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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

#121

Post by CuriouslyC »

bboygravity wrote: post #37

Is this because Linux became so good or because Windows 11 is so terrible? I guess a bit of both.

Pretty sure it's because Windows has gotten worse. I ditched windows recently because it was flagging bit torrent software as malware and deleting it (utorrent, qbittorrent, deluge, all directly from official sources), and when I tried to turn the setting off in the control panel it wouldn't allow me to. A few minutes later it popped up an advertising notification for a F2P windows store game.

Linux hasn't necessarily gotten better, sadly. My install was unusable due to video issues, I had to boot a recover console to fix it. I also had to fix some issues with X desktop effects glitching after waking from suspend, making the desktop environment nearly unusable. Otherwise, Linux performs a lot better on my system than Windows.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#122

Post by c0balt »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #100

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 des…

> You still cannot crtl+V in the terminal

The more poignant issues might be that there's inconsistencies around UI here. Some terminals allow that directly (Kitty), others require Ctrl+shift+v (Gnome shell, iirc Powershell and Konsole).

To be fair, the best non-windows OS likely is MacOS. It has software support for a lot of commercial prosumer stuff, e. G., Adobe, and has a convenient and stable 3rd Party offering for Windows VMs (Parallels).

As a Linux user it seems like there is a lot to learn in regard to UI consistency from both though (maybe less from Windows). Gnome and KDE are probably moving in the right direction here but it is still a bit off sometimes.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#123

Post by School-Cotton »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #100

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 des…

It’s not a “fumble”, because “Linux” is not a company trying to sell as many units as possible.

As you said, it works for the people who make it. Why does it need to do anything else? Linux desktop conquering the world is just an old Slashdot trope, it’s not something anyone is actually working to achieve in real life.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#124

Post by palata »

HKH2 wrote: post #109
palata wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more "they will give less control in order to please the peasants, and as a result I will lose control". And I agree with that concern, though my hope is that we can make it easier for the peasants without sacrificing control for the nerds (trying to find a word that would work with "peasant" in this context :D).

Gnome has sacrificed a lot of control.

i3wm and sway haven't :-).

My point being that it's okay for some projects to sacrifice control, as long as others don't. I can't tell Ubuntu how they should make their distro; what I can do is choose Gentoo (or anything in between).

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#125

Post by dmantis »

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?

1. Ads

2. Built-in cloud AI spyware / Copilot

3. Millions of abandoned laptops that had been made 4-5+ years ago. Basically electronic and ecological waste: machines from 10 years ago work perfectly fine if you change thermal paste and don't hit them too much. Even if you don't care about the planet, you might care about your wallet though.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#126

Post by School-Cotton »

resource_waste wrote: post #114
Workaccount2 wrote: post #100

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 des…

I imagine you have only used Debian/Ubuntu/Mint/outdated linux. Fedora is a different level completely. With Fedora, I remember installing nvidia drivers via terminal, and that was essentially it. Sometimes I open up ports for my kid doing minecraft, but that was it. Its not like when you use Ubuntu or Mint and you need to manually update something just to get Netflix to work on Chromium. Fedora is so good, I won't c…

Fedora is actually older than Ubuntu. And FWIW you still can’t paste with C-v in the terminal.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#127

Post by kube-system »

palata wrote: post #91
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…

> The Steam Deck very much runs Linux Desktop. Android runs the Linux kernel, but everything else is different.

Linux is a kernel.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#129

Post by [deleted] »

Zambyte wrote: post #88
palata wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more "they will give less control in order to please the peasants, and as a result I will lose control". And I agree with that concern, though my hope is that we can make it easier for the peasants without sacrificing control for the nerds (trying to find a word that would work with "peasant" in this context :D).

I disagree with the concern, because obviously making Free Software easier for non-technically inclined people to use does not make the software harder for technically inclined people to use. This is strictly an issue for proprietary software.

[deleted]

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#130

Post by resource_waste »

lvl155 wrote: post #76

I think adoption has to do with the fact that desktop environment efforts are divided across so many distros.

I might be a bit contrarian on this.

I think the biggest obstacle in the Linux world is people knee jerk recommending Debian/Ubuntu/Mint/outdated linux.

If people rallied around the current SOTA, Fedora, we would've hit 5% a few years ago.

The variety of distros cause people to get confused, and go with the most heavily marketed distros, Ubuntu flavors. Just because Ubuntu gave away free CDs 20 years ago, doesnt make them good. It makes them good at marketing.

People confuse Fedora with Arch, which is terrible. People confuse Ubuntu with 'stable like a table', instead of 'outdated stable'.

We almost need a reduction in favored distros. Out with the complexity: Fedora for desktop. It has all the DEs too.

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