Let’s put it this way; when Microsoft announced its plans to start adding features to Windows 10 once again, despite the operating system’s inevitable demise in October 2025, everyone expected slightly different things to see ported over from Windows 11. Sadly, the latest addition to Windows 10 is one of the most annoying changes coming from Windows 11’s Start menu.
Earlier this year, Microsoft introduced a so-called “Account Manager” for Windows 11 that appears on the screen when you click your profile picture on the Start menu. Instead of just showing you buttons for logging out, locking your device or switching profiles, it displays Microsoft 365 ads. All the actually useful buttons are now hidden behind a three-dot submenu (apparently, my 43-inch display does not have enough space to accommodate them). Now, the “Account Manager” is coming to Windows 10 users.
The change was spotted in the latest Windows 10 preview builds from the Beta and Release Preview Channels. It works in the same way as Windows 11, and it is disabled by default for now because the submenu with sign-out and lock buttons does not work.
I think this supports his argument. Having to research desktop environments to decide which is optimized for the potential problems a new user may face, then finding a distro that packages that DE is quite frankly too much for the average user.
I’d argue between 3% and 5% of PC users are willing to research and experiment to find the flavor of Linux that truly works for them.
Linux has come a long way, I still remember using Gentoo as a daily driver and seeing Linux cross 1% of desktop share, but the average desktop user doesn’t know the difference between a kernel and a colonel, and they don’t want to.
Nah, completely wrong take.
Linux can be adapted to fit any use case you have, and that’s an important part of its flexibility. What you really are getting at is that mass producing a machine with an OS built into it is convenient for consumers. See Android phones or Steam decks for evidence of this convenience being important to the sale of Linux based devices.
In the not too distant future, windows will go out of fashion for the home desktop PC. Someone will sell a cheap and cool arm based PC with a decent distribution. It will be a slow win, nothing like what we saw from macOS.
Linux has 4% of the pc market. This is an all time high. The fact that you think linux is a threat in any meaningful way tells me that you’re either too stubborn or too stupid to see why linux as it stands today will never even reach 10% of the market ever, let alone become the dominant platform.
Windows could become a yearly subscription at $500 per year, and linux would struggle to reach 6%.
he was wrong but you are way overcompensating. if windows suddenly became exorbetantly expensive, most people would just stop using computers altogether (its already easy for many people live with just a phone no PC). The remaining computer users (not counting businesses) would be enthusiasts, who are much more likely to enjoy the tinkering of Linux, or put up with it to avoid exorbetant costs. so without even gaining anymore users, Linux’s desktop market share would shoot up.
to be clear I don’t think Linux Desktop taking over is imminant or “near future.” thats nuts, it will probably always be a niche for enthusiasts and thier families/friends. but its also not going to stay eternally at 2-4%, the user experience is constantly improving and encompassing more hardware.
I know several people who would switch over to Linux if Windows cost that much and it would be: everyone I know.
It’s a moot point, because the average user doesn’t install any OS on their system. They get people like us to install it for them.
They don’t generally solve their own Windows problems either. OEM is the real bulwark of of Windows dominance. Usability and familiarity is one aspect, but I’ve set a good few people up with Linux at this stage and very few of them know what a kernel is, or what Plasma/Gnome are, because they don’t need to (same way they didn’t know or care what NT was either).