On: Thank You, Valve

[hbn]

> Claiming <year> will be the year of the Linux desktop has become a running joke among me and my friends.

It's an inside joke across a much larger chunk of the PC gaming zeitgeist than your friend group! And it's what the author was referencing.

But he didn't really make a claim, he said "hopefully"

[airstrike → hbn]

In fact, it was never really associated with gaming. It's arguably the most quintessential Linux joke since, I don't know, at least the early 2000s