It doesn’t say how they got this number in the piece (unless I missed it), but it’s likely more than 5% if they are, say, counting the OS by user agent strings hitting a particular tracker. Linux distros use different browsers and they don’t report the OS in an accurate way all the time.
For a long time my UAS just said “Firefox, the version #, NT-based” or something like that, but now it reports Linux properly… I haven’t been paranoid enough to use a agent switcher lately.
As pointed out on hackernews, this is likely attributed to (a) decrease in desktop usage by non-linux-users, and (b) the gaming hardware industry embracing linux (steam deck etc.)
That HN thread was such a shitshow lol. Also I dont think there is anything credible to suggest this increase from 4.6% to 5% is due to ‘non linux users’ or steamdeck. Steamdeck has contributed sure but desktop linux is growing but every single metric (steam hardware survey, PH Desktop user survey, US Gov traffic, tech youtuber trends, etc).
useless antidote: My friend who is a non techie gamer and she plays a lot of anti cheat type multiplayer games ASKED me to help her switch to linux mint and even when I said thats a bad idea she shouldnt switch she still wanted to. She ended up loving it even though there was a few pain points (fucken nvidia dual screen config on x11) and i think a few of her other friends have even switched after hearing her say it works well.
I’d honestly be curious to see what percentage of Linux is steam decks now
I hopped on the Linux train when Microsoft began pushing hard for AI integration and Microsoft accounts. I fucking hate AI and I don’t need some corpo cunt looking over my shoulder and taking notes while I use my computer.
Same. It should be illegal for them to be forcing this shit on us. At least I only have to endure it on my work pc. No windows on personal devices
Welcome! Because we Linux aficionados are incorrigibly nosy and passionate, which distro did you pick and how are you liking it so far?
I went with Mint because my technical knowledge of Linux is very basic at the moment. I imagine I’ll jump to a more hands-on distro as my familiarity with it increases. EndeavorOS looks interesting.
I think the fastest way for Linux to spread is for there to be a cheap gross dirty disgusting commercial version pushed at bestbuy/walmart…etc where people can become familiar enough with it to switch to other distros and out still feel familiar.
I think the fastest way for linux to spread are a) a state-sponsored (totally open source) product that sees a free and open OS as part of a commitment to a free and open society. or 2) one of these fuckhead billionaires drops $200M or so into a trust, rather like the Poetry Foundation, which has the singular commitment to create an OS for people and to support it indefinitely.
I don’t think the answer to any of society’s ills is to get Wallmart involved. ed: walmart however its spelled WGAS.
Im a long time Mac user but recently got a steamdeck. Desktop mode uses a version of kde and I really like it, if I had to switch from Mac I would definitely go with linux instead of windows. I think the steam deck will introduce a lot of people to linux.
I made the switch recently for probably the strangest reason.
I’ve been running win 11 for over a year using a shell tool that allowed me to move my task bar to the top of the screen and some other win 10 functionality.
However win 11 removed the ability to move the task bar and my shell program lost most of its functionality. After that I was done.
I’ve Linux off and on since 2002ish so it’s not scary to me and I’m pretty happy with Arch and KDE right now. Still the occasional crash that appears to happen sometimes when watching YouTube.
Hey, don’t knock customization as a reason. A couple of decades ago, I was sold on Linux by silly Beryl/Compiz videos such as this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=038RHEGu4OYyo compiz is the shit. You can do ANYTHING with it. It took me a while to figure out because where the hell is the manual, but I have my own custom thing going on and it’s brilliant.
If anyone is stuck on windows and not able to switch there’s a program called wind hawk that will let you download customizations in windows 11 including moving the bar
it’s sad, pathetic, and stupid that one has to download a potentially dangerous hack to do something so basic.
From my reading all ways to move the task bar have been removed.
This is working currently on windows 11 23h2. There are other mods for the top too I just prefer a right side vertical.
Fine… that version, not 24H2
I use arch btw
This guy uses arch btw
It wasn’t immediately clear, I think you need to change your username to IUseArchBtw so we all know off the bat.
Real men and women run Slack. Tarballs Yum!
