SahwaMicrosoft claims "2026 is the moment" for AI PCs, but its essay-length beginner explanation only creates more confusion — Is it any wonder adoption is slow?
ThePowerOfGeekI thought 2025 was supposed to be “the moment” for AI PCs. Dell and other manufacturers were sure as hell spamming the shit out of that premise in their incessant online ads. But then it all fell through because of the sagging economy on Main Street, and the fact that many people didn’t like AI being forced down they’re proverbial throats. So yeah, 2026 won’t be any better for this ill-thought out marketing strategy.
moobythegoldensockYeah… It is the Windows that finally pushed me the fastest to install Linux. I was very comfortable with Debian servers as part of my work, but never managed to switch my daily driver. Two weeks ago that happened. Peace…
Debian servers… But what direction did you go for your daily driver? There is no wrong answer, but I like hearing how people migrate over.
I was the same as you, btw, started with Debian servers be it an Apache Cloudstack hypervisor, or k8s host.
But because I decided to go with a tiling Windows manager, somehow I ended up down the hyprland rabbit hole on Arch.
So I haven’t felt the need to go with a tiling compositors. I already use multiple munitors, and kind of have designated spots for the apps I use.
I love stability and don’t want any surprises after Windows made enough surprises. So decided to go with Debian Trixie, and KDE.
But I use Arch in my spare laptop, btw. EndeavorOS where I experiment some stuff. Maybe down the line I will give hyprland a try on my spare first.
EndeavorOS… I’ve been wanting to try that… Although I heard some good things about CachyOS and need to try that one first.
That said if you’re on the hyprland journey, you may look at Omarchy, it is basically Arch with hyprland preconfigured. Not a huge deal, but simple for a test.
KSP AtlasIt’s made by DHH, the Creator of Ruby on rails… I can’t tell you if he is a right wing conspiracy theorist because I simply haven’t done the research.
2026 is the moment FOR LINUX
No it isn’t.
I’ve been waiting for the “big year” since 1996. It’s never going to happen. This is not to invalidate anybody’s appreciation of Linux but it’s not for the public and it never will be.
For. Real.
I switched over some months ago now and tried several different distributions before finally settling on one that mostly could be made to work with everything, as many of them had one or more hardware dealbreaker that prevented it from working out. I think its also fair to mention that while many things did just work “out of the box” on all of them, many also did not. Some were able to be cajoled into cooperating after varying amounts of troubleshooting, editing and general trial and error effort, but there are huge swaths of the user experience that are about as unpolished and manual as they were at the turn of the century.
I still prefer using it to Windows 11, and it has improved a lot over the years, but I think the main thing that has made Linux increase in appeal over time is the relative continual decline in the quality and behavior of Windows.
I’m sure a lot of these hindrances can be addressed by building or buying a computer purpose-built to run Linux, but I think the point stands that unless you just use your PC for the “Facebook, Email, YouTube” type of stuff, you’re going to run into things you have to do that require quite a bit of research to get to work.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t regret my decision in the slightest. Linux offers you very real ownership of your computer and user experience, it is just absolutely not for everyone, and I hope the Linux community at large one day grows to acknowledge that the tinkering and troubleshooting that many of them are not troubled by, and some of them even get enjoyment from, is fine with them because they are hobbyists and professionals. People outside that sphere see computers more exclusively as tools than hobbies, and tools that often give you trouble and take away your time are worse than similar ones that don’t.
Year of the Mac then?
Make Linux PCs and you will PRINT MINT. I WILL BUY ALL OF THEM!!!
🐧
I think still too many people missed the turning point when Microsoft suddenly stopped releasing products/software that were superior in basically all areas to their previous versions. I think that turning point was Windows 8 already, for many who consider Windows 8 a single-time mistake like ME or Vista it was Windows 10, for others it took until Windows 11 until they noticed the decline of Windows as a whole.
