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Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

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Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#61

Post by pawelduda »

Fade_Dance wrote: post #16
iLoveOncall wrote: post #9

I don't believe this number for even a second.

I have literally never seen a Linux desktop in the wild. Speaking as a "normal" person who occasionally builds PCs for friends, fixes family computers, etc. I have an old ThinkPad with Linux, but agreed, no way this can be true.

I installed Ubuntu on my parents' PC back in 2014. Never had to reinstall, only had to upgrade to LTS every few years. The only problems I encountered were with nvidia drivers on update that had to be dealt with but nothing too insane. It's been used almost daily, only migrated to SSD at one point to speed it up. 18~ years old machine.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#62

Post by bitmasher9 »

fghjl wrote: post #40
Symmetry wrote: post #14

That's twice the number Valve reports for Steam users which includes a lot of Steam Decks that come with Linux installed, so it seems high, I would have guessed somewhere in the 1 to 2 percent range. In some countries you have mass Linux deployments to schools or government IT systems that could give you a number like this but I'm not sure what could be driving it in the US.

I assume the problems still are that (1) no Desktop Linux is at the level of macOS or Windows, and (2) the only one close is still RedHat, but most want Debian-based or something else. MacOS is the best model for a successful desktop Linux to use. Trim down the kernel/drivers to just what runs on that spec hardware, only support that spec hardware, focus effort on the OS and ecosystem, keep it stable, make upgrades t…

I’d argue desktop Linux passed “the level of windows” sometime around Windows 8 or KDE5.

I have way more stability issues and complicated upgrades on Windows.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#63

Post by cowboylowrez »

hollerith wrote: post #50
andyferris wrote: post #10

I have to ask - what OS do AI-training web scrapers tend to report? (A mixture? One with > 5% linux market share? Sorry, being a sceptic, otherwise I think this is fantastic news if accurately measured).

Good question. Most of these headlines about Linux market share ("mind share"?) are completely uninformative about how widespread the use of Linux is in reality. 12 years ago or so, a similar headline appeared, then someone explained that the Chinese government had recently cracked down on Windows pirating (to appease the Americans) with the result that some PC vendors had stopped including (pirated copies of) Window…

I wonder if they used firefox to download internet explorer?

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#64

Post by palata »

ryandv wrote: post #22

Based on the history of the tech industry, Linux adoption should be kept at this level and advanced no further. This is already the sweet spot for the "year of the Linux desktop," which should be celebrated by experts, technical users, and the sufficiently motivated. Once the unwashed masses start coming in, the software and its interaction patterns pander to the lowest common denominator and the quality of the mediu…

I understand your point, and I genuinely hate when people try to put pressure on distros to essentially look more like Windows.

On the other hand, I think it's great when companies or government try to move to Linux (if you're not a US company or the US government, it makes total sense to try not to depend on US software so much).

But I want to believe that there is space for everybody. I wouldn't use Mint myself, but I convinced a couple friends to use it and it works really well! EU governments moving to european distros like Suse and the likes is great. And I will stay closer to "more advanced" distros like Gentoo or Alpine.

The beauty of Linux is that there is not one Linux; it's about freedom of choice. Because many people move from Windows to Mint doesn't have to mean that it's hurting Gentoo, I think? Hopefully.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#65

Post by lvass »

koakuma-chan wrote: post #36
theowhfbfn wrote: post #13

Is SteamOS included? I am not really surprised. Linux is quite often only usable option, now when Win 10 is not really supported.

Why not use Win 11?

For video games as of today, SteamOS presents double digit performance gains on average over Windows, running Windows games on Steam Deck and similar platforms.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#66

Post by master-lincoln »

art0rz wrote: post #45
aquova wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be even worse then, you'd be reselling a machine which was licensed under the previous owner's Windows key

How is that worse when the key is bound to the hardware and non-transferable anyway?

why would it be non-transferable?

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#67

Post by [deleted] »

nerdjon wrote: post #53

I have to wonder how much of this is people switching to Linux vs the larger trend of people not having traditional computers to begin with. Outside of gamers, I don't know anyone that has a computer at home that is not their work laptop if they have one. At least in my circle everyone I know has moved to their general computing being on phones and tablets which is not captured here. So is a solid chunk of this the p…

[deleted]

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#68

Post by art0rz »

master-lincoln wrote: post #66
art0rz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that worse when the key is bound to the hardware and non-transferable anyway?

why would it be non-transferable?

Sorry, I thought it was a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44581124

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#69

Post by palata »

bitmasher9 wrote: post #44
ryandv wrote: post #22

Based on the history of the tech industry, Linux adoption should be kept at this level and advanced no further. This is already the sweet spot for the "year of the Linux desktop," which should be celebrated by experts, technical users, and the sufficiently motivated. Once the unwashed masses start coming in, the software and its interaction patterns pander to the lowest common denominator and the quality of the mediu…

In some ways we are already seeing this. Have you ever opened a GitHub repository and the only installation/build instructions are for the AUR. I seem to run into this pretty frequently while looking at small projects.

What bothers me is when projects have a hard dependency on something like systemd or even Ubuntu, because most of the time it is not necessary and it means I can't use it.

But other than that, as long as I can compile the project from source (and if it's done properly I don't need instructions for that), I'm fine.

I would assume that a repo providing instructions for the AUR is already better than one assuming that "Linux == Ubuntu", because the developer knows at least one distro that is not Ubuntu :-).

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