6 ms·

Windows 10 Bleeds Users While Ubuntu Linux Enjoys an Astonishing Increase

45 points by nickosmark 6y ago

acd 6y ago
Windows will become an emulation layer in Linux. Why? Microsoft makes most money from cloud subscriptions.
- Kye 6y ago
  It does seem possible at this point. They did it with their browser: the rendering engine changed from a point of differentiation to a liability, so they threw in with #1 to have some influence over it. The OS is headed that way.
- contextfree 6y ago
  Microsoft already develops and ships an emulation layer for Windows on Linux; SQL Server for Linux is built on it.
  - dTal 6y ago
    Wait what? There's an official Microsoft-sanctioned version of Wine? Is this obtainable standalone in any form?
    - contextfree 6y ago
      I don't think so, and it's not really a "version of Wine" since I don't think it has any support for GUI apps.
akmittal 6y ago
Ubuntu is becoming more and more suitable for normal users. Most of the work is done in web browsers these days. I do ubuntu minimal installation and almost everything works out of box. More people would be using if laptop makers start giving ubuntu as default option.
- wincy 6y ago
  You still get weird gotchas. My wife wanted to install Microsoft Teams to talk to our doctor. She got the the Linux download page then asked “should I download the .rpm or the .deb?”. Luckily I was there to tell her. Then she installed it like a champ and got it working, so that was nice. But there’s no way she’d have just “known” this, and it’s just another hurdle to non technical users. Why should you have to know that Ubuntu is a downstream distro of Debian to install a program?
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    Why on earth would someone talk to their doctor with such a product?
    - bdcravens 6y ago
      My doctors are using Zoom (via MyChart, so I assume many are using the same); one of my wife's providers is using Google Duo.
    - lowtolerance 6y ago
      Because most doctor visits right now are “telehealth” visits and as a patient you have zero say as to what platform your doctor chooses to use.
      - Sir_Substance 6y ago
        My experience is that people will be happy to use other things if you just ask them to, and have a ready-to-go solution on hand. Just say "teams doesn't work well on my computer, it's very poorly made. Can we use jitsimeet? It's much easier for me." and them drop them a jitsi link without waiting for their response. Teams is the official video chat at my company, I've been successfully ignoring that for more than 2 months now. At this stage, jitsi usage is starting to spread to other teams.
  - nmstoker 6y ago
    I get your point that there's clearly further to go, but it's not that unusual to need to know something relevant like this if installing from a source that's not your OS app store. After all, we often expect Windows users to know their install option is "PC" (a historic piece of info that isn't "Windows") rather than than Mac. It's also something that is answered effectively with the very first Google result for an obvious search: https://www.google.com/search?q=should+i+install+deb+or+rpm&oq=should+i+install+deb+or+rpm https://www.google.com/search?q=should+i+install+deb+or+rpm&... There are a few ways round this but they would generally require action on the part of all the software suppliers who post packages via websites. In your example it wouldn't be hard for MS to figure out the Ubuntu users and send them just the right link and likewise several other Linux distros - I guess it's still not worth it. Maybe this is an area where a JS library for websites would avoid each one rolling their own and thus make the experience better across the board?
Gollapalli 6y ago
>One key thing to note: Ubuntu isn’t seeing a 599 percent increase in additional users. That jump represents its increase in overall operating system market share from month to month. But it’s still an astonishing number So... a whole bunch of servers using Ubuntu got fired up?
- tssva 6y ago
  The numbers being reported are based upon visits to websites which are part of the NetMarketShare data collection network, so a bunch of servers using Ubuntu getting fired up wouldn't account for the increase. An increase in market share higher than the increase in actual users would be accounted for by the size of the market overall decreasing while the number of Ubuntu users either stayed the same, increased but at a lower rate than the increase in market share or decreased at a rate lower than the decrease in the number of users of other operating systems.
photoGrant 6y ago
Windows allows the Linux layer and Ubuntu is the most popular option. Because the Windows market share goes down slightly doesn’t mean the new ubuntu users are exclusively separate users. There’s just an addition funnel of access now, creating more ubiquity amongst platforms. Yay!
- 7786655 6y ago
  These statistics are collected from web browsing activity. I doubt many people are browsing the web from WSL.
bobowzki 6y ago
Is 2020 the year of the Linux desktop?
- Alekhine 6y ago
  No, and it never will be until: Open source creative and professional tools are on par with proprietary tools (MS Office, Adobe) in terms of function and UI, GUI applications are written for every conceivable setting a non-technical user would need, Gaming is easier (it's getting better) And, Ubuntu, Mint and other popular distros streamline everything even more so that even an idiot (and lots of people are idiots when it comes to tech) can use it. Once those things happen, there is a chance we'll carve out more of the market, and create a snowball effect. If 10% of the market starts using Linux because OEMs preinstalled it to cut costs, software devs will notice, and it will only get better from there as more popular programs are ported to Linux.
  - err4nt 6y ago
    TBH we don't require open source desktop software equivalents to popular windows stuff, just good enough web based software. I don't think Adobe is #1 in their market anymore, there's a lot of competition from things like Figma. Same with office, we use Google Drive and so I feel like it should easier than ever to switch!
- ladyanita22 6y ago
  The nearest linux has been from dominance is back in the glory days of Android when it was thought mobile would conquer everything. Now it's increasingly clear it is going to dominate only the mobile market, and even then the power uses of phones are extremely limited.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Except Linux isn't exposed to user space, and its syscalls aren't part of NDK stable APIs, so Android Next can use BSD, Fuchsia, NT, NuttX or whatever Google comes up with and very few would notice.
gamblor956 6y ago
People can't go to work and log in, ergo, a noticeable drop in Windows 10 usage, because Windows is used by a lot of people at work. But, since we are looking at relative market shares, that means every other OS' share goes up, even if the actual number of users remains almost the same. (And the article points this out at the end.) This will be followed by each of those OSs seeing massive drops in relative market share once people go back to work and all the dormant Windows 10 computers start running again.
- alexfromapex 6y ago
  If all companies stopped using Microsoft Word / PowerPoint / Excel and switched to open source I bet you’d see a 60% decline in Windows desktop use at least. Office software compatibility is the golden handcuffs of corporate Desktop OSes.
bdcravens 6y ago
> Ubuntu’s overall share of operating system usage ballooned from 0.27% in March to 1.89% in April. This is when a new version of Ubuntu was released. Since it's measured by web visits, this could be a bunch of people installing 20.04 in a VM and checking it out
- lostmsu 6y ago
  Yep, can confirm, did this.
- jagannathtech 6y ago
  did exactly this
mpfundstein 6y ago
I would love to use Ubuntu as my main device but unfortunately there are always some stupid driver issues. I tested Ubuntu 20 last week and couldn't get second screen working through HDMI. For the sake of it :(
fanatic2pope 6y ago
Canonical is prime acquisition material.
- igravious 6y ago
  After IBM acquiring RedHat I'd place money on Microsoft acquiring Canonical.
grizzles 6y ago
I'm a recent Fedora->Ubuntu convert. I recently found a multi monitor hack for the Gnome dock that has had a hugely positive impact on my productivity. It allows you to localize an app to it's respective dock / monitor with this one weird trick: https://github.com/ericbets/essential https://github.com/ericbets/essential
JoeMayoBot 6y ago
Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) allows Windows users to install a Linux distro (several downloadable from the Windows Store) and WSL 2 (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-index https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-index) recently arrived. There's mad bit of satisfaction in being able to do this and it's useful. I was able to work on a Python/Linux stack project and other developers on the team were using WSL too. You can even open a WSL terminal in VS Code.

