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Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

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Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#391

Post by danpalmer »

lproven wrote: post #386

TFA gets its own figures wrong. ChromeOS is a Linux. Therefore its numbers should be included. 3.08 + 4.15 = 7.23% Still not all that impressive, but better than twice as good as claimed, a solid 3rd place after macOS, and still climbing.

Technically, but not usefully. It depends what you're trying to communicate. ChromeOS is based on Linux but most Linux enthusiasts aren't going to consider it Desktop Linux. The website is clearly catering to a Linux enthusiast market so the numbers communicate the right thing for its readers.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#392

Post by zeta0134 »

jacknews wrote: post #45

The problem is the desktop situation is such a mess. Do you go with a gtk or qt desktop and which one? And then X11 which is ancient and creaky, or wayland which is fatally nerfed in design (if not it's entire development philosophy) even when it does do what you need which is far from always? OTOH windows is becoming adware/spyware and macos is becoming big brother lockdown-wear, so maybe it is time for linux to shi…

I went KDE Plasma. It works pretty well, it feels close enough to Windows that the transition is as painless as possible, and it's got tons of advanced tweaks for power users. GTK and Qt apps both seem to run fine under it. Most importantly, it gets out of my way and lets me work.

(Other alternatives I enjoy include Cinnamon and Xfce. I cannot stand gnome-shell, it's like a tablet OS or something.)

Lots of popular distributions support KDE out of the box (Kubuntu, openSUSE, Fedora KDE, etc), and it'll install on pretty much anything else with minimal fuss. That's the most fun part about desktop environments on Linux: you don't have to pick just one. You can install a bunch side by side and switch between them when you log in. Once you know this, it becomes fun to experiment :)

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#393

Post by hedora »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #371
jamil7 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, like you said, these aren't new, though. > Then why can't I change the spaces animation (turn it off)? Windows snapping without leaving a gap on the edge of the screen? Etc, etc. Spaces is irritating, I just don't use it, Apple has a tendency to introduce new workspace and window management solutions and then abandon them. Yabai or Amethyst might be you closer to what you want (both open source). > And a…

I’m not sure about copyright infringed media but they are scanning for CSAM now. https://www.wired.com/story/apple-communication-safety-nude-...

The article you linked doesn’t say they are.

Its title claims they are, but that appears to be clickbait.

In the body of the article, the author confuses the cancelled always on filter for illegal images that reports to authorities and an opt-in, on-device filter for unwanted adult images.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#394

Post by lproven »

danpalmer wrote: post #391
lproven wrote: post #386

TFA gets its own figures wrong. ChromeOS is a Linux. Therefore its numbers should be included. 3.08 + 4.15 = 7.23% Still not all that impressive, but better than twice as good as claimed, a solid 3rd place after macOS, and still climbing.

Technically, but not usefully. It depends what you're trying to communicate. ChromeOS is based on Linux but most Linux enthusiasts aren't going to consider it Desktop Linux. The website is clearly catering to a Linux enthusiast market so the numbers communicate the right thing for its readers.

This just quickly descends into a "no true Scotsman" argument.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

It's a Linux kernel and a Linux userland on top of `glibc`. It's not a weird libc, like Bionic in Android. You can run a Debian container and Debian apps; my own ChromeOS Flex machine runs Firefox and DOSemu.

It's a Linux. It's the most successful desktop Linux there is, and so of course all the advocates decry it as not being a True Linux, but then again the Fedora lot think Ubuntu is junk, and the Debian lot think everything is junk, and the Arch folk think they're more cutting-edge, and the NixOS folk think all the rest are still in the stone age somewhere...

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#395

Post by nologic01 »

I am fairly confident that the best days of the linux desktop are ahead of us. 3% might become 30% in a few years.

Technology adoption takes strange paths but the history of linux is one of remarkable resilience and capability which augurs well for the future.

My guess is that a key driver of growth will come from power users that will make best use of local AI and data science tools, preserving privacy and commercial secrecy.

