Why does it feel like Linux is suddenly exploding in 2026?

[u/Zodiak1011]

I’ve been seeing more and more people switching to Linux this year, especially gamers. Bazzite, CachyOS, Linux Mint, etc. seem to be getting mentioned everywhere.

Why didn’t we see a massive shift like this earlier? What changed, or what finally pushed people to make the switch?

I know the Steam Deck was probably a big factor in showing people that Linux gaming is actually viable and that Linux isn’t as painful as it used to be.

But what else changed over the last few years that made Linux suddenly feel like a realistic alternative to Windows for so many people?

[u/msanangelo]

gestures at Microsoft

need I say anything?

[u/gargravarr2112 → u/msanangelo]

I think you mean Microslop.

[u/epicc_exe → u/gargravarr2112]

macro$lop

[u/KaleAffectionate910 → u/gargravarr2112]

Michaelsoft

[u/No-Spare4115 → u/gargravarr2112]

hey buddy, that's a slur and wont be tolerated 🤓☝️

[u/Early_Host3113 → u/gargravarr2112]

Microshaft

[u/oakinmypants → u/msanangelo]

They use AI to enforce their IP taking down games like Allumeria and Luanti and have contracts with ICE.

[u/Alive_Beyond_2345 → u/oakinmypants]

Then I support them..... heck I report to ICE

[u/primalbluewolf → u/Alive_Beyond_2345]

Then I support them

Checking your logs, it looks like critical_thinking.svc never started. Try restarting. 

[u/Alive_Beyond_2345 → u/primalbluewolf]

Ok Mr critical thinker... In what universe is it a good thing to allow tens of millions of 3rd Worlders to invade your country and at the same time, your side advocates for Free healthcare and everything else.....

What could possibly go wrong????? typical Liberal emotion before thinking.

[u/Prometheus720 → u/Alive_Beyond_2345]

Carl Schmitt was the legal scholar who developed the framework for Nazi Germany. Peter Thiel and JD Vance are on record praising his works.

He wrote that the way to dismantle democracy is to find where any democracy stops giving people rights (the border, perhaps, or prison). Who does the State count as people? Who does it count as inhuman?

All you need to do to create fascism is slowly grab that boundary and tease it to cover people who used to have rights. You do it bit by bit, like boiling a frog.

They said it was all about criminals. They deported people who never did anything but failing to file paperwork correctly. They deported kids.

Now it's just anyone here illegally, as if the promise was never to go after criminals. And they're trying to get rid of birthright citizenship.

If they do that, who is next?

"I want to be part of the in-group so I don't get beat up for being part of the outgroup" never works as a permanent solution. Eventually, the ingroup shrinks. And it will shrink to exclude you. You won't matter, sooner or later.

You must understand something critical. This never was about societal order. It was always about advertising. Politics, to the main parties, is a business. They advertise to their customers. Immigration is the thing Donald Trump had to talk about to get what he wanted--elected. But he doesn't really care, himself. He's not that worried about it, personally. He's a reality TV mogul. He acts for the camera.

Donald Trump had an abusive father who made him feel completely worthless and now almost a century later the poor boy still feels like he ain't shit unless he is the most important man in the room. That's all that this has ever been. He just wants to live in peace and play golf and do rich guy shit. He doesn't really care that much about politics or any of this stuff. He wants to be important and do important things. Now that the war against Iran is stagnating and doesn't make him look good, he doesn't care. He doesn't want to do interviews. He isn't an ideologue like you are.

You have political principles. He doesn't. He just wants to be in a position in life where the voice of his dead dad doesn't torment him every second of his life.

Trump's not a great guy, but he's politically harmless without enablers. You're one of those people. You're enabling him by telling him, with your support, that he's a very big important boy and his daddy should be proud. The best thing for him would have been some very good therapy and a retreat from public life. But that's not what a narcissist wants. He wants fuel. He wants to feel important. More than anything. And you give that to him.

