https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide
This graph shows the market share of desktop operating systems worldwide based on over 5 billion monthly page views.
And it was at 2.92% in Oct 23, so that's approx 38% increase in 4 months! If we keep this level of growth for a year, we're looking at 7.67% marketshare in a year from now!
That's fantastic and I hope it happens. I really want to go back to Linux for gaming but because of specific applications I cannot.
I'm in the same boat, but all the Win11 drama finally forced me to transition over. Now all my work specific applications run in a Windows 10 VM. I leave it running in the backround. I used one of the debloat PowerShell scripts, killed most of the background bullshit. All my windows apps are on it, it's the best of both worlds. It doesn't affect the performance of my machine at all.
I tried to game on Linux. It works great in 99% of cases. I loved cyberpunk just as much as on windows. I'm just part of that 1% who need face tracking and some other software.
I do run opensuse on my laptop however. Such uses it is perfect for.
What do you mean by face tracking? Never heard of that. What applications use it? Genuinely curious.
Mostly simulators. Tracks your face by various means, webcam, IR, etc. When your head moves your camera moves.
Interesting! So a flight sim which changes your view or what application would do this? Maybe thats something we can get working in linux?
I think I heard of them being used in Arma/Milsims so you can turn your head slightly left or right, so your character looks to their left and right on monitor.
What if its exponential growth?
Then we should expect that in ~35 years, 200% of users will be using desktop linux.
Ok, fine, I'll do the actual curve fitting instead of just estimating.
Eyeballing it, were saying 1% in 2013, 2% in 2021, 3% in 2023?
Gives us a fit of..
0.873 * exp(0.118 * x)
So..
Correct the equation and solve for x
x_target = np.log(200 / a) / b
Calculate the actual year
year_target = 2013 + x_target
print(year_target)
In ~2058 everyone will be using two linux desktops at once.
If you don't think of the increase in speed of new users as continuing to increase exponentially.
2060 - The True and Definitive Year of the Linux Desktop (maybe, probably not but hopefully)
Did this factor out the steam deck Linux, though? It being included if going to falsely skew the numbers.
Does it, though? Those are portable linux desktops, that are in active semi-daily use just like anything else.
I have one. I love it. It's 95% just a game system. No one buys one because they want to use a Linux os.
Yeah but it's disengenuous to make a handheld to laptops and desktops comparison. When people think linux and usershare, they're worried about work stations.
God I'm hoping no one replies with "Well the Steam Deck could be plugged into a monitor!" Don't be pedantic. You know what I mean.
Its still a full desktop computer, regardless of whether you can hold it in your hand or not.
and because your monitor comment reminded me, I dont remember where I saw it so I cant pull a link to it, but there was a guy who recently won a gamejam or some other similar programming competition, with a steamdeck plugged into a monitor.
I could understand, and even agree, with your position if it was some specialty single purpose hardware running a heavily stripped down and modified linux to make something like those chinese emulator handhelds... But its not, Its literally a full use OS on desktop hardware, the only difference is that it fits in your hand.
So like it or not, Thats a daily driver linux desktop, People use and interact with it daily, doing everything from web browsing to production work on it, So it definitely counts as a linux machine and should be reflected in the linux statistics.
Only one being pedantic is you, and about the shape of the computer of all things.
IIRC, it calculates it based on web usage and user agent, so it would count the Steam Decks used to browse the web (aka those used as desktops), but it shouldn't count the others. So I'd say it's quite accurate.
I mean, there's over 2 Billion desktops, according to data in 2019. But because of the whole lockdown stuff, it probably increased pretty significantly in the following years, so let's just say, 2.2 Billion desktops worldwide right now.
Doing some back-of-the-napkin math, 7.67 is about 7.5%, which is 3/4 of 10% and 10% is 1/10 of the whole, so 10% of 2.2 billion is 220 Million, and 3/4 of that is (2/4 or 1/2 plus 1/4 which equals 110m + 55m which is...) 165 million users.
So yeah. There will be dozens. Tens of millions of dozens, to be precise.
Edit: Also, yes. That sort-of proves that there's about half of that (actually abit more than half but it's an estimate), so about 82 Million desktop Linux users right now
(This is assuming all of these 2.2 Billion devices were used to access the internet in the last month)
I was gonna make an unfunded joke comment saying that staying at 3% felt never ending, but your very well funded comment actually brought a smile to my face.
