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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

#91

Post by palata »

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…

I agree with your points, except this:

> thanks to the Steam Deck [...] but I would be reluctant to call that Linux Desktop anymore than I would call Android an uptick for Linux.

The Steam Deck very much runs Linux Desktop. Android runs the Linux kernel, but everything else is different. SteamOS is a Linux distribution based on Arch. If you run your Steam Deck in "desktop mode", it is very much a Linux Desktop (with a read-only system and A/B updates etc, but still).

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#92

Post by arp242 »

jsnell wrote: post #18

The statscounter data is not reliable, and it is just embarrassing how often these posts make it to the HN frontpage. You even have a demonstration in this very article, with the surge of classic Mac OS to 7% for several months . The data is obviously nonsense, and when it has errors nobody at the company cares about them. But when they have persistent "data reporting issues", why are we supposed to believe any of th…

> the surge of classic Mac OS to 7% for several months

I'm not sure what's up with listing both "OS X" and "macOS", but I'm quite confident it's not classic Mac OS.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#93

Post by redeeman »

bboygravity wrote: post #34
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…

So is this the reasoning to keep Linux as hard to use as possible? * just open the terminal and type this magic spell to make x work *

kinda like when people write to eachother, just open up your whatsapp, and type in a magic spell to let your friends know they are invited to dinner tonight..

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#94

Post by jsnell »

elsjaako wrote: post #30
jsnell wrote: post #18

The statscounter data is not reliable, and it is just embarrassing how often these posts make it to the HN frontpage. You even have a demonstration in this very article, with the surge of classic Mac OS to 7% for several months . The data is obviously nonsense, and when it has errors nobody at the company cares about them. But when they have persistent "data reporting issues", why are we supposed to believe any of th…

Note that OS X goes down for the same period. I believe Apple is calling it MacOS now. So that looks like it might be some change in how Apple computers are reporting their OS.

Indeed, OS X goes down, and obviously none of us actually believe that. But not only does Statcounter report that clearly faulty number, but they have yet to fix the problem.

This happens all the time. When their numbers are clearly wrong, they don't care about the numbers enough to fix even the glaring problems, their sample is unsound, and their methodology is unpublished, why exactly are we supposed to give any of their numbers any credence?

What you've written is the first I've heard of a recent change to the Safari on OS X user-agent string, and I see no indication of it in my access logs. What's it supposed to be now? It seems a bit unlikely, and given Safari never ran on classic Mac OS, it seems like a company that's supposed to specialize in analytics should be able to handle it...

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#95

Post by tomrod »

latexr wrote: post #81
WJW wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal evidence, but Steams' Proton compatibility layer that lets you run Windows-only games on Linux works really really well. I haven't had to log into years and years by now.

I’ve been wanting to do this for years on an old (and severely underpowered) MacBook Pro which I use with Windows exclusively for Games. Do you have any recommendation for an extremely lightweight Linus distro which installs and runs Steam fine? It would be used exclusively for that, so it shouldn’t run a ton of background stuff.

Depends on your view of lightweight, but probably XFCE Ubuntu (Xubuntu) will serve you great. Full featured without a ton of bloat, historically.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#96

Post by redeeman »

bitmasher9 wrote: post #62
fghjl wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

in 2003 it was WAY easier to install linux than windows. You had to mess with floppys for sata drivers and shit to install windows.

and KDE was always ATLEAST as easy as windows, arguably more. At this time lots of older crappy hardware people had also only had win98 drivers, giving people immense problems. It mostly worked better on linux. This still goes today.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#97

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

#100

Post by Workaccount2 »

Linux will be stuck in the 5% range as long as people who love Linux are the ones making Linux.

You still cannot crtl+V in the terminal. No faster way to scare off users than give them a CLI heavy OS and have the trip over the very first copy+paste command they try to run (once they figure out the circa ~1982 cursor)

I really cannot say enough about the total fumble of Linux distros in an age when people are more desperate than ever to leave Windows.

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