, there does appear to be some
sampling irregularities that led to such a sudden jump, but the overall trend is
still crystal clear.
Breaking news, editor. No idea where you're going to put this, but Framework
just announced that for their new Framework 13 Pro laptop, the Ubuntu
version is out selling Windows.
Windows use is eroding and Linux use is growing and Microsoft is clearly taking
drastic measures to stop the bleeding. The most obvious example has got to be
the new Xbox fullcreen experience or Xbox mode that Microsoft developed to
provide a more seamless gaming experience on handheld PCs like the ROG
Xbox Ally X that they co-branded alongside ASUS in late 2025. It pairs
down system resource usage, particularly system memory significantly, and makes
the whole operating system much easier to navigate with a controller. And it's
coming to a desktop near you. This is
very exciting stuff, but it also raises a big question. Why now? Microsoft has
owned the Xbox brand for nearly 25 years. At any point, they could have
taken what they learned there and then stripped the Croft out of Windows to
provide a better experience. But they chose not to until they were forced into
action. To be clear, I'm not complaining. Progress is progress. And
this is a perfect example of why I don't fanboy for any one side. and I only
fanboy for competition. But on that subject, let's talk about user group
number two, where Microsoft still isn't getting much competition, and that's in
pre-built systems. All right, give me a tier one PC builder.
>> Find me a Linux system on their website. To their credit, they do have them, or
they have one anyway. But tell me this,
why is it buried three pages deep in the options for this tower? And why is it
priced so poorly compared to these deeply discounted Windows machines? I
thought Windows costs extra. Well, it does, except that Microsoft has
powerful marketing programs that strongly incentivize their partners to
position their products more prominently. Anti-competitive,
maybe. I'm not an antitrust lawyer, though. Is it effective, though?
Absolutely. So, we're probably not going to see much erosion on that side unless
something dramatically changes. HEY, WHOA, WHOA. HEY, what's going on here?
What's going on? Is the sleeping giant
has awakened. While Apple's Mac product
line has been treated like something of a red-headed stepchild ever since the
iPhone completely took over Apple's balance sheet, their share has been
slowly but surely growing and in my opinion is on the verge of a major
breakout. Apple silicon was one of the keys giving Certino complete control
over their performance profile, supply chain, and margins. And while they were
content to keep things mostly status quo for a few years, the launch of the M4
Mac Mini was a huge turning point in my eyes. Suddenly, the same company that
used to sell $700 wheels for their desktops had a great generalpurpose
desktop for less. Then they followed
that up more recently with the MacBook Neo, an incredible $600 laptop using
their last gen phone chip whose success has surprised even Apple. And did I
mention it's only $500 for students in schools? With Apple suddenly
aggressively pursuing volume while the rest of the industry is reeling from
pricing shocks due to DRAM and storage shortages. I mean, no amount of
Microsoft writing checks to Dell or Lenovo is going to suppress that
competition for mainstream consumers. Their sales partners are going to do
what they do best and secure large corporate deals for fleet machines, but
it's going to get harder. And already I'm seeing feedback that the MacBook Neo
has changed the competitive landscape for good in a way that I'm sorry, but
Snapdragon Windows ARM laptops just aren't going to be enough to counter.
And all of this is against a backdrop of Microsoft's traditional customers being
desperately ready for change. I've talked about how Linux is chipping away
at mind share among gaming enthusiasts, but both Mac and Linux are now strongly
positioned for other types of enthusiasts, AI enthusiasts, software
development enthusiasts, freedom enthusiasts, privacy enthusiasts, value
enthusiasts. I mean, these are just some of the passionate user bases that have
become so disenfranchised to the point
where they will openly admit to only using Windows because I have to. To be
clear, Microsoft is doing stuff on top of the Xbox stuff I mentioned. They've
committed to pulling unnecessary copilot AI cruff out of tools like snipping tool
and finally fixing search, not to mention allowing the taskbar to be
repositioned. But all of these things raise the same question I asked before.
Why did this course correction take so bloody long? It is better late than
never. Even as I was writing this video
from my MacBook Neo, I found myself tempted by Microsoft's efforts to win me
back. And they have enormous inertia. So
the year of macOS or the Linux desktop, it's probably not this year and probably
isn't next year either. But staying afloat the way they have isn't a given.
Just because the Titanic didn't sink in 30 seconds doesn't mean that it didn't
eventually sink. And Microsoft's iceberg is clearly on the horizon. But only time
is going to tell if they can avoid it. What I know that they can't avoid is
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If you guys enjoyed this video, why not check out the one we did on the
announcement of the ROG Xbox XLI XROG,
uh, whatever. We showed the new interface. It's legitimately pretty