Linux Reaches 5% On Desktop (ostechnix.com) 117
Longtime Slashdot reader bobdevine shares a report from OSTechNix: For the first time, Linux has officially broken the 5% desktop market share barrier in the United States of America! It's a huge milestone for open-source and our fantastic Linux community. While many might think of Linux as a niche choice, this new data shows a significant shift is happening.
According to the latest StatCounter Global Stats for June 2025, Linux now holds 5.03% of the desktop operating system market share in the United United States of America. This is fantastic news! [...] One truly satisfying detail for me? Linux has finally surpassed the "Unknown" category in the USA! It shows that our growth is clear and recognized. "It took eight years to go from 1% to 2% (by April 2021), then just 2.2 years to reach 3% (June 2023), and a mere 0.7 years to hit 4% (February 2024)," notes the report. "Now, here we are, at over 5% in the USA! This exponential growth suggests that we're on a promising upward trend."
According to the latest StatCounter Global Stats for June 2025, Linux now holds 5.03% of the desktop operating system market share in the United United States of America. This is fantastic news! [...] One truly satisfying detail for me? Linux has finally surpassed the "Unknown" category in the USA! It shows that our growth is clear and recognized. "It took eight years to go from 1% to 2% (by April 2021), then just 2.2 years to reach 3% (June 2023), and a mere 0.7 years to hit 4% (February 2024)," notes the report. "Now, here we are, at over 5% in the USA! This exponential growth suggests that we're on a promising upward trend."
Not exponential growth (Score:1)
It took eight years to go from 1% to 2% (by April 2021), then just 2.2 years to reach 3% (June 2023), and a mere 0.7 years to hit 4% (February 2024)," notes the report. "Now, here we are, at over 5% in the USA! This exponential growth suggests that we're on a promising upward trend."
That is not exponential growth.
It isn't even close.
Re: Not exponential growth (Score:5, Informative)
It's far faster than exponential (assuming that's 1% of a constant-size market, then 2% of the same market, etc.). The first doubling time was 8 years; an exponential growth process would keep the same doubling time, but it took another 2.9 years to double again.
So your "not even close" is correct, in that exponential growth is far slower than whatever this is.
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I suspect, much of this is driven by Microsoft, who are aggressively pushing features that absolutely nobody wants e.g. ads in the Start menu, Recall, and forced use of a MS-cloud account.
Re: Not exponential growth (Score:2)
I suspect itâ(TM)s more the collapse in sales of desktop pcâ(TM)s. The actual number of installs isnâ(TM)t much higher but there are far fewer windows boxes being sold etc.
Re: Not exponential growth (Score:2)
People can get everything done on their phones now. Why boot up a clunky old desktop all the time??
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A clunky old desktop? You must be crazy.
A phone is convenient the UI is dogshit compared to a desktop with a full blown keyboard, 10 key, mouse, and two or three monitors. Mobiles win on portability and the fact social media has addicted people to the platform they definitely are not a better or less clunky UI. Even a laptop keyboard and touchpad is far more clunky to work with than a desktop or docked laptop which is effectively a desktop when discussing UI.
I think Meta is moving toward the future. AR glas
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or docked laptop which is effectively a desktop when discussing UI.
Or docked smartphone at this point, or at least we're getting there. The average user doesn't need more computing power than a smartphone, just better ergonomics.
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We'll wait until you need glasses, or stronger prescriptions for your glasses - you know, when you're over 30, and less concerned about "being cool", and see how you feel about doing things on that tiny screen.
Oh, and getting carpal tunnel from the virtual keyboard.
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I'm over 40, but very nearsighted due to years of working in tech - swipe typing is not too bad on the fingers for moderate amounts of typing. I do have an ergonomic split keyboard and dual 27" monitors for "big jobs" but I don't need it much for routine messaging and work tasks. My phone is my portable office when I'm out of the house. I just wish for more brightness when in bright sunlight conditions, but OLED runs too warm as it is on a hot summer day.
