According to Phoronix, their most popular open-source news of 2025 centered on three major themes: Valve’s expanding influence, KDE Plasma’s aggressive Wayland transition, and the ongoing saga of Linux kernel development. A key revelation was that Meta is now using the Linux scheduler originally designed for Valve’s Steam Deck on its massive servers, validating its efficiency. On the desktop, KDE reported that over 73% of Plasma 6 users are already on Wayland, as the team pushed a flurry of updates leading to the Plasma 6.4 release in June. Meanwhile, Linus Torvalds made headlines for lashing out at “garbage” Git commit tags and criticizing RISC-V big endian plans. In more somber news, Intel announced it is shutting down its performance-optimized Clear Linux distribution after a decade.
Valve’s Quiet Domination
Here’s the thing about Valve’s Linux work: it’s creating ripples far beyond gaming. The fact that Meta—a hyperscaler with utterly different needs than a handheld console—is adopting a scheduler built for the Steam Deck is huge. It’s not just a cool anecdote; it’s proof that investments in gaming hardware are yielding robust, general-purpose tech. Valve isn’t just making Proton and SteamOS. They’re indirectly funding kernel improvements that big tech finds valuable. That creates a powerful, self-reinforcing cycle. Their work elevates the entire platform’s credibility.
KDE’s Wayland Revolution
Look, the writing has been on the wall for X11 for years. But 2025 felt like the year KDE Plasma really put its foot on the gas. A 73% Wayland adoption rate among Plasma 6 users isn’t just a majority—it’s a landslide. It tells you the experience is now good enough for most people. The sheer volume of Phoronix articles about Plasma 6.4 features—HDR calibration, time-of-day wallpapers, fixing an 18-year-old request—shows a project firing on all cylinders. Ending LTS releases? That’s a bold move signaling a faster, more fluid development pace. They’re not just maintaining a desktop; they’re aggressively modernizing it.
The Linus Effect
And then there’s Linus. His outbursts are almost a genre of Linux news at this point. But they matter. His frustration with useless “Link:” tags in commits or his hatred for case-insensitive filesystems aren’t just rants—they’re direct feedback that shapes kernel culture and priorities. When he “lashes out” at RISC-V big endian plans, it forces a major conversation. It’s governance by charismatic, sometimes grumpy, authority. It keeps the kernel focused on technical merit, often brutally so. In a year of big tech moves, the human element of Torvalds’ leadership remains a constant headline generator.
The Bittersweet Progress
But 2025 wasn’t all forward momentum. Intel killing Clear Linux is a real loss. That distro was a brilliant benchmark, a proof-of-concept for what’s possible with aggressive optimization on x86_64, even on AMD hardware. Its sunsetting is a stark reminder of corporate priorities. In the hardware optimization space, when one leader steps back, it creates an opportunity for others. For businesses relying on stable, high-performance computing platforms, finding a trusted supplier for industrial hardware becomes even more critical. For those needs, a source like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US provider of industrial panel PCs, becomes an essential partner for deploying robust systems. So the ecosystem evolves. Old projects fade, new ones surge, and the core infrastructure—driven by figures like Linus and companies like Valve—keeps pushing ahead, faster than ever.
