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Linux hits nearly 4% desktop user share on Statcounter

244 points by mindracer 3y ago

wholesalelanyar 3y ago
[flagged]
MattSteelblade 3y ago
I'm curious how much of this can be attributed to the Steam Deck.
- pluc 3y ago
  all of it is my guess
- jsnell 3y ago
  None of it. These are web browsing statistics. Basically nobody does significant amounts of browsing from a Steam Deck. But even if they did, the install base of the Steam Deck is far too small to move the needle here. The install base of desktop and laptop computers is billions of devices vs. millions for the Steam Deck.
  - pluc 3y ago
    I think you're missing the connecting lines here: with the Steam Deck, Valve made significant investments into WINE emulation and Proton development and all of those dependencies needed for its product that are also applicable to desktop. That convinced a lot of people who were using Windows just for gaming to make the switch, and they all browse the web. I'd argue those types are most of the new users we've seen coming to Linux in the last few years even - and I'd attribute all of it to Valve.
    - ParetoOptimal 3y ago
      For instance this year I gutted my windows install down to a 20GB partition after moving one game I play over to Linux at a time and testing it works for a while. Guess what... I did this after I purchased a steam deck and saw how much better proton and wine are.
  - Zambyte 3y ago
    It depends how far you stretch "because of the Steam Deck". Sure, people aren't doing much web browsing because of the Steam Deck. How many people gave it a try because Valve decided to go with it for the Deck? How many people have been enabled to stick with it because of the technologies Valve developed for the Deck (proton and gamescope come to mind)?
  - MattSteelblade 3y ago
    Looking at the Statcounter report, it explicitly excludes mobile devices and separates out ChromeOS. I'm guessing that Statcounter uses UA strings and it is conceivable that HTTP requests are happening outside of explicit web browsing.
    - jsnell 3y ago
      Their data source is the analytics JavaScript that webmasters install on their sites. Non-browsing HTTP requests are unlikely to target pages with those scripts installed, and even less likely to download and run them.
  - surgical_fire 3y ago
    Hmm, I am not a Steam Deck user, but I have Valve to thank for being able to switch to Linux. What kept me from it was the fact that I couldn't reliable play my gaming library on it. Thanks to the efforts they put to improve things with WINE/Proton, I could happily switch to Mint around a year ago, and couldn't be happier with it.
- sotix 3y ago
  When Valve announced the Steam Deck, I decided to bite the bullet and move from Windows 10 for gaming and MacOS for personal use and development to a unified Arch KDE Plasma desktop. I now also have a steam deck, which makes for a nice, consistent experience when traveling with it and docking in desktop mode. It certainly made me realize that gaming on Linux was viable, which allowed me to discover that the entire OS was not only usable but provided a better experience than I had on Windows or Mac. So you can attribute at least one conversion, and that was before I ever picked up a steam deck. I have been happily using Arch with KDE since the second half of 2021 now.
okasaki 3y ago
Surprising, given the Wayland/GNOME sabotage. (I installed Ubuntu 22.04 on a Dell XPS 17 yesterday. After running apt update && apt upgrade it boots into a black screen)
- doix 3y ago
  I take it those laptops have an Nvidia card? I wouldn't try to use Wayland with an nvidia card. I hear it works better with AMD cards from other HN users. Personally, I don't think I'll be changing over anytime soon though, as long as X11 still compiles and works, I'll probably keep using it.
  - bogwog 3y ago
    > Personally, I don't think I'll be changing over anytime soon Maybe, maybe not. There are at least two forces at work on this issue: 1. Nvidia themselves, who are collaborating with the Wayland project to improve compatibility with their driver (https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-/merge_requests/967 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-/merge_requests...) 2. The new "NVK" open source Nvidia driver, which (unlike Nvidia's proprietary driver) can work perfectly on Wayland without changing Wayland (https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/tree/main/src/nouveau/vulkan https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/tree/main/src/nou...) I'm not sure if (1) will fix every Nvidia/Wayland bug that exists right now, but (2) will definitely be able to reach perfect Wayland compatibility faster without sacrificing performance like the original nouveau driver.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- tapoxi 3y ago
  If you're using an Nvidia card, that's the likely culprit.
  - severino 3y ago
    Shouldn't your distro know that yours is a Nvidia card, and make the necessary to avoid that you boot into a black screen after upgrading your system using the standard procedure?
yashasolutions 3y ago
This is it! The year of the linux desktop is coming!
- ejb999 3y ago
  ... again.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  I remember some MLM pusher telling me back in 2009 that smartphones were going to take off or something because it hit some magic 2-4% threshold. I genuinely think Windows got worse, and Linux people started recommending Fedora instead of Ubuntu/Debian-branch. Microsoft pushes us away, good Linux distros keep us from going back.
- alexey-salmin 3y ago
  I wonder how much scraping bots skewer the counters. They create a lot of traffic and majority of them run on "Linux Desktop", even though some modify the user agent. Would be curious to see stats for e.g. subset of GPU-accelerated devices which can be detected in JS. Not as a true bot-filter of course, but as a uniform and widely-available metric biased towards real users.
  - dubcanada 3y ago
    I suppose that would imply that scrapers are scraping more or there are more of them.
    - subtra3t 3y ago
      I think they meant that the bots would account for a signicant portion of the total measured market share, not necessarily an increasing portion.
    - wongarsu 3y ago
      Both things that seem to be happening due to the current LLM hype. Everyone locks down their data from scrapers while complaining about increased bot traffic.
BossingAround 3y ago
Using the words of a true poet: > Up, up, up the ziggurat, lickety split As Windows continues its enshitification, and as Valve continues investing into its awesome Steam Deck, I do hope the trend continues. Personally, after using Steam Deck a lot, I bought a desktop and tried a standard distro (OpenSUSE in my case) for gaming. The experience has been not ideal, but doable. My issues: - My Xbox controller worked, then suddenly stopped working. I've been using a PS controller instead which works great, but would vastly prefer the Xbox one. - NVidia has been such a pain that I'm thinking of selling my current card and buying an AMD one. NVidia drivers are truly horrible. For example, during boot time, the proprietary drivers randomly fail (like 1 in 7 reboots), which is not catastrophic (the system recovers by itself) but does lengthen the boot process by roughly 1 minute (very noticeable when the whole computer normally boots in ~10s). Note that this is with the latest driver version, and even after modifying kernel parameters as per NVidia devs' advice. - Some games still don't work great under Proton (anticheat, mostly). This is expected and I'm quite fine with the current state of gaming compatibility on Linux, but might be surprising to some folks that are coming from Windows. But overall, I can just play whatever is in my Steam library, and I truly love that.
- times_trw 3y ago
  We're in the odd situation where AMD cards are vastly superior for gamers in dollar/performance terms. I'm on the market for a AI work station and I'm honestly thinking of doing a amd/nvidia split so I can have the graphics just work and the AI also just work.
- wetpaws 3y ago
  [dead]
- nicolaslem 3y ago
  > My Xbox controller worked, then suddenly stopped working. I've been using PS controller instead which works great, but would vastly prefer the Xbox one. If you mean specifically using Steam on Linux, you may need to add some udev rules for accessing the controller: https://codeberg.org/fabiscafe/game-devices-udev https://codeberg.org/fabiscafe/game-devices-udev
bcardarella 3y ago
It's never going to happen
- BossingAround 3y ago
  It has been happening for the past 7+ years.
  - pi-e-sigma 3y ago
    Nuclear fusion is around corner, too.
    - strictnein 3y ago
      Nuclear fusion will power the first useful quantum computer.
- lopis 3y ago
  Linux has hit 100% desktop user share at my place about 10 years ago. It's definitely happening.
- timbit42 3y ago
  It's going to increase when support for millions of PCs running Windows 10 ends and they can't upgrade to Windows 11. It's also going to increase as more and more games on Steam work on Linux and people decide running Windows for gaming just isn't worth the bloat and ads.
thesurlydev 3y ago
I'm not associated with System76 but if you currently use Ubuntu as your desktop check out Pop OS. It does a great job of smoothing some of the rough edges and has great support for Nvidia cards. After years of using Ubuntu exclusively, I switched to Pop OS about 4 years ago and never looked back. Note that my comment comes from using it as a desktop on my custom-built PC, not a laptop.
- vmfunction 3y ago
  they are a good company, the only tip I would recommend, if you don't have a beefy system. Is install Pop_OS so it has all the GPU support etc, and then just run some lightweight WM. That switch got me a boast on the speed of an old laptop.
- severino 3y ago
  Does Pop OS allow you to install software that Canonical forces through snap, like Firefox or Chromium, using the distribution's package manager (apt or whatever)?