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and forced use of a MS-cloud account.
This is exactly why my nieces (ages 9 and 6) are currently linux users. My sister discovered the 9-year-old took a photo of the 6-year-old au naturel which was automatically uploaded to the cloud, and she bugged
I know that apple is sticking to their story that some 1337 haxOrs combed through millions and millions of accounts to find a couple hundred titty-pics of celebs (with many of the celebs swearing they deleted said pics), but no one is really buying it.
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Well I'm sure not ever going to actually remember PowerShell syntax. It's so verbose I'm surprised they didn't just use XML.
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Some exponents are > 0 and 1.
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OK, I get it. > is needed here. Some exponents are > 0 and < 1.
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Four data points, it must be a cubic polynomial...
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:) Of course you're right, which means extrapolation is gonna be a /real/ shit-show.
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That is not exponential growth.
Exponential growth can be very slow in the short term. Your savings account that pays 0.01% interest each year is growing exponentially, but you won't get rich off of it in a typical human lifetime.
Re: Not exponential growth (Score:4, Funny)
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^1 is exponential, right?
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Username checks out. Should have looked before replying.
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How much of that is SteamOS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just curious how much SteamOS contributes to that total.
The Verge says 8 million (Score:2)
That doesn't really help desktop Linux adoption because not very many people use a steam deck as a desktop. I came across one YouTuber doing it because they killed their main desktop PC but beyond that most people are going to use it for gaming only. Maybe some movies and lite web browsing.
That means a lot of the software that locks pe
Re:The Verge says 8 million (Score:5, Insightful)
So I guess what I'm saying is the number of Linux users is likely to stay constant while the total number of other operating system users drops resulting in the percentage of Linux user is increasing.
It does help that basic hardware is extremely standardized so you can just install Linux just about anything nowadays.
And there's a lot of gaming you could do under Linux because of valve. Although the big multiplayer games are still locked away on Windows because of the anti-cheat software with the exception of marvel which remarkably runs very well and is fully supported under proton.
I know some musicians though that are completely stuck on Windows because the software for running they are interfaces just does not work in Linux. And there's lots of people stuck with Adobe software or something like it or who need Microsoft Office. Although I'm not sure how well the web-based version of office runs under Linux it runs pretty crappy under windows.
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That doesn't really help desktop Linux adoption because not very many people use a steam deck as a desktop.
We count gaming PCs but most gamers don't really use their PCs as a desktop beyond "some movies [porn] and lite web browsing."
In all seriousness, though, I think it does help Linux desktop adoption because it normalizes Linux for these users. It's very common on ./ to see posts where people say, "I only use Windows for games." Gamers tend to build their own PCs (or buy weird custom rigs), so unlike most computer users the OS isn't just baked into the cost. Also, judging by their hardware, ricing Linux shoul
The new rack-mount deskheld. (Score:2)
But that's probably worldwide. There's an estimated 60 million desktops in America though. So I think it's safe to say that a lot of if not most of that is steam decks.
* looks over at the rather obvious handheld form-factor that is Steam Deck *
If that is now considered a “desktop”, then I’m guessing my full-sized tower chassis is now classified as either an MMA weight training aide or a medieval torture device, depending on local gun laws.
Perhaps I should stop complaining before someone doubles down and re-defines what a “desk” isn’t anymore.
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We've been (quite reasonably!) quietly counting laptops as desktops for the purposes of these types of survey so I suspect the definitions have always been fuzzy.
But that said, maybe we should be counting desktop GNU/Linux installs - ie installs where GNOME, MATE, Cinnamon, LXDE, etc are included in the primary installation and are used at least once, and the installation should include the GNU userland,. That's a little fuzzier though, how many desktops does GNU/Linux have these days?
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"There's an estimated 60 million desktops in America though. So I think it's safe to say that a lot of if not most of that is steam decks."