To head off the zealots-- ./././
Gentoo with allllllllll the custom cflags while hanging a 20 lb weight off your scrotum
That’s not even close to a proper test of Linux womanhood/manhood.
my linux runs only in RAM, has just a terminal
Wow, that’s excluding Chrome OS, which has 2.71% on it’s own. So you could say Linux is at over 7%, but glad they split it so we know.
ChromeOS is going to the Google graveyard, to be replaced by android
(Maybe this is a good thing as Chromebooks have an expiration date averaging 3-5 years where they stop getting Chrome updates, when if it’s android can get updates to the browser for a much longer time AND have Firefox as default)
Android is also Linux though
I have an old Chromebook that I used for D&D sessions that is now collecting dust because they stopped supporting the model and use security hardware to prevent overwriting the drive that I have neither the tools or skills to circumvent.
Google can blow me where the pampers is.
Well yes, but Android now has a Debian container option. If they expose some Wayland/X interface to it for displaying stuff on Android, for a load of stuff, maybe that is good enough for a lot of stuff?
Linux as an OS is generally meant as Desktop Linux, and it most definitely is in this context that is about desktop marketshare, Desktop Linux is mostly following freedesktop guidelines, which has traditionally helped standards on Linux a lot to streamline developments. So for instance XFCE/Gnome/KDE desktop apps can be run in all the different desktop environments. For instance also standardizing things like how tray icons work. Freedesktop is part of X.Org Foundation, and Chrome OS does not use X.org or Free Desktop standards at all. The newer Wayland to replace X is also an X.org standard.
So while Chrome OS is based on the Linux kernel, it is NOT a Linux OS in the original sense, a term that became popular decades before Chrome OS or Android became a thing.
If you include Chrome OS you might as well include Android too. As it can run on for instance Raspberry Pi and other mini systems, and could be used as a desktop system.
Chrome OS is a Linux kernel based OS, and not much more than that.
It’s somewhat confusing in some situations that Linux as a desktop OS doesn’t have a unique name, but it wasn’t a problem originally, as what some prefer to call GNU/Linux was made 100% for desktop use originally.The Linux kernel is way way more widespread and successful than what we usually term Desktop Linux or GNU/Linux.
TLDR:
Linux OS, Desktop Linux, GNU/Linux are generally meant as the same thing.
Chrome OS and Android do not belong in that category. They are Linux based as in the Linux kernel only, but do not follow the standards of Desktop Linux.This isn’t entirely right because Chrome OS is using a lot more of normal desktop Linux than Android does, which basically uses none.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChromeOS
Android is this completely different thing (built round OpenBinder) that ended up using the Linux kernel for good hardware support. It’s basically got nothing to do with desktop Linux, bar needed it to actually build Android. You can argue that Google basically tried forking Linux for Binder and control.
Oh so you can install KDE/Gnome/XFCE apps on Chrome OS and they will work?
You know the “desktop” in Desktop Linux means compatibility is on the desktop apps,and that goes way beyond terminal commands right?Yes you can, but they are actually in a LXC container with Wayland/X from outside (I think it is also in a KVM/QEmu). (Interesting project : https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform2/+/HEAD/vm_tools/sommelier/README.md)
If you look at the architecture it looks more normal than Android.
https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-docs/software-architecture/
Others note this:
It’s made of lots of FOSS, but it is a dystopian version of a Linux desktop.
OK maybe you are technically correct which is the best kind of correct.
It just goes against every nerve in my body to categorize Chrome OS as part of Desktop Linux.Yeah, I hear you. It’s not going to be the case for long anyway.
Every year Linux fans:
👐 It’s happening! 👐
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I’m not in the US, but here in the UK I made the switch too.
I went from Windows PC + Windows laptop ~2 years ago to now having a Linux PC (ZorinOS), Samsung tablet and a home server running Proxmox with an Ubuntu VM for Docker.
Never been happier with my setup. The grass truly is greener over here.
I couldn’t find it is in the article, is this new purchases, or how is this measured. If a computer ships with windows and I install mint on it, how do they know where that tally goes?
My first guess is the author is aggregating the numbers from either the distros download data directly or they are getting the numbers from some place like Distro Watch. You can even get a crude sense of the increase in new users if you hang out in a distro help forum. I check the r/Fedora sub on reddit a few times a week, (I run Fedora 42 BTW), and there has been enough of an increase in new users posting “OMG, I just ditched Windows and look at my shiny new Gnome/KDE desktop!” to be annoying to some people. It can be hard to find those posts from people looking for help with a problem sometimes.