While many many casual users will continue using thin clients, effectively outsourcing their digital lives to the "cloud", this is unlikely to continue being the 97%.

The opportunity is, e.g., for all the apps of the linux desktop to start making use of the python ML tools to empower users with unprecedented functionality. There is no reason that all of that new universe must be ceded to a small number of actors.

This opportunity was there for a long time now, ML is not new, but the broader FOSS community is quite reactive. Emulating proprietary / closed tools to a fault (eg the libreoffice suite) rather than exploring the unique opportunities of alternative paths has been the norm.

Luckily the AI hype will work as a kick in the butt. The future is for linux to lose.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#396

Post by chx »

hparadiz wrote: post #352
trelane wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen7-7840u So, they took a cutting edge Windows PC, slapped Linux on it, and it didn't work well. How well did OSX do when they tried it? Clearly, OSX isn't ready for the desktop! No wonder nobody runs it! Modern computers are complex enough that they can work well with Windows, OSX, or Linux, but they don't work well with more than one of them (unless the designers wor…

So true. If you get a System76 laptop you can get some really amazing hardware and make sure to never pay the Windows license fee.

System76 won't make MFC drivers for every MFC there is or make Linux clients for wacky corporate VPNs and Wifi appear.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#397

Post by hedora »

wheels wrote: post #223
einpoklum wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Releasing binaries is still a PITA for Linux. Is it really that bad? I mean, many small FOSS programs provide packages for multiple distributions. Are they busting their balls building that stuff?

Most of the time those packages, or the build files for them, are contributed by the distributions themselves, or avid users of those distros. (Reference: I have multiple software projects I've created that are a part of every Linux distribution. I've never packaged any of them myself.) Even big enterprise companies usually work directly with the distros under NDA, and the distros produce the packages. That works for…

Oddly, for video games, it’s easier to get older windows games to run under linux than windows.

It’s annoying that this isn’t true for modern Linux desktop software.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#398

Post by sokoloff »

Karunamon wrote: post #384
sokoloff wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For casual computer users, that animation/delay is the difference between “oh no, what just happened?!” and “oh, that button sucks this window down into the taskbar picture where I can easily find it later. Cool.” You want the window to just vanish (which I get), because you have a model of computing that doesn’t need the genie animation. Most everyone on HN has a model of computers far in excess of the median comput…

That explains the default, not their inability to change the behavior.

Interesting. I could have sworn in older macOS that it could be disabled entirely. In Ventura, via settings, I can adjust it from taking 11 frames, 23, or 29 frames (manually counted in a screen recording), but I can't seem to completely eliminate the animation. TIL.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#399

Post by mkl »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #49

I wonder why they keep making these articles. Linux is on more computers both today and all of the computers ever made put together than any other OS. It is on virtually all servers on the Internet, the majority OS on phones, its in many TVs and STBs and streaming sticks, its one of the few OSes ever in space, its one of the few OSes ever on Mars, and it is also the OS behind ChromeOS (which that article mistakenly b…

> The largest desktop OS on that list? Windows.... made by a company who makes more money off Linux than anything else, is the largest corp contributor to Linux

Citation needed, I think. Microsoft barely makes or doesn't even make the top 20 kernel contributors for current releases: 6.4 (#20): https://lwn.net/Articles/936113/, 6.3: https://lwn.net/Articles/929582/, 6.2: https://lwn.net/Articles/923410/, 6.1 (#19): https://lwn.net/Articles/915435/

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#400

Post by rafaelgoncalves »

sersi wrote: post #65

Seems that this website blocks any access from HK completely through cloudflare... Cloudflare making it easy to block entire countries, allow people to be lazy in protecting their websites and goes completely against the open web. Of course I could use a vpn but it's getting tiring that I have to do so more and more often.

yes, i tried from my home in Brazil and is blocked too, saying that i'm a attacker :)
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