Who is using Linux, though? Like, 6% (or 11.3% as others have pointed out) means tens or hundreds of millions of people. But where are they?
How do we know these numbers indicate real people?
Who is using Linux, though?
My parents, both of whom are 70+, are using Linux laptops. I installed it for them.
I’ve been using it for over 2 decades as a main OS. I loathe using windows now. Their ads, including web results, and privacy issues. It’s just become cumbersome. You have multiple choices of desktop environments in linux. Don’t like your current DE? Switch to another gnome, kde, cinnimon, mint, etc. You need a program? Install it from the package manager. Remote mount a drive? sure, you don’t have to jump through hoops like windows.
Hi, I’m here. Been using Linux Desktop for years, not solely nor religiously, since I usually have more than one machines at a time. Work, personal, family and such.
Also, does it exactly matter? Hundred of thousands, millions probably, of devices run Windows and they’re not desktop machines. Think info screens, ATMs, Kiosk devices, Industrial Machines and the list goes on.
It doesn’t surprise me that someone (a) on lemmy and (b) in the Linux community would respond with this comment though. But the number of people on lemmy is only a few digits.
It does matter – when I think “Desktop Market Share,” I’m already excluding the type of windows devices you just mentioned.
I mean you asked. There is nothing special about me, I’m not a basement dweller, I have a job and a family, pay taxes and whatever. I’m not in the US if that matters. And I prefer to use other operating systems than windows or macos.
I know, I know. I appreciate your response. But it’s just an anecdote, not really a broad answer IMO.
I use windows and have been since I was a kid in a very computer savvy home. Build my first computer at 8 or 9 years old with surplus 80’s parts, ISO slots and all. First OS install was dos with a shell GUI and have had every major windows iteration starting g with 3.1 and up. Of the more modern ones that followed the windows 95 esthetic, I loved windows 2000 pro, hated xp, then loved 7 pro, hated 8, and accepted windows 8.1. When it came to windows 10 I was already getting frustrated with the excessive bloat and OS level Spyware. Now with eindows 11 BIOS level Spyware and so much bloat even the most modern CPUs lag, this is now a bridge too far for me. I will not be upgrading to 11 and will instead be jumping over to Linux. I played around with Linux in the 2000’s and a bit with server stuff, but never took it seriously as a desktop replacement OS until now.
So who are the ‘real’ people switching over? People like me. I don’t work in IT. 99% of my computer usage is for things I can do through a web browser, office suit, or gaming through steam, all of which is now very accessible through Linux. If this was Linux from 10 or 15 years ago, I don’t think you would have seen the shift happen, but where it is at now is more accessible for the common user than ever before.
I’ve been advocating for Linux for decades. People who have historically just dismissed me have been trying and many have converted.
Also (credit where it’s due) behind the scenes Valve has been greasing the wheels on a transition to Linux gaming … which has quite often been the biggest fiction point in the past.
I’vs seen several content creators outside the traditional Linux bubble try Linux, notably including PewDiePie.
Copilot has shaken many small businesses out of complacency, often into modern self-hosted turn-key Linux solutions.
I have friends on Windows 10 who tell me they will not move to 11 - they’re hoping Microsoft folds, but they’re beginning to build a Linux-shaped parachute.
Support for Windows 10 ends on October 14, 2025.
Microsoft wants you to buy a new computer.
But what if you could make your current one fast and secure again?
If the average tech nerd uses linux and uses two computers every day and the average non tech nerd has only one device and uses his computer only once a week.
Could this distort such a usage report?
I tried to find out how DAP identifies users and I think it’s based on device fingerprinting rather than IP address. So, I think, if you were to use two separate linux devices to access a .gov site using DAP it would register as two separate users. I don’t believe frequency of use matters.
Or 1 tech need has containerised 100,000 instances of Linux and is turning them on and off.
Very nice to see, only worry is that Linux will get enshittified (primarily by the GNOME people).
If only your distro would support more than one desktop.
I will say though, Gnome dropping support for other window managers does suck. That is them removing infrastructure that non-(or semi) Gnome users depend on.
Is it even possible for Linux to get enshitified? Wouldn’t the open source community just go back and fork from before the enshitification began? Surely, enshitified versions could be made but people would simply not use them unless there was some proprietary component they wanted.
If there were a single corporate controlled entry point all these people were funneling into there would be posential for enshittification. Even if a single free vertically integrated project like debian suddenly had the majority of all PC users it would probably be impossible for them to avoid the corruption of money. But the linux ecosystem appears to currently be growing in a manner that preserves its diversity and organic nature and thus seems able to remain quite healthy in doing so
Embrace, extend, extinguish.