What no one can say is just how long those shiny new users will stick with Linux or run back to Windows at a later date. My gut feeling is, if half of this new 5% sticks it’s a major, major victory for all the distros.
A lot of it kicks back to companies as well. If every time someone interviews for a new job they are telling users they need to run their programs or even just the application for the interview from a Windows machine it pressures users into going back. I always see shit like that for stuff that is even just browser based. I prefer not to install zoom, teams, and such and just open in the browser, but ive run into companies saying their typing tests and other pre employment material only run on Windows. It’s usually false, as I never actually have needed it to install Windows, but it sows doubt in people who don’t want to take chances when they are already in a potentially tight spot.
I switched to mint like a month before PewDiePie lol
My main issue is that I kinda need actual Excel every so often because I require things like power query. I tried installing it using Wine, but it needs to authenticate with Microsofts servers, even the older versions.
I switched over to EndeavourOS around the same time. I relegated my old windows install to a virtual image, which I boot into for specific games and Excel. 10/10 recommend.
You can spin up a virtual machine running Tiny10 and install office on that. Should work fine.
Have you tried OnlyOffice? It has better compatibility with MS formats than LibreOffice.
OnlyOffice is worse (and not because of the security breach implications), but because it misses the Ctrl+D shortcut (copies the cell above to the current cell). Which is something I use A LOT for data entry.
I still use windows because of Visual Studio. I used to use Mac OSX because of XCode and I honestly don’t understand people today who still use Windows or Mac for anything other than Development.
If there was an alternative to Visual Studio for Linux I wouldn’t think twice.
Without knowing what you are working on in Visual Studio, I would suggest checking out Jetbrains IDEs. I’ve used Rider for .NET quite successfully, and most of their other IDEs. I havent spent nearly as much time with CLion, but its supposed to be good. I haven’t used VS since like 2015, so I really don’t know how they compare these days. But I also haven’t missed it.
People who use windows or Mac for anything but development do so for the same reasons as you, they are locked into some features. For example, at home I need a local music library manager with local sync to my phone music app and smart playlists. Mac is still the only platform with this.
At work I need MS exchange integration and all the features of native office. Even the Mac version isn’t good enough for my workflow.
My only hope would be to turn to emulators or something like that, but at that point I’m not really running Linux anyway. I’m just running something else in a container inside Linux.
MPD works pretty well for the music thing, and, I don’t know if this is would be an option for you, but I programmed my own smart-paylist-generator in rust as a hobby project to get control of my 500Gb (around 10,000 100% legally acquired tracks cough, cough) library. The additional control over the algo meant I got something that works waaaay better than pretty much anything else I’ve tried (including Spotify suggestions, etc. — the only thing I still use is Bandcamp for new artist suggestions); if you have the time, I highly recommend a homemade solution like that. It is a lot of work though.
Can you send me the details on your smart playlist generator? What does it do, comb the music and create a static playlist from the library music based on defined parameters?
As far as I can tell from an initial look, MPD doesn’t have local playback and sync which are the main features I’m looking for. Does MPD have a mobile app that I can locally sync the whole library to?
The only thing I really miss about visual studio is the automatic profiler. Everything else just felt archaic, bloated, slow, and unintuitive. Adding one line in cmake often does the same thing as clicking through five submenus which never once got updated since 2012.
Visual Studio is a relic of the past. Does anyone still use it?
Just made the full switch meself this past week!
Welcome Mr. Krabs
It would probably be more if there weren’t so many Linux gatekeepers that tell people to “go back to Windows/Apple” when they ask a questions.
Did this happen to you in particular? Most tech oriented people (and Linux users by extensions) are generally chill
No its just a common trend I see when I look for answers to questions I have about aspects of Linux. I work in tech and know lots of tech people. Chill is one of the few terms I would use for them hahaha.
It all depends on the context to be honest. I’ve found that tech people, outside of professional contexts, are generally a lot more helpful. Things are different at work.
Just switched to Linux for my daily driver laptop!
