Most people in the tech world have heard the phrase “This is the year of Linux on the desktop” at some point. But what do I think that actually means and is 2026 finally the year of Linux on the desktop?

Let’s start by diving into what this question means and where it comes from, for those who are not familiar with the phrase. The phrase “This is the year of Linux on the desktop” has been around for a long time, and it is often used to describe the idea that Linux will finally become a mainstream operating system for personal computers. However, despite the popularity of Linux in server environments and other areas, it has never really taken off in the mainstream desktop world.

And maybe a little futher context, for those who somehow reached my blog but are not into technology at all, Linux is an open-source class of operating systems that are based on the Linux kernel. It is widely used in server environments. But there is also a desktop version of it. One of the most famous desktop distributions of Linux is Ubuntu.

But that’s enough context for what Linux is. Let’s dive into the question. While I was not able to find an actual source where this question originated from, I can imagine that it is a question that has been asked for a long time, though mostly as a joke. I’ve said this phrase myself quite a few times, and I’ve even tried to use Linux on the desktop a few times before, but I always had to come back to Windows and macOS. To me, to answer this question, we have to dissect the question into two subparts:

• What does “Linux on the desktop” mean
• When can we say definitively that this year is the year of Linux the desktop?

What does “Linux on the desktop” mean?

I think this one is fairly simple. In general, I’d say that Linux on the desktop means that Linux is a mainstream operating system used on personal computers. And yes, I do know that Linux is not an operating system, but rather a kernel. But for the sake of this discussion, I will refer to Linux as an operating system.

Now the follow-up question is what does “mainstream” mean? That one is also easy to answer. To me mainstream means that it is commonly known and used by at least the younger people and people actively in tech. Why these two groups? Because I don’t think you can ask that the more senior population, who still has trouble using a computer in general can be asked to understand what Linux is. That does not mean I don’t think they can use it as some distributions of Linux are very user friendly, and could be easier then Windows. And for the tech people, that one speaks for itself, if you are in tech and don’t know what Linux is, Linux is definitely not mainstream.

When can we say definitively that this year is the year of Linux the desktop?

This one is a bit more tricky. I don’t think you can put a hard value on it like 50% or 75% of the desktop market share. I think it is more of a subjective question. I see mostly 4 user groups that are relevant to this question:

• Developers / IT professionals
• Gamers
• People who get forced to use a computer for work or school
• The rest (aka the normal people who just use a computer for personal use)

And I’d say if a significant portion of each of these groups are using Linux on the desktop, then we can say that this year is the year of Linux on the desktop, though the amount can still differ. For the developers and IT professionals, I think a significant portion would be around 20% or more, based on that macOS currently sits between 30% and 40% of the market share for developers and IT professionals (source). I think for gamers that number can be quite a bit higher actually as there’s more ways to game then just on the desktop and Linux has already been on the climb there for a while (think steam deck for example) and was at the start of the year already over 3% (source). I would say that if this reaches 10% or more a significant portion has been reached.

For the other two groups I think it’s harder to set a number, but I do think we’ll see a shift here to, I’ll get to that later.

So is 2026 the year of Linux on the desktop?

No, at least at the time of writing not yet, clearly the numbers are not there yet. But I do think that in the future once we’ve actually had “the year of Linux on the desktop” that we will be looking back at 2026 as the tipping point for Linux on the desktop.

Between Microsoft’s continued effort to push people away from Windows and big companies putting in the effort into Linux the shift has definitely started.

Microsoft’s pushing people away

Earlier this month there was a uproar in the privacy world about Windows, it turns out that every single Windows install has a unique ID that is used to call home to Microsoft (source), and this ID is then linked to the Microsoft account linked to the install (and Microsoft made sure it is really hard to not have an account linked at all). Then this week a news article came out that companies (though this one is not fully on Microsoft, but they did allow it to happen) can now push their “crappy” software together with drivers, and this software then can push its own freeware (malware) stuff. Like the driver of LG that installed McAfee (source).

European movement to move away from American software

Another thing that is happening is that the European Union is pushing away from American software and wants to be more sovereign. A big example of this is France who earlier this year announced that they are going to move away from Microsoft Office and Windows and move to LibreOffice and Linux (source).

Gaming on Linux is getting better

And finally, gaming on Linux is getting better and better. With the steam deck, steam machine and its new steam OS, gaming on Linux is becoming more and more viable. And with the new steam OS being based on Arch Linux, it is also becoming more and more user friendly. Valve has put in a lot of effort into creating the compatibility layer Proton, which allows Windows games to run on Linux. They kickstarted the Linux gaming transition with the steam deck and now they are pushing it even further with the new steam OS and steam machine. And this change is trickling down to the other distro’s as well.

What about me?

I wrote this article on my desktop, which is running Linux. I’ve tried running Linux a few times before but always got forced back to Windows on my desktop. But the tools have evolved and thus I’m giving it another proper try, going with cashyOS, which is an Arch Linux based distribution.