I won when I ditched windows.
Yeah, it a temporary measure due to people leaving. Microsoft will not change. Linux is far better
Best comment.
I am very thankful to Microsoft, without them I wouldn’t have made the switch to Linux.
I really loving it. So much better, faster and powerful + no Spying.
When I started using Linux in 2009 it had around 0.6 percent market share on desktop. Windows had 95%.
Today Windows is measured below 68%, and Linux has been measured above 4% by statcounter.com.
These things move faster the more people make the change. Linux only reached 1% in 2013, 2% in 2021, 3% in 2023, and 4% was somehow first measured already in 2024. For every single person making the switch it becomes easier for others to do the same, and companies consider Linux support to be a little bit more important. One can only wonder at which percentage of market share it will be offered as a mainstream alternative when buying a new computer, but it seems pretty clear that we’re getting there.
I guess my point is that we all won when you ditched Windows. Thanks for that.
10% market share is when I expect it to be impossible to ignore and I think we’re gonna get there fast like you alluded to.
But…mainly for games. The corporate crowd will stay on Windows because they benefit from propping up other corporations. PC/laptop manufacturers will still push Windows for the same reason
Total market share is irrelevant. What matters more is total users.
If you make a product and there’s a million people on a platform who could buy it, the costs to port that product (and support it) need to be low for it to be worthwhile.
If the total number of people on that platform increases to 10 million, now the cost to port/support becomes more like a minuscule expense rather than a difficult decision.
When you reach 100 million there’s no excuse. There’s a lot of money to be made!
For reference, the current estimated amount of desktop Linux users globally is somewhere between 60-80 million. In English-speaking countries, the total is around 19-20 million.
It’s actually a lot more complicated than this, but you get the general idea: There’s a threshold where any given software company (including games) is throwing money away by not supporting Linux.
Also keep in mind that even if Linux had 50% market share, globally, Tim Sweeney would still not allow Epic to support it. I bet he’d rather start selling their own consoles that run Windows instead!
For reference, the current estimated amount of desktop Linux users globally is somewhere between 60-80 million. In English-speaking countries, the total is around 19-20 million.
That sounds about right when comparing Microsoft’s claim of “1 billion” Windows devices. 5% of a billion is 50 million(not a perfect comparison as 5% Linux is total including MacOS/others from statcounter but you get the idea). So 50 million to 100 million Linux users globally sounds about right.
PC/laptop manufacturers will still push Windows
it will eventually hit a wall because of this. most people can only conceive of using whatever came with the computer.
You can buy laptops and PCs with pre-installed Linux at Germany’s biggest computer retailer now.
Some OEMs with some models here in the USA also offer it. HP and Dell offer it. I think Dell gives Fedora and Ubuntu? And it takes off ~$130 USD or so from the price, so it’s the full Windows license cost.
Personally if I have that option I’m taking it and just reinstalling whatever I want anyway, but it’s nice having that option.
Also if I’m going to spend $2k+ on a new laptop and they don’t give me a non-Windows/blank OS option then I’d go to support and request a special product link. Otherwise I’ll find another brand or buy used.
Tuxedo laptops seem like they have a solid build.
Nice design and I think they are based in Germany.
They even provide their own OS which is based on Ubuntu.
Yes, very happy with mine. Started it up to see the preinstalled version of Linux and then restarted it to install Arch btw instead, but it’s a great wee machine, exactly what I wanted and will be replacing it with another like it when the time comes.
My M1 MacBook Air is still alive and kicking (although I dislike being an American brand - bought it before the whole American mess).
But if I was in the market looking for a laptop, definitely would be a Tuxedo.
I had no idea - that’s really cool!
Germans also seem to be privacy oriented people, I can imagine this combined with recent developments could have a real impact.
Dell sells PCs pre-configured with linux as well.
It will be really interesting to see the figures at the end of 2026, when Windows 10 has truly reached end of life, and a whole bunch of people are going to be forced to choose.
I wish you were right, but that growth does not appear fast nor steady.
0 to 1 percent: 22 years
1 to 2 percent: 8 years
2 to 3 percent: 2 years
3 to 4 percent: more unstable, but between 1 and 3 yearsI would say it’s an encouraging trend.
Yup too late I’m never coming back.
I switched to Linux in December, and it was a remarkable feeling. I don’t think I had really noticed how oppressive or depressive Windows had become (and I hadn’t even switched to Win 11, just using win 10), or how much I was actually personally affected by, but that feeling of suddenly being free when I booted up my linux was quite surprising and exhilarating.
It was like a massive weight had been lifted off of my shoulders.
I won when I ditched your mom.
-Dad.
The title of the article is very misleading. Microsoft has not said they’ll be removing AI features already deployed on Windows. All it says is they’re reevaluating AI features going forward and streamlining the experience whatever that means. It sounds like they’re looking to rename unpopular unwanted feature like Recall instead of scrapping it. The whole thing is just a PR move to placate the disgruntled masses. Also they said nothing about intrusive ads, telemetry, or rapidly declining stability of overall system. Recent update literally broke windows explorer, task bar and start menu. One thing for certain, Microsoft will not stop using Copilot to develop their software in house. That would be admitting Ai tools are useless and that would sink Microsoft stock even further than it already has.
One thing for certain, Microsoft will not stop using Copilot to develop their software in house.
You’re wrong, but I think you’ll be OK with that because the reality of the situation is actually hilarious:
https://www.theverge.com/tech/865689/microsoft-claude-code-anthropic-partnership-notepad
“Turns out Copilot sucks so let’s just use our competitor’s superior product but that’s no reason we can’t keep foisting the inferior garbage on the masses!”