I believe I said it in a different post but 2023 was the year of the Linux desktop. Hardware like Bluetooth and webcams just work. Applications and games have gotten so much easier install thanks to Flatpak and Steam.
Now Plasma 6 is upon us. HDR could be supported this year. At this point avoid Linux only if it's missing a specific app you need.
I like Linux, and I don't plan to use anything else, but yesterday my internet broke because swapping the GPU changed the name of the network interface
That is pretty annoying. I'm thinking of buying a new GPU myself. My Internet also runs off PCIE so I could go through the same thing as well? I wish I had another GPU to try this out.
I did look it up, it seems to come from the way BIOS names resources. Im surprised software such as Network Manager does not pick up on stuff like this.
It certainly could happen. You won't have a problem, either NM will figure it out or you can easy change the network manually. It's just that Linux is inaccessible to a typical person until stuff like that doesn't happen:
I've had hundreds of GPUs, I'm a gaming hobbyist and help other people out, but I'm really super green in Linux. Lots of PC gaming fanboys out there with nothing but Windows experience.
I mean most video games just work and I game on my machine daily. The ones that dont are limited to weird kernel based anticheats and that is very few games out of the millions of games out there.
Nowadays all video games work on linux unless developers deliberately make it so they can't
Yeah looking at you Roblox 😠. Has anyone hacked that anti cheat nonsense yet? Right now I'm mirroring my android phone on my desktop to be able to see what I'm doing (I'm over 40 but I play with my kids in case you wondering)
Yea I am very upset about that actually! I am 17 but I play silly and badly made games on there often with friends
I admit I don't play video games anymore. Especially not in the last year (I did have my eyes on Baldur's Gate). Perhaps I'll start Palworld in a few weeks. I got a lot of games off Humble Bundle (I subscribed to Humble Choice for a year and honestly even with the discounts it wasnt worth it) and Fanatical.
The only game I couldn't get working was the Batman Arkham Trilogy. Everything else I was able to manually force on Proton and play it. Monster Hunter World, Temtem, and GTAV were probably the games I played the most.
Mods suck for the most part on Linux. Though, I never try to mod new games.
This site is really unrealiable. It is based on browser's user agent. It has spikes like this regurally and always Linux community talks about it.
Yeah, there's some heavy hopium in this discussion. "What if Linux has exponential growth forever, 40% every quarter?" type garbage.
mostt linux users use firefox and with fingerprinting pritection on it reports you as a windows user
a not insignificant part of linux users are probably running privacy stuff to mask what they are doing/using, so yeah
And yet still below the "unknown" OS? What the heck is this "unknown" OS that fares better than Linux?
Our tracking code is installed on more than 1.5 million sites globally. These sites cover various activities and geographic locations. Every month, we record billions of page views to these sites.
They uses website trackers to compute the data, which is not a reliable way to count linux market share. A large percentage of linux user are privacy conscious, and tend to mess with tracking scripts.
Here are some potential inaccuracy in tracking:
Also a lot of enterprise equipment runs on some kind of Linux and may also inflate the numbers. Linux will always be around, it's windows and Mac os that need their parent companies to survive
Desktop linux has become great since I first tried installing it in 2002. I remember being in my barracks and I had to switch back to windows because I had no way to get the modem drivers I needed.
As amazing as the linux desktop experience has become, windows has really done this to itself. The windows experience 10 years ago was 'fine'. Like it wasn't amazing, it could be improved upon, but it did what it needed to do without bothering the user much.
Windows the OS has lost the thread completely. Its a travesty. I no longer recommend for non-power users to build their own PC (I've helped several family members who were going down the "I want a powerful computer, should I buy a mac?" direction and would steer them to build-a-pc+windows) strictly because Windows has become something entirely different than an operating system. Unfortunately, no Linux desktop experience is quite to the point where I could recommend it and not-expect to get a constant barrage of calls from a family member when they need to install a basic piece of software or their blue tooth headphones wont connect. Because of what Windows has decided to become, after decades of being anti-mac because of their 'ecosystem'/ anti-collaborative approach, I've turned a corner and now recommend Macs for non-power users, but linux for every one else.
This increase in popularity has the potential to create a sea-change in that regard, especially if we can get people to support (financially) the teams that are putting these distros together. I really need a linux distro to recommend that won't get me calls where I have to hop in and figure out why an nvidia driver that was working suddenly stopped working, what the hell is blueman doing, issues with audio drivers, issues with software compatibility.
