Gillius's Programming

2025: Year of the Linux Desktop (for me at least)

07 Aug 2025

Every year since the dawn of time someone has declared “it will be the year of the Linux desktop!” I don’t know if that will be true in 2025 for everyone, but it is for me. I’m now using Kubuntu exclusively on my home desktop after initially leaving Windows on as a dual boot. Once I realized I went 4 months without even starting Windows once, I knew it was safe to drop it.

Now, I have been exposed to Linux for a long time. I first set up a system in 1999 with Mandrake Linux (most recently called Mandriva), and loved it. I set up a server for development at work with Ubuntu Server in 2006 and since have used Linux servers at work almost exclusively. For a few years in the late 2000s I had an Ubuntu Desktop as my work machine.

In this post I want to share why I switched now and some “risk free” things you can explore if you are interested in switching away from Windows on your PC.

Why Now?

I’ve tried Linux multiple times for home use in the form of dual-booting (where you get a menu on startup to choose Windows or Linux), or as a virtual machine (running Linux as an app inside Windows with a tool like VirtualBox or Windows’s own Hyper-V in Pro and Enterprise editions). However, I have never used it as a daily driver for one main reason – games.

Game Compatibility

Linux has been able to do everything I’ve wanted for a long time, except play games. However, thanks to the amazing efforts from Valve (the makers of Steam) we can use Proton, an enhancement to the (over 30 years old) tool Wine, which allows running Windows applications under Linux. Proton adds capabilities to reliably run 3D games on par with or sometimes exceeding the performance of Windows. They have done this so they can sell their Steam Deck which runs Windows games on a Linux OS. You can use protondb to check if a game works in Linux. Pretty much everything does now excepting competitive online games that use anti-cheat. This didn’t impact me because I don’t play those games nor would install them because the anti-cheat works by installing a “rootkit” in your operating system that allows it to surveil your computer to make sure you aren’t running any cheats. This is the same level of access you give an anti-virus tool. I doubt they are doing anything nefarious, but I don’t want to install something like that just for a game.

Motivations to Leave Windows

OK, so now Linux is at the point where it meets or exceeds every requirement I have for my desktop environment. But, what motivated me to leave Windows? Well, for me the top 3 are:

  1. I have 3 machines running Windows, 2 of them are too old to upgrade to Windows 11 and per Microsoft, Windows 10 support ends on October 14, 2025. Microsoft’s solution is to buy new PCs. My two unupgradable desktops are working perfectly fine, thank you.
  2. I loved the UI changes going from 3.1 -> 95 -> 2000 -> XP -> 7 -> 10. However, I can’t say that about Windows 11. I know this sounds picky, but I love putting my taskbar on the left side (vertically) on my screen. It boggles my mind why you can’t move the taskbar on Windows 11, a feature existing since Windows 95. I found the amazing tool ExplorerPatcher which restores the Windows 10 functionality in Windows 11, but it has to be re-updated every time Windows updates, Windows Defender detects it as a malware sometimes, and it had some bugs on multi-user systems. The authors do an amazing job with this tool, but why should I have to put up with that from my OS?
  3. Microsoft’s aggressive marketing. The default launch of Edge is an epileptic-inducing amount of ads. Oh, please use Bing. Oh, you need a Microsoft Account. Why aren’t you using OneDrive? Are you sure for the 10th time you don’t want a Microsoft 365 trial? Hey I heard you love AI, so I added a copilot button for you! And you want ads in your start menu, right? I don’t like this aggressive marketing and my younger kids starting to use computers don’t know what to do with it either and shouldn’t need a Microsoft account to log in – which is possible, but in Windows, privacy and control of your own system is the workaround, not the default.

Linux is controlled by its user community, not commercial interests. Even the distributions which are commercially supported such as Kubuntu that I use is not even in the same realm of issues as Microsoft, and should it become a problem, there are loads of other options. Linux is Free Software, while free by cost, it really means free in the sense that anyone can see its code, create their own version and distribute it. It means freedom from a computer representing the interests of a single organization such as Microsoft, Apple or Google.

A Quick Note on Distributions

Linux refers to two things. One is the Linux kernel, which is the heart of the operating system that talks to the hardware and presents a common interface allowing any Linux program to run. But the second usage is more typical referring to Linux as the ecosystem of distributions and software that runs on the Linux kernel. Since the Linux ecosystem is not controlled by a single company, many people have implemented alternative versions of the base software (like the launch menu you would call the start bar in Windows). This choice, this diverse set of opinions, is the biggest strength and biggest disadvantage at the same time. What a distribution does is package the Linux kernel with a set of software and a way to configure, install, and update that software based on that distribution’s goals. An analogy I hear sometimes is that of a mixtape/playlist where you have people sharing their favorite genre’s hits.

