I know this might be a couple months old, but I didn’t know we already passed 4%.
You’re welcome guys. I installed Linux on an iMac yesterday. It was all me.
I tried to do the same but mine has an Nvidia GPU :(
Yes those can be a pain. Might be worth to give it a try though before ruling it out entirely. I did manage to get my old (non-mac) laptop working that had the combined intel and nvidia gpus that were a pain.
I did try. It was awful LOL. Also I couldn’t use my second monitor. This was with a distro that was supposed to support Nvidia. But if you know of one that specifically supports the 780M, I’m all ears.
Just a reminder to take the data in that site with a grain of salt. I used to share them a lot, but then decided to read more about their methodology, and turns out it’s mostly a black box, so they may be subject to several kinds of biases, and we can’t even know. For example, we don’t know which sites use their analytics and if there’s a geographical bias. We also don’t know how their scripts work and how the data is collected from devices. It would be nice if we had more sources of marketshare data to compare
For sure, I wish they gave us more data. The trend seems to be going up so that’s nice.
Glad for Linux going up, but the numbers should really come from Windows more than from MacOS.
How much of this is regular people just not buying new computers anymore?
A lot of households that used to have had a laptop for each person have replaced those devices with phones and tablets. They weren’t using Linux, so by removing them Linux market share would go up even if it hasn’t actually grown.
Last I checked, Linux users also use phones.
I think the argument is that as less people have desktops and laptops, the only people left will be more technical (otherwise they’d just use a phone or tablet). The more technical people are also likely to use Linux. So as non-technical people move to tablets and phones, technical people make up a larger share of laptop/desktop users.
Three cheers for King Torvalds and Lord Gaben!
Yes, this was big news all over Lemmy when it happened.
Thanks for bringing it up though! Not everyone might have known that.
Then immediately went down to 3.5% when people realised it still doesn’t work properly lol
Wym I’ve recently started using Linux and I’ve had exactly one issue and it was entirely my lack of knowledge and took like 5 mins to fix.
yeah, linux is super usable for every day shit, and even gaming now. I havent had a significant problem in years, and i’m not a sysadmin or something that knows the mystic ways of the commandline or anything. I’m just a random idiot
seems I’m too boomer for this shit, apparently phones count as “personal computers”.
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/
look at this graph and tell me that mac os is “dominant”.
(the numbers for those who don’t want to click the link)
Android = 43.86%
Windows = 27.97%
iOS = 17.8%
OS X = 5.64% (when did they stop calling it mac os?)
unknown = 1.96%
Linux = 1.44% (we’re still last place guys!)
Linux people generally use adblockers so I somewhat doubt all these analytics websites that don’t have a methodology that wouldn’t be blocked by adblockers listed
Isn’t ChromeOS just a flavour of Linux?
Technically, yes. Practically, it’s complicated. It doesn’t really exist within the same ecosystem as other Linux distros.
It’s not as different as Android (which is also technically a Linux distribution), but running a normal DE and all the programs that come with it is very clearly still an advanced user thing locked behind knowledge of how bash and virtual environments work.
I don’t think Microsoft (or Apple) want people to have personal computers anymore in the way that PCs have historically existed. That is to say, they don’t want your computer capable of running arbitrary code of your choosing. They don’t want your computer to have the potential to do everything, to run everything, to make anything.
They want to control and lock down all aspects of your machine and what it can do, retain ownership of hardware via software licenses, and monetize every click and keystroke.
Microsoft doesn’t want you to have a functional computer anymore, they want you to have a dummy terminal that runs Office 365 and Copilot.
I don’t know that I agree. I think they do. However:
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Apple only wants you to be able to do those things if you’re buying the software through their store. Honestly I’m shocked they still allow you to “sideload” software on MacOS. They can be very unpredictable sometimes. And;
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MS only wants you to be able to do those things if you’re looking at their ads and they’re monetizing your data.
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They want PCs that work like smartphones, with apps completely self contained and unmodifiable, where the OS is a black box that no one but them can see in to.
Smartphones are actually a good window into what computers in general would have been like had the IBM bios not been reverse engineered and survived a bunch of legal challenges.
I think if it was up to them, and latency was low enough, they probably would have pushed some kind of “fully remote convertible laptop” where they literally own everything you do in a cloud, I don’t even want to search if this is a thing that exist already
We’ve been most of the way their for a long while with thin clients. They have just enough computational capacity to connect to someone else infrastructure. Its also how schools use Chromebooks for the most part too
Now that we don’t have to pay for any of the infrastructure, it turns out that mainframes and timesharing is awesome. Can we go back to that please? - Silicon Valley, 2024
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This is EXACTLY right.