Virtually every corporate employee in the nation has a desktop as their primary workstation [the physical machine is usually a laptop of course but it's still part of 'the desktop' market]. I doubt a niche gaming device is going to amount to anywhere near 1% let alone 5% of that market. I don't know anyone running a steam deck but I know many tech workers who run linux o
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Re:How much of that is SteamOS? (Score:4, Informative)
No lets forget them since Android are identified as a separate OS category and not considered a desktop OS. SteamOS actually is a desktop OS - it just runs an app over the top by default. A quick push of a button drops you to the KDE environment.
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Android is linux, ChromeOS is linux, SteamOS is linux... of the three I think the best case is for ChromeOS to be counted because the tablets tend to be low powered laptops in reality. KDE is just an app which you can run on Linux.
Android not Linux based, just hosted by Linux kern (Score:2)
Android is linux, ChromeOS is linux, SteamOS is linux...
No. "Linux" is overloaded. It can refer to a kernel or a full operating system. This slashdot posting is referring to the full operating system, not every device or appliance hosted by a Linux kernel.
Android is a full operating system. Hosted by Linux. You could swap out the Linux kernel for a BSD kernel and few Android users would no or care. 75% of apps would not care since they use only Android APIs. Of the remaining that use the Native SDK, many of those would still work since they use Posix call, no
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Just curious how much Windows 11 contributes to that total.
FTFY.
Even the Microsoft fans who love to hate those who hate Windows, would agree at this point.
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According to the Steam Hardware Survey for June 2025, 2.57% of Steam users are running LInux.
https://store.steampowered.com... [steampowered.com]
Arch Linux, of which SteamOS is based, is at 0.27% of that, which is the largest distribution in use.
SteamOS or Windows Subsystem for Linux? (Score:2)
Just curious how much SteamOS contributes to that total.
And standard Linux distros running under MS Windows Subsystem for Linux.
Twinkie with one candle. (Score:2)
Microgratulations! This is the Year of 1/20th of Desktops for Linux! In the year 2525 we'll finally own the desktop! The robots will be so jealous of humans while they are converting us into biofuel.
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The linux powered terminators that will take over the world will still use windows in their desktops mostly.
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The force is strong with this one! Moderators, please mod this one up for being funny.
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This is the Year of 1/20th of Desktops for Linux!
Nah, it's the Year of Linux on the MS Windows Desktop. That's where one is more likely to see a Linux distro running. :-)
Yes, this is good news. (Score:5, Insightful)
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As the desktop percentage of Linux increases, the incentives for manufacturers to take Linux on the desktop seriously as customers increases.
Suddenly all those Come to the Dark Side OS jokes get confusing. Who’s the Dark Side again? Are we the Good Guys now? I mean hell, we gotta be looking at all the shit Windows is pulling..
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Are we the Good Guys now?
We are always the good guys.
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I can see that argument for Wayland. SystemD is merely a fixed sysvinit (albeit a little complicated so annoying to some - though annoyingly the same team have put out a shit load of shitty tools and added "systemd" to their names to do whatever they can to make the systemd "brand" unpopular, but systemd itself is what you'd expect to design if you wanted to autostart and stop daemons but include dependency checking) and Pipewire is just the replacement for PulseAudio, supporting more types of media.
I would
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Yes and no, at present the drive is still special purpose devices and not something that manufacturers would target to general public. The issue here is manufacturers know the numbers. Other than HP all other majors provide Linux options across some of their products and they can see how consumers choose.
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It's not just "Linux" that they need to support though, it's a dozen different distros all with a slice of that 5%. Linus Torvalds commented on it a few years ago. To support them all, with different desktops, different window managers, different software management systems, is a lot of work. Not only for companies who want to make Linux software, but for the volunteer package managers.
If you look at commercial software that does support Linux, it tends to only support one or two distros, and even then not
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That just means Microsoft will have to pay more to have incompatibility be the default. Any burden on Microsoft is a good thing, but the burden will still be small compared to their overall carrying capacity. A straw can break a camels back ....
