Comment by ku1ik

Here's a copy of my Mastodon post [1] from Oct 2025:

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I had a job interview yesterday, which happened via Google Meet.

Even though I use my desktop Linux workstation and Firefox 99% of the time for everything, my first instinct was to do this interview on a MacBook and Chrome, to avoid surprises and not look unprofessional if something doesn't work, which has happened in the past. Last year, when I was asked to share the screen during a daily, I had to say "um, I'm sorry, Zoom and desktop sharing don't work on my system."

But I thought I'd first do a test on my workstation, just to see if maybe I shouldn't be concerned anymore. I was sceptical.

The ideal scenario was that on my standard GNOME 48 / Wayland / PipeWire desktop I'd be able to use Firefox for this call, and AirPods, a Logitech webcam, and desktop sharing (5K ultrawide scaled at 125%) would just work with no tweaks whatsoever.

And it did!

I've been using Linux on the desktop for over 20 years (on and off, but mostly on) and I know how to hold my Linux systems, but the situation with Bluetooth audio and desktop sharing in previous years has been... spotty. I was less worried about AirPods — I switched to PipeWire ~3 years ago and so I know Linux audio has been rock-solid and pretty much solved already. But desktop sharing used to be hit-or-miss, highly dependent on whether you used X11 or Wayland, further complicated by the use of Flatpaks.

Since my test went well, I did the interview on the desktop machine. It went smoothly, with no surprises.

Therefore, I announce 2025 as the Year of the Linux desktop :)

[1] https://hachyderm.io/@ku1ik/115388713511052943