Like I cant reasonably put my MIL on a linux laptop that I put together for her and expect her to have a good experience. So she gets a mac. But my nieces and nephews? No they are starting linux from day 0.
My non-tech literate aunt has been running her Ebay business from a laptop running Fedora with unattended upgrades for 3 years now. She manages her expenses in Libreoffice calc and accesses everything else through Chrome and prints labels on an old USB HP printer. I don't think she's even noticed I switched her over from Windows 10 when her machine was getting slow.
My Dad's laptop is also on Fedora (though he mainly just uses an Android tablet these days) and I intend to install it on my Grandma's PC when Windows 10 stops being supported. So for the people who'd be happy with something like a Chromebook, which is a good chunk of older folks, it's perfect and I can easily provide support.
That being said if I had to deal with helping kids who wanted to game and use Bluetooth bits and pieces surrounded by RGB crap then yea outside of a few well supported options it could be a nightmare depending on what they've got.
While I get the „windows bad“ point, linux works for your mother in law a lot better than for you because point and click has always worked well for linux from the reports I read. Please do not steer the tech illiterate to apple. It is dumbed down exactly to attract these figures. If you install a stable distro and dont go with need newest everything that linux elitists spew around, you‘re golden. System76 and Tuxedo Computers are the way to go as far as I can see atm. They even have their consumer ready builds of linux.
I've had two System76's. Neither was a fricitonless experience. Its MUCH better than it used to be. But its not frictionless. I
If you arent committed to doing your own tech support, and lots of it, don't expect things to go smoothly. They are way better than boutique linux distros, but by no means are they perfect.
We shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking something is some way when it isn't, just because we wish it was. The Linux desktop experience is 100x smoother than it was 25 years ago. The Linux desktop experience this year is 10x better than it was 10 years ago. But its still not quite there yet. Its not frictionless. It doesn't 'just work', when people need to use software like MS office or teams. If I put someone on Linux who isn't committed to the work it takes to run Linux (and it takes work; its easier than ever, but it takes work), I've just created an 'anti-linux' user; some one who will never be convinced to convert because they had a negative experience. One bad experience is all it takes to turn someone off for life. If my goal is to convert as many people as possible to Linux, I'm better off stratifying the users into those I can convert now, and those I may have to wait another 2-5 years for Linux to 'get there' in terms of a frictionless experience.
I think desktop linux will get there, but its important to be realistic about where its at.
I get your point and I partially agree.
One thing I stumble over.
„Frictionless“
You will never get a frictionless FOSS experience. Not today, not in 100 years.
For one simple reason:
It’s not human for something to be frictionless. The reason we are used to „frictionless“ is because us using this software makes them money. Its the crazy perfectionism some of us experience when overly stressed. Its unachievable.
I use apple products and it is everything but frictionless. My sonos app is a buggy mess, the linux version works without fail. It looks worse but it functions 10 times better.
Frictionless is marketing speech, an image we reiterate to ourselves because we were manipulated into believing it. Showing you ads for new apps while you drive is another example why apple is making everything as smooth as they can. 30% of every sale goes to apple, for absolutely nothing. For the service that apt and flatpak provide and which snap tries badly to recreate.
Apple is a kiosk system, you can only change very few things. Replicating that in gnome for example isnt very hard once it is set up. Put debian stable under it and an amd gpu and your MIL has a machine that works pretty much forever.
But yes, linux is definitely not „frictionless“ and you absolutely need to throw away the tinker mindset when designing a consumer ready device. Partly because they have been shown how great autocracy works.
I mean, I would argue that today that some Linux experiences are smoother out of the box experience than windows. I did a highend gaming rig with windows set up for a neighbor who wanted to be able to do a racing sims (chair, wheel, pedals, the whole shebang). I couldn't believe how difficult it all ended up being. All on the part of windows and what it has become as an OS. Like jaw dropping difficult.
Windows is actively adding friction to their experience, so Linux just needs to do better than that. And the friction points with Linux remaining are frankly, minor and solvable. The issues for me always seem to be WiFi/ Bluetooth/ and audio drivers. The second big friction point is software instillation. I don't want to jump in on the flatpack drama, but being able to install software and have it 'just work' is the other issue with Linux. Oldschool windows got this completely right. You download an exe, double click, press yes a bunch of times, and now you have software that works.
Those two pain points, which I think will be solved in 2-5 years in some version of desktop Linux (and even more likely to be solved with increased adoption), and Linux could easily replace windows as the dominant desktop operating system. Great progress in all of this has been made. We're very close.