I would be incredibly weary if someone like Meta, Google, or Microsoft started their own distro. Make a solid distro with lots of bells and whistles few distros have, pre-install it on the hottest gear, poach the best devs away from open-source projects, exert more and more influence over kernel development, wait for a majority to get locked in and then start making parts of the OS proprietary so open-source can’t keep up, and the dominoes fall from there.
Obviously not blatant money/data harvesting like with big tech companies, but corporate strong-arming has been done on Linux (systemD) and can be done again. Granted it’s much harder on Linux (in the case of my SystemD example there are distros like Void or Artix) but there is still a risk imo.
Oh no! An opionated desktop environment, what should we do?!
The problem is that they have bad opinions. Very, very bad ones
The fix is on most of the distros you can switch easily without losing data
And which would that be?
Warning: long read
okay finished, as the first sentence literally said that the writer doesn’t care, and why should I?
“don’t care for” is just a polite way to say “don’t like”. The author does care, at least enough to write a fairly lengthy blog post, they just don’t like Gnome and expressed in in a somewhat dated manner. You of course don’t have to care, and as the blog says, if you like Gnome, you do you.
Out of curiosity, was there anything in the post that resonated with you? “Oh yeah, that could be better” or “that does annoy me”, something along those lines?
There are only two things that resonate with me/that annoys me.
- its outdated and or factually wrong and or the author actively tries to be dumb.
What do I mean with that? Take a look at the outdated tour section. The tour nowadays says not just super key, but super (windows) key. And you use that key to open up overview. The next screen tells about how to type anywhere when you in the overview. The author tries to play dumb and writes that writing anywhere on the tour doesn’t do anything. The user was literally told how to access the overview 1 second ago! The only good thing about that section is, that yes gnome-tour should detect when there is a touchscreen device so instead of offering the super (windows) key way it should offer the gesture way.
Then another one in the “Double-click to Maximize: Challange Mode”. The user could just rightclick and then choose Maximize. Or double click on the Files text. Why Gnome and derivatives (looking at you ElementaryOS) choose to hide Minimize and Maximize from Window Controls I don’t know, but its okay, as I just drag the Window to the border or use the double/right click or use Super Arrow Keys to manage my windows.
Then another one when it comes to the Display settings. The author fails to play dumb and immediately knows what those Rotation Icons mean on the KDE settingspage, maybe because their Screen has a stand (mine does not its mounted). So why do they give gnome flack for using text? Landscape is Landscape mode, everyone knows how that looks like. Portrait Left / Right. Yeah I guess the author never hold a Phone or a Photo in their hand?
I could go on and on… but I don’t wanna.
- I lost my train of thought.
Speaking as someone who never used Gnome, has only ever used Cinnamon, I was recently shopping for distros to try on an old work laptop. My only real awareness of Gnome was via the Gnome Terminal that ships with Linux Mint, which I’ve replaced with Konsole because Gnome Terminal has really minimal functionality and feels like Baby’s First Terminal. I browsed the Gnome org’s website to try to see why I should choose Gnome, in their words. I noped out as soon as they started trying to sell Gnome as being a phone-like experience on my desktop. This article confirms that that instinct was correct. It was both tragically hilarious and informative. Thanks for sharing!
In the case of GNOME they take their whole toolkit with them. Obviously you can switch DEs but it’s still sad and annoying to see. From 5 years ago but still holds up: https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/horrible-gtk3-gnome-ui-design-is-leaking-into-ubuntu-mate-applications-in-20-04/22028/58.
Fortunately on Linux you can easily switch to another shit
The gnome people have no profit motive to encourage enshittification.
Gnome 3 was sluggish when it came out, but it’s perfectly fine nowadays. Just avoid it if you don’t like the workflow.
I don’t and I do. Cinnamon is a better Gnome experience now.
Very nice to see, only worry is that Linux will get enshittified (primarily by the GNOME people).
You misspelled “systemd”.
Just mentioned SystemD in another post of mine.
What a handsome bovine!
I wonder if it isn’t still just a piss in the wind. All Microsoft has to do is require something propretary and the US government and their customers will just roll it out. I don’t fee like we have the ability to choose with our wallets anymore. If they can’t win fairly, Microsoft will cheat and collude with other companies to make them your only option.
