1w ago

Linux has over 6% of the desktop market? Yes, you read that right - here's how

www.zdnet.com

Clickbaity title on the original article, but I think this is the most important point to consider from it:

After getting to 1% in approximately 2011, it took about a decade to double that to 2%. The jump from 2% to 3% took just over two years, and 3% to 4% took less than a year.
Get the picture? The Linux desktop is growing, and it's growing fast.

52 comments

I hope this growth snowballs from now on; larger market share → developers release Linux versions for their software → users have less reasons to keep Windows → larger market share. Basically, a network-like effect.
If Linux reaches ~25% we basically won; the only advantage Windows has at its disposal is that network-like effect - Linux is cheaper (literally free), less encumbered by anti-user restrictions, and you can run it even in a potato.
- That isn't Windows only advantage. It is "easier" to use in the sense that it has less choices, especially if you have been using it in business for decades. You know it well enough to get around, with no concerns about different app names/icons/etc. Im not talking about chrome ot adobe either, im talking "what is the folder program called and why does it look like that" problems.
  Most people give no shits about computers. They use what they know, if they use it at all. It's why "phones and the occasional tablet" are by far the majority of most people's home computers now.
  Linux wont win until it wins offices. That will be where the snowball starts. The greay thing though is linix doesnt need to "win." It can just be excellent and continue to be a much needed check on capitalism's race to constrain our freedoms by enshittifing everything they can for profit.
  
  No one uses phones or tablets for actual work. They're just media consumption and mobile interface devices. When people need to get shit done they sit down with a keyboard and mouse. That's why they call them workstations.
I just installed Mint the other day. I was pussy footing around with trying to create a persistent USB drive but the bootloader was fighting me. I finally just hovered over the "wipe drive and install" button for a while before I finally clicked and let it rip. Never again M$.
- dual booting would be a pain in the ass, both setting it up and post-setup
  
  Dual booting is dumb easy with most Linux installers. I've been dual booting two different Linux partitions for years.
  
  Setup is piss easy, just hit install. The real pain is the random Windows update that will wipe all boot entries that aren’t Microsoft’s
  
  That was the conclusion that pushed me over.
  
  I think the best solution is to just have Windows on other drive, that way it shouldn't touch Linux drive's bootloader.
- I first tried Ubuntu then switched to pop os and haven't looked back. Feels great to be free of MS.

I wanted to visualize this, so:

    
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   1 │⠀⠀⣀⣀⠤⠔⠒⠊⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀│ 
     └────────────────────────────────────────┘ 
     2010                                  2030

It's not precise; I took the text

After getting to 1% in approximately 2011, it took about a decade to double that to 2%. The jump from 2% to 3% took just over two years, and 3% to 4% took less than a year

and converted it to:

csv

Since my mobile client renders the terminal output poorly,

Proof that Linux use is rising asymptotically, and there will be infinity Linux users by 2030.

Edit I just discovered something nasty about Lemmy, at least in how the instance I'm on is configured. Lemmy rewrites comments to proxy image requests of external sources through the Lemmy server, but the proxy doesn't work for some reason, so it fucks up the image; therefore, you can't see it. Not cool, Lemmy. Not cool.

