Statcounter, a website that tracks the market share of web browsers, operating systems, and search engines, is reporting that Linux on the desktop has over 4% market share for the very first time (Statcounter records ChromeOS as a separate operating system despite being based on Linux). Statcounter doesn’t provide any explanation about why the market share has increased but we can speculate what’s going on.
Linux’s march to its 4.03% market share has been a steady process ever since the final months of 2020 when Linux held just 1.53% of desktop market share. One of the biggest contributors to the growth of Linux is likely the stringent hardware requirements of Windows 11.
I’d of thought steam and proton would of been a large contributing factor
I think the spotlight on KDE from Steam Deck definitely helps. It’s polished as shit, and it acts like Windows by default, and that is a good thing.
And the most of distros defaults to shitty gnome, slowing down Linux adoption. Steam finally showed that anybody can use Linux, with proper WM.
I much prefer Gnome. Sure other UIs are more “familiar” but I found Gnome had basically zero learning curve and makes a much cleaner and more modern workspace, and a better use of screen real estate, which is super important for multi-tasking.
I found the opposite with Gnome which is why I switched over to KDE.
And that’s the beauty, we are free to choose. I’m glad Gnome works well for you.
YOU CANT JUST DO THAT
This! Gnome is absolutely a foil to adoption. Everyone I’ve seen try to start with Ubuntu has bounced right off back to Windows. You’re already wrapping your head around a new OS, you do not need an entirely new desktop paradigm.
So happy Valve went with the setup they did.
It was for me at least, only moved to Linux after spending a long time with the steam deck
think youd of eventually used linux without the intervention of the steam deck?
I’d of thought
would of been
Interesting grammar.
Where are you from?
Interesting good or interesting bad? I’m from UK Devon
I’m guessing he’s just pointing out that it is incorrect grammar and wondered if you were a native speaker.
Replace “of” with “have”, and you’re golden 👍
i would have gone the rest have my life using “of” instead have using “have”
It takes a lot have practice and a lot have commitment. But by the end have it, you’ll be much better havef
gaming was THE missing piece for me since i first tried desktop linux long ago. and it has improved massively in many other ways since then.
i suspect many other people think alike me too.
Definitely this is huge. Proton and the respective Wine advancements are exactly what needed to happen. And the headlines about some games running better on Linux really gives it a good look.
Im building up to switch over thanks to proton. I will still have to dual boot for edgecase games though.
Could of would of should of.
The insane requirements of Win11 (and the added Ai features) are definitely factors for me to switch to Linux
How was your experience? What information did you miss, to make this a smooth transition?
Right so I haven’t switched just yet, I’m waiting on Win10 EOL because there is still stuff I use that is windows only (Adobe suite [ I fucking hate gimp ] and some games)
However, I did look into distro stability, and what apps are avalabile. Everything else I use IS either Linux native or runs great on Linux.
Inevitably, when I switch, I will miss Photoshop and not having to tinker with making games work
You should look into Krita. Not a replacement for Photoshop but I find it more intuitive than GIMP, at least.
Oh yeah 100%, I’ve used Krita before on windows and it’s enough to cover most of my use cases, also it’s by the KDE community, which I adore <3
There’s this: https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP
Far from the first attempt at making GIMP behave like Photoshop and most likely not the last either.
This is very interesting, I think I’ll try that out. I wanted to give GIMP a real try at some point anyway.
Affinity Photo is also really really good. I’d imagine it’s high profile and will have good support in wine.
Affinity absolutely does not work on linux easily, or well. Some people have gotten a barely-functioning app working in bottles, and reportedly some have gotten it “mostly” working through wine, but it is through a convoluted process that will be beyond many newer linux users and prone to errors. (And you have to dig through 100 pages of the affinity forum to try to figure it out.)
It doesn’t support hardware acceleration and seems to tend to be glitchy and crash often.
