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/ [] Skip to main content (*) ( ) Open menu Close main menu PC Gamer PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES US Edition flag of US UK EditionUK US EditionUS CA EditionCanada AU EditionAustralia Subscribe Sign in * * View Profile * Sign out [ ] Search Search PC Gamer [ ] * * Games * Hardware * News * Reviews * Guides * Video * Forum * More + PC Gaming Show + Software + Movies & TV + Codes + Coupons + Magazine + Newsletter + Affiliate links + Meet the team + Community guidelines + About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine Subscription PC Gamer Magazine Subscription Why subscribe? * Subscribe to the world's #1 PC gaming mag * Try a single issue or save on a subscription * Issues delivered straight to your door or device From$32.49 Subscribe now Don't miss these A lone King Penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) adult surrounded by chicks covered in brown down feathers, South Georgia Island Linux 2025 might have been the year for Linux gaming, but there's still a way to go until I switch from Windows Two DDR5 RAM modules lit up in pink inside a gaming PC Hardware PC gaming has a pricing problem, and the memory crisis is compounding it in a way that's utterly heartbreaking for our hobby Jacob holding the future in his hands. Hardware Last year I predicted all three of Valve's announcements so now I reckon I have the ability to speak these 2026 prophecies into reality Razer Blade 14 gaming laptop with a personal pick 2025 badge overlaid on the image Gaming Laptops Razer's little Blade has been my ride-or-die throughout the year and is my absolute favourite gaming laptop of 2025 peak Games 'Friendslop' dominated 2025 by proving time and time again that graphics are overrated Satya Nadella sits between Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos looking awkward Gaming Industry Microsoft's year of shame Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge in black and white with a controller in the foreground Processors PC gaming on Arm chips didn't quite happen in 2025, but the die is cast for an epic battle with x86 CPUs in the next few years Shuhei Yoshida Games AI, Crysis, lusty argonians, and pinball: These are our most-read news stories of 2025 Battlefield 6 beta queues, errors, issues: Soldiers running away from a collapsing building. Hardware Three shining examples of brilliant PC game development in 2025 Selection of graphics cards on a pink background Graphics Cards Well, this year's graphics card launches were a right shitshow, eh? Taito's Time Gal anime art cover Games I played dozens of retro games this year, and these are the ones I still whole-heartedly recommend going into 2026 Valve's new Steam Machine during a visit to Valve HQ in Bellevue, Washington. The Steam Machine is a compact living room gaming PC. Gaming PCs Valve's new Steam Machine is a SteamOS-powered mini PC over six times faster than a Steam Deck Inzoi - A Zoi made to look like Timothee Chalamet holding a money gun and surrounded by falling money Games It's more important than ever to call out developers for egregious AI usage next year if we want videogames to remain interesting PCs on a desk with the Ask PC Gamer icon Gaming PCs Five things I always tell people before they buy a new gaming PC Hands-on with Valve's new VR headset, the Steam Frame, during an interview at Valve HQ in Bellevue, Washington. VR Hardware Valve is all over Arm: SteamOS launching for Arm alongside the Steam Frame, new FEX translation layer for x86 and Arm, and Arm games are coming to Steam Popular * GOTY Awards * Fallout Season 2 * Best PC gear * Arc Raiders * Quizzes 1. Software 2. Operating Systems 3. Linux I'm 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 Features By Joshua Wolens published 1 January 2026 Now if you don't mind I'm going to delete the root folder and see what happens. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's how it works. Linux Designer Linus Torvalds - stock photo. Linus Torvalds was the designer of the open-source operating system Linux. (Image credit: Jim Sugar via Getty Images) Share Share by: * Copy link * Facebook * X * Whatsapp * Reddit * Pinterest * Flipboard Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google I'm all-in, baby. I'm committed. If upgrading any distinct component of my PC didn't require me taking out a loan right now, I'd be seriously considering switching my GPU over to some kind of AMD thing just to make my life slightly, slightly easier. I've had it with Windows and ascended to the sunlit uplands of Linux, where the trees heave with open-source fruits and men with large beards grep things with their minds. The