8.5M views · Apr 26, 2025 · 22:53 · 1 HN recommender · 4 mentions · discussed 2025
PewDiePie describes switching to Linux and encourages viewers to do the same. It is a casual, enthusiastic video aimed at a mainstream audience.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN mentions it as a sign of Linux reaching millions of non-technical viewers, with some finding it funny and others fascinating.
“Try PewDiePie. around 6.7M people now know something like Linux and Hyprland exists”HN comment, 2025
“Try PewDiePie. around 6.7M people now know something like Linux and Hyprland exists”
Introduced millions of viewers to Linux and Hyprland
> maybe in part due to DHH promoting it a bit Try PewDiePie. around 6.7M people now know something like Linux and Hyprland exists, and that in 2025 it might even work better than MacOS or Windows and whatever desktop environments on Linux came before. this video
“leading to this[0] recent video from Pewdiepie...”
PewDiePie video on switching to Linux
Agreed. It's crazy how momentum can carry a business. To use a potentially controversial example, Microsoft products (Office, Windows) are still extremely entrenched despite the overwhelming majority of knowledgable people agreeing that they're on a steep downward trajectory and the alternatives have long since surpassed them.. leading to this[0] recent video from Pewdiepie... [0]: this video
“I watched that PewDiePie video[1] of him using Linux and I found it extremely funny”
PewDiePie enthusiastically promoting Linux freedom
>Actual businesspeople are pretty ruthless in getting people to using their product. Open source people aren't, by nature (except for Lennart Poettering) I watched that PewDiePie video[1] of him using Linux and I found it extremely funny that this guy was like "Linux is awesome! Freedom! (literal USA flag in the background) You are a god now!" and then every Linux-focused channel reacting to that video was like "yeah, you can play games, but not all of them. Yeah, it works, except... Yeah, you can customize but he will grow out of it when he needs to get work done..." Linux people are downers. It's like I was watching the second coming of Stallman selling to everyone the idea that you get to control what your computer does, unlike on Windows. You can customize it, you can optimize it yourself, you can remove everything and add anything. And that he had been having so much fun doing it. The man literally told his audience that everyone should use Linux so Linux gets better. While the people who should be promoting it the most insist that "Linux is not for everyone." It really feels like I peered into some sort of alternative reality in that video and it was really refreshing. And I think that's the problem with FLOSS, what FLOSS truly lacks. FLOSS tends to be merely "an alternative." It should be more than that. It should be freedom. It's absolutely ridiculous to me that I can change the font and color of the text of my post on Tumblr, a proprietary closed source social media,
“This was a fascinating thing to watch for me (pewdiepie telling people to install Linux)”
PewDiePie telling people to install Linux
> we could genuinely lose general purpose computing. > At the moment, anyone can use Linux; it's better and easier than ever. Maybe Linux will save us. This was a fascinating thing to watch for me (pewdiepie telling people to install Linux): this video My bet is that the momentum is strong enough that: - A critical mass of PC makers will continue to offer a Linux preinstalled option, or at least some path to installing Linux. - If Windows and macOS take more rights away, it'll just help Linux's market share. So Linux's share will probably grow not only because Linux is getting better but because the corpo OSes trying to take away general purpose computing
