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

Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

linuxiac.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 564 posts

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#421

Post by danpalmer »

lproven wrote: post #394
danpalmer wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, but not usefully. It depends what you're trying to communicate. ChromeOS is based on Linux but most Linux enthusiasts aren't going to consider it Desktop Linux. The website is clearly catering to a Linux enthusiast market so the numbers communicate the right thing for its readers.

This just quickly descends into a "no true Scotsman" argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman It's a Linux kernel and a Linux userland on top of `glibc`. It's not a weird libc, like Bionic in Android. You can run a Debian container and Debian apps; my own ChromeOS Flex machine runs Firefox and DOSemu. It's a Linux. It's the most successful desktop Linux there is, and so of course all the advocates dec…

Honestly I don't think this is playing silly games with words, I think it's just a website knowing their readership.

Linux is two things: a kernel and an ecosystem of distributions. This website is clearly targeting users of distributions that brand themselves as "Linux distributions". In that way, ChromeOS is obviously not a Linux distribution to anyone that cares about Linux distributions.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#422

Post by bannedbybros »

krisknez wrote: post #364
DiabloD3 wrote: post #49

I wonder why they keep making these articles. Linux is on more computers both today and all of the computers ever made put together than any other OS. It is on virtually all servers on the Internet, the majority OS on phones, its in many TVs and STBs and streaming sticks, its one of the few OSes ever in space, its one of the few OSes ever on Mars, and it is also the OS behind ChromeOS (which that article mistakenly b…

Everyone knows Linux is the number one for servers and embeded devices but the desktop market share is special. It's interesting to see how over the years the user experience of Linux Desktop ia getting better, bug are being fixed, we get better software, desktop environments are getting more features e.g.

[dead]

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#423

Post by metaltyphoon »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #377

As a game dev who uses Windows threads like this are super interesting. I’m still moderately convinced that Linux users are suffering Stockholm Syndrome. Linux devs still don’t have a debugger as good as Visual Studio and insist that printf is good enough. Y’all are crazy and don’t realize how horrible your workflows are. IMHO. Of course it could be me that has Stockholm Syndrome!

I use all 3 OSes everyday. Work on Windows / WSL (Ubuntu) and macOS for personal. Gdb is great but nothing can touch VS debugger. printf only is insanity.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#424

Post by gglitch »

resolutebat wrote: post #293
jacquesm wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What stung before was that people were forced to use Windows because of lock-ins, software compatibility, etc. That doesn’t really exist any more. That's a funny conclusion to make. In the business world that still exists and even my kids are forced into the Microsoft eco-system by their school because the software they insist you run (for which perfectly good web alternatives exist) only runs on windows.

True, but increasingly marginal. Many schools have adopted Chromebooks (Linux in disguise) and even the MS Office suite has largely moved online.

> Chromebooks (Linux in disguise)

I don't think a win for Chromebooks counts as a win for Linux, except in maybe the most narrowly technical sense.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#425

Post by hnfong »

hedora wrote: post #397
wheels wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time those packages, or the build files for them, are contributed by the distributions themselves, or avid users of those distros. (Reference: I have multiple software projects I've created that are a part of every Linux distribution. I've never packaged any of them myself.) Even big enterprise companies usually work directly with the distros under NDA, and the distros produce the packages. That works for…

Oddly, for video games, it’s easier to get older windows games to run under linux than windows. It’s annoying that this isn’t true for modern Linux desktop software.

That's because the "wine runtime" is much more stable than the "linux runtime" (whatever that means).

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#426

Post by wredue »

holoduke wrote: post #232
DeathArrow wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there is one good thing about web apps, it’s that browsers are now the application run time and browsers are more cross platform than any software libraries that have come before it. I'd take every day a native app running locally over a web app. And I am a web developer.

Not anymore. Last gen phones have enough performance to run webapps without a single loss in performance, look and feel compared to native apps. Native apps will remain, but you see more and more SPAs wrapped in a hybrid app still maintaining a 'native'look. Costs of developing webapps is dramatically lower. Although native knowledge is still required for Auth, billing, advertising and other required native stuff.

Feeling similar due to phone just being faster is not the same as a loss of performance.

You are still paying performance for using web apps, and even though your fingers don’t feel it as badly, your battery sure does.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#427

Post by DrThunder »

cmilton wrote: post #350
resolutebat wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but increasingly marginal. Many schools have adopted Chromebooks (Linux in disguise) and even the MS Office suite has largely moved online.

I agree. Google Classroom exploded during the pandemic in my local school systems. Enterprises are moving to Workspace from 365. I hope they drive each other's prices to the bottom. :)

Nah... We've had Workspace for a long time and there are still users that adamantly refuse to use Google Apps over MS. They actually have good reasons as well. Since Google just has web apps only there's always extra steps uploading all the office docs they get from other businesses.

We tried blowing Office 2013 away on everyone's machines after being told most users didn't think they needed it. Now, a few months later 90% of our users have asked for a 365 license.

What typically happens from what I can tell is that most businesses just end up having a mix of both 365 and Workspace.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#428

Post by jerrygenser »

zombieprocess wrote: post #414

Any recommendations for Linux based laptops for software development that is < $1000?

Get an older Dell XPS 15. Newer gen are above this price point but 2-3 gen back will be very nice.

Battery, WiFi chip, memory, and storage are all upgradeable; you'll just be signing up for a given chip generation. L

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#429

Post by gugol »

eddieroger wrote: post #405
DiabloD3 wrote: post #49

I wonder why they keep making these articles. Linux is on more computers both today and all of the computers ever made put together than any other OS. It is on virtually all servers on the Internet, the majority OS on phones, its in many TVs and STBs and streaming sticks, its one of the few OSes ever in space, its one of the few OSes ever on Mars, and it is also the OS behind ChromeOS (which that article mistakenly b…

> 19XX will be the year of Linux on the desktop > 20XX will be the year of Linux on the desktop They've been saying it so long it's part of our psyche. It doesn't matter the other places Linux is running, it hasn't conquered that one place they've been trying to conquer since the start. You never get over the one who got away.

[dead]

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#430

Post by izoow »

jacknews wrote: post #45

The problem is the desktop situation is such a mess. Do you go with a gtk or qt desktop and which one? And then X11 which is ancient and creaky, or wayland which is fatally nerfed in design (if not it's entire development philosophy) even when it does do what you need which is far from always? OTOH windows is becoming adware/spyware and macos is becoming big brother lockdown-wear, so maybe it is time for linux to shi…

>Which DE

If you want a full-fledged modern DE with active development, the choice is only between GNOME and KDE imo.

>GTK or Qt

I used to worry about whether to go full GTK or Qt, these days I don't really care. Both work in either environment and the theming is usually consistent as well unless you have a custom theme, so they don't even look out of place.

>X11 or Wayland

It seems like Wayland is going to be the future, so it's only really a matter of whether it works well enough for your uses yet or not. If it does, great, use Wayland, if not, stick with X11 for a bit longer.

It honestly doesn't seem like that much of a mess to me.

Post reply on HN