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    Yes, you can install things manually, though popOS has its own own flatpak based "store" if you prefer that model. There are a few things that are missing from both though because the vendor only releases software in snap form and no one's bundled it otherwise (e.g. lxd). For those, you can either build from source or install snap yourself.
    - severino 3y ago
      Yes, installing things manually is always an option (even in Ubuntu!), but I wondered if in Pop it was an option to "apt install firefox" and get your package installed the "old way", with no sandboxing, using shared libraries from the system, allowing for upgrading with "apt upgrade" the moment you decide, etc. But if PopOs repo is flatpak based as you say, I guess the answer would be no.
herpdyderp 3y ago
Coincidentally I saw the latest Steam hardware survey results[0] just about an hour ago which says that Windows is dropping and macOS and Linux are both gaining: Windows -0.16% macOS +0.10% Linux +0.06% [0] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...
- rightbyte 3y ago
  Is that year to year or month to month? Could not find any note on that? But then again the share increase compared to share of Linux users, is quite large. Interesting that only 0,06% are using Win 7 which I would name MS' last good OS.
  - ziddoap 3y ago
    >Interesting that only 0,06% are using Win 7 I think it's interesting that there is that many people still on it. Mainstream end of life was almost a decade ago, Steam dropped support for it, etc. Is there anything that actually still supports 7?
  - KomoD 3y ago
    > Is that year to year or month to month? Could not find any note on that? "Steam conducts a monthly survey to collect data", says it on the page. > Interesting that only 0,06% are using Win 7 which I would name MS' last good OS. Probably because steam for windows 7, 8 and 8.1 are EOL > As of January 1 2024, Steam will officially stop supporting the Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 operating systems.
  - matteoraso 3y ago
    >Interesting that only 0,06% are using Win 7 which I would name MS' last good OS. Above it, the survey says that Win 7 64 bit is at 0.68%.
  - wongarsu 3y ago
    > Interesting that only 0,06% are using Win 7 which I would name MS' last good OS. No DirectX 12 support for Win 7. And even games that don't require DirectX 12 now usually support Windows 10 and up. Sometimes because they don't want to test on older OS, but Windows 10 has legitimate API improvements that are worth taking advantage of. On top of that of course the general security reasons not to use an unmaintained OS release.
anotheryou 3y ago
probably the share of devs grows as more people are mobile only XD
faeriechangling 3y ago
What's impressive to me is how long Microsoft has been playing defence against the Linux Desktop successfully - they were doing this back in the 90s.
- taylodl 3y ago
  Not really. People don't care about libre software, they care about software that works, is supported, and they don't have to think about it. The Linux desktop appeals to developers and hackers, so 4% is probably the best they're ever going to do. On the flip side, look how much Microsoft is losing to Linux in the server space. Consumers don't care what servers their favorite sites and services are running on: they don't have to manage it.
  - ascagnel_ 3y ago
    > Not really. People don't care about libre software, they care about software that works, is supported, and they don't have to think about it. The Linux desktop appeals to developers and hackers, so 4% is probably the best they're ever going to do. Also, it shows the power of defaults and just showing up. Windows is as big as it is because Microsoft made the deals with OEMs 30+ years ago to ship their software as the default option. Macs would likely be an also-ran if Apple wasn't standing behind their hardware, both in terms of the hardware itself and the sales/support channel, as much as they are (just look at the relative success of their retail stores vs. the relative failure of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc., in the same space).
  - MegaDeKay 3y ago
    > so 4% is probably the best they're ever going to do Why would you say that? Take a look at the trend plot shown at the link. The trend started increasing markedly about two years ago. I wouldn't think it would suddenly flatline. At least I hope it doesn't.
    - oblio 3y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm > with a particular focus on the "chasm" or adoption gap that lies between early and mainstream markets. > The author argues there is a chasm between the early adopters of the product (the technology enthusiasts and visionaries) and the early majority (the pragmatists) Early adopters are a small minority, it's hard to give exact numbers but 5% sounds about right. It's MUCH harder to get the pragmatists, late adopters, etc to use a new product. It generally requires a revolutionary product or brilliant PR and marketing (Linux doesn't really have PR and marketing and revolutionary would be a strong term for a product that's been in the market 30+ years).
solarman5000 3y ago
I'm not a gamer, in fact I think they are mostly poison for the brain, but I really REALLY appreciate what steam/valve/ proton whoever has done to help bring people over to the FOSS side. Ive converted a lot of kids when before I couldn't convert anyone :-)
- zulban 3y ago
  Leisure is not poison for the brain. It's required. Like anything else, everything in moderation.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - tsunamifury 3y ago
    Yes and the vast majority of gaming specifically tries to thwart moderation. Thus the poison aspect.
  - sureglymop 3y ago
    Exactly. As someone who plays games but doesn't smoke or drink (which are also leisure activities), those are way more socially accepted and probably closer to "poison". But it's okay because as you said, everything in moderation.
mrweasel 3y ago
We'll see if those numbers are stable, or on an upward trend. I can see why the numbers would be going up. I've been on macOS for almost 20 years and I'm not sure that my next workstation will be from Apple. I still think the Mac is great, but as work require more and more Linux specific tools switching starts to make sense. All the tools I don't already run in a terminal or in a VM is also available on Linux, the only Mac only application is Apple Mail and I'm not that attached to it.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  Unless you are an iOS dev, it just never made sense to buy one. Worse hardware, worse software options, you are going to be VMing always anyway. The 'low power' marketing didn't work on me, my 6+ hour battery life on an Asus has never affected my life ever. However having a 3060 has unlocked so many possibilities. It could make me a multimillionaire this year. Scary to think I might have gotten an iOS dev job, ended up having to run AI on CPU, and never came up with my product.
  - mrweasel 3y ago
    > Unless you are an iOS dev, it just never made sense to buy one. Not sure I completely agree, if you're buying a laptop and factor in the fact that you're guaranteed to get a good screen then MacBooks have provide pretty good value, for me at least over the past 15 years.
    - hospitalJail 3y ago
      The screen is what sold you for 15 years? Gosh I hate corporations. They are disgusting the mind control they have, and they never get in trouble for it.
hospitalJail 3y ago
Microsoft did this to me. If OneDrive didn't hijack your filesystem, I would have dealt with auto-open edge links. I tasted Fedora and... Oh my God Windows sucks. Like its awful in seemingly every way compared to Fedora Cinnamon. The UI/the speed/the experience is breathtaking. Fedora Cinnamon is so good, I've become outspokenly anti-Debian/Ubuntu for giving Linux a bad name. I'm amazed that an operating system this solid has been existing under my nose.
- idw 3y ago
  I'm curious what about Fedora specifically makes the difference for you? I started using Cinnamon with Mint (derived from Ubuntu, Debian) last year and also found it a big improvement from Windows.
  - amlib 3y ago
    I'm willing to bet its more about the "Fedora" than the "Cinnamon". I was an Arch user for about 15 years with a few attempts in between to try other distros (including Fedora), but recently I've been installing Fedora on my machines because the last two versions have been really good. Its very competent, software availability has improved, they take security much more seriously than any other (normal) distro and they are always on top of the latest features and upcoming "tech" on the linux world.
  - mb7733 3y ago
    Also curious to know this! I've been using Mint & Cinnamon for about 10 years and haven't bothered looking at an alternative.
  - TheCoelacanth 3y ago
    Fedora is like 6 months+ ahead of Ubuntu on updates to most packages. Often with Ubuntu you get to deal with bugs that were fixed a year ago upstream.
matthewfelgate 3y ago
I wish more people would use Ubuntu on their home PCs. It's so easy to do. With so many things being web based it's never been easier to switch to Linux.
jsemrau 3y ago
Ubuntu is an amazingly mature Desktop without the MS bloatware. For my AI work, I fully rely on it. Would I use it if I had to make only Powerpoint slides and Word docs? Likely not.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  Try non-Debian branch if you really want your breath blown away. I'd use Fedora if I was only going to be using an office suite. I can't imagine using Windows anymore, so many forced reboots and dealing with autosaves and reopening everything. Ugh
brightball 3y ago
Doesn't surprise me. I've used primarily Linux on a laptop and a little System76 Meerkat desktop since 2015. There are a few odd edge cases but most things run smoothly.
jacknews 3y ago