Honestly it’s good engineering practice to not be stuck in your own product.
You want them to be using only copilot?
It’s called dogfooding and it’s what you’re supposed to do to improve your product.
Why would anyone suddenly trust Microslop? Trust is gone.
The same reason they would any year.
History shows Americans will.
They trusted Microsoft after they were successfully sued by a DoJ (when it used to investigate corruption and monopolies) for being dicks, but David boies rejected breaking up the company in 2001.
Won? They will do it again. The only winning move is not to play their game. Choose Free Software.
Genuine question: What do you recommend? I want to replace Windows 10 on a 8-year-old midrange laptop with something that works reasonably well in terms of performance with a connected 4K monitor.
I’ve already tried Ubuntu, but unfortunately the experience has been marred by bugs such as poor performance, visual glitches, windows jumping around when attempting to move them, and DPI settings not being able to be applied per screen.
Linux is definitely the route. A lot of people use Mint or Ubuntu. But they are usually running out of date drivers.
I’d recommend looking into distros based on Fedora Workstation. It stays up to date but not as much as Arch so that it’s stable.
My recommendation is any of the Universal Blue images that fit your need. They are based off of the Fedora Atomic image with added quality of life features.
I’ve had more luck with Mint, thanks to its Windows-adjacent GUI and user-friendly on ramp. Still encountered a few issues (a couple of peripherals that didn’t support Linux drivers). But on the whole, it’s improved system performance over Win10 and synced smoothly with my workstation.
I can’t say I’ve had those issues myself, so my recommendation may not be valid in your case. I’d say maybe give Fedora with KDE Plasma a try, and try switching between X11 and Wayland sessions if issues persist.
I personally don’t like Ubuntu, but that’s mostly because of Canonical making the occasional sketchy decision.
On the whole, distro choice doesn’t matter quite as much these days, as most distros should work fine out of the box. Whatever issues you have should technically be solvable with a bit of troubleshooting.
Sometimes Linux just doesn’t play well with your setup. Good luck, and I hope you find something that works for you!
I am more impressed you got windows 10 to work well on 8 year old computers ngl. I had an HP pavillion around that age and it had torturingly low startup speed.
Definetely try mint-cinnamon and mint-xfce4, latter one uses xfce4 which has very good performance.
A lot of experienced users will find linux run without bugs for them but that’s because it’s an OS that gets better as you learn more.
In my case battery life was 2 hours on windows and 1.5 hours on linux. But once I past the skill-curve I tweaked it to be 6 hours because I knew how to find what caused the problem and fix it.
Either that or there is the IT-guy effect going on where once an experienced user shows up the aura just makes computers work normal again lmao.
(Same difference)
Next month they’ll quietly add these “features” as background services under a generic name.
As part of a security update!
Another task for “Feedback Hub.”
As usual with all of these companies: only believe when you see the changes
As usual with any company, fuck em! They only care about bleeding you of your wealth, not making the world a better place. They can eat shit and die.
I am kinda glad they went to shit so quickly. If it were slow, I probably would never have gone fully Linux. Now, I have all 5 of my machines free of corporate spyware. I am having fun again configuring and learning. Thanks microslop! I needed the push.
Which distro has been working well for you? So for I have Mint and Bazzite on my list to try. Also do you have any pointers?
I’m using mint and loving the experience so far. My kids find it easy to use and even my wife, who was a bit worried having to switch to a new environment, came to realise that it works just as well if not better then windows.
Badass, appreciate the info!
I’m using CachyOS currently. It’s fast, so far stable and suits me.
Best pointer I can give you loads them all onto a USB with Ventoy and test them all on the live environment. What works for others may not work for you so go ham, break shit and have fun while exploring
I use Mint on my laptops and I know it is not for everyone, but I started with Debian stable on my gaming desktop with an ARC B580 and upgraded the kernel, installed drivers, and added packages one at a time so I could see the difference. Debian stable on my server for many years, so I have some experience.
What makes you say Mint isn’t for everyone? UI is weird?
Oh, I think Mint is one of the most accessible distros. I use Cinnamon desktop environment and that is very nice for new users. I was referring to starting with Debian stable, it is pretty baseline with no frills. Great for a server, but you will need to research what additional packages and repositories you want to get from it what you want. I just like how almost all software made for Linux has instructions for installing on Debian, that is not the case for most other distros.
My first thought exactly
Too late.
Major shit
shift
They keep claiming that and then proceeding anyways with maybe a short period of backtracking. I’ll believe them when they’ve actually stayed backed off until the end of the ai bs. That said I’m never going back. I switched to Linux over 2 years ago in part because of the initial recall scandal.
Yeah this is what these companies do every time they get some heat. They never actually listen and fix their shit, they just back off and wait a couple of months until people are outraged about something else, then add it back in when they think nobody’s looking. Rinse and repeat until everyone’s too sick of hearing about it/tired of fighting it to continue.
Understand that they’re not doing this because of user feedback; they’re doing this because shareholders got cold feet about the whole thing after the backlash (so indirectly it’s still down to user feedback, but not really)
The only thing they’re rethinking is how to repackage this so people accept it. They learned a lot from this, but I promise you it wasn’t the right lesson.
Prolific cannibal promises to review their choice in seasonings to be more tactful as they continue to feast on PC users’ privacy, freedom and last scraps of digital dignity on a global scale.
I am sure that this empty promise of change has everything to do with their user empathy and absolutely nothing to do with their recent financial results which indicated how hollow their AI-slop-bullshit revenue growth was last quarter.
LOL, I won when I installed Mint.
Cheers