Which… is still a vastly better state than the last time I checked, at least, ha. But that’s been progress over the course of 4 years.I think this page is the best bet for even trying: https://codeberg.org/Wanesty/affinity-wine-docs
It’s legitimately the only thing I miss from windows. I might try again with this installer when I have the energy… sigh hahah
People often forget that they also often have to tinker with making games work in Windows, because they are more familiar with the OS and get it done faster. Also I think you’d be surprised how many games just run without any tinkering at all nowadays. But then there are some that don’t run at all, mostly due to invasive rootkit ‘anti-cheats’. That’s no real loss for me, I wouldn’t install something like that on a Windows machine either.
I think the largest extent I went with messing around was using a Locale Emulator for a Japanese game, never had to do more than run the exe.
On Linux it’s a bit of a “will it run under proton?” type game, but I’m not really thaaaaaaat bothered by it. Also fuck invasive anticheats, only shit games use it anyway.
Also the steam deck helped massively with game compatibility. The only game I had to tinker with (and didn’t get to work) so far is a closed alpha. I still run a dual boot setup, but only use the Windows partition for work (office suite needed). Fmstrat/Winapps (found on GitHub) is a good enough way to use Office for smaller tasks so I don’t always have to boot up the Windows partition.
Most games so far I haven’t had to tinker with. I just switched a few months ago and it’s been smooth sailing. That said, I can’t speak to using any photo editing software.
I’m keeping windows on my computer now for a piece of software for programming my non-custom keyboard and other miscellaneous windows only things like updating Xbox controller firmware. But it has been a blast and being able to make the PC work for me instead of the other way around has been an extremely positive experience.
I’m a game dev, so I’ll have to at least keep around either a Windows VM or a dual boot system, since Windows is still very popular.
I just switched from 10 myself.
I started on NixOS for some reason… that was a pain in the ass. Every time the machine locked for inactivity it killed my session and I had to relaunch all my apps.
I now have ZorrinOS installed and I’m much more at home on a Ubuntu/Debian base. I’m not seeing the same session issue anymore - it resumes as you would expect.
The install for Zorrin has an “install with Nvidia drivers” option (others may too - idk) which made it easy.
I haven’t had to use it yet but I guess wine is there if I have a Windows only app I have to run.
I would install Manjaro. It runs KDE, which is super familiar, and maybe more polished than Windows. And it is Arch-based, which means you have access to AUR apps, which makes finding programs super easy. It’s like if the MS app store actually had every program on it.
Keeping the explanations simple.
Don’t start with Ubuntu/Gnome. The desktop is way too weird, and app repository is limited.
Don’t start with Mint or Cinnamon or LxDE. Linux nerds will recommend these, but they feel “old” and are not really lighter on resources than KDE.
Highly recommend Arch-based distros. AUR feels like a miracle coming from the Windows paradigm of tracking down installer EXEs and MSIs.
I had been on Linux since 2016 when I finally installed Windows 11 on my newer shitty laptop which had a bug that was apparently unresolved no matter what distro or config I tried. But Windows’ issues like it’s famous update times, the modern distasteful UI(in my opinion) and inclusion of more and more features that the user didn’t ask for send me back to Linux. And with Copilot being forced on users, I don’t think Microsoft is respecting their customers choices.
You are now the product. Please do not resist.
- microsoft, probably
I don’t think Microsoft is respecting their customers choices.
No thinking required. Being forced to have unnecessary software and telemetry running on your computer with no way to globally opt out or remove the software entirely is just blatant disregard for the “customer’s” needs and wants.
What requirements do they have? I remember requiring a TPM module which was quite absurd.
Yeah TMP, my CPU doesn’t have it, and I’m not going to get a new motherboard and CPU just for a shittier Windows experience.
What does TPM even do that it is needed over UEFI secure boot? Validate individual hardware components?
for gaming purposes, it can be used for hardeare level bans that cant be bypassed like Hardware IDs. tpms are tied to the chip (or cpu if using fTPM) so a hardware ban would effectively be making said tom module or cpu outright banned, requiring the user to get a new one if they wanted to continue to play.
Whaaaaat?!?!?!?!?
I honestly hadn’t looked into it and thought it was some sort of secure key management for any crypto process?
