Why Everyone’s Talking About Linux in 2025

Not just nerds anymore - gamers, creators, and even governments are joining in.

Aug 18, 2025

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That being said, let’s get into today’s topic

For decades, Linux was the underdog operating system. The one your “nerdy” friend swore by, but everyone else ignored. Windows owned the desktop. Mac had its loyalists. Linux? Just under 2% market share and a reputation for being complicated.

But 2025 has been different. A series of unlikely events - from Valve’s Steam Deck making gaming on Linux real, to Microsoft frustrating its own users, to influencers openly ditching Windows - have shoved Linux into the mainstream conversation.

This isn’t just about software. It’s about control. It’s about cost. And it’s about whether the future of tech will be owned by monopolies or shared through open-source.

So here, and today, we want to be part of the small shift that is happening - and who knows, we might witness the year of Linux in the coming decade.

Clearing up some terms

Before discussing the topic at hand, I'll first go over some of the basic concepts so you and I are at the same page:

What is an operating system?

An Operating System is just a software environment that sits between the hardware and software of our computer. The operating system manages all the major tasks that applications may need to run properly.

An operating system allows us to run applications on our computer, tablets, smartphones, etc. Microsoft Windows, MacOS, Android are some of the popular operating systems.

What is Linux?

It's a free and open-source kernel. The kernel is a core part of an operating system. Using Linux Kernel, as a foundation you can build up your own operating system. When an operating system is using Linux as its base, it's usually referred to as a Linux distro (short for distribution).

Linux is everywhere - your phone probably has it, the website you're reading this article on, is probably using Linux-based distros on their web-servers, you'll find Linux on fighter jets, supercomputers, smartphones, you name it!

Except, you won't find Linux on most desktop computers. Microsoft Windows is the big player in the Desktop computer space all the way from gaming PCs to laptops. Windows boasts more than 70% of the desktop computer market share followed by Apple's ~15%.

For years, Linux has stayed around 1-3% of the desktop market share simply because most of the people used Windows and because of that most developers wrote their programs for the Windows platform.

Windows is the de-facto operating system that is pre-installed on a large number of Desktop computers sold in the entire world - that includes Desktop PCs for home-use, office-use and at the enterprise level.

In the rest of this article, when I use the word "Linux", I mean Linux-based operating systems like Ubuntu, Fedora, and the likes.

Why Linux Isn’t Popular?

You might think that a free operating system would mean that it would be more popular not only among the people but also among the companies because they wouldn't have to pay for expensive licenses just like they have to do for Microsoft Windows.

But the problem is that Linux, especially Desktop Linux, has had a long list of issues for quite some time. For a long time, Desktop Linux just wasn't usable for your average Bashir, simply because most of the apps were just not available for Linux.

Because of the popularity (or total domination) of Windows in the PC space, developers have always favored writing their programs for Windows for a wider user-appeal. For Linux that meant a significantly smaller base of available software to choose from.

Operating systems just provide you a complete environment to run the software you want and if your operating system doesn't support the software you want to run then it doesn't mean anything to you as an end-user.

One big reason was that Linux for a long time has struggled with a myriad of issues such as driver incompatibility issues, graphical issues, etc. The open-source nature of Linux means that there isn't a centralized authority mandating how to make an OS.

Linux doesn't have a single authority telling people how they should make their operating systems. This means that we have hundreds (yes hundreds) of flavors of Linux. As a new user, choosing your flavor of Linux is overwhelming.

Because of these issues it is a meme that every year Linux users hope that this year is going to be the year when finally Linux becomes a mainstream operating system.

SteamDeck’s Impact

If you were using Linux as a Desktop OS a decade ago, you could hardly have a smooth and intuitive graphical experience. Most mainstream distros still struggled with drivers and graphical applications. Installing simple applications was another issue.

Gaming has always been the pain-point for Linux as games straight up didn't work on Linux because they were never made for Linux in mind. The Linux user-base is too small for game developers to shift their focus and resources to.

Running games on a platform that they were never officially made for was a huge challenge that was solved for the first time by Valve though launch of the Steam Deck.

Building upon the open-source technologies, Valve spent a lot of time and effort into making Gaming on Linux a reality and it has succeeded in a big way. The Proton Compatibility Layer was the missing piece of the puzzle that started the conversation that maybe gaming on Linux is not just a dream.

Because of the SteamDeck, a number of other open-source projects have spawned, aimed to make gaming on Linux a possibility. Some developers have also started to work with Valve to make their games work on Linux instead of porting them completely.

Microsoft Shooting Its Own Foot

While Linux was growing in popularity, Microsoft was busy shooting itself in the foot with a bunch of unpopular decisions that frustrated many at large largely related to Windows 11.

Below, I'm discussing some of the major events that happened recently:

Windows 11 & Its Requirements

Windows 11 hasn't been as generously accepted as the previous version and there are multiple reasons for it. The first reason being the minimum requirements that listed the presence of a TPM 2.0 chip and Secure Boot Support. This left a large number of machines simply incompatible with Windows 11.

Moreover the UI overhaul is largely confusing like the refreshed settings menu and the legacy control menu co-existing and performing many of the same functions. The additional 'content menu' that appears when you right click is certainly something I really despise myself.