I think it will continue to grow, as the two major OS's have each become enshitified in their own way; Windows with ads at every turn, and macOS with 'security' restrictions and limitations anytime you deviate from the annointed path.
pona-a 3y ago
I find this sort of metric rather pointless... For one, how do we define Linux desktop? ChromeOS is a distribution of Linux, unlike say Android even advertising official support for a Debian container to run Linux desktop software, and while it lacks GNU utils, Alpine does too and yet we still include it in this category... Next is the whole way we're counting the supposed number of Linux computers: user agents. There's zero reason for browsers to provide true and specific user agents, in fact, true user agents often yield broken sites (like YouTube assuming ARM PCs are all a specific Chinese smart TV) or pose a great privacy risk. Certainly a significant percentage of Linux users made the choice against it, either by themselves or as a browser default. Then there's the fact specific demographics have their own distribution of platforms. For example, StackOverflow developer survey showed 40.23% of developers prefer Linux for personal use, compared to 31.07% who prefer MacOS. The absolute numbers matter little if your users in particular tend to be on a certain platform.
- itsoktocry 3y ago
  >I find this sort of metric rather pointless... As a complete outsider, it might seem odd. But I think tech people recognize this as referring to "OS's that aren't Windows or Mac".
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > But I think tech people recognize this as referring to "OS's that aren't Windows or Mac". Do they? The metric includes "Unknown" and "Other" not referred to in this, representing another 5% of activity. However, what the OP seems to be saying is that interpreting anything from the metric and trying to communicate that interpretation with others is pointless. Not even the linked article can decide whether Linux desktop penetration is 4% or 6%, and that's just one person. Good luck when you add a second person with their own feelings.
andrewla 3y ago
I'm in way too much of a bubble. I worked at Microsoft for years and continued to run Windows for some time afterwards, sometimes dual booting with Linux. I've tried but always hated MacOS. But Windows 8 completely broke me -- this was just an unusable OS, plastered with ads and shortcuts that didn't work and a wildly inconsistent UI; big tiles one second, tiny icons the next, some things you had to double-click that used to be a single click, some things you still had to double-click. Some buttons were just plain text, others were buttons, others were just frames with text. It made you sign in with a Microsoft account for reasons never explained. It was just such a heap of garbage that I couldn't do it any more. Trying to help family members who had trouble with their computers became a horrifying slog. So I completely unplugged from Windows; switched to Chromebooks for casual stuff and recommended them to my family members, and a variety of Linux distributions for more serious stuff. But I really know almost nobody who uses Windows; this is the bubble I'm in. Lots of people use MacOS, many people use Linux, and the others use ChromeOS. When I see a survey like this saying that 72% of users still use Windows I'm shocked to my core. I guess my next computer I'll stick with Windows for a bit to see if things are more sane now.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Try to go to a bubble outside US or countries with the same kind of life and salaries. You will find plenty of Windows, and developers for the users of them. Linux will be around in server rooms, embedded, and those VMs used by everyone that doesn't want to spend time dealing with dual boot issues on laptops as if it was 2000.
- mstipetic 3y ago
  I tried windows a while ago and the things you described were driving me insane. I honestly don't understand how that gets shipped. Doesn't anyone care? I'm assuming most devs and PMs are on Mac anyways so they don't even see the mess
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    > Doesn't anyone care? Oh, they care. In my experience, Windows users are non-stop complaining about all the bullshit they are submitted to. They just don't care to fix it.
pixelmonkey 3y ago
I'm one of those long-time programmers who has run Linux on the desktop for decades, and I also use Android out of a sense of obligation for running comprehensible, auditable, open source software in as many places as practical. Also, IMO, there is something important about using the "non-dominant" platform as a techie. I might need to start using Firefox (rather than Chrome/Chromium) for the same reason. I have no regrets about Linux on the desktop over decades. Using my Linux desktop is a joy, and I always viewed Linux system administration as a worthwhile skill which I have cross-applied professionally in the realm of cloud servers and DevOps. In the period where Windows had dominant market share, I relegated Windows usage to a VM for a handful of software packages (e.g. Quickbooks), running on my Linux host. Sometime around 2018, I realized I hadn't booted a VMWare VM in a few years, so I could just delete that VM guest, and the host software, too. Nowadays, I basically ignore the entire Windows desktop space in my everyday computing. I keep an eye on Windows 11 via a Media PC I use for streaming edge cases to my TV, like old Blu-ray or DVD rips. I use a proprietary desktop via a Mac Mini, which is my dedicated "Zoom call box", but also where a handful of proprietary apps live. I don't need desktop Quickbooks anymore, so instead this is my way of accessing things like MSWord, MSExcel, Acrobat, and ScanSnap software. Basically, those rare situations where web software alternatives won't work. Here's an interesting question I've been thinking about: in 2023, why are so many developers encountering Linux in their day-to-day lives even if they aren’t running Linux as their main workstation OS? For Windows developers, it’s the rise of WSL. Windows was always missing a great UNIX shell and now WSL provides it in spades. For macOS developers, it’s native support for Linux VMs & containers as well as the rise of Apple Silicon & ARM. These two trends make it so that macOS’s BSD heritage and local terminal is a less comparatively useful proxy for local development (vs just running a local VM or container running Linux, which is now easy enough, and fast), whereas perhaps in past years the BSD heritage was good enough to e.g. run Python, Ruby, or Node. For all developers, Linux is the standard deployment environment in the cloud, whether you are using Amazon EC2 or Google GCE or something else like DigitalOcean. Even developers running Linux workstations find a need to virtualize and containerize Linux environments, but this can now be done in a lightweight way with F/OSS options. For all developers, IDEs have gotten better at working with remote Linux machines, or local containers. See VSCode “Remote” extension, and private networking tools like Wireguard, Tailscale, ZeroTier. Finally, Linux has showed up in a lot of “long tail” hardware use cases, such as Raspberry Pi, Android, NAS devices, Steam Deck, etc. So I wouldn’t really call 2023 (or 2024) the year of the Linux “desktop”, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Linux is the “#1 #2 operating system”. That is, it’s not the OS everyone runs on their workstation, but it is the OS everyone runs in their workstation, from their workstation, or around their workstation. It’s the closest thing developers have to a “standard development & deployment OS” even while their workstations and desktop environments fracture on Windows/Mac/LinuxDistro lines. And if a developer has a homelab server or a favorite remote development VM, it is almost certainly running Linux and accessed via ssh.
Mashimo 3y ago
I wonder if smartphone usage has any influence in this. I would guess a lot more "casual" internet users use their phone to browse the internet. And maybe more .. eh, lets call them "advanced" users are part of the desktop share?
lp4vn 3y ago
The existence of Linux and the abusive practices of Microsoft are a kind of daily reminder about why competition is so important even for basic, fundamental technologies like operational systems. If Linux weren't always behind the door threatening Windows, surely we would have today as the only option a hiper restricted OS with a terrible performance, a huge pice tag and horrible terms of use(well... this is already the case).
- freedomben 3y ago
  I'm not sure how much it is Linux vs. just most consumers have expectations of open because that's historically been how it is. I don't doubt that if Apple were starting the macbook as a new product today, it would be locked down just like the iPhone is. MS would copy and go that way too. I don't think Linux is causing either one of them to hesitate, I think it's the fact that consumers already expect those to be general purpose devices, so it's going to be a slow bleed.
29athrowaway 3y ago
The Steam Deck might have something to do with this.
api 3y ago
Linux can conquer the PC desktop by just sitting still while Microsoft continues to enshittify Windows. Mac also grows this way, but you get way more bang for your buck $/performance wise with commodity hardware vs. Apple hardware.
novagameco 3y ago
I think we'll see the end of desktop OSs before we see macOS or Linux overtake Windows. I know a ton of people who don't use a laptop for desktop PC outside of work at all. Their computing is accessed entirely through a smartphone. The desktop OS will become a niche thing for offices and gamers, but I think desktops will eventually be on their way out
renegat0x0 3y ago