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As the desktop percentage of Linux increases, the incentives for manufacturers to take Linux on the desktop seriously as customers increases.
No. Most of those Linux distros are probably running on the Windows desktop via the Windows Subsystem for Linux. For those actually running natively on the hardware, manufacturers will expect distros to add the necessary drivers. As they always have. The current system works just fine for them.
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I think programmers fantasized about everyone thinking they're-super smart with their text command interfaces. Thus, instead of providing a simple text-editor, the user was required to engage in a lengthy ritual to get anything working. Not because it was needed, but because it made the users feel super 1337. The following is a fairly accurate set of commands required to create a simple text document in an older Linux system
I'm pretty sure programmers fantasize about other things, I use CLIs a lot and they never feature in any of my fantasies.
As for creating a simple test document "vi document.txt" has been in pretty much every Linux system for decades. If like me you don't like vi then "sudo apt install joe" so you can use "joe document.txt" is hardly a "a lengthy ritual".
Re:Yes, this is good news. (Score:4, Informative)
> The following is a fairly accurate set of commands required to create a simple text document in an older Linux system, which may or may not have been written by AI
Not only was it written by AI, it's obviously also a hallucination. Why the F would you run a text editor as a SystemD (also a very recent addition to Linux, btw.) service? A simple terminal text editor (e.g. nano going back to Debian Potato, and ed and vi or variants thereof before it) has been included with mainstream distributions such as Debian for a VERY long time.
The syntax is also prettty simple, e.g.: nano textFileName.txt
Your entire post is complete bull.
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Is it still UNIX if the "vi" command is missing on default install?
1976 called, it wants an editor back.
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Now LEAVING the editor... that's a bit more difficult...
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Not only was it written by AI, it's obviously also a hallucination. Why the F would you run a text editor as a SystemD
I mean... this is systemd we're talking about!!
[Yes I know the GP was trolling with a shitty AI slop post, but I can still poke fun at service.org.systemd.kitchensink]
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I've been using Linux since Red Hat in the late 1990's and have never had to go through the steps you just listed, why the difference, was I smarter?
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?
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Yeah that slop was written by AI. Been using Linux for 28 years. All that has ever been needed throughout that entire time has to be open a terminal, type in name of text editor you prefer to use. So literally
me@nowhere: nano
The end.
Windows 11 really is that bad. (Score:3)
It's causing linux on the desktop to become a thing.
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No, that's bad. (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft wants perfectly functional hardware to become e-waste. Windows 11 makes the world a worse place in service of corporate profits.
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It's causing linux on the desktop to become a thing.
I'm old enough to remember when MacOS had only 5% market share, or even less.
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Yeah, well Linux was even worse, lol. It did take a huge chunk of the *nix market at one point, though. I'm actually doing work on Linux servers and did support on mac OS X servers, no bias, I'd prefer *nix/Linux for servers.
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You made me look it up and... wow, 25%, give or take 10% depending on who's doing the measuring. That's an amazing step up for Mac OS X, and I wonder if the primary GNU/Linux desktop wasn't GNOME whether we'd have similar figures by now.
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It's causing linux on the desktop to become a thing.
Yes, but it's Linux on the Windows 11 Desktop via the Windows Subsystem for Linux. :-)
How much can we trust statcounter's methodology? (Score:2)
These stats from statcounter are based on analysis of hits to the set of websites that they have instrumented. Their FAQ mentions that they have instrumented 1.5 million websites. The estimate of global websites is over 1 billion, with somewhere around 200 million active websites. So, it's clear that statcounter's instrumentation is a sampling of the total websites.