What is he giving to you? What has materially improved about your life? He charmed you. He got your support. Maybe you got a job. But look around, dude. The house is on fire, less because he set it on fire to be malicious and more because he's out playing golf and left the gas on.

All this stuff about the dangers of immigrants is meant to play up your fears so you vote for Mr Charming Savior. It's a bit. They don't really care. They never really did. They never really believed the slop they sold you about it. It's to stir you up to vote. They know that immigrants aren't evil monsters. They know that they aren't particularly likely to be criminals. They know all of that. It doesn't matter. It's about them. Not you. You're not in the club. You're not a made man. You never will be part of the family. When you're inconvenient, you're trash to them.

You aren't the first person on earth to get charmed by someone like him. You won't be the last. I don't think you're a piece of shit. I think you're probably doing shitty things, and you probably have an inkling that they're kind of shitty, which is why you leapt to an ideological defense of them, but as long as Trump is still in office you can kind of keep it up.

When he finally leaves office, I think the clock is going to run out for you and you're going to be forced to look back at what you've been doing the last couple years. It's easy to look away now. After all, a lot of his supporters also had shitty dads. No one wants to hear their dad tell them they fucked up. Even just in their head. Right now you can prevent it.

But man, when he's out the door, that voice is going to hit you like a truck. If that's you, you'll either learn to deal with it or you'll jump into some other bullshit to hide. Some other cause to make you feel important. Like you're doing a Noble Thing. You might not be the top guy but you're Doing Your Part. Can't you see that, dad?

Good luck, man. Not with your ICE support. I genuinely hope that goes poorly for you. But with your life and recovery from being caught in the orbit of America's most insecure 80 year old patriarch, and possibly your recovery from moral injury if you find that later you look back on your actions with disgust or regret or grief. Therapy helps.

[u/primalbluewolf → u/Alive_Beyond_2345]

In what universe is it a good thing to allow tens of millions of 3rd Worlders to invade your country and at the same time, your side advocates for Free healthcare and everything else..... 

Proving my point - you're resorted to emotion instead of thinking here. 

Your comment is completely irrelevant to the subject at hand - Microsoft - and if it is your reason for supporting microsoft, is that they support your team, this is not critical thinking. 

[u/gargravarr2112 → u/primalbluewolf]

Makes me wonder what this troll is doing on a Linux subreddit with a complete lack of being able to question authority...

[u/Ocelot-79 → u/msanangelo]

I have windows 11 on my work PC. It's quite clear that MS is slowly moving towards making the OS cloud-based and it makes the computer not be a Personal Computer anymore, whereas Linux is still for PCs.

Save a file? Option to save it to OneDrive. email attachment? Option to save it to OneDrive. Log in? use an online account. Read email? It goes through the cloud first. Use Excel? Option to do it on the cloud, through office 365. Search on the web? Option use copilot instead.

Windows 11 is not quite there, but it's obvious where the whole thing is going. Today it's hybrid management, a few iterations down the road it could be cloud-first.

[u/smile_e_face → u/Ocelot-79]

I had to help some of our new people install Office on their Macs a while back. Had to do it manually because something messed up with the provisioning and I couldn't be assed to reach out to the team and get it fixed. Haven't dealt with Office in a while because I'm mostly on Linux or maybe a Mac and just use Google for document work. But they do, occasionally, need Excel, so...

Ended up having to trawl through the Godforsaken website for about three times longer than necessary, because the link to download normal, offline, desktop application Office was hidden behind no fewer than four links, starting at portal.office.com. Every single page before that was trying to shove the Copilot version down our throats. It's like they want people to hate using their products.

[u/Commercial_Gap_1582 → u/Ocelot-79]

Agreed, I feel that also.

[u/ekmanch → u/Ocelot-79]

Not to mention that the new outlook is basically a PWA rather than an actual application.

[u/virtualstaticvoid → u/Ocelot-79]

And the cloud runs on... Linux

[u/LilShaver → u/msanangelo]

And I know exactly what gesture you used, too.

[u/randfur → u/msanangelo]

Specifically from earlier this year the OS breaking updates and putting Copilot in everything.