Linux Ubuntu Support

Will there ever be any plans for Linux support?

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Will there ever be plans for Linux support?

I've been a Stardock customer for 23 years. After 30+ years on Microsoft, I've left the Windows ecosystem entirely — forced updates bricked multiple machines in one office, costing us data and productivity, while constant telemetry made clear the machines were no longer ours. Trust is earned, not given, and once lost it rarely returns.

That reluctantly forces me away from Stardock too — there's simply no use case outside Windows. And I'm not alone: government agencies and national ministries are now dumping Windows for Linux. When nations abandon an OS, the ground is shifting. Linux already runs the world's servers and the entire cloud; pretending it doesn't exist on the desktop is a choice. Vendors married to one OS will absorb the losses. The ones that adapt will inherit customers like me.

Bring Stardock to Linux, and I'll be first in line.

Stardock Software Object Desktop objectdock Linux Type: Question
1,079 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,

Really appreciate you sharing your story and for sticking with Stardock for so many years. I hear you on the frustrations with Windows — a lot of people are exploring Linux for the same reasons you mentioned. From what I know, Stardock’s focus is still entirely on Windows right now, and there aren’t any announced plans for Linux support. That said, feedback like yours does get noticed, and it helps highlight how the landscape is shifting. Who knows what the future might bring, but it’s good to have voices like yours reminding us of where customers are heading.

Thank you,

Basj,

Stardock Community  Assistant

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Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Thanks for the reply, Basj. I'll be honest — it's disappointing to hear there are no plans at all, especially when the opportunity seems so obvious from where I'm standing. Desktop customization at Stardock's level simply doesn't exist in the Linux world; the space is a patchwork of community tools. And I say that with respect — I fully recognize the Linux ecosystem is community-driven by design, built on its users' own creativity rather than corporate influence, and that's part of why I moved there. But that's exactly the point: the wave of people migrating now are longtime Windows users like me who've spent decades happily paying for polished software done right. That's a new and growing market inside the Linux world that nobody is serving — and the first vendor to respect the culture while filling that gap will have it largely to themselves. I'd love for that to be Stardock, the company I've supported for 23 years. I understand the focus is Windows today; I'm just asking Stardock to keep an eye on the trendline, because this migration isn't slowing down. I'll keep watching for news.

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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

I wholeheartedly agree with the OP. I have just started the switch to Linux via Zorin OS for my computers as I will not "upgrade" to an AI-first OS when support for Windows 10 finally peters out. I have purchased Object Desktop for a while now even though I don't use all of the apps, but I sorely miss the apps that I did make use of. 

There seems to be a severe lack of UI/UX cohesiveness in nearly all Linux distros and available desktop environments. That is something well within your wheelhouse and I would be early in line for a Stardock Object Desktop Environment (ODE) for Linux that incorporates all of the utilities you've made for Windows as a bunch of (optional) components with deep integration and configuration.

It would no doubt be a big task, but start with one big base (like Ubuntu) or popular release package to get started, and build out from there. A lot of folks would love you for it.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

I've been a Stardock customer/user since 2009 when I first purchased Sins of a Solar Empire. I was so impressed with that game and it's mechanics that I began exploring other software offered by Stardock.  Boom, your ObjectDock caught my eye and I've been a loyal customer for it and it's software suite since then. I don't use the entire suite of OD.  And that's the beauty of it.  The customer is able to choose what parts of it they need.  

Microsoft, in their "infinite wisdom" has decided that the customer does NOT have choice - their telemetry, their bloatware....all of it.  I hate to say it to you guys over at Stardock, however, making the decision to refuse to create an ODE for a Linux based OS is tacit agreement with Microsoft's literal tyranny.  

Oh, I get it from a business standpoint. At the present time, the Microsoft OS dominates the world PC market.  One could even go so far as to say it has a monopoly on PC OS's.  The US government tried...tried....and failed...to sue MS for this very reason.  From 1994 to 2001, the US government tried to sue MS and tried to make Microsoft, Inc. "change its ways".  

Did the US government succeed in making MS "change its ways"? The fact that whole governments are switching to a Linux environment should tell you. MS will never change to an anti-monopoly philosophy.  It will not. If one of the most powerful, influential governments in the history of the human species cannot, then what is the likelihood it will change? Statistically? Zero.  

Now, whole governments are leaving Microsoft...for good.  Ending their relationship with MS.  As a multi-national mega-corporation, MS cannot allow this.  If MS wants to continue as it has as a corporate entity, they cannot allow this....ANY of it.... to continue.  They cannot allow any other government to MSExit.  

What can MS literally do to stop this? Welp, they can try the tried-and-true method: bribery.  Of which I'm sure they already have started laying the ground and framework for doing exactly this back in 2001...all the while, deepening the hooks it places into it's customers in order to keep them as customers. How? By making it less cost-effective to switch to another OS...especially one that is open-source.

The ultimate decider is choice.  If MS decides to acquiesce to the philosophy of customer choice...and have the customer literally be able to shut down ANY and ALL aspects of MS's telemetry, bloatware, other monitoring, and mandatory (locked in) features, then, and only then, will Windows have any hope of matching Linux as a choice-based operating system.  

As it stands now, Windows cannot even make the minimum criteria for that.  Linux does. It sets the standard for choice.  I know I might be "preaching to the choir" on this whole line of reasoning. However, I think it needs to be laid out in front of all of us, so that the "powers that be" at Stardock can see it, and understand.... that the "writing is on the wall" for Windows.  

As I said above, several governments are MSExit-ing.  "Pandora's Box" has been opened.  What Microsoft has dreaded for decades has occurred.  And there is nothing they can really do to stop it.  More governments are going to switch to a Linux based environment.  When governmental bureaucracies do this, the People will start to migrate in droves.  It is a trickle now, but the flood will begin soon. Two years? Five years? Probably not much beyond that is my prediction. 

And here's the ironic beauty of all this. Microsoft will aide in the trickle becoming a flood. Why? Because they've become the OS "tyrant" and a tyrant can never go back to being "benevolent" when they've crossed the line. MS will increasingly (well, they've already begun) be more and more proprietary, requiring more and more restrictions to using the Windows OS environment.  

Eventually, there will be no OS on a PC if the customer wants to use a MS product.  There  will be "terminals" like in the good ol' days of public schools using terminals tied into a college or university mainframe.  That's the model MS wants. And, they are determined to get to that point, sooner than we all think.

Stardock, please, please, pay attention to all this.  I know, I know, most of anyone who started reading this actually fell asleep 1/3 of the way through.  Ask yourself this question: Was me "falling asleep" an actual choice I made, or did some entity engineer my attention span to phase out in order to keep me from learning from the lessons of the past?

Stardock, please give us the choice of having OD and your other great software suites and apps installed on Linux. History will look much more kindly on you.  It will not if MS makes Windows so proprietary that the People value choice more than convenience.  

Food for thought.