What to Do?

So maybe you are thinking at this point you have similar concerns such as a perfectly-working Windows 10 machine not supported in Windows 11, but don’t know where to start. If you aren’t ready to just wipe your machine clean just yet, I have some advice for a gentler technique I think is less mentioned online and is useful even if you don’t end up switching to Linux and decide to buy a new machine to run Windows 11:

  1. Start by choosing software that works on Windows and Linux. Some such software that I use that works on both (and macOS as well):
    • Browser: The #1 browser, Chrome, works fine on Linux as well as all of its Chromium-based cousins like Vivaldi and Brave. However, I use Firefox, which is the default on every Linux distribution I’ve used. The profile sync worked perfectly for me to copy all settings to Linux via my cloud profile. Anything that’s on the web works identically in Windows and Linux, so anything you do on the web is already set.
    • Office: I have used LibreOffice for many years which meets my home use needs (Calc spreadsheets) and is similar to Microsoft Office. Of note is the Draw component (similar to Microsoft Publisher) which is easy to miss but is a rare tool that can edit PDFs. Of course, you can still use Office 365 via the web and Google drive/docs/sheets/etc. via the web.
    • Password Manager: I use Bitwarden which works in all modern OS and browsers and is encrypted so they cannot read my passwords. This is way better than saving passwords in your browser in case you switch browsers. I also love how it works on desktop and mobile, as well as the web if I’m at a friend’s PC.
    • Mail: I use Thunderbird. Of course, if you have a web mail provider like GMail you don’t need this, but Thunderbird can work with GMail. If you use Outlook, you should try this out. It can also do calendar and contacts but I like Google’s online calendar and contacts better.
    • Graphics: I use GIMP for basic image editing and conversion tasks.
    • Games: Last but not least as I mentioned, Steam works on Linux, and other game stores like GoG and EA work as well – I like to use Lutris to more easily run anything not in Steam.
    • FOSS: For other software, anything that’s Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) is likely to be cross-platform and much more likely to represent your interests as a user rather than someone trying to make money. Free but NOT open source means either they have a paid version, or the product is you. Almost everything I mentioned earlier is FOSS except Chrome and Vivaldi and many are typically pre-installed in all major distributions like Firefox, LibreOffice, and GIMP with the others addable via a click in the software app provided by the distribution.
  2. Make sure you’ve got good backups and your data organized. This is relevant whether you choose to switch to Linux, buy a new machine, or upgrade to the same OS. I love Kopia. You can back up on one OS ( like Windows) and restore on another (like Linux). I use it with Google Drive which takes some additional setup, with a USB drive connected to my PC, and via a USB drive connected to my router which shows up as a network drive in Windows and Linux. Kopia is FOSS, but there are other cloud-based solutions you can pay for that may be easier to use. It’s not great marketing their main page image is of the terminal/command line version, if you scroll down you’ll see they do have a graphical tool, which is what I use.
  3. Create a bootable USB drive with Ventoy. Once you do that, you can drop on multiple ISO files and boot to them, for example:
    • You could drop the Kubuntu ISO or any other Ubuntu flavor and boot it, or any other distribution that offers a “live iso”. From there you can first try out running Linux directly from that USB drive without installing it first to see if it works on your hardware. If you aren’t using drive encryption like Bitlocker you can even see and test opening your files such as Word/Excel docs to see how it works. Or, if your drive is encrypted you can copy some test files onto the USB which will show up as a normal USB drive in Linux. You can use browser to surf the web or run any other pre-installed software. The same ISO is also used to install Linux alongside Windows (dual boot) for advanced users, or as a dedicated operating system.
    • Windows 11 ISO to repair or reinstall Windows or fix your friend’s PC.
    • GParted allows advanced users to copy, move, and resize partitions. I use this when I want to upgrade my storage as well. However, if your Windows disk is encrypted (Bitlocker), your options are limited unless you disable it first in Windows.
  4. Consider a second disk for your computer and/or large USB drive. Linux can read Windows file systems but not vice versa (at least, not easily). In my case I leave Windows and its software on one drive and I have another hard drive formatted by Windows holding my files. That way I can rebuild my operating system disk but not touch my files and photos. In the advanced scenario of having Windows and Linux at the same time (dual boot) that I used, the second drive was accessible from both so all my files are available in both operating systems.

If you get through all steps above you have made yourself ready to transition to Linux without any risk (yet) to your current Windows install. After this point you could follow one of the many tutorials online on what distribution to pick, how to install it (replacing Windows), or how to dual boot Windows and Linux at the same time if you have enough disk space and willingness to learn how to do it.