That is what they have always done. Embrace, extend, extinguish.
That is what they have always done. Embrace, extend, extinguish.
Jesus, way to advertise your age, dude. This hasn’t been the case for over 20 years. MS was the largest contributor to the Linux repos in around 2010 resulting in WSL. Nothing got extinguished, but we got a bunch of nice compatibility layers from it, not to mention people trying it out and then switching full-time to Linux.
MS was the largest contributor to the Linux repos in around 2010 resulting in WSL.
embrace
My gamer Brother-in-law asked me about Linux gaming. Until a few years ago he was all like “Windows is super!”.
I love to cheer for linux (Fedora user here 😎) but the math and logic in the blog post is off. Firstly, the linux desktop-share for US government websites is much higher, because to calculate it, you have to exclude iOS and Android. But then again, the data may be skewed and linux-users may just be much more prominent visitors of US government websites. I think this sounds credible as many linux users are technically apt and active citizens.
Nevertheless, if the trend is true it is encouraging! Cannot verify because analytics.usa.gov only provides data a calendar year into the past by default and I can’t be bothered to get an api key to see if more can be fetched.
The real desktop linux share for the last 30 days can be calculated:
windows = 33.2 macos = 11.6 linux = 6.9 linux / (windows + macos + linux) = 0.13346228Penguin wave
🐧🌊
Antarctica rises!
I recently wiped my 10yr running windows install that had all manner of shady hacks applied over the years to basically lobotomize it, after a hardware upgrade. As I was wiping I was largely intending to create another “lobotomized” win10 install as the second install on dual boot, but windows on top of everything is known for breaking dual boot. Working around sheer hostility at every level, and for what? Basically just to play pirated games since steam games work on Linux now. I never bothered trying to prop it back up and have been only better off for it
You can use Lutris to play pirated games on Linux
I was dualbooting of two seperate nvme drives for each os. Worked pretty well for almost a year until i distro hopped. But for some reason my windows boot partition was located on my linux drive which i purged entirely while installing the new OS. Because why would be there any windows component on my linux drive, right?
Recreating the windows boot partition on the correct drive was more complicated than anything i ever encountered on linux so far. Took like 5 hours and funnily enough was only doable via a terminal.
Also there isnt a reason left for me to put up with microsofts bullshit. A few weeks ago i got a racing game with VR and wheel support running in an afternoon. The title is even abandonware so i had to grab some repack with a windows only installer.
that’s strange, what filesystem was that? windows cannot handle linux filesystems, by itself.
wasn’t that /boot/efi? if so windows uses that too, it’s a designated fat32 partition for uefi bootables.
Uuh, could have been /boot/efi ? I dont know anymore. It was a few weeks ago and in an adhd induced rush to fix that problem now and now was until 3am.
The Quiet Revolution?
is this implying that windows is catholicism and we’re mass secularizing our computers?
cause hell yea
I thought the quiet revolution was a specific thing to Quebec.
Otherwise it’s just Sparkling Nonverbal Civil Disobedience.
It happened in Spain as well. I think currently in Ireland as well.
I use Ubuntu btw in my old and new computers.
Fuck You, Macrohard
It took a long time, but my company is fully off Windows.
Most of our workstations are on Linux. Unfortunately, the programmers and designers are still on Mac.
Canonical is rather evil these days. They aren’t anywhere near Murdersoft levels of evil, but there are still more ethical options.
I don’t care about any of that shit.
As long as my PC works out of the box and it’s the default distro with most support, I’ll use it
Debian is love. It sounds like you need more love in your life.
Uwuntu ftw!
Uwu
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good
Is this the century of Linux?
That could actually be a reasonable view, considering Windows has fallen off since the late 90’s or early 00’s, depending on what version you draw the line on.
To be fair, it is pretty hard to keep increasing your market share when you get closer and closer to 100%.
But yes, 2000 or XP was the last respectable version of Windows. Maybe Win7, but I never used it.
Windows is falling off because they missed the mobile boat.
Most people never needed a full computer. All they do is consume and a phone and iPad is more than enough for that.
The desktop market is shrinking and the steam deck is pumping Linux numbers in an increasingly smaller pond.
yeah that’s the sad truth. I was watching a video yesterday about like “All creators should be on YouTube” because Instagram, Twitter, etc., will open your Patreon link logged-out in a WebView…
I’m the only one watching videos on a desktop I guess
It is Setting Orange 26 Bureaucracy 3191 YOLD (Year Of the Linux Desktop)