45 points by nickosmark 6y ago

acd 6y ago

Windows will become an emulation layer in Linux. Why? Microsoft makes most money from cloud subscriptions.

Kye 6y ago
It does seem possible at this point. They did it with their browser: the rendering engine changed from a point of differentiation to a liability, so they threw in with #1 to have some influence over it. The OS is headed that way.
contextfree 6y ago
Microsoft already develops and ships an emulation layer for Windows on Linux; SQL Server for Linux is built on it.
- dTal 6y ago
  Wait what? There's an official Microsoft-sanctioned version of Wine? Is this obtainable standalone in any form?
  - contextfree 6y ago
    I don't think so, and it's not really a "version of Wine" since I don't think it has any support for GUI apps.

akmittal 6y ago

Ubuntu is becoming more and more suitable for normal users. Most of the work is done in web browsers these days. I do ubuntu minimal installation and almost everything works out of box. More people would be using if laptop makers start giving ubuntu as default option.

wincy 6y ago
You still get weird gotchas. My wife wanted to install Microsoft Teams to talk to our doctor. She got the the Linux download page then asked “should I download the .rpm or the .deb?”. Luckily I was there to tell her. Then she installed it like a champ and got it working, so that was nice. But there’s no way she’d have just “known” this, and it’s just another hurdle to non technical users. Why should you have to know that Ubuntu is a downstream distro of Debian to install a program?
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  Why on earth would someone talk to their doctor with such a product?
  - bdcravens 6y ago
    My doctors are using Zoom (via MyChart, so I assume many are using the same); one of my wife's providers is using Google Duo.
  - lowtolerance 6y ago
    Because most doctor visits right now are “telehealth” visits and as a patient you have zero say as to what platform your doctor chooses to use.
    - Sir_Substance 6y ago
      My experience is that people will be happy to use other things if you just ask them to, and have a ready-to-go solution on hand. Just say "teams doesn't work well on my computer, it's very poorly made. Can we use jitsimeet? It's much easier for me." and them drop them a jitsi link without waiting for their response. Teams is the official video chat at my company, I've been successfully ignoring that for more than 2 months now. At this stage, jitsi usage is starting to spread to other teams.
- nmstoker 6y ago
  I get your point that there's clearly further to go, but it's not that unusual to need to know something relevant like this if installing from a source that's not your OS app store. After all, we often expect Windows users to know their install option is "PC" (a historic piece of info that isn't "Windows") rather than than Mac. It's also something that is answered effectively with the very first Google result for an obvious search: https://www.google.com/search?q=should+i+install+deb+or+rpm&oq=should+i+install+deb+or+rpm https://www.google.com/search?q=should+i+install+deb+or+rpm&... There are a few ways round this but they would generally require action on the part of all the software suppliers who post packages via websites. In your example it wouldn't be hard for MS to figure out the Ubuntu users and send them just the right link and likewise several other Linux distros - I guess it's still not worth it. Maybe this is an area where a JS library for websites would avoid each one rolling their own and thus make the experience better across the board?

