Why sign in to the Community?

  • Submit a question
  • Check your notifications
Sign in to the Community or Sign in to TurboTax and start working on your taxes
New Member
posted Oct 5, 2024 6:33:14 PM

Are there plans to release a desktop TurboTax for Linux, in particular Ubuntu, for the 2024 tax year?

For years I kept Windows on an old laptop for the sole purpose of running TT. I have repurposed that laptop to run Ubuntu, as I did with my other former macOS computer. It seems like a relatively small investment by Intuit to capture the Linux users market.

1 6 12996
6 Replies
Level 15
Oct 5, 2024 8:41:55 PM

Level 15
Oct 6, 2024 6:38:49 AM

"small investment"

 

Windows programs don't run on Linux.

@kak3 

Level 15
Oct 6, 2024 9:31:04 AM

probably a relatively large investment considering the % of desktop PCs that use any version of Linux.

https://itsfoss.com/linux-market-share/#:~:text=Statista%20%28last%20updated%20on%20Jan.%202023%29%3A%20The%20Linux,to%2014.55%25%20for%20macOS%2C%20and%2070.39%25%20for%20Windows. 

Not only are there the costs of writing the program code but then also the costs of the support staff that would be needed.  Intuit doesn't even produce a desktop version of Turbotax Business for MAC - currently only a Windows version

New Member
Feb 5, 2025 7:00:58 PM

Too late for 2024, but they should seriously consider it for 2025 because all those Windows 10 PCs will be out of support. I suspect a lot of home users will decline to buy a new PC just to run Windows 11, and quite a few may well migrate to Linux. It's a catch-22 because corporations like Intuit won't produce Linux versions because there's no perceived market, and people won't migrate away from Windows because the apps won't run on Linux, so nothing ever changes.

 

At the moment I use a Windows 10 VM under Linux for TurboTax on a PC that is 11 years old and still working just fine, but I assume at some point TurboTax will insist on Windows 11 to run and I'll be off to look at what options are available for Linux rather than buy hardware I don't need. I can see that whichever tax software company caters for people like me is likely to inherit a lot of users from the other companies if they drag their feet.

 

With the advent of Flatpak and Snap for Linux, the entire thing can be packaged as a single file to download and run without worrying as much about which flavour of Linux is being used.

New Member
Jun 16, 2025 3:38:13 AM

??? I am a 70+ year old non-professional and I am capable of translating my Visual Studio C# code to Python, Pyside6 and SQLite.

Investment??? Lack of Market??? I was once castigated because I wasn't running Linux at home. 

Here's the deal if you can't program cross-platform and work in Linux you are simply *NOT* a programmer!

And, the Linux market, especially Linux Mint will be exploding thanks to Microsoft's heavy handedness

New Member
Jun 16, 2025 3:40:48 AM

Right you are. I suggest Linux Mint as it is an easy transition from Windows. And, with chatGPT and other AI platforms giving a certain amount of free use, if a user is reasonably clear they will get a non-snarky correct answer.