What the Linux desktop really needs to challenge Windows
- Reference: 1766417711
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/12/22/what_linux_desktop_really_needs/
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Unless you're a fellow gray-haired computer or Unix geek, chances are you've never heard of, never mind used, any of these. Fast-forward to 2025, there are more than a dozen significant Linux desktop interfaces. These include GNOME, KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, MATE, and on and on. They're all too likely to be as forgotten as the first three Unix interfaces I named. Why? The same reasons you don't know a thing about the Unix desktops.
First, though, why you might want to get the hell away from Windows while the going is good. Besides the usual security crap – 41 zero-day CVEs so far in 2025 at the time of writing – there have been new features such as [1]Microsoft Recall , a privacy disaster disguised as a feature. Then there's the way [2]Microsoft is forcing AI functions down our throats . If I wanted Copilot when I'm making a grocery list in Notepad, I'd… wait a second. I'll never want an AI program looking over my shoulder in a simple note app and then reporting to Microsoft that I'm picky about my green peppers.
[3]
I'm old fashioned about my desktops. I want the power in my PC, not in the cloud. I also want to control what does and doesn't get sent to the cloud. I'm looking at you, OneDrive, with your obnoxious habit of being the default for saving files.
[4]
[5]
I also like my old, but not yet ancient, PCs to keep working. Just because I still have PCs with [6]Intel's eighth, ninth, and tenth-gen Core chips under the hood shouldn't mean Windows 11 won't run on them – but here we are.
These reasons alone have given the Linux desktop a boost. By my count, as much as 11 percent of the desktop market is now running Linux one way or another.
[7]
That's great, but much of that counts Chromebooks rather than traditional PC-centric desktops. So, what do we need to make the fat Linux desktop succeed?
Unix died because of endless incompatibilities between versions. Linux succeeded on servers and everywhere else because it provided a single open operating system that everyone could use. With the desktop, though, we saw, and still see, endless incompatibilities.
Linus Torvalds also saw this. He's long thought that we have [8]way too many desktops . He's right. If someone goes to DistroWatch, they'll find upwards of a hundred desktops. Who has time to figure out what's best? I don't, and I cover this stuff for a living, and once ran a site called Desktop Linux.
[9]
That's just the surface of the problem. Under that, you'll find arguments over how to manage software packages and the library incompatibilities they must deal with. Distro builders constantly have fits building and rebuilding programs to run on their Linux distros. The traditional ways of delivering Linux desktop apps, such as DEB and RPM package management systems for Debian and Red Hat Linux, respectively, simply don't scale for the desktop.
We have the answer: A containerized software package delivery program that bundles all required dependencies into a single, useful package. Today, we should all be using Flatpaks, Snaps, and AppImages to install programs instead of worrying about library incompatibilities and the like. This also saves vendors a lot of time since they can deliver a universal version of their program that will install and run on anyone's Linux desktop without the hassle of porting it to each and every distro.
[10]Bots, bias, and bunk: How can you tell what's real on the net?
[11]Another open source project dies of neglect, leaving thousands scrambling
[12]Why Elon Musk won't ever realize the shareholder-approved Tesla payout
[13]The Chinese Box and Turing Test: AI has no intelligence at all
The problem? It's fragmentation once again. Some people hate containerized packages because they use more storage space and RAM than old-style programs. Others dislike one or the other packaging system for other reasons. For example, my favorite desktop operating system is Linux Mint. However, [14]Mint's leaders don't like Snap because its parent company, Canonical, has too much control over the Snap store and has used Snap to replace some of the apt package installation program's functionality.
The problem is that everyone has their own reasons for preferring their special sauce for the desktop. No one's sauce is special enough to get Windows users to move to any particular distro.
Another problem, as Torvalds pointed out in 2019, is that while some major hardware vendors do sell Linux PCs – Dell, for example, with Ubuntu – none of them make it easy. There are also great specialist Linux PC vendors, such as System76, Germany's TUXEDO Computers, and the UK-based Star Labs, but they tend to market to people who are already into Linux, not disgruntled Windows users. No, one big reason why Linux hasn't taken off is that there are no major PC OEMs strongly backing it. To Torvalds, Chromebooks "are the path toward the desktop."
Just look at Android, he argued. Linux won on smartphones because, while there are different Android front ends, under their interfaces, there's a single, unified platform with a unified way to install programs. He's right.