Gollapalli 6y ago

>One key thing to note: Ubuntu isn’t seeing a 599 percent increase in additional users. That jump represents its increase in overall operating system market share from month to month. But it’s still an astonishing number So... a whole bunch of servers using Ubuntu got fired up?

tssva 6y ago
The numbers being reported are based upon visits to websites which are part of the NetMarketShare data collection network, so a bunch of servers using Ubuntu getting fired up wouldn't account for the increase. An increase in market share higher than the increase in actual users would be accounted for by the size of the market overall decreasing while the number of Ubuntu users either stayed the same, increased but at a lower rate than the increase in market share or decreased at a rate lower than the decrease in the number of users of other operating systems.

photoGrant 6y ago

Windows allows the Linux layer and Ubuntu is the most popular option. Because the Windows market share goes down slightly doesn’t mean the new ubuntu users are exclusively separate users. There’s just an addition funnel of access now, creating more ubiquity amongst platforms. Yay!

7786655 6y ago
These statistics are collected from web browsing activity. I doubt many people are browsing the web from WSL.

bobowzki 6y ago

Is 2020 the year of the Linux desktop?

Alekhine 6y ago
No, and it never will be until: Open source creative and professional tools are on par with proprietary tools (MS Office, Adobe) in terms of function and UI, GUI applications are written for every conceivable setting a non-technical user would need, Gaming is easier (it's getting better) And, Ubuntu, Mint and other popular distros streamline everything even more so that even an idiot (and lots of people are idiots when it comes to tech) can use it. Once those things happen, there is a chance we'll carve out more of the market, and create a snowball effect. If 10% of the market starts using Linux because OEMs preinstalled it to cut costs, software devs will notice, and it will only get better from there as more popular programs are ported to Linux.
- err4nt 6y ago
  TBH we don't require open source desktop software equivalents to popular windows stuff, just good enough web based software. I don't think Adobe is #1 in their market anymore, there's a lot of competition from things like Figma. Same with office, we use Google Drive and so I feel like it should easier than ever to switch!
ladyanita22 6y ago
The nearest linux has been from dominance is back in the glory days of Android when it was thought mobile would conquer everything. Now it's increasingly clear it is going to dominate only the mobile market, and even then the power uses of phones are extremely limited.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Except Linux isn't exposed to user space, and its syscalls aren't part of NDK stable APIs, so Android Next can use BSD, Fuchsia, NT, NuttX or whatever Google comes up with and very few would notice.

gamblor956 6y ago

People can't go to work and log in, ergo, a noticeable drop in Windows 10 usage, because Windows is used by a lot of people at work. But, since we are looking at relative market shares, that means every other OS' share goes up, even if the actual number of users remains almost the same. (And the article points this out at the end.) This will be followed by each of those OSs seeing massive drops in relative market share once people go back to work and all the dormant Windows 10 computers start running again.

alexfromapex 6y ago
If all companies stopped using Microsoft Word / PowerPoint / Excel and switched to open source I bet you’d see a 60% decline in Windows desktop use at least. Office software compatibility is the golden handcuffs of corporate Desktop OSes.

bdcravens 6y ago

> Ubuntu’s overall share of operating system usage ballooned from 0.27% in March to 1.89% in April. This is when a new version of Ubuntu was released. Since it's measured by web visits, this could be a bunch of people installing 20.04 in a VM and checking it out

lostmsu 6y ago
Yep, can confirm, did this.
jagannathtech 6y ago
did exactly this

mpfundstein 6y ago

I would love to use Ubuntu as my main device but unfortunately there are always some stupid driver issues. I tested Ubuntu 20 last week and couldn't get second screen working through HDMI. For the sake of it :(

fanatic2pope 6y ago

Canonical is prime acquisition material.

igravious 6y ago
After IBM acquiring RedHat I'd place money on Microsoft acquiring Canonical.

grizzles 6y ago

I'm a recent Fedora->Ubuntu convert. I recently found a multi monitor hack for the Gnome dock that has had a hugely positive impact on my productivity. It allows you to localize an app to it's respective dock / monitor with this one weird trick: https://github.com/ericbets/essential https://github.com/ericbets/essential

JoeMayoBot 6y ago

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) allows Windows users to install a Linux distro (several downloadable from the Windows Store) and WSL 2 (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-index https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-index) recently arrived. There's mad bit of satisfaction in being able to do this and it's useful. I was able to work on a Python/Linux stack project and other developers on the team were using WSL too. You can even open a WSL terminal in VS Code.