Every child born is a new Linux user

I'm eagerly waiting this rise. We run a proprietary CAD that always had a Unix \ Linux version in parallel with Windows, it was the better option once W10 took over W7 because W10 made it run slow and Linux version was peppy...Fast forward a few years and CAD vendor kills Linux GUI version citing only 1% usage globally. So here's me hoping they start reversing that decision.
With recent articles claiming some games run better on Linux, I could see this sort of jump actually being possible
6% now that’s what I like to hear! It’s time for developers to make Linux first native apps!
- Omg there are so many of them out there already, even I just released one a couple of weeks ago: https://jeena.github.io/recoder/
  Check out GNOME Circle for high profile apps: https://circle.gnome.org/ Or KDE Applications: https://apps.kde.org/ and so on.
My first operating system was AmigaOS 1.3, then I didn't have a computer through my teenage years and only in 2001 I bought a PC and a magacine with a Suse Linux CD in it which I installed on that PC. But I couldn't get the 56k modem to work with it because some drivers were missing. So I had to switch for a year to Windows 2000 (or 98, I don't remember). But then I had a girlfriend who had a PC which was connected to the internet via ADSL, so I could do the research on that her computer while installing Debian on my computer from a 3.5 inch floppy disk (I found a network installer which fit on the disk). So I only had to use Windows for about a year.
There was another exception where I had a MacBook from 2008 to 2012 but other than that I've been on Linux for most of my life. Oh and I use Arch btw.
Let's all set our user-agent to 2001 WinXP running IE
I've switched both my laptop and desktop over to Linux (Bazzite and Fedora respectively) in the last 6 months.
The last time I tried to daily Linux (over a decade ago) I ended up switching back eventually, but this time I really don't think I'll need to. All of the games I play most often work perfectly, the dev tooling is even better than it is on Windows, and the hardware compatibility side has been completely flawless.
Gone are the days of having to hunt down obscure Linux drivers for your touchpad or webcam. Everything just works out of the box.
Is that because Linux run on more desktop computers, or just that there's less desktop computers (and laptops) overall? When everybody switches to smartphones and AR/VR, and there's bunch of geeks running Linux on their old rusty desktop setups, is that really something that should be celebrated?
- There aren't less laptops and desktops. Sure, there are more smartphones and tablets, and laptops are being used more than desktops. But desktop, keyboards, laptops, mice, monitors, etc. Manufacturing hasn't slowed down, it keeps accelerating steadily. IT spending has grown year over year steadily for more than a decade. Last year alone there were more than 240 million desktops shipped, a growth from the previous year. The AI bubble caused a spike in PC production that had been previously declining slowly.
  Statista
  Gitnux
Yeah but we also NEED & I emphasize NEED to teach the newcomers the way of the Libre/FOSS/LinuxJutsu in the most welcoming way as possible.
Not like those ArchLinux clowns
- idk man I jumped straight in with cachy(arch based), and its great, I went back and tried other distros this month, back to cachyos its solid, (def had some weird issues with freezes reinstalling tho, had to redo it a few times, no idea what screwed it up, but ive had similar issues with windows where reinstalling took 4 hours not like 10 minutes.
  I really like their defaults and post install gaming packages speeds things up. I thought endeavor wasn't bad either, just would have to manually seek the few things I need for gaming.
  I think what was most confusing was des and distros and the difference between them bit ebing clear to me. Like I thought you needed certain distros for des (obv it does help to pick the right version and install with that in mind, but most popular ones allow you to use most des) Des and customization was what I cared about and the options confused me once I finally picked cachyos thinking it and plasma were one in the same lol. I mean its pretty obvious once you look it up but from the outside perspective the de seems like a part of each and it seems like you pick the os for the look/de when its just partially that, more like their theming and app selection pertaining to the look.
  I just like the aur wiki and repo, most apps have a package on there that is up to date and works well, mixed with flathub it covers 99% of things. Debtap another .5% Big fear coming to Linux was compatibility, so many different app formats, I just wanted to be able to download anything I see thats for linux and have it work by default, mostly covered by aur + flathub.
  
  id prob reccomend bazzite to someone new tho, flathubs just solid, immutable sounds like a good idea, I just dont want to lose the aur and pacman personally so its arch forever now
Recently made the switch myself. Didn’t want to throw a way a perfectly fine for what I need computer because Microsoft doesn’t like it.
Article doesn’t actually explain what distribution people are downloading and installing. How do we know it isn’t the growth of SteamOS and the Steam Deck driving this?
- SteamOS is also linux desktop, so I'd expect it to be included.
  
  Don’t Steam Decks get counted as SteamOS?
Developers best we can do is exe or dmg

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