What will the year 2025 bring for Linux PCs?

The year ahead has a lot in store for Linux users. Many of the trends, hardware products, and software developments below comprise a colorful mix that focuses on the use of Linux in particular. We also include other current and future events in hardware and software that will influence or characterize everyday IT life — Linux or otherwise. The upshot is that Linux users will see a lot of change on the horizon.

Raspberry Pi: Quo vadis?

Raspberry Pi Foundation

Since the Raspberry Pi Foundation went public in mid-2024, the future of the successful board computer has been quite uncertain. The share price has been volatile since then, but has held up reasonably well overall. The fresh millions on the stock market open up opportunities for technical innovations for the mini-computer, but on the other hand the project is moving away from its non-profit origins.

Nothing concrete is currently known about future models, but prices will be higher than before. The continued production and stocking of older models, as was previously the case, could also fall victim to profit maximization.

See also: 10 surprisingly practical Raspberry Pi projects anybody can do

Wayland is coming – slowly

The Gnome 47 and KDE Plasma 6 desktops are forcing the switch to the Wayland display protocol by setting Wayland as the standard despite some remaining detail problems. Most Linux distributions with these desktops (Fedora, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, KDE Neon, Endeavour, et cetera) will follow this specification in 2025.

The fact remains, however, that apart from Gnome and KDE, only the niche desktop Enlightenment (current version E20) is aggressively pushing for Wayland.

The Gnome-like Budgie desktop, as well as Cinnamon (Linux Mint) and Mate, still offer Wayland as an “experimental” option. XFCE (announced for the upcoming version 4.20) and LXQT are just starting their Wayland conversion.

Linux Mint

The replacement of the old X11 window system will obviously continue well beyond 2025. This is a stumbling block, not least because every Wayland operation currently still has to drag along the Xwayland mediation layer in order to be able to display older X11 windows.

The current Gnome 47 is the first Linux desktop that is at least technically prepared to completely dispense with Xwayland in the future.

Debian 13 (‘Trixie’)

Debian

A new Debian version is released approximately every two years. After version 12 “Bookworm,” which was released in 2023, Debian 13 (“Trixie”) is due in 2025. With Debian “Forky,” the name for version 14 has already been decided.

Debian 13 will continue to offer a variant for 32-bit processors, but no longer for very old i386 CPUs, but at least from i686 onwards. i686 CPUs are also ancient processors such as Pentium Pro, Pentium II, Pentium III, and some early Pentium 4 models.

The oldest of these CPUs are over 25 years old and date back to the 20th century. Regardless of Debian’s 32-bit continuity, the recycling of such oldies is usually unsatisfactory.

New Debian is always immensely important because many derivatives are based on Debian and must also be updated as a result — such as Antix, Bunsenlabs, Kanotix, MX Linux, Linux Mint Debian, Ope Media Vault, Pi-OS, Rescuezilla, Sparky, Q4-OS, Tails, and many more (Ubuntus!).

EOL: Ubuntu 20.04 expires

Ubuntu

After April 2025, there will be no more update support for Ubuntu 20.04, unless you have taken out the 10-year ESM (Expanded Security Maintenance) support with Ubuntu Pro. On devices with version 20.04, you will then either have to reinstall or make up for several upgrade stages.

A new installation with the current LTS version Ubuntu 24.04 is particularly recommended for systems that work as servers.

EOL: The end of Windows 10

After 14 October 2025, Microsoft will no longer offer free updates for Windows 10 and technical support will be discontinued (EOL, End of Life). As a simple upgrade to Windows 11 will fail for many laptops and PCs due to the high hardware requirements, a significant wave of users switching to Linux desktops can be expected over the course of the next year.

Last year’s Linux growth to a market share of around 4.5 percent is probably already linked to this Windows date. Unicon is launching the eLux operating system for companies. The system is designed to combine security, hardware flexibility, and performance. The download requires registration with an email address.

Anton Watman/Shutterstock.com

Experience has shown that Linux distributions are generally too fragmented to make concerted and aggressive use of the opportunities offered by the Windows runtime. Only some of the typical Windows detractors such as Linux Mint or Zorin-OS will refer to their Windows-like concepts and optimize them.

In addition, most tried-and-tested Linux desktops (mostly Debian/Ubuntu-based, in some cases also Arch-based) are also suitable as Windows 10 alternatives.

See also: 3 free Linux distros that look and feel like Windows

‘Immutable’ trend: Open Suse Leap 16

Open Suse Leap 16.0, the successor to Leap 15.6, is not expected until mid-2025 at the earliest. Version 16 aims to end the technical continuity with the previous Leap, but at least promises the possibility of a direct upgrade to Leap 16. If necessary, an interim version 15.7 will be added.

openSUSE

Open Suse Leap 16 will be an “immutable” Linux. Suse is developing its own Adaptable Linux Platform (ALP) architecture with a write-protected base system that increases security and stability.

The required software is to be provided by isolated containers — presumably flatpaks. With its focus on cloud systems and automated system management, Open Suse Leap 16 is likely to follow the trend of recent years. The Suse system is becoming increasingly uninteresting for the needs of a flexible end-user desktop.

The same applies to Fedora Workstation, which in the Silverblue “Immutable” version is signalling the path that Fedora generally wants to take. The security and maintenance advantages of the immutable concept are aimed at cloud and server instances and mainly have disadvantages on the desktop.

Linux concepts > la Nix-OS

Nix

It is perhaps not necessarily the Linux distribution Nix-OS itself, but its concept of “declarative configuration,” which probably has a great future ahead of it.

Nix-OS uses a central configuration file as a meta-level. This allows the entire system to be reproduced identically (e.g. for cloud and server instances), but can also be reset to previous system states (relevant for servers and desktops).

Package dependencies are avoided because — similar to container formats — software is always stored separately with all dependencies. The concept requires a lot of storage space and the adoption of completely customized methods for package installations and updates. Cloud providers a