So I'll swap out 'frictionless' for 'less friction than the competitive equivalent'. It just needs to be a bit better. We're very close. A couple more years, a bit more adoption, and it wont even be a question. In some cases, the Linux experience is less friction than windows. In a few years, I hope that most Linux experiences will be less friction than windows. Once that's the case, the whole paradigm shifts.
Okay, that I can agree with. Thanks for elaborating. Quick follow up question: what flatpak drama? I know of snap and their proprietary bs and recent scamware issues but besides the fact that flatpak can push proprietary software from a vendor I dont know of any issues.
Since you are asking for the drama, here is an example of discussion around them.
And I think the point that's being made "that these are universal package mangers, except that they are anything but that".
I don't agree with the video whatsover, but I'm posting it as an example of what I consider the issue to be.
Its a classic example of:
If I want a naive user to be able to have software 'just work', this has to be resolved. Its just too frustrating for any one not fully committed to slog through.
Okayyyy, got it. So the standard argument against progression. Make the system work better for consumers but dont put stuff in that actually does that. Like we use this in german „wash me but dont make me wet“. Flatpak especially works well now. The fact that you cant actually break dependencies (no idea if that has been the case) now is also very cool. Its also much easier for the dev to make the app and package it once instead for each distro - you guessed it - to make it more consumer friendly.
The flatpak hate especially feels like thinly veiled elitism. I get that it should not be proprietary so fuck snap but flatpak is okay in my book. :)
I've had my computer-illiterate boomer parents buy Macs for over two decades now because I wanted to keep tech support to a minimum (and because I saw the writing on the wall for Microsoft's abusiveness even back then). However, at this point their next computer is going to be running Linux because I genuinely expect it to be no more trouble than Mac OS.
(In fact, their "next computer" is really just likely to be their current Mac but with Linux installed on it, because it's so old that the latest version of OS X it can run is EOL'd. To be clear, that is Apple deliberately making tech support trouble for me, in a way Linux never would.)
I have several idiot family members running linux.
Its been zero problems. Of course they are not power users, everything they do is pretty much via a browser. Though one does have a scanner/printer set up (that runs with no issue)
only tech support I've ever done is get the question once a year asking "ubuntu says I should upgrade to this new version, should I?" and I say yeup.
Like I cant reasonably put my MIL on a linux laptop that I put together for her and expect her to have a good experience
Why not?
Cus I don't want to get woken up at 6 AM to do tech support. I'm just not going to put Linux in front of someone who can't do their own trouble shooting.
You can, no complaints from me, but I'm not going to do that.
Why do you assume you're going to do tech support? Does your MIL have any specific proprietary software or hardware requirements?
Have you ever actually helped someone build a PC or convert from windows to linux?
Give it a shot some time.
I have, actually. I've converted both my elderly parents and aunt and uncle, over a decade ago, to Linux. They were first running Xubuntu, and now they've been running Zorin for the past couple of years. Both of them use an pure-Intel PC/laptops (no nVidia, no proprietary drivers) and they have zero issues. All they need is a browser for Facebook/email/etc, some light document editing, and the occasional prints/scans.
Linux works 100% perfectly for their needs, since all they're doing is basic computing tasks. In fact the whole reason why I switched them over in the first place back then was because I got tired of doing tech support every time their Windows crapped out.
Well good for you. I think you made some good hardware choices to support that.
I'm more than happy to take your number and send people I switch over to linux your way when their bluetooth stops working.
I've had a Linux desktop since 2003, over 20 years now. 20 years of facepalm after facepalm every time I saw people get fucked by a windows machine.
Go Linux!
Hey, I started in 2003 too! What was your first distro? Mine was mandrake, from the cd on the cover of a magazine.
My first linux was in '98 and it was redhat 5 .2. I remember buying it from a computer shop I used to frequent as a teenager back then. i think it came on 3 cds or something like that.
The amount of time I spent compiling kernels, building x server and getting confs to work is priceless.
Ah,the good hard as fuck old days of Linux.
I started with red hat with KDE, which then became fedora, I believe. Then switched to Ubuntu with KDE which then split to Kubuntu. Then tried mint for a while, then back to Kubuntu which I still use.