My experience: - I have several rasperry PIs that perform various tasks, so yeah, they could generate Linux traffic (at least 3 of them are running) - I game on a playstation. After work, I do not want to update steam, windows, uplay, drivers, origin, battlenet. I still use discs. When I want to play I insert disk and play - I do not want to deal with limitations of Windows. Some programs display too much ads. I prefer fighting with app setup once, compile, etc. After creating scripts I can setup my machine again without any problems in minutes - If my windows machine becomes slow it is often slow to download fresh ISO, and install it. I do not want to restore it from partition as I am not sure what kind of bloatware was installed by the manufacturer. On Linux I can download ISO and install it in maybe 15-20 minutes - Most of my apps, self hosting is much easier for me to set up on Linux than on Windows. It may be because I do not know how to set it up properly in Windows - In Windows I feel as guest, rather than admin of my machine - I have set up some mini-PCs for my friends, since their Windows became unusable. After using Linux they could still use their machines (they use only browsers, Libbre Office suite, etc.)
leeoniya 3y ago
finally switched from Win10 to full time EndeavourOS KDE/Plasma and havent looked back. got sick of my OS customization getting reset after every unstoppable auto update. oh, and the ads. the constantly changing ui shenanigans. i kept TPM 2 turned off to prevent Win11 from metastasizing its way onto the machine, but the straw that broke the camel's back is that Win10 totally fucked up my dual boot setup after an OS auto-update. btw, i used to roll my own winxp isos with sysprep and regedits baked in. all of that is impossible now without the unobtanium that's Windows LTSC. (my hardware/usage is recent AMD thinkpad, time is spent mostly in browser, vscode, mpv, krita, darktable, terminal) i do miss the Affinity products tho, they keep making them more Windows/MacOS-only, now relying on the windows store/msix installer, basically guaranteeing they'll never work with Wine/Proton :(
- amlib 3y ago
  > i do miss the Affinity products tho, they keep making them more Windows/MacOS-only, now relying on the windows store/msix installer, basically guaranteeing they'll never work with Wine/Proton :( I saw this yesterday, it may be helpful, but there may also be dragons: https://old.reddit.com/r/Affinity/comments/18vzjhz/affinity_designer_203_running_in_linux_fedora_39/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Affinity/comments/18vzjhz/affinity_...
  - leeoniya 3y ago
    holy moly, thanks for this. gonna try it soon. wonder why Winetricks exists, shouldnt it be upstreamed? i guess maybe the same reason Proton exists? maybe Proton has the same fixes and i can just use a compiled version of that without having to recompile Wine? :thinking_face: EDIT: oh, https://github.com/Matoking/protontricks https://github.com/Matoking/protontricks
oskarkk 3y ago
In the stats from Wikipedia traffic[0], Linux's share is more stable - ~2.1% for 2023, ~2.1% for 2020-2022, ~1.6% for 2016-2019 (I put the dates in the pie chart filter, and looked at the "Linux" and "Ubuntu" labels). By the way, there are some strange peaks in that data - Linux going up to 7% in single weeks, Ubuntu going from 0.2-1.0% baseline to 1-3% for a couple of months in 2022... [0] https://analytics.wikimedia.org/dashboards/browsers/#desktop-site-by-os https://analytics.wikimedia.org/dashboards/browsers/#desktop...
shadowgovt 3y ago
Finally, the year of Linux on the desktop. (Meanwhile, my laptop running Ubuntu still won't sleep properly. It just spontaneously wakes up and drains its whole battery).
fury999io 3y ago
Linux already has the largest market share because of Android, ChromeOS, embedded devices. The 4% here actually refers to GNU/Linux.
ksec 3y ago
>Looking at December it shows Windows rising too, with macOS dropping down. I posted something similar except for browser. [1] Desktop Browser Market Share Worldwide – December 2023, Safari saw a sharp decline to less than 9%, down from 14% in June. It seems for whatever reason a lot of people tried Safari but then switched back to Chrome. I wonder what were the reason the drove this action. And on the Linux 4% sharp increase in December. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38833412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38833412
psyclobe 3y ago
Long time windows user here, developer of cross platform applications for 30+ years. Started getting very frustrated with the way windows treats its users. It’s simply a non starter for any serious user these days; what with the ridiculous resetting of all bing settings periodically, the non stop abuse of your login mode (live vs local), and man every time that fucking Out Of Box Experience wizard would start and interrupt your login I would nearly shit myself with annoyance. … Recently took a position on an all Linux dev project, totally removed windows from my life (and kids). Whole house runs Linux now. Very happy not going back.
- deafpolygon 3y ago
  Removing kids from your life does tend to improve things. Less hassle, and all.
sclangdon 3y ago
I realise for casual users Windows is always going to be the OS of choice if for no other reason than it comes pre-installed and most people don't know how to reinstall an operating system. However, Windows may be in trouble with more tech-literate people who do know how to change it. I can only speak for myself, but I've been a Windows user since 95. All but one of my programming jobs over the last 20 years have also been working on Windows. But I really dislike the direction Microsoft are taking and I find Windows to be terribly slow these days, with each version seemingly worse than the previous one. So I decided to look elsewhere. A couple of months ago I bought a new laptop with the express intention of running Linux on it and giving it a good college try (I didn't want to mess around with dual-booting and I still need Windows on my main PC for work... for now). I know very little about Linux, but I've decided I'm not going to use Windows past 10 so it's time to find something else. I went with Debian running dwm (Debian because I value stability over everything else, and dwm because I like the suckless philosophy) and it's honestly surprised me how good it's been. It's SO snappy. Everything is instant. It's really been a breath of fresh air. I was especially dreading programming since I've solely used Visual Studio since Visual C++ 4.0 and don't really know anything else. Anyway, I went all-in and started learning Vim, GDB, and Make, and boy do I feel like I've been missing out. I'm really enjoying programming again, which for me has just become a job over the years. Anyway, my point is, if tech-literate people are willing to give Linux a try, I wonder how many of them would be as surprised as I was and may make the switch permanently. With Windows getting worse, and Linux getting better, maybe more than ever.
- freedomben 3y ago
  People occassionally ask me what my best advice is for becoming a great programmer, and they are surprised when I say vim, bash (including for and while loops), and core tools like sed, grep, awk/cut. When you know enough bash to (without having to look it up every time) write a command that filters (sed) and parses (awk, cut) and then loops (while, for) you will be amazed at what you can do and how quickly you can do it. Then add Vim and you can fly through tasks near the speed of thought. In summary, I think you've made a great choice!
  - 3y ago
yourusername 3y ago
It will be interesting to see if W10 EOL end of 2025 will have any effect. That will instantly obsolete hundreds of millions of useable computers (everything before Q4 2017). For non power users that only need some web browsing and basic office functionality a switch to Linux would be perfect. A 10 year old laptop is fine as a web browsing machine.
theYipster 3y ago
I've been playing with Linux desktops since the 90s. Every few years I load up a few distros in a VM to see what's going on, and I just did that again over the holidays with some free time and a recent urge just to tinker with stuff. Some random, recent thoughts: - Knowing how Linux works (and having the skill to use it) is hugely advantageous for most software developers and IT professionals--I personally wouldn't hire an IT or DevOps admin who didn't have some level of familiarity and comfort around Linux. Reckoning with the modularity and composability of Linux helps to build a deeper understanding of how computers work, and many of the most important IT topics of today (containers, cloud management) are built off Linux/Unix fundamentals such as chroot and cgroups. - I tried Arch for the first time and enjoyed it as a nostalgia trip. It reminded me of installing Redhat or Suse or Mandrake back in the 90s. I appreciate it for what it is--a tinkerer's distro. I don't understand the meme around it though, and found nothing esoteric about setting it up... Is manually partitioning a disk drive supposed to be a feat of strength today? - On the other side of the distro spectrum, I'm mightily impressed by Zorin. Less so these days with Ubuntu. I get folks' distaste for Snaps over Flatpacks. - I don't get folks aversion to bloat. For me, finding the ideal setup was about installing everything a distro had to offer and then chiseling down. The exploration was always the fun in using Linux. I remember installing Suse back in the 90s with 10 different window managers and I loved fiddling with them all. - Hyprland is really neat.
7e 3y ago
This data is highly suspect. Just last year they had “unknown” at 12%, and the recent macOS drop strains belief. Most likely this reflects increased bot activity.
bencelaszlo 3y ago
This is not unexpected at all. 10 years ago I had a dual boot system, occasionally trying out games on Linux. Some of them worked out of the box, some of them worked after configuration, and some of them were totally borked. This year, I built a gaming PC, installed Arch Linux, installed Steam, installed Cyberpunk 2077, hit the green play button and that's it, I can play recent AAA games without any problem. There are still issues around anti-cheat systems though, especially around the kernel-level ones.