Maybe it is as well, but fuck hardware banning.
prpgrams basically use it for authentication, it has other uses too, but is effectively a tool to verify if the computer is the correct person, as no other device would be capable of immitating and create the message they sent. because of that, its effectively a hardware ID, attached to the tpm module, or more commonly for consumers, the CPU.
banning said device would effectively be a hardware ban. which would be used by compeotitive online games to dissuade cheaters an evergrowing problem with lack of solutions.
I imagine that could get pretty dystopian pretty quickly.
Permanently block the CPU from the internet through a shared ISP ban list?
the person writing the software would have to allow for the check to happen i would think. the only game im aware that actively uses it is Valorant.
That’s fucked up, no thanks to that shit.
I’m doing my part!
Proton is what allowed me to make the switch. I do dual boot but almost never use my windows partition.
The Linux ecosystem has matured to the point where it can work well for the majority of people. Even the worst of Linux like Nvidia is still usable.
If you don’t play games Wayland, if you do play games xorg. I haven’t tested gnome but kde has a screen tearing bug for games on a gsync monitor. I don’t like dealing with gnome when I have 20 windows open, sucks overusing the mouse.
Hyperland has been amazing for games since the Nvidia 550 update but there is still minor stutter in some games like gta 5.
I know you’re talking about Nvidia specifically, but I find it kinda funny how people say that regarding X11 and Wayland even for AMD and Intel, because for me the experience is literally the opposite – when I try playing games on Xorg, they always stutter and freeze really badly to near-unplayable extents even when FPS counters report they’re running at 60 FPS (or if I set them to the lowest possible graphics), but ever since I switched to Wayland, the issue was just gone and games run flawlessly now. And note that I’m using Plasma, the one people often said had a worse Wayland session than Gnome and Wayland-based WMs.
I don’t know why this is the case for me specifically when it seems like literally everyone else reports the opposite happening to them (and afaik Wine and most Linux games still run in XWayland). Does Xorg just hate me in particular?
Same for me, X11 is out of the question simply because it can’t do variable refresh rate on multiple monitors last I checked. And Nvidia and Wayland work together pretty well by now, at least if you are using a GTX card.
I’m definitely excited to switch to Wayland properly whenever I build my next machine and escape from my GTX 1060.
Wayland is just more responsive and smoother than x11 in all cases I’ve tried short of really old hardware. Nvidia just haven’t caught up to Wayland yet and it makes complex things like rendering a vulkan pipeline through an x11 compatibility layer buggy on Nvidia.
I’m hoping the day they finish porting wine to Wayland it’ll fix all the issues I’m having with Nvidia. Or the open source driver getting good enough for me to drop the proprietary driver.
My experience XWayland apps can get a little weird on Nvidia for some reason. I’ve witnessed flickering ui, misplaced drop shadows, and the xorg cursor popping up at the very edge of XWayland windows. On AMD Wayland just works and at least in games AMD shows an improvement while Nvidia shows a decrease in performance.
kde has a screen tearing bug for games on a gsync monitor
You mean on Wayland? I play a lot of games, so I haven’t dared try it
I have a gsync monitor and that seems like it might be part of the problem. When Nvidia introduced vrr for Wayland to their driver, my gsync screen started to have screen tearing. Disabling vrr in kde didn’t fix it.
On Windows disabling vrr disables gsync on the monitor but not on Linux. It seems to work as intended on the cheap freesync (gsync compatible) monitor my mother uses but she was also on gnome but that’s xorg thanks to gnome not adopting vrr yet.
I’d guess every day someone gets fed up with some MS bullshit and goes looking for something else, for me it was the forced updates/restart and the following waiting to finish updates then 100% disk usage for a few minutes, then removing whatever bullshit that got reinstalled.
For me the infuriating things about Windows are the slowness of everything, the tendency of so many applications to turn white and “not responding” all the time, the coercive setup questions on installation and at random times after installation, the forced Microsoft account and tracking, and the fact that after 29 years the Start menu still doesn’t work about 50% of the time but comes up empty or not at all. Everything is fast and solid under Linux.
I haven’t used Windows in years, hearing the forced updates stories always confirms that’s the right choice.
I added 2 to that count this week!
I resurrected my Asus T100TA tablet/laptop that got killed by Windows10 and installed Linux Mint. I can now stream the seas in the comfort of my TV.