They are dividing users into two groups. Unintelligent users who run Windows or MacOS in an extremely controlled limited way with AI assisting and monitoring everything remotely and reporting it back to the mothership…
Or people who are above an IQ of 85 and willing to learn to use Linux.
You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy - Ida Auken
I’ve had LMDE on a USB stick for a few months now, waiting for the right time to boot it up on my wife’s PC, and she finally agreed to try it tonight. Cross your fingers, boys; we may soon have another convert.
My wife struggles with tech, she had such a hard time with windows, and the slowness of it was making her wxperience worse. I put GNOME DE on her old laptop, she can be autonomous now
If she doesn’t like it, find a new wife!
/r/relationship_advice is leaking.
Priorities.
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What’s your review of LMDE over Debian? I recently took the Linux desktop jump recently and started with Linux Mint.
I really didn’t like the Mint desktop as it seemed very dated, so I’ve switched to Debian/KDE. It was only much later that I realized how easy it would have been to just customize my window manager instead of getting a different distro. Having said that, I’m really digging Debian in spite of Nvidia issues being a headache, and Debian’s glacial update pace making me look longingly at Arch.
I also didn’t like the way Mint looked/felt, even though I’m aware of its popularity and good reputation.
I’m on Pop!_OS which is mostly a GNOME desktop, but they do add [remove] features and it’s very smooth and clean. I guess this is one of the miracles of “linux” where we can all be using “linux” but with 1500 different varieties.
Yeah, I’ve heard really good things about Pop!_OS, especially for Windows migrants.
Funny enough, if you “need it to look like windows 7” Mint looks pretty close.
but yes, prior to October my house was 5 windows PCs. A couple weeks ago it was officially 5 Pop machines. No prior Linux experience, except for copy-paste setup of a pihole.
Or “here’s what Win 10 would look like if Microsoft hadn’t had the tablet-based stroke that was Win 8.” Is how I’d describe Cinnamon.
The default themes are a little bit dated; I use a darker kind of black transparent theme I got from gnome-look.org with a blue/cyan kind of scheme and it looks pretty up to date.
I love pop os.
I like Debian a lot, and Mint seems fine too, but I don’t like the styling, or Cinnamon really. I use Fluxbox (WM only, no DE) with a bunch of tiny customizations.
The main reason I picked it is that I like to tinker and she doesn’t, so I think that Cinnamon will be the easiest for her coming from Windows 10.
We both have AMD GPUs (and she has a AMD CPU too) so I haven’t had to deal with Nvidia headaches.
I like the glacial updates so things don’t break as easily. I don’t want to spend hours fixing a system (hers or mine tbh) unless I have to. For anything that I need the latest features for, there’s usually a repo I can add to Aptitude or a Flatpak.
Yeah, the rock-solid stability of Debian stable is definitely a huge plus. I thought I would be okay with less frequent updates, but I changed my mind when I realized cool updates like KDE 6 won’t make it to stable probably until next year T__T. Even Nvidia 555 drivers probably won’t even hit backports for a while. Clearly the responsible thing to do here is to add an Arch install alongside my Debian/W11 dual-boot 😛
Not using a DE sounds intriguing, I might give that a try once I find my feet on desktop Linux. I’ve been around *nix systems most of my career, but I haven’t used a Linux desktop as a daily driver in like 15 years. It’s funny how much has changed, and how much hasn’t.
I am so happy for you two!
🤞 Make us proud, bud!
How much of this is decline at the expense of Windows 11, due to Steam lowering barriers to entry, fatigue with Windows’ hard selling, and/or extending the useful like of hardware that W11 abandoned.
I 100% put money on the fact that linuxes surge in popularity and usability is 100% because Valve, a multi-billion dollar company, stepped in and started dragging it forward in ways that the fractuous nature of the community never could.
Windows 11 being a spytastic invasive dogpile was just extra fuel on the fire.
Little bit of everything I think. I personally have been getting tired of Microsoft pulling their shit, but without Valve making compatibility so simple for their launcher it would make it a much harder sell.
The fuckery Microsoft has been doing with trying to outright trick people into signing in to the OS with a Microsoft account and using things like OneDrive combined with just how good Proton has gotten pushed me to make the switch full time a year or so ago for my personal usage.