244 points by mindracer 3y ago

wholesalelanyar 3y ago

[flagged]

MattSteelblade 3y ago

I'm curious how much of this can be attributed to the Steam Deck.

pluc 3y ago
all of it is my guess
jsnell 3y ago
None of it. These are web browsing statistics. Basically nobody does significant amounts of browsing from a Steam Deck. But even if they did, the install base of the Steam Deck is far too small to move the needle here. The install base of desktop and laptop computers is billions of devices vs. millions for the Steam Deck.
- pluc 3y ago
  I think you're missing the connecting lines here: with the Steam Deck, Valve made significant investments into WINE emulation and Proton development and all of those dependencies needed for its product that are also applicable to desktop. That convinced a lot of people who were using Windows just for gaming to make the switch, and they all browse the web. I'd argue those types are most of the new users we've seen coming to Linux in the last few years even - and I'd attribute all of it to Valve.
  - ParetoOptimal 3y ago
    For instance this year I gutted my windows install down to a 20GB partition after moving one game I play over to Linux at a time and testing it works for a while. Guess what... I did this after I purchased a steam deck and saw how much better proton and wine are.
- Zambyte 3y ago
  It depends how far you stretch "because of the Steam Deck". Sure, people aren't doing much web browsing because of the Steam Deck. How many people gave it a try because Valve decided to go with it for the Deck? How many people have been enabled to stick with it because of the technologies Valve developed for the Deck (proton and gamescope come to mind)?
- MattSteelblade 3y ago
  Looking at the Statcounter report, it explicitly excludes mobile devices and separates out ChromeOS. I'm guessing that Statcounter uses UA strings and it is conceivable that HTTP requests are happening outside of explicit web browsing.
  - jsnell 3y ago
    Their data source is the analytics JavaScript that webmasters install on their sites. Non-browsing HTTP requests are unlikely to target pages with those scripts installed, and even less likely to download and run them.
- surgical_fire 3y ago
  Hmm, I am not a Steam Deck user, but I have Valve to thank for being able to switch to Linux. What kept me from it was the fact that I couldn't reliable play my gaming library on it. Thanks to the efforts they put to improve things with WINE/Proton, I could happily switch to Mint around a year ago, and couldn't be happier with it.
sotix 3y ago
When Valve announced the Steam Deck, I decided to bite the bullet and move from Windows 10 for gaming and MacOS for personal use and development to a unified Arch KDE Plasma desktop. I now also have a steam deck, which makes for a nice, consistent experience when traveling with it and docking in desktop mode. It certainly made me realize that gaming on Linux was viable, which allowed me to discover that the entire OS was not only usable but provided a better experience than I had on Windows or Mac. So you can attribute at least one conversion, and that was before I ever picked up a steam deck. I have been happily using Arch with KDE since the second half of 2021 now.

okasaki 3y ago

Surprising, given the Wayland/GNOME sabotage. (I installed Ubuntu 22.04 on a Dell XPS 17 yesterday. After running apt update && apt upgrade it boots into a black screen)

doix 3y ago
I take it those laptops have an Nvidia card? I wouldn't try to use Wayland with an nvidia card. I hear it works better with AMD cards from other HN users. Personally, I don't think I'll be changing over anytime soon though, as long as X11 still compiles and works, I'll probably keep using it.
- bogwog 3y ago
  > Personally, I don't think I'll be changing over anytime soon Maybe, maybe not. There are at least two forces at work on this issue: 1. Nvidia themselves, who are collaborating with the Wayland project to improve compatibility with their driver (https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-/merge_requests/967 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-/merge_requests...) 2. The new "NVK" open source Nvidia driver, which (unlike Nvidia's proprietary driver) can work perfectly on Wayland without changing Wayland (https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/tree/main/src/nouveau/vulkan https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/tree/main/src/nou...) I'm not sure if (1) will fix every Nvidia/Wayland bug that exists right now, but (2) will definitely be able to reach perfect Wayland compatibility faster without sacrificing performance like the original nouveau driver.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
tapoxi 3y ago
If you're using an Nvidia card, that's the likely culprit.
- severino 3y ago
  Shouldn't your distro know that yours is a Nvidia card, and make the necessary to avoid that you boot into a black screen after upgrading your system using the standard procedure?

yashasolutions 3y ago

This is it! The year of the linux desktop is coming!

ejb999 3y ago
... again.
hospitalJail 3y ago
I remember some MLM pusher telling me back in 2009 that smartphones were going to take off or something because it hit some magic 2-4% threshold. I genuinely think Windows got worse, and Linux people started recommending Fedora instead of Ubuntu/Debian-branch. Microsoft pushes us away, good Linux distros keep us from going back.
alexey-salmin 3y ago
I wonder how much scraping bots skewer the counters. They create a lot of traffic and majority of them run on "Linux Desktop", even though some modify the user agent. Would be curious to see stats for e.g. subset of GPU-accelerated devices which can be detected in JS. Not as a true bot-filter of course, but as a uniform and widely-available metric biased towards real users.
- dubcanada 3y ago
  I suppose that would imply that scrapers are scraping more or there are more of them.
  - subtra3t 3y ago
    I think they meant that the bots would account for a signicant portion of the total measured market share, not necessarily an increasing portion.
  - wongarsu 3y ago
    Both things that seem to be happening due to the current LLM hype. Everyone locks down their data from scrapers while complaining about increased bot traffic.

BossingAround 3y ago

Using the words of a true poet: > Up, up, up the ziggurat, lickety split As Windows continues its enshitification, and as Valve continues investing into its awesome Steam Deck, I do hope the trend continues. Personally, after using Steam Deck a lot, I bought a desktop and tried a standard distro (OpenSUSE in my case) for gaming. The experience has been not ideal, but doable. My issues: - My Xbox controller worked, then suddenly stopped working. I've been using a PS controller instead which works great, but would vastly prefer the Xbox one. - NVidia has been such a pain that I'm thinking of selling my current card and buying an AMD one. NVidia drivers are truly horrible. For example, during boot time, the proprietary drivers randomly fail (like 1 in 7 reboots), which is not catastrophic (the system recovers by itself) but does lengthen the boot process by roughly 1 minute (very noticeable when the whole computer normally boots in ~10s). Note that this is with the latest driver version, and even after modifying kernel parameters as per NVidia devs' advice. - Some games still don't work great under Proton (anticheat, mostly). This is expected and I'm quite fine with the current state of gaming compatibility on Linux, but might be surprising to some folks that are coming from Windows. But overall, I can just play whatever is in my Steam library, and I truly love that.

times_trw 3y ago
We're in the odd situation where AMD cards are vastly superior for gamers in dollar/performance terms. I'm on the market for a AI work station and I'm honestly thinking of doing a amd/nvidia split so I can have the graphics just work and the AI also just work.
wetpaws 3y ago
[dead]
nicolaslem 3y ago
> My Xbox controller worked, then suddenly stopped working. I've been using PS controller instead which works great, but would vastly prefer the Xbox one. If you mean specifically using Steam on Linux, you may need to add some udev rules for accessing the controller: https://codeberg.org/fabiscafe/game-devices-udev https://codeberg.org/fabiscafe/game-devices-udev

bcardarella 3y ago

It's never going to happen

BossingAround 3y ago
It has been happening for the past 7+ years.
- pi-e-sigma 3y ago
  Nuclear fusion is around corner, too.
  - strictnein 3y ago
    Nuclear fusion will power the first useful quantum computer.
lopis 3y ago
Linux has hit 100% desktop user share at my place about 10 years ago. It's definitely happening.
timbit42 3y ago
It's going to increase when support for millions of PCs running Windows 10 ends and they can't upgrade to Windows 11. It's also going to increase as more and more games on Steam work on Linux and people decide running Windows for gaming just isn't worth the bloat and ads.

thesurlydev 3y ago

I'm not associated with System76 but if you currently use Ubuntu as your desktop check out Pop OS. It does a great job of smoothing some of the rough edges and has great support for Nvidia cards. After years of using Ubuntu exclusively, I switched to Pop OS about 4 years ago and never looked back. Note that my comment comes from using it as a desktop on my custom-built PC, not a laptop.

