Linux Runs the Internet. Here’s What It Asks of You.
Almost every website you visited today was served to you by Linux. As of July 2026, W3Techs measures Unix-family systems — overwhelmingly Linux — running 91.9% of websites, against 8.3% for Windows. The internet does not really run on Windows or macOS. It runs on this.
Which makes it a little odd that most people have never knowingly used it.
Linux has a reputation as the difficult option, the one for people who enjoy fighting their computer. That reputation is about fifteen years out of date for ordinary use — and simultaneously, it isn’t entirely wrong. Both things are true, and which one applies depends almost entirely on what you want from a computer.
Quick summary: Linux is powerful, stable and free, and it runs most of the internet. On the desktop it’s genuinely straightforward for browsing, documents and email. The trade is control: you get complete authority over your own machine, and the price is that some of it becomes your responsibility. If that sounds appealing rather than exhausting, it’s the best option available.
Free means something specific here
Nearly every version of Linux — a distribution, or distro, which is just a particular packaging of the system — costs nothing. Not a trial, not a limited edition. The whole thing.
What companies sell is support, and it’s worth understanding the distinction because it’s unusual. Ubuntu Pro is the clearest example: the subscription adds ten years of security patching across the wider software archive, rebootless kernel updates, and compliance tooling for organizations that need it. And Canonical states plainly that Ubuntu Pro “is and always will be free for personal use on up to 5 physical machines.”
So a home user gets the operating system free, and the enterprise-grade security program free as well, on up to five machines. The paying customers are banks and governments who need someone to phone at 3am. That’s the business model: the software is free, the accountability costs money.
The bargain: control, and what it costs
This is the part worth being honest about, because it’s where people either fall in love with Linux or bounce off it.
On Windows or macOS, decisions have been made for you. What the desktop looks like, when updates install, what runs at startup, what telemetry leaves the machine. Mostly those defaults are sensible, and mostly you never think about them — which is itself a feature.
Linux hands you the decisions. All of them. You choose the desktop environment, the update schedule, which components are installed, what runs and what doesn’t. Nothing is hidden and nothing is locked.
That is genuine freedom, and it is genuine work. Control means you have to do the controlling. You will occasionally need to understand something you’d never have thought about on Windows or a Mac — how a package is installed, why a driver isn’t loading, what a permission means. Not often, for ordinary use. But it happens, and when it does the answer is a forum post rather than a shop.
If that sounds like a burden, take that seriously — it’s a reasonable reaction and Linux may not be for you. If it sounds appealing, you’re the person this system was built for, and nothing else will satisfy you in the same way.
The best reason to try it: the computer you already own
There are a lot of working computers that Windows 11 refuses to accept. Microsoft’s requirements include TPM 2.0, a security chip missing from plenty of otherwise healthy machines built in the late 2010s. Those computers still switch on. They just can’t take the upgrade.
Linux has no such requirement, and a lighter desktop asks considerably less of the hardware. Linux Mint says of its Xfce edition that it “doesn’t support as many features as Cinnamon but it’s lighter on resource usage” — which is the polite way of saying it will happily run on a machine Windows has given up on.
In practice a ten-year-old laptop with a solid-state drive and a lightweight Linux desktop is a perfectly good machine for browsing, email, documents and video. Often it feels quicker than it did running the Windows version it shipped with, partly because there’s less running in the background and partly because nothing on it is trying to sell you anything.
That’s the strongest practical case for Linux, and it has nothing to do with ideology: it’s the difference between a working computer and electronic waste.
Which version to pick
| Distribution | Best for | Support window |
|---|---|---|
| Linux Mint | People coming from Windows. The layout is familiar and it makes very few demands. | Tracks Ubuntu LTS |
| Ubuntu LTS | The default recommendation. Largest community, so the answer to your problem already exists. | 5 years standard, 10 with free Pro |
| Fedora Workstation | People who want current software and don’t mind upgrading more often. | About 13 months per release |
For most people reading this: Linux Mint on an older machine, Ubuntu LTS on a newer one. The differences matter far less than the internet suggests, and you can change your mind later at no cost.
Try it without touching your computer
You can run a complete Linux desktop from a USB stick without installing anything or altering what’s already on the machine. Write the image to a drive, boot from it, and you get a working system to explore. Nothing is written to your hard disk. Remove the stick, restart, and your computer is exactly as it was.
Spend an evening in it. Open your webmail, watch something, edit a document, connect your printer. You’ll know within an hour whether this feels comfortable or irritating — and that hour tells you more than any amount of reading, this article included.
If it feels fine, install it on the old machine first. Not the one you need working tomorrow morning.
Tools worth knowing about once you’re in
A few things the existing Linux world does well that Windows and macOS charge for or don’t offer:
- Flathub and Flatpak — an app store that works across distributions, so software installs the same way regardless of which version you chose.
- Timeshift — system snapshots, so a bad update is undone in minutes rather than reinstalled around.
- KDE Connect and GSConnect — phone integration in the spirit of Phone Link or Continuity: notifications, file transfer, using the phone as a remote.
- Full-disk encryption and UFW, the simplified firewall — both built in, both free.
- ProtonDB — community reports on whether a specific game works, which is the practical answer to the gaming question above.
You choose between desktop environments too — GNOME is clean and opinionated, KDE Plasma is endlessly configurable. That choice is exactly the kind of thing that delights some people and exhausts others, which is this entire article in miniature.
What you’ll actually miss
An honest list, because most Linux writing skips this part.
Specific professional software. Adobe’s applications, Microsoft’s desktop Office, and various industry-specific tools don’t run natively. Web versions and alternatives exist and are often fine, but “often fine” is not the same as “the thing your colleague is sending you.”
Some games. Most single-player titles now run well through Steam’s compatibility layer. Competitive multiplayer games using kernel-level anti-cheat frequently don’t. That list changes in both directions, so check the specific games you play before switching rather than after.
Walking into a shop. There’s no counter to take it to. Support is documentation and forums — which are genuinely excellent, and genuinely not the same thing as handing your laptop to a person.
Occasional hardware fiddling. Printers, scanners and unusual peripherals mostly work now. Mostly. When something doesn’t, sorting it out is your job.
None of this makes Linux a bad choice. It makes it a specific one.
What I’d do
If you have an older computer sitting unused because Windows 11 wouldn’t take it, put Linux Mint on it. That’s the highest-value, lowest-risk experiment available in this whole subject — you’re not gambling anything, and the worst outcome is that you learn something about a machine you’d already written off.
If you’re curious but your only computer is the one you depend on, use the USB stick. An evening costs you nothing.
What I’d skip
Switching your main machine on principle before you’ve lived with it. Ideological enthusiasm is a poor reason to change the tool you work on every day — and it’s the fastest route to bouncing off Linux and telling everyone it wasn’t ready. Try it on hardware that doesn’t matter first. If it earns the promotion, give it one.
Linux runs the machines that run the internet, and it will run a laptop that Windows has declared obsolete. What it asks in return is that you accept responsibility for a system nobody else is managing on your behalf. For a lot of people that’s an unwelcome trade. For the people who want it, there’s nothing else quite like owning your computer outright.