I'm brave enough to say it: Linux is good now, and if you want to feel like you actually own your PC, make 2026 the year of Linux on (your) desktop
Now if you don't mind I'm going to delete the root folder and see what happens.
(Image credit: Jim Sugar via Getty Images)
I'm all-in, baby. I'm committed. If upgrading any distinct component of my PC didn't require me taking out a loan right now, I'd be seriously considering switching my GPU over to some kind of AMD thing just to make my life slightly, slightly easier.
I've had it with Windows and ascended to the sunlit uplands of Linux, where the trees heave with open-source fruits and men with large beards grep things with their minds.
It's really hard to find interesting screenshots that represent Linux, okay? (Image credit: Bazzite)
I'm not alone. In last month's Steam hardware survey, the number of Linux users hit a new all-time high for the second month running, reaching the heady summit of a whopping, ah, 3.2% of overall Steam users. Hey, we're beating Mac players.
I think that number will only grow as the new year goes by. More and more of us are getting sick of Windows, sure—the AI guff, the constant upselling on Office subs, the middle taskbar*—but also, all my experience goofing about with Linux this year has dispelled a lot of the, frankly, erroneous ideas I had about it. It's really not hard! Really! I know Linux guys have been saying this for three decades, but it's true now!
Goated with the open source (sorry)
As I've already written about, the bulk of my Linux-futzing time this year has been spent in Bazzite, a distro tailor-made for gaming and also tailor-made to stop idiots (me) from doing something likely to detonate their boot drive.
Hunt: Showdown running on Bazzite. (Image credit: Crytek)
I grew up thinking of Linux as 'the command-line OS that lets you delete your bootloader' and, well, I suppose that's not untrue, but I've been consistently impressed at how simple Bazzite has been to run on my PC, even with my persnickety Nvidia GPU.
Everything I've played this year has been as easy—if not easier—to run on a free OS put together by a gaggle of passionate nerds as it is on Windows, the OS made by one of the most valuable corporations on planet Earth. I've never had to dip into the command line (which is, to be frank, a shame, as the command line is objectively cool).
