Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

ostechnix.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 635 posts

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#511

Post by Zigurd »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #470
Zigurd wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20 years ago my kids were getting hand-me-down work laptops with Linux installed on them. Apart from their peers thinking that they must be in some kind of cult, it did the job of keeping them much safer from malware. Linux has been very usable for a long time. Windows 11, being deliberately unusable on older hardware that works perfectly well is enough incentive for more people to try an alternative. That's not goin…

> Windows 11, being deliberately unusable on older hardware that works perfectly well is enough incentive for more people to try an alternative The extreme majority of users doesn't care about that, they'll stay on Windows 10, they don't give a single fuck about the fact that it'll stop receiving security updates.

The people who manage your work PC of course won't migrate away from Windows just because of Windows 11. But home users faced with a few hundred dollars of hardware replacement will probably consider a less expensive alternative. That might be just letting it rot. But it also might be ubuntu, mint, or Chrome OS

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#512

Post by samrus »

MostlyStable wrote: post #389
samrus wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong. A steamdeck in desktop mode is exactly a desktop. You can write and execute code on it the exact same way you do on your laptop You cant do that on mobile devices or other handhelds

Yes, you can, and yes, among the group of people represented on HN, I have no doubt that a fair number do use it this way.....but how typical is that? How often does the average steam deck owner use it as a desktop? How often does the average user leave the steam launcher? How often does the average user think of it as anything other than a gaming console? If all you care about is some very technical sense of "how ma…

Great point actually.

And it got me thinking, i already hook up the deck to my tv and use bluetooth peripherals with it. Maybw ill try using it as my daily driver at home

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#513

Post by saintfire »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #121
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 necessaril…

Obviously everyone has their own experience but any Arch(-based) distro I've used has just worked out of the box following a simple Calamares install.

I've had nothing but bad experiences with Debian installs and I'm curious if this is where a lot of issues are coming from when people switch to Mint or Ubuntu when they hear it's the "beginner distro"

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#514

Post by leptons »

dmd wrote: post #472
leptons wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have they ever tried to use a real computer for that? Can they afford a real computer? Would they prefer a bigger screen and a real keyboard over a tiny screen and an even smaller keyboard? Maybe they just don't have the experience of using a real computer to know how far superior it is to a tiny screen/keyboard? Using a phone to write papers seems like an exercise in masochism, if better alternatives are available.…

Yes, this is a very affluent district. Everyone has a chromebook from school and most have a macbook from their parents. They prefer the phone. (“Big computers are more of an old person millennial thing.”)

They sound young and dumb, to the point that their opinion on this matter is irrelevant. They will figure it out eventually.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#515

Post by iLoveOncall »

Zigurd wrote: post #511
iLoveOncall wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows 11, being deliberately unusable on older hardware that works perfectly well is enough incentive for more people to try an alternative The extreme majority of users doesn't care about that, they'll stay on Windows 10, they don't give a single fuck about the fact that it'll stop receiving security updates.

The people who manage your work PC of course won't migrate away from Windows just because of Windows 11. But home users faced with a few hundred dollars of hardware replacement will probably consider a less expensive alternative. That might be just letting it rot. But it also might be ubuntu, mint, or Chrome OS

That's literally my point. Home users don't give a crap about the fact that their OS isn't supported anymore.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#516

Post by ronsor »

juliusdavies wrote: post #330
827a wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Radar is also reporting a Linux increase over the past month: 3.3% to 4.4%. 2. Both StatsCounter and Radar break out Linux and ChromeOS; if you combine them, StatsCounter hits 7.7%; Radar hits 6.3%. 3. That being said: Both StatsCounter and Radar experienced an anomalous drop in ChromeOS clients & rise in Linux clients over the past month. StatsCounter took ChromeOS from ~4.4% to 2.7%. Radar took it 2.6% -> 1.9%.…

I find this compelling, alongside the fact ChromeBooks are well placed in retail shops and usually the cheapest things you can buy. They are also ubiquitous in elementary schools. This is more about ChromeBooks than linux. Add the fact that all my kids hate their school chromebooks.... maybe this isn't such great news for Linux afterall.

School Chromebooks are usually locked down (i.e. full of spyware) and poorly maintained. It's no wonder that children dislike them.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#517

Post by Pxtl »

akho wrote: post #473
Pxtl wrote: post #382

Personally I'm taking another kick at Linux desktop in advance of Win11, I installed Mint with Cinnamon... and I gotta say, I'm kinda disappointed how many pain points there still are. Type in your admin password every 5 seconds just to install routine updates, ugly-ass GRUB screens, confusing UI, and SDL2 games being half-broken with resolution-switching and audio. Installing software still involves bouncing around…

You installed a distro that aims to preserve suckage for future generations, and even developed an entire DE out of pure aversion to change. It’s often recommended by change-averse Linux users… Successful Linux-based OSes have unattended atomic updates and user-friendly app installation. That includes ChromeOs and Android, as well as modern atomic desktop distributions. Fedora Silverblue, Bluefin, Bazzite. edit: howe…

Ah, I had no idea Mint Cinnamon was about "preserving suckage". I remember when Mint launched it was all about "Ubuntu but easier, like non-free stuff included" and my understanding was Cinnamon was their own DE built to follow familiar UI patterns and customizability instead of Gnome's opinionated stuff.

Didn't realize that it was also for grumps who wanted bug-compatibility in their workflow.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#518

Post by hluska »

This is anecdata, but with my own very limited (by choice) website analytics, I see a strong correlation between Linux users and headless browsers. So while my Linux user base seems higher than ever before so is my headless traffic. When I remove headless traffic, my Linux user base is in that 2-3.x% region.

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#519

Post by Barrin92 »

Zambyte wrote: post #261
Barrin92 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

there's not any genuine forks. They're all dependent on Google, see Vivaldi last year announcing they'll drop manifest v2 support. They're all pretty much cosmetic reskins. Whoever puts up the money for development makes the choices, regardless what license you slap on it.

And if there was a drastic mainstream adoption of linux, whatever implications that has for development focus, it would affect everyone because nobody is going to run a sincere kernel fork.

[1]https://social.vivaldi.net/@Vivaldi/112633927397201824

Re: Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA

#520

Post by philistine »

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…

You’re keeping a discussion on technical reasoning for why Android and Desktop Linux are separated in a list like that, but the reason is not technical. It’s wholly for convenience. We want to know the performance of Desktop Linux separate from Android. Whether or not they are a different OS or not is irrelevant.
Post reply on HN