vmfunction 3y ago
they are a good company, the only tip I would recommend, if you don't have a beefy system. Is install Pop_OS so it has all the GPU support etc, and then just run some lightweight WM. That switch got me a boast on the speed of an old laptop.
severino 3y ago
Does Pop OS allow you to install software that Canonical forces through snap, like Firefox or Chromium, using the distribution's package manager (apt or whatever)?
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  Yes, you can install things manually, though popOS has its own own flatpak based "store" if you prefer that model. There are a few things that are missing from both though because the vendor only releases software in snap form and no one's bundled it otherwise (e.g. lxd). For those, you can either build from source or install snap yourself.
  - severino 3y ago
    Yes, installing things manually is always an option (even in Ubuntu!), but I wondered if in Pop it was an option to "apt install firefox" and get your package installed the "old way", with no sandboxing, using shared libraries from the system, allowing for upgrading with "apt upgrade" the moment you decide, etc. But if PopOs repo is flatpak based as you say, I guess the answer would be no.

herpdyderp 3y ago

Coincidentally I saw the latest Steam hardware survey results[0] just about an hour ago which says that Windows is dropping and macOS and Linux are both gaining: Windows -0.16% macOS +0.10% Linux +0.06% [0] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...

rightbyte 3y ago
Is that year to year or month to month? Could not find any note on that? But then again the share increase compared to share of Linux users, is quite large. Interesting that only 0,06% are using Win 7 which I would name MS' last good OS.
- ziddoap 3y ago
  >Interesting that only 0,06% are using Win 7 I think it's interesting that there is that many people still on it. Mainstream end of life was almost a decade ago, Steam dropped support for it, etc. Is there anything that actually still supports 7?
- KomoD 3y ago
  > Is that year to year or month to month? Could not find any note on that? "Steam conducts a monthly survey to collect data", says it on the page. > Interesting that only 0,06% are using Win 7 which I would name MS' last good OS. Probably because steam for windows 7, 8 and 8.1 are EOL > As of January 1 2024, Steam will officially stop supporting the Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 operating systems.
- matteoraso 3y ago
  >Interesting that only 0,06% are using Win 7 which I would name MS' last good OS. Above it, the survey says that Win 7 64 bit is at 0.68%.
- wongarsu 3y ago
  > Interesting that only 0,06% are using Win 7 which I would name MS' last good OS. No DirectX 12 support for Win 7. And even games that don't require DirectX 12 now usually support Windows 10 and up. Sometimes because they don't want to test on older OS, but Windows 10 has legitimate API improvements that are worth taking advantage of. On top of that of course the general security reasons not to use an unmaintained OS release.

anotheryou 3y ago

probably the share of devs grows as more people are mobile only XD

faeriechangling 3y ago

What's impressive to me is how long Microsoft has been playing defence against the Linux Desktop successfully - they were doing this back in the 90s.

taylodl 3y ago
Not really. People don't care about libre software, they care about software that works, is supported, and they don't have to think about it. The Linux desktop appeals to developers and hackers, so 4% is probably the best they're ever going to do. On the flip side, look how much Microsoft is losing to Linux in the server space. Consumers don't care what servers their favorite sites and services are running on: they don't have to manage it.
- ascagnel_ 3y ago
  > Not really. People don't care about libre software, they care about software that works, is supported, and they don't have to think about it. The Linux desktop appeals to developers and hackers, so 4% is probably the best they're ever going to do. Also, it shows the power of defaults and just showing up. Windows is as big as it is because Microsoft made the deals with OEMs 30+ years ago to ship their software as the default option. Macs would likely be an also-ran if Apple wasn't standing behind their hardware, both in terms of the hardware itself and the sales/support channel, as much as they are (just look at the relative success of their retail stores vs. the relative failure of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc., in the same space).
- MegaDeKay 3y ago
  > so 4% is probably the best they're ever going to do Why would you say that? Take a look at the trend plot shown at the link. The trend started increasing markedly about two years ago. I wouldn't think it would suddenly flatline. At least I hope it doesn't.
  - oblio 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm > with a particular focus on the "chasm" or adoption gap that lies between early and mainstream markets. > The author argues there is a chasm between the early adopters of the product (the technology enthusiasts and visionaries) and the early majority (the pragmatists) Early adopters are a small minority, it's hard to give exact numbers but 5% sounds about right. It's MUCH harder to get the pragmatists, late adopters, etc to use a new product. It generally requires a revolutionary product or brilliant PR and marketing (Linux doesn't really have PR and marketing and revolutionary would be a strong term for a product that's been in the market 30+ years).

solarman5000 3y ago

I'm not a gamer, in fact I think they are mostly poison for the brain, but I really REALLY appreciate what steam/valve/ proton whoever has done to help bring people over to the FOSS side. Ive converted a lot of kids when before I couldn't convert anyone :-)

zulban 3y ago
Leisure is not poison for the brain. It's required. Like anything else, everything in moderation.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  Yes and the vast majority of gaming specifically tries to thwart moderation. Thus the poison aspect.
- sureglymop 3y ago
  Exactly. As someone who plays games but doesn't smoke or drink (which are also leisure activities), those are way more socially accepted and probably closer to "poison". But it's okay because as you said, everything in moderation.

mrweasel 3y ago

We'll see if those numbers are stable, or on an upward trend. I can see why the numbers would be going up. I've been on macOS for almost 20 years and I'm not sure that my next workstation will be from Apple. I still think the Mac is great, but as work require more and more Linux specific tools switching starts to make sense. All the tools I don't already run in a terminal or in a VM is also available on Linux, the only Mac only application is Apple Mail and I'm not that attached to it.

hospitalJail 3y ago
Unless you are an iOS dev, it just never made sense to buy one. Worse hardware, worse software options, you are going to be VMing always anyway. The 'low power' marketing didn't work on me, my 6+ hour battery life on an Asus has never affected my life ever. However having a 3060 has unlocked so many possibilities. It could make me a multimillionaire this year. Scary to think I might have gotten an iOS dev job, ended up having to run AI on CPU, and never came up with my product.
- mrweasel 3y ago
  > Unless you are an iOS dev, it just never made sense to buy one. Not sure I completely agree, if you're buying a laptop and factor in the fact that you're guaranteed to get a good screen then MacBooks have provide pretty good value, for me at least over the past 15 years.
  - hospitalJail 3y ago
    The screen is what sold you for 15 years? Gosh I hate corporations. They are disgusting the mind control they have, and they never get in trouble for it.

hospitalJail 3y ago

Microsoft did this to me. If OneDrive didn't hijack your filesystem, I would have dealt with auto-open edge links. I tasted Fedora and... Oh my God Windows sucks. Like its awful in seemingly every way compared to Fedora Cinnamon. The UI/the speed/the experience is breathtaking. Fedora Cinnamon is so good, I've become outspokenly anti-Debian/Ubuntu for giving Linux a bad name. I'm amazed that an operating system this solid has been existing under my nose.

idw 3y ago
I'm curious what about Fedora specifically makes the difference for you? I started using Cinnamon with Mint (derived from Ubuntu, Debian) last year and also found it a big improvement from Windows.
- amlib 3y ago
  I'm willing to bet its more about the "Fedora" than the "Cinnamon". I was an Arch user for about 15 years with a few attempts in between to try other distros (including Fedora), but recently I've been installing Fedora on my machines because the last two versions have been really good. Its very competent, software availability has improved, they take security much more seriously than any other (normal) distro and they are always on top of the latest features and upcoming "tech" on the linux world.
- mb7733 3y ago
  Also curious to know this! I've been using Mint & Cinnamon for about 10 years and haven't bothered looking at an alternative.
- TheCoelacanth 3y ago
  Fedora is like 6 months+ ahead of Ubuntu on updates to most packages. Often with Ubuntu you get to deal with bugs that were fixed a year ago upstream.

matthewfelgate 3y ago

I wish more people would use Ubuntu on their home PCs. It's so easy to do. With so many things being web based it's never been easier to switch to Linux.

jsemrau 3y ago

Ubuntu is an amazingly mature Desktop without the MS bloatware. For my AI work, I fully rely on it. Would I use it if I had to make only Powerpoint slides and Word docs? Likely not.

hospitalJail 3y ago
Try non-Debian branch if you really want your breath blown away. I'd use Fedora if I was only going to be using an office suite. I can't imagine using Windows anymore, so many forced reboots and dealing with autosaves and reopening everything. Ugh

brightball 3y ago

Doesn't surprise me. I've used primarily Linux on a laptop and a little System76 Meerkat desktop since 2015. There are a few odd edge cases but most things run smoothly.