Convergence wallpaper as used in the Linux-based gaming OS, Bazzite It's really hard to find interesting screenshots that represent Linux, okay? (Image credit: Bazzite) I'm not alone. In last month's Steam hardware survey, the number of Linux users hit a new all-time high for the second month running, reaching the heady summit of a whopping, ah, 3.2% of overall Steam users. Hey, we're beating Mac players. Related articles * A lone King Penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) adult surrounded by chicks covered in brown down feathers, South Georgia Island 2025 might have been the year for Linux gaming, but there's still a way to go until I switch from Windows * Emoji hands waving goodbye to the Windows 10 wallpaper The Windows 10 era is over and with it, the last time I felt my PC was truly my own * Xbox app home screen Microsoft wants to make Windows 'the best place to game--no matter where you play' but Linux and Valve's SteamOS have other ideas I think that number will only grow as the new year goes by. More and more of us are getting sick of Windows, sure--the AI guff, the constant upselling on Office subs, the middle taskbar*--but also, all my experience goofing about with Linux this year has dispelled a lot of the, frankly, erroneous ideas I had about it. It's really not hard! Really! I know Linux guys have been saying this for three decades, but it's true now! Goated with the open source (sorry) As I've already written about, the bulk of my Linux-futzing time this year has been spent in Bazzite, a distro tailor-made for gaming and also tailor-made to stop idiots (me) from doing something likely to detonate their boot drive. Peering down the sights of a rifle. Hunt: Showdown running on Bazzite. (Image credit: Crytek) I grew up thinking of Linux as 'the command-line OS that lets you delete your bootloader' and, well, I suppose that's not untrue, but I've been consistently impressed at how simple Bazzite has been to run on my PC, even with my persnickety Nvidia GPU. Everything I've played this year has been as easy--if not easier--to run on a free OS put together by a gaggle of passionate nerds as it is on Windows, the OS made by one of the most valuable corporations on planet Earth. I've never had to dip into the command line (which is, to be frank, a shame, as the command line is objectively cool). The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. [ ][ ]Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands[ ]Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors[Sign me up] By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. But to be honest, it's not as if the Bazzite team has miraculously made Linux pleasant to use after decades of it seeming difficult and esoteric to normie computer users. I think mainstream Linux distros are just, well, sort of good now. Apart from my gaming PC, I also have an old laptop converted into a media server that lives underneath my television. It runs Debian 13 (which I updated to from Debian 12 earlier in the year) and requires essentially zero input from me at all. What's more, the only software I have on there is software I actually want on there. Oh for a version of Windows that let me do something as zany as, I don't know, uninstall Edge. Installing Age of Empires on Linux. Hell yeah. That's the true nub of it, I think. The stats can say what they like (and they do! We've all heard tales of Windows games actually running better on Linux via Valve's Proton compatibility layer), but the heart of my fatigue with Windows is that, for every new worthless AI gadget Microsoft crams into it and for every time the OS inexplicably boots to a white screen and implores me to "finish setting up" my PC with an Office 365 subscription, the real problem is a feeling that my computer isn't mine, that I am somehow renting this thing I put together with my own two hands from an AI corporation in Redmond. Related articles * A lone King Penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) adult surrounded by chicks covered in brown down feathers, South Georgia Island 2025 might have been the year for Linux gaming, but there's still a way to go until I switch from Windows * Emoji hands waving goodbye to the Windows 10 wallpaper The Windows 10 era is over and with it, the last time I felt my PC was truly my own * Xbox app home screen Microsoft wants to make Windows 'the best place to game--no matter where you play' but Linux and Valve's SteamOS have other ideas That's fine for consoles. Indeed, part of the whole pitch of an Xbox or PlayStation is the notion that you are handing off a lot of responsibility for your device to Sony and Microsoft's teams of techs, but my PC? That I built? Get