Windows users can thank Linux for these 5 essential features
Windows users can thank Linux for these 5 essential features
https://www.howtogeek.com/windows-users-can-thank-linux-for-these-x-essential-features/
Publish Date: 2026-02-23 11:31:00
Source Domain: www.howtogeek.com
Even though Linux might only hold a tiny part of desktop market share, its influence goes much further than the small number of regular people who use it every day. Most of the infrastructure in the world, such as web servers, run on some form of Linux. Software developers commonly use Linux for their work, and certainly the people who work on Windows are not only aware of Linux, but are intimately familiar with it.
So it should be no surprise that some of these Linux staples have made it into the world’s most popular operating system.
Virtual desktops stopped being niche power-user tricks
Credit: Lucas Gouveia/How-To Geek | BongkarnGraphic/Shutterstock
The first time I experienced multiple virtual desktops was on the little Linux netbook I picked up to take to class during my postgraduate studies. With a simple keyboard toggle, you could switch between desktops, and it even had a neat 3D cube effect. Native virtual desktops only came to Windows with Windows 10, and it’s very good. So good, in fact, that everyone should be using it.
Now, this isn’t about who did it first, but the X11 Windows manager got this feature in ’89 and, apparently, the first version of KDE already implemented multiple desktops in the late 90s after it was launched. I didn’t even know what Linux was back then, so I can’t confirm that first-hand.
Windows also lagged behind macOS when it came to virtual desktops. Apple users have been…