However, the more important question is how representative that sampling is. We get a hint from the distribution of website hit across count
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Its got 3 of the 4th largest european countries. Russia isn't on that top 10, probably for similar reasons that china seems lowish. But excluding russia, Turkey, UK and Germany are the three largest countries (Turkey, Germany, UK in that order of size.) So yes, the smaller ones arent on the top 10, but thats probably beause they just dont have enough people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Countries with large numbers of English speakers are overrepresented here. Given PC ownership numbers, you'd expect Japan and Brazil to feature in the top 10:
China – 357.4 million
United States – 269.3 million
Japan – 59.5 million
Brazil – 52.5 million
Germany – 49.2 million
India – 41.6 million
Looks like critical mass to me. (Score:1)
The things holding back Linux for the unwashed masses have diminished to minor annoyances in the last 15 years, especially when compared to the nonsense wintel still puts its users through. It finally has gotten through to ords that there are solid reasons why experts don't even consider Windows as an option when doing mission critical stuff these days. ChromeOS and Android are signs of the things to come and Windows isn't even on the radar with those usage patterns.
Looks like linux has finally gotten criti
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Personally I fundamentally do not get why M$ even has a business case with their system.
Their business case is to use their Windows monopoly to force users into using their browser, default every software to save into their cloud space and stronghand them users to subscribe more, extract personal data from anything on their clouds and show ads, exploit any useful media on their cloud for AI training, promote subscriptions for their office software, and bundle together software that people used to subscribe separately so to suppress competition.
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Personally I fundamentally do not get why Google even has a business case with their system.
There, fixed that for you.
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> ChromeOS and Android are signs of the things to come and Windows isn't even on the radar with those usage patterns.
The future is an OS that can't save files, doesn't know where to put files, and can't even properly send email? An OS crippled to not allow installing software unless it is "blessed" in a store front? An OS where editing text files and documents are difficult after thoughts?
Windows may have a lot of problems, but at least it was originally meant to be a general purpose computing platform
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Look very carefully and I'm seeing a pull-back from ChromeOS/Office 365 type models as people start to re-evaluate whether they want their files managed by third parties who increasingly demonstrate they don't have the power to provide the product they're advertising. When a United Nations official can have their own account shut down because the US government is run by a man not afraid to lash out in response to his own grudges (https://www.heise.de/en/news/Criminal-Court-Microsoft-s-email-block-a-wake-up-
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Apple and Microsoft already got Unix on the desktop the only way it'll ever get there. First, write a desktop OS, then hide the Unixish OS in a VM deep in the bowels of it where the 95% of users who aren't interested won't have to look at it.
1 in 20 eh (Score:1)
hmm lemme think... a real os with actual people really caring about it, or your infinitely enshittifying personal pile of ad-infested idiocy?
yeah i think i'll take the real os thanks, losers
Congrats to Linux Devs and Distros! (Score:3)
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And usability... does a M$ Word document open and work 100% in OpenOffice? Does a Windows game run 100% in WINE? How much still has to be done through Bash or some terminal in order to make something else work? Will it work with some random box of parts?
The reason it's never taken off is that every single person's computer is different (mine: 24-core 3.8GHz Threadripper, 128GB RAM, Titan X GPU)... people don't want to have to fight crap just to get video working at a decent resolution... one distribution
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Does a Windows game run 100% in WINE?
YES! Many happy users of Proton on Steam Deck will answer in the affirmative for many games. This is what Valve's 30 percent cut of Steam sales pays for.
If *Nix was just a simple drop-in replacement without all the config issues that require an hour of reading to fix
As if Windows 11 doesn't have its own host of "config issues that require an hour of reading to fix."
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"does a M$ Word document open and work 100% in OpenOffice"
Yes. The only thing that I ever had trouble with in Open Office was Excel graphs.
Most people are not running the sort of state of art monster gamer rig you use. For Joe Computer Linux works fine for Joe Computer defined as than Core 2 Duo or newer.
Now sitting up file sharing of the Samba is a pain and requires a couple hours of study as opposed to three or four clicks on a Mac. Most people don't do that either, but it is a valid complaint.