Now I'm actually considering a different distro, because systemd and snap are pissing me the f off, badly. Ubuntu keeps pushing it, so I'm out. Only, now I need to find basically Ubuntu without system d and snap
LETS FUCKING GOOO
As a sidenote, I bought a whole new SSD and I plan to switch from windows 10 to ubuntu (yeah I know) when I have more stability in my life. At the moment I don't want more changes in my life because I have a lot going, but it's coming
The haters will tell you Ubuntu sucks. Every distro has pros and cons. Use whatever you feel comfortable with, and if you feel like trying something else, do it!
ignore anybody giving you grief about whatever distro you use - people need to realise that gatekeeping an OS over minor UI experiences is a dumb fight that discourages normal users getting involved. Whether ubuntu is your gateway into other linux, or the system you end up using for 10 years - you do you, whatever is working is fine. In any case, ubuntu today is much better than it was even 5 years ago - like the comments on this thread say, things just work. You'll still probably have to use terminal more than you should, but linux is becoming very usable for everybody.
Ubuntu is great, but please consider linux mint and PoP_OS too. You may find them more appealing than ubuntu.
Both are ubuntu based anyway, so you wont be missing anything good.
Dumb questions maybe. But I mostly keep Windows for like Battle.net games. Is there any way to play Overwatch II or Diablo IV in Linux? With proton or any other way? Legit would tip me into that realm. I’m a Debian fan if that matters. But I’m comfortable in other distros. Except Arch 😆
Lutris.
It works out of the box with no configuration whatsoever, I'm actually playing StarCraft 2 as I write this and I'll alt-tab now bye
Battle.net games have been some of the most reliable non-steam games you'll find. You'll have trouble in the Riot Games space (League on Linux, Windows 7, and 8 are all dead in the next month due to Vanguard), and some Epic Games (Fortnite), but if you're a Battle.net/Steam gamer Linux is ready for you.
I play StarCraft II regularly, have played Diablo IV and just started WarCraft 3 recently, all without any issues. All you need is proton or install steam and add a non-steam game.
Diablo IV steam version has officiall support for Linux as far as I know. Or rather, support for Steam Deck via Proton, which is practically the same thing.
That would be the easiest path, but would cost you!
You can try to install the battle.net version via Lutris: https://lutris.net/games/diablo-iv/ and it should work. I haven't tried this game in particular, but had a great experience with Lutris in the past.
It is a great front end for Wine/proton and a database of install scripts and configurations for many games.
Bit off-topic, but if you would want to also play games from the Epic store or GOG, be sure to try Heroic Launcher.
Wtf is unknown? What, are they implying that people made their own OS? If the unknown is due to those pc not reporting what OS they have, well that's most definitely Linux because Windows user tend to not care that much about privacy and Apple people tend to kiss Apple ass no matter what so they will not try to ofuscat their OS for privacy as for them having an mac or whatever is something they want to show off!
The number of people I know in real life who use temple OS and Linux are the same .... 0. So it definitely could be true!
I was running Bazzite for several months before I switched back to Windows. Unfortunately for me I have a broadcom wifi adapter, it kept disconnecting every 10-15 minutes, and that doesn't bode well for gaming. Outside of that I really enjoyed using it! At least my steamdeck counts towards usage of Linux...
Edit: also steam having to download pre-cached shaders almost every time I started up my computer was kind of annoying. I know you can disable that, but then you're leaving performance on the table iirc.
Ooh I know, but there's also a few games here and there where anti-cheat doesn't work on Linux. Yes I know dual-boot like you said but I'm too lazy to switch between both.
usually you need to try out a few distros to find one that works perfectly with your hardware. always test them in live usb before installing to make sure that wifi, sound, etc works correctly.
Bazzit is based on fedora atomic desktop, which unfortunately don't allow user to test before install.
OP might want to try nobara or just fedora workstation. I personally find ubuntu works across most of the hardware, but people will need to manually update the kernels to get good gaming performance.
pop_os is another good contender.
Broadcom drivers are a PITA even with akmods or dkms
Had similar issues where card would just randomly disconnect, although for some reason never when it was under load.
Even followed the Arch wiki and tried some alternative driver modules with no luck
Luckily it was a desktop so I eventually just switched to ethernet
Awesome news. I plan to make the full switch to Linux next week. League of Legends is the only reason I use Windows. Next week, they are adding Vanguard, and that'll make it impossible to play on Windows.
Hold on, League of Legends is going to be impossible to play on Windows?
Not really. It depends on how much you value privacy. Vanguard is a kernel level anti-cheat. I refuse to give anyone unlimited access to my computer. As such, I'm quitting the game and Windows.
