I've been using linux as a daily driver since the start of the year.

There's still a long ways to go before things "just work". It's about equivalent to windows right now in terms of frustrations, it's just that frustrations are more along the lines of "this is a bit wonky" instead of "this is malicious / was their intended behavior". It's gotten a LOT better, don't get me wrong, but it's still far off from what a typical user would need.

I'd love to see either Valve or Nvidia really put in effort into creating their own hardware/software integration on a level that Apple does. I think it'd go a long way to legitimizing it.

> "theres a big chance for someone like Nokia to come in and develop their own approved distro"

SUSE is a German company, so probably nothing to even develop.

Yeah, I think if Windows 11 is going subscription based (plus all the copilot pushing garbage and even more baked in ads) that will be a strong incentive to switch to Linux or SteamOS. I barely even play games enough anymore to make a desktop worthwhile. Might just jump to Mac only.

> "theres a big chance for someone like Nokia to come in and develop their own approved distro"

Microsoft bought Nokia's devices and services division for Windows Mobile in 2014. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Mobile

big player + (standard) linux desktop may well be coming, but that means losing the semi-anarchist bazaar mentality. Will the standard be gnome or KDE or XFCE or ...? If gnome, version 2 or 3? Firefox or chrome as the default browser (or derivatives like waterfox or plain chromium ...)? AI integration?

The moment you're developing for people with no IT experience and no CS degree, you're going to have to make tradeoffs like Microsoft or Google or Apple have to make today, and somehow deal with the "curl ... |sh" problem.

Personally i think there is a huge innovationspace for pipe connected agents doing work for the user.. a example:

A firefox agent downloading pictures of cats.. piping them to a graphics program drawing mustaches on them piping them to a moviemaker piping them to a firefox video uploading "the longest catswithmustaches" shorts compilation ever.. all clicked together in a "incredibble machine" like explorer by a user who doesent even know how to code..

> Personally I think we are at an interim period for a big player to emerge and take over this space...

And even without a big player, the number of people who are entirely operational with just a browser at work is huge.

Many SMEs already realized they can switch seamlessly between Windows and OS X / MacOS and I see people working on either one or the other. For example a desktop PC running Windows and a Mac laptop is not uncommon.

I switched an employee at my wife's SME to... Debian! And the transition has been more than fine: they live in the browser (Google Workspace, paid company subscription). Unattended-upgrades, a user account that cannot sudo, and that's it.

The number of desktop PC running Windows that are actually glorified browsers has to be through the roof.

Once people realize there's no need to pay the double-whammy Microsoft tax (pay for a new Windows / also pay for a new PC), suddenly installing Linux becomes an option.

Now I know: using Linux and Google is not "getting rid of US tech". But it's "getting of Microsoft" and that is fine with me. I'll never ever forgive the mediocrity this company has brought onto the world.

honestly since the browser has more or less become the real operating system the host OS doesn't matter so much anymore. most people do 90% of their work in the browser anyway