Then updated my Lenovo Flex from Win11 to Kubuntu. I used to play Android games via LD Player and it was so slow in Win11. But with Kubuntu+Waydroid, I was able to play my mmorpg game at the highest setting without lag!
I added Debian to my mom’s new laptop. I cannot rely on windows having a stable desktop environment and interface anymore which is crucial for my mom to be able to use it.
That’s a great option for her. Should Windows push a crappy update, she’ll still be able to use her computer.
My Lenovo Flex was okay at Win10. But I made the mistake of updating it to Win11 and it became a potato. I like my taskbar to never combine and at the right side of the screen so I could see all my open windows. Win11 killed that and I’m too much of a dinosaur to adjust to the “dock” taskbar type.
One of the biggest contributors to the growth of Linux is likely the stringent hardware requirements of Windows 11.
Keep it up, Microsoft! You’ll make life better for us all yet. Windows 12 should be only for the elite few.
The huge push from communities to get back to normal communication and marginalising toxicity is something that doesn’t get often mentioned, but the culture has definitely improved over the years to where the usual “elitist gatekeeper” accusation from other OS’s bad actors falls flat and more people are not put off before even downloading an iso.
I used windows all my life up until May 2023 when I decided to try Debian and then never went back. Now that Debian 12 is easy to install I hope more people will join.
Last year’s December marked my one-year birthday of daily-driving Linux as my primary OS consecutively, while this January marked one year of me using a single distro reliably without running into weird issues that’d lead me into a distrohopping frenzy. I am still proud that I managed to pull this off! I guess third time really is the charm.
I had previously tried using Linux two other times before - the first time was around March 2021 when I had to finally upgrade my computer and switch out of Windows 7, and since I didn’t like Win10, I wanted to try out Linux. Sadly, I didn’t know much about it at the time and made a bad first-distro choice in Manjaro, whose installer broke so horribly that it somehow nuked my entire SSD. Lesson learned: Don’t use Manjaro.
Second time was in November (also in 2021), where I mustered the courage to try again after many frustrations with Windows 10, but with a different distro (initially Pop!_OS, but I had a terrible experience with its community and switched to Linux Mint the next day). My days on Mint were pretty great and I still remember them fondly, but there were many things that I needed but couldn’t use as Mint’s repositories were ancient and lacked them (and I didn’t know about Flatpak at the time), so I tried switching to other distros with newer repositories… and kept running into all sort of bizarre, nonsensical issues nobody else had (such as atrocious gaming performance, archives not working, and other things I don’t remember), and my requests for help were often either ignored or responded harshly, so I ended up giving up and returning to Windows…
…Uh, that didn’t last more than 6 months because for some reason Windows 10 hates me and started giving me even worse issues. I managed to find a nicer and more forgiving community of Linux users who could help, so I mustered the courage to try again. And thankfully, with my prior experience, I managed to make it stick this time by finally resolving some of the bizarre issues I had - it got to the point that I sometimes forget I’m using Linux, lol. I’m very glad I could contribute to the 4%.
As always, such statistics should be treated with caution.
What methodology is used to calculate Statcounter Global Stats?
Statcounter is a web analytics service. Our tracking code is installed on more than 1.5 million sites globally.
It is assumed that there are more than one billion websites worldwide. It is therefore not exactly unlikely that a Linux user will not access any of these 1.5 million websites.
Furthermore, it is quite common for Linux users to use tools such as Pi-Hole that simply block such statistics scripts. This means that these users would not be counted even if they accessed one of these 1.5 million websites. For my part, I also use computers with Linux that I don’t use to access websites. Some of these computers don’t even have access to the Internet. They are therefore not counted either.
Finally, let’s come to the most important point. Percentage values say not much if you don’t know the actual number of users behind them. Let’s assume, for example, that 3.5 per cent Linux users were detected in December and only 3 per cent in January. However, if the total number of users was higher in January, it is therefore possible that more users were detected in January.
Fucking based.
Based on what?
It’s free-based
BASED ON GAY MANGA!
“I’m doing my part!”
Can’t wait for MS Linux
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