The Win11 bloat problem

Reportedly Windows 11 is so bloated with the completely unnecessary or actually in-the-way AI bullshittery that people are leaving it behind in droves!

This has happened before.

Windows 8 was a failure of similar MS-stupidity when they first came up with the geniusatic bloat idea, but these current numbers… I doubt they were ever seen before.

Now…. some users are, yes, moving to Apple… buuuuuut…. many users… are moving to Linux for the first time EVER!

Reportedly… in December 2025ev, Linux Desktop hit 11% of global market share! These numbers represent nothing but an AAAAAASTRONOMICAL rise!!!

Now… let me remind you how it all went down

Linux server & headless Linux

In the server world, Linux has already won 2 decades ago. There’s nothing even remotely close to its market share. Linux server is simply a full blown benevolent dictator.. I mean… king. Linux is king. 😉 We’re not talking about that world.

We’re also not talking about headless Linux, that is, without graphical user interface, because the world is full of that as well. There’s a bunch of devices, like many phones, or TVs or media players or around IOT and even routers that run headless linux. We’re not talking about that.

We’re talking the last missing piece - the desktop! We’re talking…

Linux desktop switch?

Linux Desktop was always present, but always in the shadows of the mainstream, always in its ‘insignificant’ corner. To put it bluntly, nobody but the actual geeks cared it existed.

It was pretty much exclusively a high-geek/hacker/programmer kind of thing.

Just 2 years ago, the market share of Linux desktop was riding somewhere between 1 and 2 %, depending on how much that year Apple or Microsoft fcked something up… again. In the until-recently past, it would get a passing, very loud ex-Apple/ex-Microsoft ex-user who is ‘totally serious this time’ because he has ‘had it! Like totally ..and stuff’, but who would a month later very quietly realize Linux is just too much work and even more quietly switch back into a warm embrace of the mega corporation that has usually been taking good care of them. That last fckup was just … not such a big deal when you think about it. One thing seems to be a pattern here: The leaving is always very loud (and if possible, on video!), the return is always done quietly (and definitely solo). 🙂

From 5% to 12%…

Then. about 2 years ago. something definitive happened. Valve, the biggest game distributer (and therefore also the biggest on Windows) came up with a handheld gaming device. While that would be remarkable on its own, this gaming device was special. For it wasn’t build with the previously best gaming system in mind (aka Windows).. It was efing running LINUX!

That single device… took Linux desktop use to 5% within a fcking year! And 2024 … started to look much more promising to finally be the Year of Linux Desktop, which some people’s year prediction looks like since about 2005. (They’ve been doing this like clockwork for all this time and it never turns out to be true 😃 ).

Then.. the year 2025 came around.

And a bunch of things played a part in the same year, all of them contributing to the result mentioned above.

1) There was Valve’s release of their version of Arch Linux - for gamers.

2) There were a bunch of very interesting, very different and (for some at least) extremely useful and practical and fcking fast Linux distros born. Yes, including Omarchy - the one that took my own MiniPC to be a newly dedicated fulltime Linux Desktop computer for me.

3) This was the year when you could find tons of videos about ppl, gamers, hackers, DIY peeps and geeks in general playing with various Linux virtual machines… and finding out that they can actually run Linux as a Desktop machine and then on top of it run Windows with a virtual machine! You know… for jobs and stuff. Games on Linux desktop got to be so fine tuned last year that some of them managed tu run faster on Linux even though they were clearly all developed on and for Windows operating system!

4) Valve hit another one with the announcement of new devices that will also be running SteamOS - which is just Valve’s version of Arch Linux tuned for games again! and then….

5) Microsft decided to put a flower on top of this convergence of forces and decided it’s time for an auto-goal: October 30th 2025 was the last day when Microsoft still offered support for updates for Windows 10. Go to Windows 11, they said.

But it turns out… many ppl couldn’t even if they wanted to, because Windows 11 simply doesn’t run on older hardware anymore - by design!!! Now.. you can hack around that, but … it’s a fcking hack! So now a guy had two choices: either stay on Windows 10 and be increasingly exposed to security vulnerabilities because there will be no more updates, or somehow buy a new machine and go on Windows 11.

And this is where Microsoft hit a double whammy: in these conditions… they should have just played it safe and at least hold a visual ‘mask’ of Windows 10 on the new Win11. But noooo! Instead… they didn’t just do the Win8 thing by bloating it, they added MS’s pretty much useless AI … right into the operating system itself!

Oh.. and they fcked up with the classic: Paint. They fcked up Paint! How could they do that, you may ask???

Well.. they fcking changed EVERYTHING in user interface that stayed the same for 20 years and then … they put an AI in! 😃 😃 😃 It’ s unrecognizable and completely useless now 😃

Took a true master to do that bad of a job 😃

Fascinating really when you start thinking about how this plan came about and how this must have been developed 😃 😃 😃

Linux is mostly eating Microsoft’s share

So yeah.. I bet that 6% increase for Linux will pretty much show in the market as 6% decrease for Windows. Apple probably just stays about the same. They have their fans.. their little corner which looks massive on American level but not so large on global scale. But they didn’t fck up so badly. Not lately. 😃

The prediction

Now.. just like before some of the users will return to the warm hug of the mega-corp. But many wont. Because once you start getting it… once you switch the old mentality to linux way of things …you’re in. And you’ll probably start caring about stuff like privacy more.. care about security more… And yes.. you just might start caring about Free Libre Open Source world out there… And it’s fcking large out there (so don’t fck it up by wokefying more of it! Because those projects fcking die in short time afterwards! I speak from experience watching them self-destruct, some in months, others in a year or two! Never allow the original creators of the project to be shamed out of the project! NEVER! They fcking created the thing! And you wouldn’t be able to use it without their invention! So be fcking grateful for their work and stop snitching. End of rant!) ! And no. 😃 I’m not gonna predict the 2026 to be The year of the Linux 😃 😃 😃 Buuuuut….I’m gonna be bold today: I predict… I think …. I think ….we’re entering the 5-years-of-Linux-Desktop. 😉 I think that at the end of next 5 years the market share will be about the quarter. Microsoft first and later Apple also, will start to lose it in this space. Apple will continue to be a giant in ARM microprocessor architecture and that will be significant.. but dammit.. yo can now run Asahi Linux on Apple’s laptop as well - ‘Linux on Apple Silicon’ 😃 And I think this is the picture you’ll start seeing not just in Europe but in America as well.