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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

#261

Post by Zambyte »

Barrin92 wrote: post #184
Zambyte wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> This is strictly an issue for proprietary software. it really isn't, as Google Chrome and Chromium shows there's no clear dividing line in the real world. Linux isn't developed by Bob the free software enthusiast, take a look at the code contributions to the kernel. Overall I'm also in favour of driving linux adoption because it's still a better world but the idea that this has no spill over effect on anyone else i…

> Google Chrome and Chromium shows there's no clear dividing line in the real world.

There are lots of Chromium forks. I don't really see how this contradicts my point.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#262

Post by speedgoose »

arp242 wrote: post #92
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.

Can you even have a successful TLS handshake with Mac OS 9 ?

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#263

Post by TuringTest »

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.

So, the true meaning of the "Year of the Linux Desktop" was that in the end there would only be a single unit left?

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#264

Post by MYEUHD »

fsflover wrote: post #163
palata wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would still count it as the Linux kernel. They don't change the syscall API, it's really mostly at the BSP level, right? Said differently: if manufacturers cared to mainstream their changes, they could. And we would all be better for it.

> I would still count it as the Linux kernel. This may be technically true, except it has no single meaningful implication, like no Linux software works there.

Checkout https://postmarketos.org Those vendor provided kernel trees let you run a real Linux distribution on your phone.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#265

Post by jraph »

fsflover wrote: post #254
jraph wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'm not sure why you are asking me all this, this is beside my points.

> So

I reject the link here.

> when somebody says "Linux reaches X market share", are they talking about the kernel?

Likely not.

> Why does it even matter how much the kernel is used?

Why not? Depends what's your concern.

> Would you count WSL?

Depends what you want to evaluate.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#266

Post by palata »

msgodel wrote: post #233
palata wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you can't easily rewrite Qt software to use GTK. Still they both run on Linux.

You probably could if Android weren't intentionally constrained by Google to prevent it. That's what fsflover is trying to point out: Android is more of a television firmware than an OS and counting it like a PC OS makes very little sense because you can't use it like one. EDIT: I think you still don't understand. It doesn't matter what hardware Android runs on it's written to be appliance firmware. Even if you put i…

So I was saying that Android runs the Linux kernel, period.

But now that you say it, Android is very much a full OS. It's not a Linux Desktop, but it is a full OS. And televisions running Android are called "smart TVs", precisely because they run a full OS instead of a minimal firmware like they used to.

Google is working on bringing Android to the Desktop, and Samsung already does it. As in: you plug your smartphone into a docking station and it is suddenly a Desktop computer.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#267

Post by nobodyandproud »

oblio wrote: post #253
nobodyandproud wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It’s not 50% territory; but it’s enough to push it up from 1-2% to 5%.

There’s interest in LLM and GenAI beyond regular tinkerers; local NSFW image generator models are apparently a thing.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#268

Post by [deleted] »

paulcole wrote: post #226
ryandv wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least in my circle everyone I know has moved to their general computing being on phones and tablets which is not captured here. > [...] (more technical, needing to do tasks not possible on phones and tablets) Somewhat unrelated but something I never see discussed is how the form factor of the computing device changes our relationship to, and the types of, media that we produce and consume. One critical task not…

> One critical task not possible on phones and tablets is the production of long-form textual media The key addition obviously being “for me.” For others tablets (and for some others, phones) are what they use for producing long-form textual media. I, for example, have no issue producing long-form textual media on my iPad w/ Magic Keyboard. I’m sure that you will feel as though I’m not producing Real Long-Form Textua…

[deleted]

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#269

Post by sevensor »

exiguus wrote: post #159
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

Actually, as a long time Linux Desktop user, i have at least 4, refurbished bought Notebooks in my place yet. Beside the 4, another 3 new new bought Notebooks. The reason why I buy refurbished is, that my use-cases don't need the newest hardware and for a long time, older hardware was more compatible with Linux and BSD for me. Also, you get for a small price, high quality hardware. If you now ask yourself, why that m…

Agreed! Old laptops are more than powerful enough for Linux, and I like having purpose-oriented computers. The hobby programming computer doesn’t have games on it and is at any rate too weak to run them. The music laptop has every flac I ever ripped from a CD, and precious little disk space for anything else. And so on.
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