I still hope that the Linux desktop will be successful. Indeed, I think it may yet win by default. As Microsoft moves ever closer to a cloud-based computer approach, Linux may be the last "true" desktop standing. It won't be as much of a win as we first dreamed of when we came up with the "Year of the Linux desktop" tagline, but it will still be a win. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/11/microsoft_windows_recall/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/21/microsoft_ai_boss_comment/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aUl5K07lnxrSRDd2pRm9OAAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aUl5K07lnxrSRDd2pRm9OAAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aUl5K07lnxrSRDd2pRm9OAAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/24/microsoft_win_11_cpus/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aUl5K07lnxrSRDd2pRm9OAAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/10/deduplicating_the_desktops/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aUl5K07lnxrSRDd2pRm9OAAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/05/bots_bias_bunk/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/02/ingress_nginx_opinion/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/14/opinion_musk_tesla_payout/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/27/ai_intelligence_opinion/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/02/linux_mint_team_snap/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: snapflatimages
With a browser, I can see benefits to running it in its own VM. For a start, you could stop it eating all your RAM
Happy Mint user here
I quit Windows when Windows 8.2 came out well over a decade ago. Not missed Windows at all with one recent minor exception. For some reason Zoom is in the process of enshitification. The Zoom desktop app for Linux Mint is faulty and has been for some months now. My computer protests about high CPU usage and Zoom graphics go into slow motion making it unusable. Using Zoom in a browser was a reasonable workaround until the other day when Zoom removed the gallery view option, restricting it to speaker view only which is crap when there are a dozen people in the meeting. Reluctantly I fired up Windows 11 as the almost forgotten dual boot alternative on this PC and (spit) the Zoom desktop app works fine on it. I wish they'd fix Zoom for Linux so I don't need to boot up the dumpster fire that is Windows 11.
No one who is serious about wanting software freedom wants yet another packaging system that reduces that freedom. Snap, flatpack... none of this solves any problems that I have... apt just works to steal a phrase.Yum - although its been a while since I used the dead rat from IBM, also just works... I dont want some thing that updates when someone else likes, I dont want some giant obfuscted package that adds a wrapper and bloat around something that used to work perfectly well...I really dont want to have to wait for some snap to not snap into action and use shed loads of disk and CPU and ram just to start a bloody text editor or a web browser.....
Literally the only limiting factor for me is a small group of 3rd party software. Solidworks, Autodesk, Ableton, NativeInstruments.
If Valve's gaming efforts can also handle these, I have zero use for windows at all.
I'd jump ship if..
There are a couple of programs that are essential to my business, unfortunately their vendors don't offer Linux versions. I don't have the time or the inclination to set up a test machine to see if they will run in Wine or some other Windows app running setup. Perhaps when Windows 12 goes fully online or makes my kit unusable, due to even more silly hardware requirements, I'll take the plunge.
Mint
Thanks to Liam's continual praise of Linux Mint - and that of other commentards - I recently made the move to Mint as my aging but still perfectly capable PC was deemed a dinosaur by M$. And, of course, there's the privacy/AI issues with Windows 11 that are highlighted in the article.
Was it easy? It was easy-ish. As well as 30 years' Windows experience (from Windows 3.1 and Windows NT 3.51 onwards), I have AmigaOS and SunOS/Solaris and even CTOS (Unisys) experience. So perhaps that helped.
Not everything I use has a Linux equivalent and it wasn't easy to get absolutely everything working. For example, I struggled for ages with FS-UAE to get a decent configuration for my Amiga emulation until one day I sat down, took my time and selected settings logically. Within an hour or so, I had a better Amiga configuration than I had had for the previous 20+ years with WinUAE. But I now have a working system that I'm happy with and the thing that doesn't have a Linux equivalent, well, I can do without - although I still have my Windows partition if I really need this.
Of course, Mint is not Windows. I am well aware of this and the consequences that things are different. After all, if you switch from one car to another car from a different manufacturer, it will be similar, yes, but there will be differences. As an experienced "driver", I can cope with that and as a "hobbyist mechanic", I don't mind getting my hands dirty and changing aspects of the car. I mean OS.
Can Mint be used as a desktop for the average Joe in the street? Honestly? I don't see why not. What does Joe use? A browser. That's probably about it these days. And Waterfox (thanks again, Liam!) and Firefox are more or less identical in operation under both Windows and Mint - which is how they should be.
But will Joe trust Mint (or any of the alternatives)? That's the bigger problem, I don't think he will. He knows Windows, so is happy with it. He doesn't care about privacy - heck, I bet he keeps his wireless active on his phone in the shopping mall, subscribes to all sorts of marketing lists, etc. - and this AI thing? It does things for you so you don't need to - result!
I tried Mint via USB on three completely different devices and in every single case, it found all the drivers and just worked. I was so surprised at this, despite what Liam et al. advocated. But Average Joe? He's the man who has bought Ford (or GM/Vauxhall/Renault/VW/etc.) all his life. Windows just works, too, and he doesn't need to do anything to get the latest Ford, it comes direct. And if he has to get a new PC, then so what? His existing one is only four years old, that's about right, isn't it? PCs are only designed to last for 3-4 years, like cars, so it's an investment in the future.
Yes, the Linux desktop will succeed, but only for people like us who know. For Average Joe (and Josephine), stick with what you know. Take the easy option, even if it does end up costing you money and privacy.
Audio
I am tempted to switch but whenever I've looked up running a DAW like Reaper with Focusrite hardware, people seem to have issues. Not that you don't get plenty of issues on Windows.
What's the Best Bigger Picture?
That's the question that the article doesn't expand out into. And that question is a bit of a toughie to answer. But it helps understand why Linux hasn't taken off.