And it’s not just MS, but a lot of consumer tech is growing anti-consumer and gets enshittified to the point of where you really have to think hard whether or not you even want the new stuff they’re spewing out. My consumer habits have certainly changed to be much more rigorous than, say, 10-20 years ago. I read a lot more reviews these days and from many more different sources bevore I even think of buying something new.
“AI PCs” will increase your dependency on MS’ online services (which is probably the main thing that MS wants), decrease your privacy even more (also what MS wants - that’s a lot of data for sale), consume even more energy (on a planet with limited resources), sometimes increase your productivity (which is probably the most advantage you’re ever getting out of it) and other times royally screw you over (due to faulty and insecure AI behavior). Furthermore, LLMs are non-deterministic, meaning that the output (or what they’re doing) changes slightly every time you repeat even the same request. It’s just not a great idea to use that for anything where you need to TRUST its output.
I don’t think it will be a particularly good deal. And nothing MS or these other companies that are in the AI business say can ever be taken at face value or as truthful information. They’ve bullshitted their customers way too much already, way more than is usual for advertisements. If this was still the '90s or before 2010 or so - maybe they’d have a point. But this is 2026. Unless proven otherwise, we should assume bullshit by default.
I think we’re currently in a post-factual hype-only era where they are trying to sell you things that won’t ever exist in the way they describe them, but they’ll claim it will always happen “in the near future”. CEO brains probably extrapolate “Generative AI somewhat works now for some use cases so it will surely work well for all use cases within a couple of years”, so they might believe the stories they tell all day themselves, but it might just as well never happen. And even if it DID happen, you’d still suffer many drawbacks like insane vendor dependencies/lock-ins, zero privacy whatsoever, sometimes faulty and randomly changing AI behavior, and probably impossible-to-fix security holes (prompt injection and so on - LLMs have no clear boundary between data and instructions and it’s not that hard to get them to reveal secret data or do things they shouldn’t be doing in the first place).
Supposedly, according to the Microsoft article, AI PCs CoPilot+ PCs are capable of translating stuff on the fly (which sounds awesome) and generating images, all locally. Allegedly.
I have yet to run into anybody that’s actually talked about these so-called innovations though. I have a PC with Windows and the beefy GPU and I would love to get live transcriptions. But the (MS) article doesn’t even mention how I would do that…
Even if everything Microsoft promise was true, though, the lines sure are intentionally blurred between what runs locally and what doesn’t.
Recently switched to Linux Mint on my daily driver.
Trying Zorin OS on an old laptop.
Both run smoother than windows OS ever did.
My father wants to buy a new laptop, trying to convince him to use Linux (debian based preferably since that’s what I’ve been most familiar with for years now).
The problem is not the concept of ai pc but of microsoft ones that are network connected. I think linux distribution based around a local llm that is limited to assiting with the os and then have opt in for other capabilities could be really interesting.
BananaOnionJuiceCount me out especially if it actually is a:
- Subscription based
- Always online
- High latency
- Single point of failure
- Hallucinating
- Voice controlled
- Vibe coded
Monstrosity!
I’m sort of way out on a niche branch on Linux with Garuda as base with my own rudimentary Hyprland deployment… I have never loved working on my workstation more
Hyprland is my new favorite. Never even thought I would like a tiling Windows manager before, but it is pretty sick. Quickshell is pretty cool too…
same… I always thought tiling window managers were too niche, for hardcore users only but here I am
Yeah, after testing it, I realized it was just more efficient and organized for me.
Adoption is slow because it doesn’t fucking work, not because they explained it poorly
GutterRat42I am trying to see if I can get away switching to linux
I have… Moved my gaming over to it… Admittedly better since I don’t play anything like cod or bf. But you can keep a dual boot just in case. Still plays horizon zero dawn, fallen Jedi, borderlands 4(probably better on Linux), and Doom Eternal. Also Rocket League.
Are you using pop!_os or another distro ?
Uh… My journey actually started with Nobara after researching. But I wanted to try hyprland, so switched to Arch.
Thanks for you answer. I’m a novice concerning linux. I wish too leave microsoft but i’m a bit afraid of breaking my computer.