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Setting up Samba doesn't require hours of study, most users can just use a howto.
Now, setting up nfs4... wtf. just to get one machine able to mount from one other machine took like four attempts, every doc I read telling me how to do it was different. And no there weren't four different ways to make it work, three of them were just wrong.
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>"And usability... does a M$ Word document open and work 100% in OpenOffice?"
An MS-Word document doesn't open and work 100% between MS-Windows versions and MS-Word versions. Seriously. And who uses OpenOffice anymore? (It is LibreOffice for what, 95% of Linux users for many years now).
>"Does a Windows game run 100% in WINE?"
Install Valve and the answer is approaching "yes". And how many desktop users need/want top-notch gaming? 50%? 20%? Really, I don't know. I don't need/want it. Most of the
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">"Will it work with some random box of parts?"
Will MS-Windows? How many desktop users assemble their own computers with random parts?"
I'm one of those people, so are a few friends, when I worked in MI at The Geek Group, that's what all the computers throughout the building were (and, then... there was the Halloween laptop giveaway... I repaired 160 laptops from combined parts of over 200, and installed Mint on them).
">"If *Nix was just a simple drop-in replacement without all the config issues that r
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Thank you for making the perilous journey from 2005 in order to make this comment. We here in 2025 appreciate it greatly.
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> Not everyone is a full geek, and not a lot of people understand what you mean when you tell them to type in a command in the terminal.
Every user should know what a directory tree is and how to save a file someplace "safe to them". Trying to avoid this creates "software insanity".
Not every user needs to know how to use a command line, but most should have a vague idea that "the dark place" exists and other people use it. That said, anyone who installs an operating system from scratch should probably b
Re: Congrats to Linux Devs and Distros! (Score:2)
Many games actually run 115% in Wine because the performance on Linux is better.
Most people just use web browsers. (Score:2)
Re: Most people just use web browsers. (Score:1)
Most people have a whole brain, that is, two halves. So they switch with one half, then the other, and end up back where they started.
So you either create a whole 'nother open source OS and ecosystem so that after two switches roughly half end up on Linux.
Or you lobotomize everyone.
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There's a secure web browser?!!! (which engine? I'm so surprised to hear this!)
Thanks! (Score:2)
Give thanks to the mighty Windows 11. The best thing to ever happen to Linux. An honorable mention needs to go to the nutter Satya for making it all possible.
Meh? (Score:1)
Is it really that hard to garner just the smallest of market share when you have 1900 different products that classify as "linux"? The metrics count even a single day of use before that user distro hops to yet another choice - so one user can count as 50 or 100? Only the linux cultists will take this 5% as something wow-able, to the rest of the computer biz, it's only slightly better then the rounding error it's always been. What's more impressive is with a product that's GIVEN AWAY FREE, they can only g
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> What's more impressive is with a product that's GIVEN AWAY FREE
When's the last time you paid for Windows? (usually comes free on integrated laptop / desktop, or non-activated free ISO installation)
Uh (Score:2)
Stop leaving your android phones on the desk while using your Windows or Mac.
Why did they skip the time span for the last %? (Score:2)
It took eight years to go from 1% to 2% (by April 2021), then just 2.2 years to reach 3% (June 2023), and a mere 0.7 years to hit 4% (February 2024)," notes the report. "Now, here we are, at over 5% in the USA!
So, from 3% to 4% took 0.7 years.
Oops, from 4% to 5% took 1.4 years. That didn't quite make the "exponential" curve look so pretty. But hey, 5%, time to pop some corks!
Could this be? (Score:3)
Could this be the herald of the year of Linux on the desktop?
Are these really desktops or Steam Decks? (Score:2)
How much of these "desktops" are actually SteamDecks?
Congrats and still don't know anyone using it.... (Score:2)
It's likely higher (Score:2)
I'm Impressed (Score:2)
I'm impressed. It seemed like Linux would never get there.
The Apple numbers are impressive as well.