Hello and welcome to Linux This Month. Happy  new year! It's 2022 and I'm excited about the   year ahead. Here are my predictions for Linux  in 2022. Now I don't have a crystal ball and   I have a lot of things I'd like to see, but  here's what I'm predicting we'll see in 2022. Gaming in Linux is going to become more popular  this year. Linux is stable and performant,   which is great for gaming. PC gaming has always  been on Windows because it's widely used. And  

software like DirectX and video drivers written  specifically for Windows meant there was really   only option. But Steam for Linux has made amazing  strides recently. And of course you have the Steam   Deck, which runs Arch Linux. So the software in  Linux is catching up. This means more options   for PC gamers to take advantage of what developers  have known about Linux for years. I predict we'll   see significant growth in Linux users in Steam in  the coming year. Now I mentioned Arch Linux on the   Steam Deck earlier. I predict a rise in Arch-based  Linux distributions in 2022. Arch is one of my  

favorite distributions personally, because it's  stable, powerful, and very configurable. It's a   great way to get a rock solid Linux system exactly  how you want it. Plus it's a rolling distribution,   meaning you always get the latest and greatest  software patched in whenever you update.   No big upgrade procedures needed. However, it's  not always easy to install and configure. It can   be quite painful. There are distributions based  on Arch that take away that pain, like Manjaro.  

Manjaro is easy to install and use, plus it has  all the benefits of having Arch Linux underneath.   It's been gaining popularity very quickly as an  easy to use, powerful system. Distributions like   Garuda and EndeavorOS are also based on Arch, and  they're gaining in popularity. It's the best of   both worlds, easy to use and performant. We'll see  a lot of growth with Arch-based distros in 2022. I predict flatpaks are going  to win the year in 2022.  

If you've ever tried to install something  like Zoom or Skype or something similar,   you know there's a lot of configuration involved.  Installation systems like flatpak and snap,   make it an easy install, which is why they're  becoming so popular. But snaps have had a lot of   issues. The flatpak system seems far more reliable  and less problematic. This helps new Linux users a   lot. And with Linux becoming more popular, I see  flatpaks rising as the standard in 2022 or 2023. Now Wayland will win. The writing  is on the wall with this one.  

Wayland is getting better and  better every day. And in 2022,   I think it will continue to be the desktop of  choice. There are many great benefits to Wayland,   such as smoother graphics and hardware  acceleration, and it's constantly improving.   Again, new users love it, and I predict it's  going to rise in popularity big time in 2022. I predict more developers will be using Linux in  2022. Now you're probably rolling your eyes right  

now because Linux exists because of developers.  And it's been a top choice for decades, right?   But there's a twist. The developers I'm  thinking of are using Windows. That's right,   WSL or Windows Subsystem for Linux is making  great strides. You can have a full real Linux   system running inside of Windows. It's not a VM or  an emulator, but a true Linux system in a console.   So all of those things that people  love to do in Linux like containers,   image processing, machine learning, all that  stuff can now be done from a Windows desktop.  

So all these Windows developers out there now  have a great way to leverage the power of Linux   from within their desktop and they love  it. I predict we'll see more developers   using Linux within WSL in 2022. And that will  naturally bring more folks into the Linux world.   These are my predictions for 2022. Let  me know what you think in the comments. If you’re curious about the cloud, we have a free  plan option that gives you access to different   ACG courses and quizzes each month, plus  learning paths and original series content.   And you don’t need a credit card to sign  up. You could try out our free course for  

January - Hands-on with Podman Containers  on Linux, or our always free course - Linux   Operating System Fundamentals. I’ve  included the links to these below. There's new malware on the wild, and it  affects Linux systems. Now this is big news   because usually when you hear about malware  attacks, it only affects Windows systems,   but not this one. It's out there and spreading.  And it collects personal information,   SSHD credentials, and loads back doors into  the system. Security researchers haven't yet   figured out how the malware gets into systems,  but they do know that it extracts credentials   and creates a custom SSHD that acts as  a proxy to gather even more information.  

We'll keep you updated on it and you can  get more information in the link below. Nubo has released Linux Remote Desktop 0.9. It's  an open source VDI solution so you can easily set   up remote desktop for your Linux system. Now, if  you've ever set remote desktop using XRDP or VNC,   you know it can be a pretty tricky  configuration to get it going.   Nubo promises an install with a shell script,  so there's no more xwindow configuration editing   and manually installing a bunch of separate  applications to make remote desktop work.

Pop!_OS, the Ubuntu-based Linux  distribution from System76,   has released version 21.10. There are some  UI changes that come with this new release,   including a new application library. Instead  of a single full screen application window   with a bunch of icons, it's now smaller and  organized alphabetically. And with folders   to organize your applications. System76 has  changed their software repositories as well.   They're now hosting their own repos from their own  infrastructure for a more stable experience for   their users. Pop ships with kernel 5.15.5 and the  latest NVidia drivers. In fact, it has a special  

NVidia version of Pop that you can download if  you have an NVidia card. This enables the NVidia   drivers by default, and it allows you to offload  rendering and other intensive tasks to your GPU. Manjaro, an Arch Linux-based system, has released  their 21.2 Qonos edition. Manjaro comes with three   different standard desktops, Gnome, Plasma  and XFCE. The Gnome edition received the most   updates with a 41.2 version, and their default  layout has been reworked to feature more Gnome  

upstream adjustments. You can also switch back  to that legacy layout that matches the previous   Gnome layouts. They've also enabled a ton of  smaller updates to the Plasma and XFCE editions   to make them faster and more stable. This  release is using the kernel 5.15 LTS. Kdenlive is a free video editor for  Linux that's gaining in popularity.   They've recently released Kdenlive 21.12, which  includes multi cam editing and slip trimming mode,  

which can actually really help with your workflow.  It also has a new deep learning base tracking   algorithm and a new noise reduction filter.  They've also included several small enhancements   to the editor, which you could read more about  in the link that I've added in the description.   Now there aren't many video editors in the native  Linux environment. Kdenlive is not only native to   Linux, it's also a very mature video editor. So  it's nice to see that Kdenlive is really taking  

off and continually improving. That's it for this  month's Linux This Month. If you liked the show,   be sure to give this episode a big thumbs up. Have  a question? Add it into the comments. May your   source code remain open and your code compile. See  you next time. Subscribe to stay up to date, and keep being awesome Cloud Gurus.