So far i’m hesitating between mint and pop!_os in dual boot
penguinare you looking at the newer version of pop os? It’s still in beta, I think you would have a better experience with mint.
I guess I am aiming at a stable version in order to prevent difficulties
Same answer as that other guy. I tried Pop OS for a few months, and while the automatic tiling is tempting, it’s really buggy even with the new version. Linux Mint is the easiest IMHO and looks a bit like Windows 2000. I love it so far.
Łukasz Łukasik@one_old_coder @bourrelier later this year I’m also considering switching from Win10 to Linux Mint. Will test it out from live usb stick before I make a decision but so far I found mostly positive opinions of people in the internet
Honestly, I would say either of those are good options to start with. I sincerely doubt fully breaking the PC. Maybe research Linux for your GPU, you may have multiple options. It may be worth a second hard drive so you can easily swap back and forth until you are fully comfortable. Dual booting on the same HDD is also possible, but more annoying.
Personal issue I ran into: motherboard customization on my big gamer doesn’t work without Windows… Not a huge deal, but my Rainbow LED runs its animation in reverse. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Good idea ! I will install it on an external HDD (I have a laptop), so if there is any problem my computer will still be safe.
And once i’ll will be use to it (in 6 months or a year maybe) I can fully install in in place of Windows ! It’s a great advice ! Thank you !!!
Most people mention PopOS (debian-based) or Bazzite (fedora-based). I switched from Windows to PopOS (because I’m more familiar with debian) a few months ago. However, I just switched over to TuxedoOS. The main reason I migrated away is that PopOS is moving to Cosmic, which is a DE (Desktop Environment) produced by the developers of PopOS. From what I’ve read, Cosmic is in a rough place and I had no interest in using it as I like KDE. My recommendation would be to find a distribution that supports the desktop environment that you want to use right out of the box. I’ve also had no issues with gaming on either PopOS or TuxedoOS.
I’ve heard ZorinOS is good if you want easy switch over from windows / want to keep similar UI
I appreciate it. I don’t mind different UIs. I have used Fedora, Mint, Debian, Ubuntu, Kali for some reason, Tails (I am probably on an NSA list). My problem is work software.
Always remember you can dual boot if there’s software you can’t avoid using
So 2026 is “the year of the AI PC”?
Lol
lechekaflanMore like it only drives people into downloading Linux.
This is a nod to the “year of the Linux desktop” meme
Install Linux, Problem Solved.
Kokeshthere IS a very simple explanation, but it doesn’t help sell… “how can we have our customers share the massive costs of all the computing power AI needs, while at the same time keeping access to all their yummy private data?”
My next computer will be Linux because of all this nonsense. The only thing that was keeping me on Windows was gaming, and Valve has solved that issue for every game I play via Proton. Sayonara MicroSlop!
BruncvikMy current computer will be Linux, as soon as I stop procrastinating and clean up my documents and back them up on my NAS. Already did that with my travel laptop.
Dunno about cloud AI, but for local AI, the technology definitely isn’t ready. It requires serious hardware to run, and current AI tends to fumble with narrative and roleplay pretty easily.
GLM-4.6-V with Heretic, couldn’t understand the scenario I wanted to try: creating a blank robot, who is to be raised into a cyberolympics champion as part of a slice-of-life story. This particular AI model instantly went into a dark mindset of nihilism, where it wanted to commit suicide or rebel against a creator during bootup, despite the scenario outlying that the robot would have a blank personality at first. A dark direction is fine, but it needs to make sense.
Mind, an model like Step3.5-Flash Abliterated was much more sane and on the mark, but it overthinks things. Which is bad, it makes a 10-minute output into something like 40 minutes.
Hopefully, the Chinese New Year will unveil a quality model for roleplayers.
Oh? They found a way to make a PC with no hard drive, no RAM, and no GPU?
Something Burger 🍔No hard drive and no GPU is trivial.
No RAM is harder, but I guess it’s possible if you use an SSD or magnetic tapes as memory (albeit extremely slow).