As far as I can tell, Linux still has less than 2% of the desktop market share. Windows Phone has something like 2% of the mobile market share and I think it wo

As far as I can tell, Linux still has less than 2% of the desktop market share. Windows Phone has something like 2% of the mobile market share and I think it would be unrealistic to say that platform is doing 'alright.' Adoption matters more than whether it is sort of possible to buy a computer with it preinstalled. Raspberry Pis aren't desktops, either. Though it's possible to use one as a really low powered desktop, that certainly isn't the majority use case. Even if all 5 million Pis sold were used as Linux desktops, that's still tiny in a world with 2 billion desktop computers. There may be little you 'need' Windows for today, but it is still overwhelmingly the go-to choice for desktop computing. I also think you may be incorrect on your assertion that most new software is either browser based or cross-platform; that may be the case for a lot of the products you're exposed to but I don't think you're considering the vast amount of niche software out there. Lest I be accused of any bias, I am a happy desktop Linux user.