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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

#251

Post by chrisweekly »

dmd wrote: post #214
adamc wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Must be circles. I just visited relatives, and brought my laptop as well as my phone; I barely used the laptop. But my brother always uses his, and his kids used laptops, and even one of my great nieces used a laptop. Did they have phones? Yes. Games isn't the only driver. It's hard to do things like write papers on phones.

Nearly everyone in our family’s (public, Massachusetts) high school writes papers exclusively on their phone.

Interesting. I'm also in MA, and my daughters (like all their classmates) mostly use the chromebooks issued by their public high school. They strongly prefer their macbooks tho. Granted, we live in an affluent town. But I thought the chromebooks were a statewide thing.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#252

Post by theandrewbailey »

whizzter wrote: post #19
theandrewbailey wrote: post #3

I work in the refurb division of an e-waste recycling company. Due to licensing costs and our certifications, we can't sell anything with Windows. My coworkers install Ubuntu, but I install Linux Mint. We don't have any clue if people keep using Linux or install Windows, but it's cool to think we're helping to move this needle. Edit: might as well link to the merch: https://www.ebay.com/str/evolutionecycling

I think this plays a huge part, is it elders/poorer/others that receive these machines? A new machine for an enterprise or gamer will probably retain windows because it's needed but people not using their computers for more than surfing will be happy enough. On that side-note I would also not be surprised if people are leaving "computers" altogether in favor of phones, it's a capable enough computer today for most la…

> I think this plays a huge part, is it elders/poorer/others that receive these machines?

I know that a large portion of our business is to other resellers and businesses. FWIW, long before I started working here, I replaced XP with Xubuntu on my parent's computer about 15 years ago. I told them that "it works like Windows[0]", showed them how to check email, browse the web, play solitare, and shut down. Even the random HP printer and scanner worked great! I expected a call from them to "put it back to what it was", but it never happened. (The closest was Mom wondering why solitare (the gnome-games version) was different, then guided her on how to change the game type to klondike.)

[0] If "it [Xubuntu] works like Windows" offended you, I'd like to point out that most people don't care about how operating system kernels are designed. They care about things like a start menu, and that the X in the corner closes programs.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#253

Post by oblio »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #246
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…

> Outside of gamers, I don't know anyone that has a computer at home that is not their work laptop if they have one. A Linux desktop is far better to run LLM experiments with. My home, tinker workstation used to be Windows but there was no reason to keep it that way, when most of the build and support tooling prefer Linux.

That's a tiny minority of PC users, though.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#254

Post by fsflover »

jraph wrote: post #196
fsflover wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's completely incompatible, so in practice it's a different OS. Doesn't mean it's not valuable.

You are talking about the OS while the person you are discussing with is speaking about the kernel. The Linux kernel has its own merits outside standard Linux userspace. I agree, saying that the fact standard Linux distros and Android share the same kernel has no single meaningful implication really undervalues the Linux kernel. I also agree that it's important to keep in mind the two OSes are mostly incompatible. Th…

So when somebody says "Linux reaches X market share", are they talking about the kernel? Why does it even matter how much the kernel is used? Would you count WSL?

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#255

Post by xaitv »

Fokamul wrote: post #225
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…

> At least in my circle everyone I know has moved to their general computing being on phones and tablets which is not captured here Interesting, could you tell me which part of US you are from? --- My 2 cents, small country, mid-Europe, more or less in the middle of list of GDP / AIC per capita in EU. Nearly everyone has some sort of PC or laptops for personal use. Now it's changing, kids(~5-13yrs old) are using phon…

Netherlands here. Most people I know (outside of gamers) tend to have a laptop only if they have one for work anyway, they use their phones for banking, tax, searching the correct spelling of words etc. That's in the age groups from like 30 all the way to 70.

I don't think I know any non-gamer that has an actual desktop, just people with laptops.

For the gamers consoles are the vast majority, of the PC gamers pretty much all use Windows. When I tell friends I use Linux it's mostly "oh yeah I looked into that as well when Windows 11 came out but didn't end up switching".

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#256

Post by PhilippGille »

osigurdson wrote: post #143

After installing Arch / Gnome on my laptop last week, I can see why. Everything works completely fine and feels 3X faster than Windows 11. I have Linux on my desktop machine but always hesitated for laptops due to past bad experiences with power management (i.e. something always eventually went wrong when closing the lid). So far, all of that is working perfectly.

There are still issues. Just going with your example, see the threads in the Framework forum around lid close issues (almost all from Linux users): https://community.frame.work/search?q=lid%20close

Reports about high battery drain, suspend issues and similar exist as well.

I'm running Fedora on a Framework laptop, but with the awareness that it can require some tinkering.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#258

Post by sevensor »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #3

I work in the refurb division of an e-waste recycling company. Due to licensing costs and our certifications, we can't sell anything with Windows. My coworkers install Ubuntu, but I install Linux Mint. We don't have any clue if people keep using Linux or install Windows, but it's cool to think we're helping to move this needle. Edit: might as well link to the merch: https://www.ebay.com/str/evolutionecycling

The link is appreciated! I like the selection of ruggedized laptops.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#259

Post by eqvinox »

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…

> Basically if the higher percent is due to less desktops overall instead of a major uptick in Linux desktops, it is not really much to celebrate.

Why? If Windows & OSX desktops are in decline, but Linux isn't, I'd still celebrate that - apparently Linux is serving the more "important" / long-lived use cases?

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#260

Post by jwrallie »

donatj wrote: post #145

Windows 11 not working on otherwise perfectly good PCs I imagine is at least a small part of it. I've got an 8-core Ryzen system I think from 2016 that's still very powerful and more than good enough for my needs, but Microsoft is insisting I "throw it away and buy a new one", in this economy no less! I also think a number of influencers like PewDiePie moving to Linux has to have moved the needle at least a little as…

For me it was Windows 11 not supporting hardware. I moved to Fedora in the beginning of this year for work (while using it at home for quite a while).

After seeing SharePoint.exe using 1GB and 100% of the CPU today for over 12 hours I’m seriously considering removing my VM (that I only boot for MS Office). Edge even greeted me with a message that I have access to Copilot Vision that can now see everything I browse when I right clicked the process and clicked on search!

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