I’ve spent years championing Linux as the only escape from Big Tech, but I’m starting to get twitchy.
While we’re distracted by the Steam Deck making Linux “mainstream,” the corporate players and politicians are busy building a digital cage. Between California’s AB-1043 mandates and Microsoft’s “Face Check” infrastructure, I’m worried we’re heading for a hard schism: “Sanitised Linux” vs the “Free Rebel” distros.
If the compliant, age-gated version becomes the industry standard, where does that leave the rest of us? Digital exile?
I’ve put some thoughts together on why the “Golden Cage” is closing in and why education, not mandates, is the only real fix.
I don’t think we’ll see a “year of Linux” per say, I think we’re not likely to see either a decade or generational shift to Linux.
I’ve been using Windows and Android all my life, so it’s what I got used to. I’m in my 30’s now and over the last year or so I’ve slowly been introducing myself to Mint Linux on my laptop for basic web browsing and Ubuntu Linux 24.04 on my home server for hosting my own data. In some ways it’s actually a lot easier than I thought it would be, but I’m still learning a new language.
On the one hand I considered myself pretty technically savvy, until I dove head first into Linux and quickly discovered how much I really didn’t know. On the other hand, I am learning as I go given enough repetition.