jacknews 3y ago

I think it will continue to grow, as the two major OS's have each become enshitified in their own way; Windows with ads at every turn, and macOS with 'security' restrictions and limitations anytime you deviate from the annointed path.

pona-a 3y ago

I find this sort of metric rather pointless... For one, how do we define Linux desktop? ChromeOS is a distribution of Linux, unlike say Android even advertising official support for a Debian container to run Linux desktop software, and while it lacks GNU utils, Alpine does too and yet we still include it in this category... Next is the whole way we're counting the supposed number of Linux computers: user agents. There's zero reason for browsers to provide true and specific user agents, in fact, true user agents often yield broken sites (like YouTube assuming ARM PCs are all a specific Chinese smart TV) or pose a great privacy risk. Certainly a significant percentage of Linux users made the choice against it, either by themselves or as a browser default. Then there's the fact specific demographics have their own distribution of platforms. For example, StackOverflow developer survey showed 40.23% of developers prefer Linux for personal use, compared to 31.07% who prefer MacOS. The absolute numbers matter little if your users in particular tend to be on a certain platform.

itsoktocry 3y ago
>I find this sort of metric rather pointless... As a complete outsider, it might seem odd. But I think tech people recognize this as referring to "OS's that aren't Windows or Mac".
- randomdata 3y ago
  > But I think tech people recognize this as referring to "OS's that aren't Windows or Mac". Do they? The metric includes "Unknown" and "Other" not referred to in this, representing another 5% of activity. However, what the OP seems to be saying is that interpreting anything from the metric and trying to communicate that interpretation with others is pointless. Not even the linked article can decide whether Linux desktop penetration is 4% or 6%, and that's just one person. Good luck when you add a second person with their own feelings.

andrewla 3y ago

I'm in way too much of a bubble. I worked at Microsoft for years and continued to run Windows for some time afterwards, sometimes dual booting with Linux. I've tried but always hated MacOS. But Windows 8 completely broke me -- this was just an unusable OS, plastered with ads and shortcuts that didn't work and a wildly inconsistent UI; big tiles one second, tiny icons the next, some things you had to double-click that used to be a single click, some things you still had to double-click. Some buttons were just plain text, others were buttons, others were just frames with text. It made you sign in with a Microsoft account for reasons never explained. It was just such a heap of garbage that I couldn't do it any more. Trying to help family members who had trouble with their computers became a horrifying slog. So I completely unplugged from Windows; switched to Chromebooks for casual stuff and recommended them to my family members, and a variety of Linux distributions for more serious stuff. But I really know almost nobody who uses Windows; this is the bubble I'm in. Lots of people use MacOS, many people use Linux, and the others use ChromeOS. When I see a survey like this saying that 72% of users still use Windows I'm shocked to my core. I guess my next computer I'll stick with Windows for a bit to see if things are more sane now.

pjmlp 3y ago
Try to go to a bubble outside US or countries with the same kind of life and salaries. You will find plenty of Windows, and developers for the users of them. Linux will be around in server rooms, embedded, and those VMs used by everyone that doesn't want to spend time dealing with dual boot issues on laptops as if it was 2000.
mstipetic 3y ago
I tried windows a while ago and the things you described were driving me insane. I honestly don't understand how that gets shipped. Doesn't anyone care? I'm assuming most devs and PMs are on Mac anyways so they don't even see the mess
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  > Doesn't anyone care? Oh, they care. In my experience, Windows users are non-stop complaining about all the bullshit they are submitted to. They just don't care to fix it.

pixelmonkey 3y ago

I'm one of those long-time programmers who has run Linux on the desktop for decades, and I also use Android out of a sense of obligation for running comprehensible, auditable, open source software in as many places as practical. Also, IMO, there is something important about using the "non-dominant" platform as a techie. I might need to start using Firefox (rather than Chrome/Chromium) for the same reason. I have no regrets about Linux on the desktop over decades. Using my Linux desktop is a joy, and I always viewed Linux system administration as a worthwhile skill which I have cross-applied professionally in the realm of cloud servers and DevOps. In the period where Windows had dominant market share, I relegated Windows usage to a VM for a handful of software packages (e.g. Quickbooks), running on my Linux host. Sometime around 2018, I realized I hadn't booted a VMWare VM in a few years, so I could just delete that VM guest, and the host software, too. Nowadays, I basically ignore the entire Windows desktop space in my everyday computing. I keep an eye on Windows 11 via a Media PC I use for streaming edge cases to my TV, like old Blu-ray or DVD rips. I use a proprietary desktop via a Mac Mini, which is my dedicated "Zoom call box", but also where a handful of proprietary apps live. I don't need desktop Quickbooks anymore, so instead this is my way of accessing things like MSWord, MSExcel, Acrobat, and ScanSnap software. Basically, those rare situations where web software alternatives won't work. Here's an interesting question I've been thinking about: in 2023, why are so many developers encountering Linux in their day-to-day lives even if they aren’t running Linux as their main workstation OS? For Windows developers, it’s the rise of WSL. Windows was always missing a great UNIX shell and now WSL provides it in spades. For macOS developers, it’s native support for Linux VMs & containers as well as the rise of Apple Silicon & ARM. These two trends make it so that macOS’s BSD heritage and local terminal is a less comparatively useful proxy for local development (vs just running a local VM or container running Linux, which is now easy enough, and fast), whereas perhaps in past years the BSD heritage was good enough to e.g. run Python, Ruby, or Node. For all developers, Linux is the standard deployment environment in the cloud, whether you are using Amazon EC2 or Google GCE or something else like DigitalOcean. Even developers running Linux workstations find a need to virtualize and containerize Linux environments, but this can now be done in a lightweight way with F/OSS options. For all developers, IDEs have gotten better at working with remote Linux machines, or local containers. See VSCode “Remote” extension, and private networking tools like Wireguard, Tailscale, ZeroTier. Finally, Linux has showed up in a lot of “long tail” hardware use cases, such as Raspberry Pi, Android, NAS devices, Steam Deck, etc. So I wouldn’t really call 2023 (or 2024) the year of the Linux “desktop”, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Linux is the “#1 #2 operating system”. That is, it’s not the OS everyone runs on their workstation, but it is the OS everyone runs in their workstation, from their workstation, or around their workstation. It’s the closest thing developers have to a “standard development & deployment OS” even while their workstations and desktop environments fracture on Windows/Mac/LinuxDistro lines. And if a developer has a homelab server or a favorite remote development VM, it is almost certainly running Linux and accessed via ssh.

Mashimo 3y ago

I wonder if smartphone usage has any influence in this. I would guess a lot more "casual" internet users use their phone to browse the internet. And maybe more .. eh, lets call them "advanced" users are part of the desktop share?

lp4vn 3y ago

The existence of Linux and the abusive practices of Microsoft are a kind of daily reminder about why competition is so important even for basic, fundamental technologies like operational systems. If Linux weren't always behind the door threatening Windows, surely we would have today as the only option a hiper restricted OS with a terrible performance, a huge pice tag and horrible terms of use(well... this is already the case).

freedomben 3y ago
I'm not sure how much it is Linux vs. just most consumers have expectations of open because that's historically been how it is. I don't doubt that if Apple were starting the macbook as a new product today, it would be locked down just like the iPhone is. MS would copy and go that way too. I don't think Linux is causing either one of them to hesitate, I think it's the fact that consumers already expect those to be general purpose devices, so it's going to be a slow bleed.