On the one hand, wouldn't it be great if there were a single desktop / mobile / server OS that we all used and liked, and one set of cloud services for us to use? Training would be easy, it'd generate the most vigorous economic activity possible as everyone's software would be accessible to the whole market, etc, etc.
On the other hand, one critical flaw impacts the entire planet. That'd be too tempting a target for bad actors, obnoxious states.
For many decades now it is clear that there's room for about 2 of everything. Apple / Mac is one, Windows / Android is the other. All are backed by corporations chasing the vast consumer market, everyone else gets forgotten about. It seems that industry is not going to grow a viable 3rd mass market alternative by itself, and it seems especially optimistic to think that any of the large companies in the Linux world (such as RedHat) will ever have any interest whatsoever in going out of their way to unify efforts on Linux/Desktop. All the myriad projects and ventures in the Linux world add up to an appalling mess for the average Joe to navigate. It's a mess for seasoned Linux users to navigate. You know you've got a mess on your hands when different suppliers of basically the same OS have to re-build everyone's software themselves and package it up for distribution independent of the software developer.
The reason why two is the magic number is because governments minded to let the market choose are generally happy enough with duopolies, and not with monopolies. If there's two of something, regulators rapidly lose interest and there's no pressure for the introduction of a third choice. It also suits governments because the industry then isn't so fragmented as to actively hinder an economy, thereby not necessitating government intervention to bring about much needed consolidation. As Apple and Microsoft were the ones with the biggest desktop dreams, they won.
Other things
From the article:
Unix died because of endless incompatibilities between versions.
It hasn't died as such, it's simply transformed into a specification. Many OSes - including Windows (if one loads it up with WSL v1) are largely compliant with that specification. The big old Unix corps got eaten on the desktop as Windows grew in capability, and in server land by the hardware manufacturers doing x86/64 hardware that was viable for production use in data centres with Linux being just about good enough to be the OS. Linux's dominance of the data centre would not have happened if no one had manufactured an x86 server with an open specification for hardware, boot environment, etc. Much of the credit for that goes actually to Microsoft, who refined the concept of "IBM Compatible" down to an actual published standard that others could write OSes against with confidence.
Also from the article:
Just look at Android, he argued. Linux won on smartphones because, while there are different Android front ends, under their interfaces, there's a single, unified platform with a unified way to install programs.
Whilst that's true, Android is not and has not been the only Linux based mobile phone OS. Tizen, Ubuntu Phone, spring to mind. They were unsuccessful. Android's win in the Linux-based mobile phone OS market came about through big corporate backing with control brought about though forced adoption of one company's services (Google's) in an illegal way very reminiscent of the bad practices we used to accuse Microsoft of following. Despite some promising tech from various other stables (I still miss the tech perfection of BlackBerry10), we're now left with 2 of something which looks like persisting forever.
I suspect a commercial entity may end up with "the win" for Linux on the Desktop...
... but when that may happen and exactly what that "win" will look like? I think we know already, possibly.
That commercial entity is going to want deep pockets and is going to want a very valid reason for shipping a Linux based OS.
They will also want to be shipping the hardware.
System76? - not big enough, not a viable enough reason to scale.
We have a reasonably large company who have adopted Linux at reasonable scale and are about to ramp that up with a "gaming console" - which is to all intents and purposes, a Linux Desktop computer.
Valve.
The Steam Deck has sold about 10 million units.
Sure, it's not designed to be Desktop Linux, but you CAN exit Steam into the Arch desktop environment and use it like a Desktop computer.
Enter stage left, the Steam Machine or Game Cube as some are calling it.
Valve are a games and games distribution company and also more importantly, a hardware company.
They have become Linux specialists.
I don't think it's much of a stretch, if the Steam Machine turns out to be an absolute blinder of a gaming rig, for them to ship 20 million or more of them.
The power of Valve lies in the games distribution - there's nothing that can touch it in terms of scale, usability and user loyalty.
What is not known is whether, on the Steam Machine, Valve will have any interest at all in the Desktop behind Steam itself beyond configuring it to be performant and choosing some default apps.
But Valve are REALLY close to being the kind of company that could swing the adoption of Desktop Linux.
It may not really matter if the desktop behind Steam - the fact that a Steam Machine can be a competent desktop - is not the primary use case.
You could argue Valve are still shipping a Desktop PC with a Desktop Linux OS on it ...
re : Chromebooks "are the path toward the desktop."
Sorry... but no they are not.
IMHO, Chromebooks are just vehicle for Google to slurp your data and you are paying them for the privilege. IMHO, they are so stripped back like the Netbook of old that they are a technological dead end
All but one of my Linux systems run a GUI. The desktop is either XFCE or Cinnamon. They do the job that I want without fuss.
snapflatimages
Sure, why not. After all, what's 2-3GB of space for even a simple text editor between friends?
Oh, wait, I've got a better one: VMs! One VM for each and every program. Just the bare OS and the program. Want to browse the web? Start your FF/Chromium VM. Want to edit a file? Anothe VM and npp.
Oh, yeah, before I forget it again:
/sarcams