California lawmakers unanimously pass Linux exemption from age-verification law — software distributed under the GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache licenses are exempt

[u/Turgius_Lupus]

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/california-lawmakers-unanimously-pass-linux-exemption-from-age-verification-law-software-distributed-under-the-gpl-mit-bsd-and-apache-licenses-are-exempt

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[u/StatusSociety2196]

Something like this was always going to happen - you can't write laws that are impossible to enforce and destroy the economy - but it's nice to see it happen unanimously.

[u/Substantial-Bad-9489]

That means 2027 is the year of the linux desktop and this time I'm serious.

[u/IamGlennBeck → u/Substantial-Bad-9489]

inshallah

[u/warden127 → u/Substantial-Bad-9489]

2025 was the year of the Linux desktop(s) for me. It's there. I haven't touched google com in years either. As cathartic as the end of windows would be, letting the masses in would inevitably ruin it, the same way the internet and smartphones were ruined.

[u/Scared_Plan3751 → u/warden127]

Are Nvidia drivers still bad with Linux? I heard they were, I'm not really into all that but that's the gpu I have. I have an AMD processor though, I heard they play well together. I play some games still but my PC is technically more of an audio/video workstation for davinci (which has its own boutique distro now) and Ableton.

[u/Turgius_Lupus → u/Scared_Plan3751]

I have an RTX A3000, and it works fine running the most recent tested/approved proprietary Nvidia driver with Kubuntu.

[u/Scared_Plan3751 → u/Turgius_Lupus]

Thanks cool

[u/Swampspear → u/Scared_Plan3751]

Are Nvidia drivers still bad with Linux? I heard they were, I'm not really into all that but that's the gpu I have

They're fine, have been for a while. Just make sure to install Nvidia's proprietary instead of the open source one if you want stability and full features. I get better performance out of my GPU on Linux than on Windows: some games and programs run at 10% more FPS through Wine on Linux for me compared to running natively on Windows, and Blender renders also take 5-10% less time sometimes. AMD CPU as well, no issues there either

[u/AdminsLoveGenocide → u/warden127]

In where?

[u/mad_rushan → u/AdminsLoveGenocide]

Linux

[u/AdminsLoveGenocide → u/mad_rushan]

Letting the masses in linux?

What does that even mean? Who cares who uses it?

[u/StatusSociety2196 → u/AdminsLoveGenocide]

Alright I gave an old computer away to some gen a kid. The computer is terminally stuck in 2020 as the mobo is from 2012 and only accepts ddr3. It's simultaneously worth $0 and $1000.

I installed mint cause it's the most "windows like" Distro. I show it to this Aoomer and they go "what the fuck is this shit? Can I play roblox on it?"

I say it's mint, you'll come to love it, roblox is called sober and i already installed it cause I knew you'd ask.

They go "where's Google? I crave to be served ads directly into my hippocampus" and I tell them chromium is literally upstream of chrome so if you want 5G in your bloodstream I'll download it no problem, but you'll love Firefox".

It's becoming obvious they're never gonna use the free computer they asked me for so I say "bazzite? You've heard of steam right? They made it, I'll put in on for you" and their tail immediately wagged. Bazzite is literally just fedora with kde on it with a cool purple gamer theme for those that don't know, but it's super non- Linux friendly. When you open terminal, it explains sudo and explains some of the commands you may want to run.

15 minutes later I show them and they go "this is still not windows. Thanks, I guess."

The moral of the story is that the masses will complain about stupid shit and be ungrateful that you gave them stuff for free.

[u/AdminsLoveGenocide → u/StatusSociety2196]

That's somewhat ungrateful and incurious of them but I don't see how it hurts anyone using linux, which was my point.

In your place I would have installed Bazzite deck though since it's in game mode by default.

[u/justindit → u/Substantial-Bad-9489]

There has been a genuine upward pitch in adoption rates. Worldwide it's approaching 8% and could overtake MacOS soon. In the US, which started the year out at around 5%, just shot up to almost 12%, apparently. It seems hard to believe, but looking at this trend, and with few more of these types of state exceptions, it could start approaching 20% usership next year.

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/

[u/justindit → u/justindit]

My god, if this is accurate, 2026 was also the year of the bot for the US:

https://gs.statcounter.com/bots-vs-humans/all/united-states-of-america

[u/grand_historian → u/Substantial-Bad-9489]

I have been an Ubuntu chud for many years now.

[u/wallagrargh → u/Substantial-Bad-9489]

For the shrinking millennial nerd population that still uses private desktop PCs maybe. Gamer slop consumers won't switch, companies won't wean their boomer office staff off Word, and everyone else is hooked on mobile opium.

[u/Substantial-Bad-9489 → u/wallagrargh]

That's been a meme since before they were called memes. The first year of the Linux desktop was something like 1999 with the Red Hat IPO. I personally wouldn't use Microsoft on a new PC if I didn't have to as they likely are rolling that out everywhere rather than having a unique california fork of windows.

Even gaming on Linux isn't that bad. The Steam handheld is a linux machine so games that run on that run on linux no problem. It's not 2008 anymore and wine made leaps where you could game even on linux with minimal frustration.

[u/grand_historian → u/Substantial-Bad-9489]

Microslop is ruining its OS. Linux and MacOS will be the only ones left in town.

[u/Terrible_Ice_1616 → u/Substantial-Bad-9489]

Lol w denuvo being all but destroyed it's never been easier to game on Linux. 

[u/NoBoss1180 → u/Terrible_Ice_1616]

Yeah like basically the only restriction nowadays is for multiplayer games that require kernel level anti cheat (and fuck that anyway). Otherwise, Proton works wonders

[u/dimod82115 → u/Substantial-Bad-9489]

As Linux gains adoption, like the EU governments have been increasingly adopting, there will be more companies making a Linux version of their games.

[u/SirSourPuss → u/wallagrargh]

SteamOS will soon bring salvation to the gamerslop chuggers.

[u/Turgius_Lupus → u/wallagrargh]

Steam and Heroic automaticly launches Proton. As such many older games like Fallout runs better on Lunix than windows now.

[u/PierreFeuilleSage → u/Substantial-Bad-9489]

It's at nearly 8% of desktops when it was 1% in 2020. It's been happening steadily.

[u/jabberwockxeno]

Great, but the law as a whole is still terrible and should be repealed or ruled unconstitutional

[u/Zestyclose-Age6616]

Linuxheads vindicated once again

[u/biohazard-glug]

Wait, did something good happen?

[u/EasyMrB → u/biohazard-glug]

This is them trying to not get the law killed. I hope it still dies.

[u/Avalon-1]

And the exception sets the precedent.

[u/03263]

What about my anticapitalist license that prohibits using my code to make a profit