Eh, the point is interesting, but I'm not sure it's not solvable. Beyond that, I'm quite hopeful at linux breaking out in a big way in the next couple of years via chromebooks. My theory is that we'll start seeing a hockey stick graph of ai-found/exploited windows zero days, and in response we'll see a dramatic acceleration adoption of chromebooks. Voila, YotLD.

I wish somebody would make a Polymarket bet out of this. I'm 100% with the author on this one

Codex's computer use came from OpenAI's acquisition of the Apple Shortcuts team, whose institutional knowledge allowed them to exploit all sorts of undocumented macOS APIs, not some virtuous accessibility* stack. With 99% of work happening on the web anyway, it IS fair to say that it's not the year of the Linux desktop, or any desktop, because the desktop doesn't need to exist at all.

*macos26 introduced a multitude of accessibility regressions that have real-world impact on humans with disabilities, let alone AI

I don't see why AI agents need to use the GUI very much? If anything, all the major advances with AI agents have been in CLI domains that Linux is perfectly well adapted to. Besides, surely AI agents could just contribute code allowing them to use Linux, no?

The object-level discussion is interesting, but I disagree with the premise to such an extent it feels like a moot point. It feels like the article doesn't play out the line to its logical conclusion.

Why would agents want GUIs made for humans? It's already the case that, like everyone who's good at computers, agents want a terminal and good APIs, not some ad-ridden crap.

If anything, AI is a reason why it will never be the year of the linux desktop but also it doesn't matter anymore, because if the higher-order bit of productivity is defined by AI, then my tmux+vim is as good as your Visual Studio.

It is always the year of the linux desktop.

It's been the year of the Linux desktop for a while. Someone has been sleeping under a rock.