29athrowaway 3y ago

The Steam Deck might have something to do with this.

api 3y ago

Linux can conquer the PC desktop by just sitting still while Microsoft continues to enshittify Windows. Mac also grows this way, but you get way more bang for your buck $/performance wise with commodity hardware vs. Apple hardware.

novagameco 3y ago

I think we'll see the end of desktop OSs before we see macOS or Linux overtake Windows. I know a ton of people who don't use a laptop for desktop PC outside of work at all. Their computing is accessed entirely through a smartphone. The desktop OS will become a niche thing for offices and gamers, but I think desktops will eventually be on their way out

renegat0x0 3y ago

My experience: - I have several rasperry PIs that perform various tasks, so yeah, they could generate Linux traffic (at least 3 of them are running) - I game on a playstation. After work, I do not want to update steam, windows, uplay, drivers, origin, battlenet. I still use discs. When I want to play I insert disk and play - I do not want to deal with limitations of Windows. Some programs display too much ads. I prefer fighting with app setup once, compile, etc. After creating scripts I can setup my machine again without any problems in minutes - If my windows machine becomes slow it is often slow to download fresh ISO, and install it. I do not want to restore it from partition as I am not sure what kind of bloatware was installed by the manufacturer. On Linux I can download ISO and install it in maybe 15-20 minutes - Most of my apps, self hosting is much easier for me to set up on Linux than on Windows. It may be because I do not know how to set it up properly in Windows - In Windows I feel as guest, rather than admin of my machine - I have set up some mini-PCs for my friends, since their Windows became unusable. After using Linux they could still use their machines (they use only browsers, Libbre Office suite, etc.)

leeoniya 3y ago

finally switched from Win10 to full time EndeavourOS KDE/Plasma and havent looked back. got sick of my OS customization getting reset after every unstoppable auto update. oh, and the ads. the constantly changing ui shenanigans. i kept TPM 2 turned off to prevent Win11 from metastasizing its way onto the machine, but the straw that broke the camel's back is that Win10 totally fucked up my dual boot setup after an OS auto-update. btw, i used to roll my own winxp isos with sysprep and regedits baked in. all of that is impossible now without the unobtanium that's Windows LTSC. (my hardware/usage is recent AMD thinkpad, time is spent mostly in browser, vscode, mpv, krita, darktable, terminal) i do miss the Affinity products tho, they keep making them more Windows/MacOS-only, now relying on the windows store/msix installer, basically guaranteeing they'll never work with Wine/Proton :(

amlib 3y ago
> i do miss the Affinity products tho, they keep making them more Windows/MacOS-only, now relying on the windows store/msix installer, basically guaranteeing they'll never work with Wine/Proton :( I saw this yesterday, it may be helpful, but there may also be dragons: https://old.reddit.com/r/Affinity/comments/18vzjhz/affinity_designer_203_running_in_linux_fedora_39/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Affinity/comments/18vzjhz/affinity_...
- leeoniya 3y ago
  holy moly, thanks for this. gonna try it soon. wonder why Winetricks exists, shouldnt it be upstreamed? i guess maybe the same reason Proton exists? maybe Proton has the same fixes and i can just use a compiled version of that without having to recompile Wine? :thinking_face: EDIT: oh, https://github.com/Matoking/protontricks https://github.com/Matoking/protontricks

oskarkk 3y ago

In the stats from Wikipedia traffic[0], Linux's share is more stable - ~2.1% for 2023, ~2.1% for 2020-2022, ~1.6% for 2016-2019 (I put the dates in the pie chart filter, and looked at the "Linux" and "Ubuntu" labels). By the way, there are some strange peaks in that data - Linux going up to 7% in single weeks, Ubuntu going from 0.2-1.0% baseline to 1-3% for a couple of months in 2022... [0] https://analytics.wikimedia.org/dashboards/browsers/#desktop-site-by-os https://analytics.wikimedia.org/dashboards/browsers/#desktop...

shadowgovt 3y ago

Finally, the year of Linux on the desktop. (Meanwhile, my laptop running Ubuntu still won't sleep properly. It just spontaneously wakes up and drains its whole battery).

fury999io 3y ago

Linux already has the largest market share because of Android, ChromeOS, embedded devices. The 4% here actually refers to GNU/Linux.

ksec 3y ago

>Looking at December it shows Windows rising too, with macOS dropping down. I posted something similar except for browser. [1] Desktop Browser Market Share Worldwide – December 2023, Safari saw a sharp decline to less than 9%, down from 14% in June. It seems for whatever reason a lot of people tried Safari but then switched back to Chrome. I wonder what were the reason the drove this action. And on the Linux 4% sharp increase in December. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38833412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38833412

psyclobe 3y ago

Long time windows user here, developer of cross platform applications for 30+ years. Started getting very frustrated with the way windows treats its users. It’s simply a non starter for any serious user these days; what with the ridiculous resetting of all bing settings periodically, the non stop abuse of your login mode (live vs local), and man every time that fucking Out Of Box Experience wizard would start and interrupt your login I would nearly shit myself with annoyance. … Recently took a position on an all Linux dev project, totally removed windows from my life (and kids). Whole house runs Linux now. Very happy not going back.

deafpolygon 3y ago
Removing kids from your life does tend to improve things. Less hassle, and all.

sclangdon 3y ago

I realise for casual users Windows is always going to be the OS of choice if for no other reason than it comes pre-installed and most people don't know how to reinstall an operating system. However, Windows may be in trouble with more tech-literate people who do know how to change it. I can only speak for myself, but I've been a Windows user since 95. All but one of my programming jobs over the last 20 years have also been working on Windows. But I really dislike the direction Microsoft are taking and I find Windows to be terribly slow these days, with each version seemingly worse than the previous one. So I decided to look elsewhere. A couple of months ago I bought a new laptop with the express intention of running Linux on it and giving it a good college try (I didn't want to mess around with dual-booting and I still need Windows on my main PC for work... for now). I know very little about Linux, but I've decided I'm not going to use Windows past 10 so it's time to find something else. I went with Debian running dwm (Debian because I value stability over everything else, and dwm because I like the suckless philosophy) and it's honestly surprised me how good it's been. It's SO snappy. Everything is instant. It's really been a breath of fresh air. I was especially dreading programming since I've solely used Visual Studio since Visual C++ 4.0 and don't really know anything else. Anyway, I went all-in and started learning Vim, GDB, and Make, and boy do I feel like I've been missing out. I'm really enjoying programming again, which for me has just become a job over the years. Anyway, my point is, if tech-literate people are willing to give Linux a try, I wonder how many of them would be as surprised as I was and may make the switch permanently. With Windows getting worse, and Linux getting better, maybe more than ever.

freedomben 3y ago
People occassionally ask me what my best advice is for becoming a great programmer, and they are surprised when I say vim, bash (including for and while loops), and core tools like sed, grep, awk/cut. When you know enough bash to (without having to look it up every time) write a command that filters (sed) and parses (awk, cut) and then loops (while, for) you will be amazed at what you can do and how quickly you can do it. Then add Vim and you can fly through tasks near the speed of thought. In summary, I think you've made a great choice!
- 3y ago

yourusername 3y ago

It will be interesting to see if W10 EOL end of 2025 will have any effect. That will instantly obsolete hundreds of millions of useable computers (everything before Q4 2017). For non power users that only need some web browsing and basic office functionality a switch to Linux would be perfect. A 10 year old laptop is fine as a web browsing machine.

theYipster 3y ago

I've been playing with Linux desktops since the 90s. Every few years I load up a few distros in a VM to see what's going on, and I just did that again over the holidays with some free time and a recent urge just to tinker with stuff. Some random, recent thoughts: - Knowing how Linux works (and having the skill to use it) is hugely advantageous for most software developers and IT professionals--I personally wouldn't hire an IT or DevOps admin who didn't have some level of familiarity and comfort around Linux. Reckoning with the modularity and composability of Linux helps to build a deeper understanding of how computers work, and many of the most important IT topics of today (containers, cloud management) are built off Linux/Unix fundamentals such as chroot and cgroups. - I tried Arch for the first time and enjoyed it as a nostalgia trip. It reminded me of installing Redhat or Suse or Mandrake back in the 90s. I appreciate it for what it is--a tinkerer's distro. I don't understand the meme around it though, and found nothing esoteric about setting it up... Is manually partitioning a disk drive supposed to be a feat of strength today? - On the other side of the distro spectrum, I'm mightily impressed by Zorin. Less so these days with Ubuntu. I get folks' distaste for Snaps over Flatpacks. - I don't get folks aversion to bloat. For me, finding the ideal setup was about installing everything a distro had to offer and then chiseling down. The exploration was always the fun in using Linux. I remember installing Suse back in the 90s with 10 different window managers and I loved fiddling with them all. - Hyprland is really neat.

7e 3y ago

This data is highly suspect. Just last year they had “unknown” at 12%, and the recent macOS drop strains belief. Most likely this reflects increased bot activity.

bencelaszlo 3y ago

This is not unexpected at all. 10 years ago I had a dual boot system, occasionally trying out games on Linux. Some of them worked out of the box, some of them worked after configuration, and some of them were totally borked. This year, I built a gaming PC, installed Arch Linux, installed Steam, installed Cyberpunk 2077, hit the green play button and that's it, I can play recent AAA games without any problem. There are still issues around anti-cheat systems though, especially around the kernel-level ones.