Some people also don't like that Microsoft centered the task bar and didn't allow an easy option to move it back to its original position like it has been for the previous generations of Windows.

Recall, AI & User Trust

The controversial release of Microsoft Recall, a feature in Windows 11 that would automatically take screenshots of whatever you're doing on your computer to create a 'photographic' memory was the first step in losing user trust.

Most of the people had negative reviews about Recall at launch with security researchers sharing concern over the feature. That is why Microsoft had to go back to the drawing board and come up with a fully opt-in version of Recall, but the trust was already damaged.

A lot of Windows users aren't comfortable using Windows 11 because of its increased introduction of AI services like in the Search Bar, or in the shape of Co Pilot. All of this turned into a huge push-back for Microsoft with users trying other alternatives.

CrowdStrike Outage

The 2023 CrowdStrike Outage where companies simply had their computers show the infamous 'Blue Screen of Death' was a serious wake-up call to how a monopoly of a single operating system could really impact our lives when things don't go as planned.

From airlines to hospitals and banks, having the Blue Screen of Death rendered many of the computers dysfunctional unless each computer was manually reconfigured.

Although the issue was largely because of CrowdStrike, many call out Microsoft for not cutting access to the kernel like Apple has done to MacOS. Although Microsoft has since been working on limiting access to the kernel so such events don't resurface.

The Influence of Influencers

This year, the biggest push to Linux came from the influencers. Internet celebrities like PewDiePie took the Linux conversation to the mainstream. Linux influencers were already there but they were too small to ever count but this time it was mainstream influencers openly embracing Linux.

General tech-focused youtubers and streamers like the Primeagen also took note and publicly experimented with Linux with many of them completely using Linux as their daily driver. This mainstream interest has started shaping the public perception.

For a long time, Linux has had a perception problem where it was confined to a really small group of highly technical people who weren't that welcoming to newcomers. But this time, it wasn't just youtubers and influencers talking about Linux.

The mainstream influencers not only ignited interest into Linux for many but gave them the comfort to explore and experiment. Many came to realize that they don't need to be a Phd in Computer Science to run Linux on their computers.

Tech-focused business people also openly advocated for Linux. People like David Heinemeier Hansson shifted their daily driver operating system to Linux and moved away from AWS to their own Linux-based servers for their company 37 Signals.

The Politicizing of Tech

The global political climate is in a state of upheaval with superpowers like the US in a state of confusion. It's sad to see the politicization of tech but it is the reality we live in. Tech was among the very few things that weren't politicized (or certainly not at a large degree) but that seems to be changing.

The US allies aren't happy with companies like Microsoft that can cut access to emails of people like the Chief of the International Court of Justice over an executive-order by the President.

Concerns over digital sovereignty are also another reason why governments are moving more of their digital infrastructure to open-source technologies like Linux from big corporations that are moments away from cutting you off.

We're increasingly seeing companies build their own bare-metal servers and move their assets off big cloud providers like Azure, AWS and the likes for the simple reason of being in control of their data.

For companies and governments, Linux provides them control, sovereignty and cost savings compared to the big cloud providers charging them for every gigabyte of ingress and egress to the cloud-data centers that those governments have virtually no control over.

If you're interested in this push to open-source at an international level, I'm going to cover this topic in detail in one of my upcoming articles.

The Snowball Effect

Linux has been around for more than three decades. This revolutionary piece of software has powered the world without asking for anything in return. But 2025 has been one of those rare years where Linux itself has come to the spotlight among the public.

The rise of Linux to mainstream conversation wasn't some carefully crafted marketing campaign by a billion dollar company trying to increase profits. It was simply missteps by the former and some great steps by smaller companies like Valve who were fed up by a monopoly.

The open-source nature of Linux means that success for Linux is in fact success for us all. As more companies and governments work to make Linux better, it would directly benefit us all because all the code is public for anyone to improve or build upon. And as more companies start using Linux, spot its problems, contribute fixes to it.

Future of Open Source Tech

It took a multitude of factors to make Linux a mainstream conversation this year; from geopolitics and fears of insecurity among governments and companies, to frustration of the smaller public with monopolies getting too complacent and overboard with their powers.

It took decades for Linux to be usable and for its software ecosystem to get to a mature state for the general public. Wine was released back in 1993 and it took years for Valve to get Proton Compatibility Layer to a usable state. Proton layer is a fork of the open-source Wine.

This shift looks like a perfect domino sequence that is sudden but actually this has been a quiet revolution that had been brewing for some time. And the revolution hasn't died down, I'd argue in fact that it has just started with a long way ahead.

While 2025 may not be the year of Linux (yet) especially when it still hasn't gotten past the 5% market share in the desktop space, but that doesn't mean we don't have something to celebrate. The recent progress has been unprecedented judging by the past history of Linux adoption.

In the end, If things continue in favor of Linux, open-source tech and governments trying to stick up to the bullies, we can hope to see a world where tech is more fun, in our control, and less likely to be hit by an executive order by some president :)

So the question isn’t whether Linux will take over tomorrow. The real question is: will you be ready to take advantage when it does?