Copilot / Recall was the last straw for me. My only relationship with Microsoft for the last 10 years has been, “how much more of Microsoft’s sh*t am I willing to put up with?”
Nearly zero. Gamers make up less than a rounding error of desktop installs.
Wut? It’s an industry bigger than football and TV and film combined! Somebody’s getting all those games and they have to be played on something too.
I know it technically counts and all, but it bothers me that “mobile” is included in “video games”. Mobile “games” are clickbaits and doomscrolls and it seems weird to compare them in the same graph as Nintendo/PC etc.
HOWEVER - in terms of REVENUE there is no denying how much money they make on mobile games! Probably due in part to the clickbait/doomscroll nature of them.
I know it technically counts and all, but it bothers me that “mobile” is included in “video games”. Mobile “games” are clickbaits and doomscrolls and it seems weird to compare them in the same graph as Nintendo/PC etc.
I didn’t post this graphic for the mobile and console games. I posted it because of the claim that PC games are “an industry bigger than football and TV and film combined!” USD 45Bn is big but not bigger than football and TV and film combined. The combined PC games revenue is about half of Disney’s yearly revenue.
Gamers do, the vast majority of which are mobile gamers. Followed by console gamers and then PC gaming which makes up less 15% of industry revenue.
Is less than
Percentages are the easiest statistical figure to bullshit. Just like it happens with “Linux desktop is only 4%”. We are then talking about over a hundred million PCs. PC gaming is 15% means that PC gamers are several hundred millions of devices. Sure, it is less than mobile gaming. But less doesn’t mean irrelevant, and much less a rounding error. You don’t call a fifth of the market that expends almost a quarter of the revenue a rounding error.
Steam surveys would like to have a word
With you, maybe.
They consistently show that several percent of gamers are using Steam on Linux
Yup. Gaming was one of the few things that kept me from switching to Linux. Then, I found out about Proton on Steam.
Attaboy gamers. Figure it out! You can do it!
First off, I DO NOT count ChromeOS, but whatever.
Secondly, when is 18% of anything “dominant”??? The fuck? Arstechnica back up off the pipe.
They probably mean of Linux flavored ps coverage.
(I’m aware Mac is very different than Linux, but it is more closely grouped with Linux than Windows)
It’s more BSD than anything.
Played csgo last night and this guy brought up he was playing on Linux Mint. Lfg, I was so happy.
I switched over to Fedora a number of months ago and switched to plasma a few weeks ago. 0 complaints on any game I’ve played between halo, cyber punk, doom, and forza.
It’s cool and all, but I’m surprised it’s not 10% at this point. Microsoft is shitting in their customers mouth and Apple is a luxury brand at this point.
Because every computer bought by the average human being, has Windows on it.
Yeah that’s true.
4% is high considering there are probably more corporate desktops tham personal ones
Institutuonals like governments and businesses do embrace Linux, too, and I don’t find many regular users running Linux on their machine for anything but IT work
For desktop or everything else. Because if its:
Web Servers, Supercomputers, Android Smartphones, Smart TVs, Network Routers, Network Switches, Embedded Devices, IoT Devices, NAS (Network-Attached Storage) Devices, Raspberry Pi, Smartwatches, Home Automation Devices, Google Chromebooks, Set-top Boxes, Drones, Digital Signage Devices, 3D Printers, Medical Devices, ATM Machines, Point of Sale (POS) Devices, Digital Cameras, Gaming Consoles, Virtual Private Servers (VPS), Automotive Infotainment Devices, Mainframes, Telecommunications Equipment, Scientific Research Equipment, Security Devices, Cloud Servers, Network Firewalls, Storage Area Networks (SAN), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Devices, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Devices, Big Data Analytics Devices, Machine Learning Devices, Artificial Intelligence Devices, Financial Trading Devices, Air Traffic Control Devices, Spacecraft Control Devices, Weather Forecasting Devices, Broadcast Automation Devices, Railway Signaling Devices, Electric Grid Control Devices, Smart Meters, E-Readers, Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Stations, Robotics Devices
then Linux (or some kind of *Nix system) is probably what is running it. The only market share I dont see is desktop.
I don’t have any hard numbers, only what I have seen out in the world. But a good number of POS systems, embedded things like MRI machines, tire balancers in mechanics shops and ATMs run some flavor of embedded Windows.
It is not nearly as huge as *nix is, but it is not exactly uncommon either.
