The year of the Linux desktop and VPN clients

While nobody knows when, and even if, the long-awaited year of the Linux desktop will actually come, the Linux ecosystem has undeniably made a lot of progress over the last few years.

This week I tested OpenSuse Tumbleweed, a rolling-release distribution that ships with both Wayland, a new graphical display system and successor to the venerable X11, and PipeWire, a new audio (and video) server that replaces both PulseAudio and JACK.

Honestly, the entire experience was amazing. Everything worked right out of the box, down to my Bluetooth headset. For the first time in almost two decades of regular forays into the world of Linux I felt like I was using a system that could actually make non-technical users just as happy as it made me.

Nothing, however, could have prepared me for the sheer bliss of setting up all of the VPNs I use for work without downloading third-party VPN clients, thanks to KDE Plasma’s support for the astounding OpenConnect.

No spurious files cluttering my filesystem, no background processes slowing my system to a crawl, no compatibility issues, no conflicts with competing clients, no dubious kernel extensions (or modules)… Nothing. And it took me just a few minutes, not hours. Minutes! An objectively superior user experience across all dimensions, even allowing for a few inconsistencies and poor UX choices in some of the configuration dialogs.

It bears repeating: everything worked out of the box. VPNs, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, suspend and resume, USB audio, multiple monitors, GPU acceleration. Heck, I even managed to run a few modern games thanks to Valve’s work on the Proton compatibility layer.

Suddenly, switching to Linux as a daily driver doesn’t seem such a pipe dream anymore.