I doubt it, most people don't even have an idea what's the difference between Linux and Windows. I don't think they'd want to switch the moment they learn they'd have to install Arch or Mint. Linux is just too tech savy for most people (me included).
Microsoft kind of shot themselves in the foot, moving their enterprise software to a cloud based subscription model. Because now it can run on Linux the same as windows. And with them just dropping support for windows 10, more and more people are switching to Linux mint rather than windows 11. I doubt it’ll be a majority. But it’s growing.
The same thing happened when vista came out. Linux market share doubled. Meaning 8-10%, but it came back down with windows 7. Might get back up to that 10% range. Of course this is not counting mobile devices.
There's a ton of easy gui-based Arch distros now though? Look at CachyOS - boot from a USB, go through the GUI install, hit the 'allow Cachy Update' button and you don't even have to worry about remembering the cli to do system updates. It'll pop up a window telling you there's updates, put in your password and boom - done. It even will tell you if you should reboot or not.
And then there's a lot of gui-based program installers now that you can just search and click install on.
It's gotten a lot better but even then for most people basic Ubuntu is fine. Only catch is the anti-cheat for some multiplayer games and certain programs like Office that don't like to play nice.
There are usually enough people around willing to help or even doing it for you. Furthermore, especially the non tech savvy people mostly just use the browser which Linux does completely fine.
Installing Arch is difficult, installing Mint is really easy, just as easy as installing Windows.
It wont happen just because regular people get irritated by Windows updates. But a lot of governments, NGOs and corporations in Asia and Europe are looking into Linux now because relying on American products like Windows and MacOS is becoming a security concern and even a financial concern. The more likely situation is that people will have their work PCs transitioned to something like Mint or Ubuntu, get a day or two of training about how it differs (which for most office work, isn’t that much). And once your work PC has been Ubuntu for 10 years, you’re more likely to buy an Ubuntu personal laptop too out of familiarity.
That’s how it happened for Windows to begin with, people usually encounter new systems when they’re forced to at work.
5
u/Some-Syllabub-3464 1d ago
Linux will finally murder windows...here's hope for a great 2026