The Year of the Linux Desktop is finally here! Sort of. Well, not really but it's getting there and Discord has seen some nice improvements lately.
Don't come for me in the comments - I said what I said. The year is not here yet, I'll celebrate once we hit perhaps 10% of the desktop market share. At least according to Steam we're doing quite okay.
Anyway, what's up with Discord? Well, over the last few months they've been slowly upgrading the Linux version of their app to make it not suck so much. Back in December 2025 they improved Go Live video support to capture games directly along with the addition of hardware accelerated video encoding, in March 2026 they improved video calls for background replacement and in May 2026 they finally added an auto-updater instead of forcing people to re-download it each time.
There's a lot of smaller tweaks here and there like global hotkey support, improved Wayland support and more but those above are the main highlights.
To celebrate they did a silly little video, that's basically making a joke of themselves and how it took so long for the Linux app to get an updater:
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Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
About the author - Liam Dawe
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. You can follow me personally on Mastodon [External Link].
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16 comments
so much time and effort went into distro packages that could've been used to make the flatpak better😫
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Quoting: Stellaso much time and effort went into distro packages that could've been used to make the flatpak better😫🥰
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PlayingOnLinuxphone 11 hours ago
For some people year of Linux desktop is when it reaches 5%, for others 10% or 20% or when Windows has less market share. But all these numbers do not care. The science call a movement to become successfully, when they have around 3% ([3.5% to be exact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3.5%25_rule)), which we reached last year. And everything proves it. It became a public topic, more and more companies recognize Linux (as Discord) and jump on the hype train to benefit from it. Sorry to say, but the joke is over and everyone still not seeing it is just showing a random opinion without any facts why 10% or 20% is so special other than "is a great number to talk about".
It is kinda funny to see Discord jumping on the hype train, because the philosophy of Linux is everything against what Discord stands for. Privacy, Freedom, Free Knowledge - everything hurt very hard by Discord. I hope they earn the Big Brother Award 2026 to get a standpoint back from the Linux community.
It is kinda funny to see Discord jumping on the hype train, because the philosophy of Linux is everything against what Discord stands for. Privacy, Freedom, Free Knowledge - everything hurt very hard by Discord. I hope they earn the Big Brother Award 2026 to get a standpoint back from the Linux community.
7 Likes
The real joke is that the year of the Linux desktop was a long loooong time ago and people just missed it.
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hardpenguin 10 hours ago
I actually waited for some of these features for a long time so I am glad they are doing it
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mr-victory 10 hours ago
Quoting: EhvisThe real joke is that the year of the Linux desktop was a long loooong time ago and people just missed it.Yeah, 2022 if you ask me because steam deck launched
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Quoting: PlayingOnLinuxphoneFor some people year of Linux desktop is when it reaches 5%, for others 10% or 20% or when Windows has less market share. But all these numbers do not care. The science call a movement to become successfully, when they have around 3% ([3.5% to be exact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3.5%25_rule)), which we reached last year. And everything proves it. It became a public topic, more and more companies recognize Linux (as Discord) and jump on the hype train to benefit from it. Sorry to say, but the joke is over and everyone still not seeing it is just showing a random opinion without any facts why 10% or 20% is so special other than "is a great number to talk about".I don't know whether a rule of thumb from political science is that useful for market observation.
It is kinda funny to see Discord jumping on the hype train, because the philosophy of Linux is everything against what Discord stands for. Privacy, Freedom, Free Knowledge - everything hurt very hard by Discord. I hope they earn the Big Brother Award 2026 to get a standpoint back from the Linux community.
Also 5% is still relevant according to this rule according to Lichbach as stated in your wikipedia article.
It's where the Free-rider effect counters potential counter movements.
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PlayingOnLinuxphone 7 hours ago
Quoting: LoudTechieI don't know whether a rule of thumb from political science is that useful for market observation.Because it is actually also a political movement. The way complex tools are designed (that also counts for software) is always highly political, because it defines what people can or cannot do with it and how much they have to rely on this specific tool. Now many people decide to change the political paradigms in favor of more freedom, even if it also means not to be able to play everything. That is an actual political decision, if people do it in knowledge of it or not.
That would not apply between two companies (like Microsoft/Apple) where the tools are political pretty similar designed.
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My Vencord/Vesktop install works every time I open it now, so I might chalk that up to these little improvements over time. Good to see!
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Quoting: PlayingOnLinuxphoneOkay, that's a very convincing point.Quoting: LoudTechieI don't know whether a rule of thumb from political science is that useful for market observation.Because it is actually also a political movement. The way complex tools are designed (that also counts for software) is always highly political, because it defines what people can or cannot do with it and how much they have to rely on this specific tool. Now many people decide to change the political paradigms in favor of more freedom, even if it also means not to be able to play everything. That is an actual political decision, if people do it in knowledge of it or not.
That would not apply between two companies (like Microsoft/Apple) where the tools are political pretty similar designed.
I can even point to the political effects the movement started having around the 3.5% mark.
The EU utilizing it to evade American power, major influencers talking about it and special open source provisions in the DSA and DMA.
Edit:
It's also scary, since I want to design complex tools and not be thrown under the bus next revolution.
Last edited by LoudTechie on 13 May 2026 at 2:17 pm UTC
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PlayingOnLinuxphone 5 hours ago
Quoting: LoudTechieIt's also scary, since I want to design complex tools and not be thrown under the bus next revolution.Haha yes, that is also very true. But I think as long things are done with best will it is very unlikely. The revolution usually starts when something goes very very wrong.
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GustyGhost 4 hours ago
There is no The year of the Linux desktop.
There is only Your year of the Linux desktop.
And for me, that was 2014.
There is only Your year of the Linux desktop.
And for me, that was 2014.
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Caldathras 3 hours ago
Quoting: GustyGhostThere is no The year of the Linux desktop.Good point. Mine was 2014 as well. That's when I discovered that Linux was good enough as a daily driver that I didn't need to go back to Windows.
There is only Your year of the Linux desktop.
And for me, that was 2014.
Last edited by Caldathras on 13 May 2026 at 5:51 pm UTC
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PlayingOnLinuxphone 3 hours ago
Quoting: GustyGhostThere is no The year of the Linux desktop.Mine was 2015 (PC) and 2023 (PPC - pocketcomputer). Still speaking about 2025 as year of Linux desktop - you see, I don't argue with my personal situation. ;-]
There is only Your year of the Linux desktop.
And for me, that was 2014.
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My year of the Linux desktop was somewhere around 2000, I can't remember exactly. The Linux desktop sucked really hard back then, but so did Windows 98, so.
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Philadelphus 20 minutes ago
Well, there are at least [two](https://www.pcgamer.com/software/linux/im-brave-enough-to-say-it-linux-is-good-now-and-if-you-want-to-feel-like-you-actually-own-your-pc-make-2026-the-year-of-linux-on-your-desktop/) [editors](https://www.pcgamer.com/software/linux/ive-spent-30-years-with-microsoft-but-linux-and-pop-os-might-have-converted-me/) at PC Gamer who've switched in the last five months alone, so who knows where we're going? 🙂
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