your grubby mitts off it. Baldur's Gate 3 protagonist handles magical polyhedron. BG3 running in Bazzite. (Image credit: Larian) Are there issues? Sure. HDR's still a crapshoot (plus ca change) and, as you've no doubt heard, a lot of live-service games have anticheat software that won't play with Linux. But I think both of these issues are gradually ticking toward their solutions, particularly with Valve making its own push into the living room. So I say make 2026 the year you give Linux a try, if you haven't already. At the very least, you can stick it on a separate boot drive and have a noodle about with it. I suspect you'll find the open (source) water is a lot more hospitable than you might think. *I'm actually fine with the middle taskbar. I'm sorry. 2026 GamesBest PC gamesFree PC gamesBest FPS gamesBest RPGsBest co-op games 2026 Games: This year's upcoming games Best PC games: Our all-time favorites Free PC games: Freebie fest Best FPS games: Finest gunplay Best RPGs: Grand adventures Best co-op games: Better together Joshua Wolens Joshua Wolens Social Links Navigation News Writer One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War. Show More Comments You must confirm your public display name before commenting Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name. Logout Read more A lone King Penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) adult surrounded by chicks covered in brown down feathers, South Georgia Island 2025 might have been the year for Linux gaming, but there's still a way to go until I switch from Windows Emoji hands waving goodbye to the Windows 10 wallpaper The Windows 10 era is over and with it, the last time I felt my PC was truly my own Xbox app home screen Microsoft wants to make Windows 'the best place to game--no matter where you play' but Linux and Valve's SteamOS have other ideas The Steam Deck alongside Valve's three new products: the Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and Steam Controller. We should all just take a moment to appreciate Valve announcing new Steam hardware in 2025 and NOT ONCE MENTIONING AI Valve's new Steam Machine during a visit to Valve HQ in Bellevue, Washington. The Steam Machine is a compact living room gaming PC. I reported on the failure of Valve's first Steam Machines 8 years ago--this time I think they have it right Hands-on with Valve's new VR headset, the Steam Frame, during an interview at Valve HQ in Bellevue, Washington. Valve just quietly redefined what PC gaming can be all while an increasingly delusional Microsoft desperately tries to tell everyone their PC is an Xbox now Latest in Linux A lone King Penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) adult surrounded by chicks covered in brown down feathers, South Georgia Island 2025 might have been the year for Linux gaming, but there's still a way to go until I switch from Windows Lenovo Legion Go S with SteamOS installed showing an update screen Linux almost turned my Gamescom trip into a catastrophic disaster, but a Windows USB came to my rescue The Convergence wallpaper as used in the Linux-based gaming OS, Bazzite Developers of Linux distro Fedora propose dropping 32-bit support entirely, but it's being claimed that the change 'would kill off projects like Bazzite entirely' A lone King Penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) adult surrounded by chicks covered in brown down feathers, South Georgia Island As support for Windows 10 counts down, End of 10 asks 'why not Linux? ' SteamOS on multiple handheld gaming PCs Linus Torvalds admits 'pure incompetence' for missing the new Linux 6.14 kernel deadline but all is forgiven as the update is great news for non-Windows gaming Valve Steam Deck OLED handheld PC Valve continues to improve the gaming performance of Linux open source drivers for AMD GPUs, as part of the Mesa project Latest in Features Path of Exile 2 Path of Exile 2's new druid class is the most fun you can have being a bear in a videogame right now Dr. Cahn from Abiotic Factor with a player behind him holding a spear It was a good year for survival crafting sickos, and I'll be playing some of these well into 2026 peak 'Friendslop' dominated 2025 by proving time and time again that graphics are overrated Battlefield Redsec Welcome to the FPS vibe shift Fortnite Simpsons season best drop spots and important POIs 2025 was Fortnite's most topsy-turvy year ever with soaring peaks, miserable lows, and a raging AI debate Doom Christmas mods Celebrate the holidays the way Saint Nick intended, by blasting through hordes of enemies in the best Christmas-themed FPS mods HARDWARE BUYING GUIDESLATEST GAME REVIEWS 1. 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