[Cialug] 10yr future of Linux and open source

[Andrew Denner]

I have been linuxing since 2003. Everything from debian, redhat, gentoo, one misguided attempt to do linux from scratch and for the most part I have settled on ubuntu mostly out of a bit of laziness. This also goes for mostly using the default desktop as long as the windows manager stays out of my way.

I am still a fan of xorg and am still waiting to see how this mess all turns out but expect it to be like all things I like in the end, I am almost always on the loosing end the more I like a technology stack.

I too have a mix of windows, linux, and Mac at home and a mix of linux and windows at work (sometimes you have to pick your corporate battles)

For the most part they are just entry points to my web browser, vs code, and a terminal anyway no matter what os or distro I am on anyway.

As for the future, I predict that with increases in computing power the laws of physics will eventually be a stopping point with Moore's law. Who knows quantum may actually play out and you will have a qpu as well as a GPU. As gpu processing power and ram increases as well as LLM tech continues to become more advanced, you will see more and more processing and "ai" shift back to the user's computer.
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From: Cialug <cialug-bounces at cialug.org> on behalf of Dan Ramaley <dan at ramaley.net>
Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2025 8:58 PM
To: Central Iowa Linux Users Group <cialug at cialug.org>; David Champion <dchamp1337 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Cialug] 10yr future of Linux and open source

Circa 1994 i started on Red Hat (before "Enterprise" got added to its
name). I think it was 1998 that i finally made Linux my primary machine
rather than a duel-boot or secondary machine. (Spelling of "duel" was
intentional--multiple OSes on the same hardware always end up fighting.)
Somewhere around that time is also when i switched to Debian, which i've
been on ever since. I did keep a Windows machine around for a few years,
but think i got rid of it maybe around 2004-ish? Not sure, might have
been earlier than that. Those last couple years i wasn't using it much,
i think i used it solely to run Eudora until eventually i migrated my
e-mail over to a Linux client.

To this day i use Debian for most things (desktops, laptops, servers,
media PC, whatever). Been using it at work since the 90s too. (When
interviewing for a new job, one of my standard questions is if i'm
allowed to choose my own desktop distro or if they've already chosen
something.)

I do keep a couple alternative OSes around at home though. I have
OpenBSD on my firewall. And i usually have some sort of Apple machine
running macOS, sometimes one i bought myself, sometimes one i got for
free. The current one is a Macbook Pro that's pushing 10 years old so
will have to be replaced soon. Laptops really aren't meant to run quite
that long, but if you're careful with them it is possible.

On 2025-08-29 22:27, David Champion wrote:
> Curious how many of you daily drive Linux desktop?
>
> For my personal use, I'm currently running mostly Ubuntu Studio distro, I
> like the look & feel of the default desktop, it's using KDE Plasma. It's a
> multi-media focused distro, I only use a few of those apps.
>
> Have been running Linux on my personal laptops for years. After getting a
> Steam Deck and seeing how well it works,  I built a new desktop last
> January and installed Ubuntu Studio and Steam, runs most games great,
> there's a few that have issues. Glad to be able to ditch Windows for my
> personal gaming laptop.
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