Linux Desktop Share Tops 6% In 15 Million-System Analysis (zdnet.com) 62
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: In an interview, Lansweeper, an IT asset discovery and inventory company, revealed to ZDNET that, in its analysis of over 15 million identified consumer desktop operating systems, it found that Linux desktops currently account for just over 6% of PC market share. This news comes after several other studies have shown the Linux desktop is right around the 6% mark. Indeed, according to the US Federal Government Website and App Analytics count, the Linux desktop market share over the last 90 days has reached 6.3%, a new high. In July, according to StatCounter, the Linux desktop also set a record high by its metrics with 5.24%.
Microsoft Quakes in it's money vaults. (Score:3)
I've been using Linux of one stripe or another since the mid nineties. Debian came on a CD with, was it BOOT or MaximumPC? I tried it and was hooked. I root for Linux all the time. That said, I don't think we need to celebrate ever tenth of a percent of climb in its interest.
Having said that? It'll be interesting to see what happens as the Windows 10 EOL comes. I don't know if the public is informed enough to kick the Microsoft habit or not, but it will be interesting to watch what plays out.
They're going for different markets (Score:1, Insightful)
Linux is for people who want to use their computer and Windows is for people who want their computers to use them
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Can only laugh at all those diehard windows zombies going down with the ship. Don't forget to pay your ever increasing license fees!
Haha, and now all they can do is downmod with their bot accounts on Slashdot. How pathetic is that? Yes, you.
they can have the desktop market (Score:2)
The real money is in the data center share.
The "business desktop/laptop" part is interesting (Score:3)
Re:The "business desktop/laptop" part is interesti (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure the absolute number of Linux desktops has risen, I think it's more the desktop market is shrinking. Normies are leaving the desktop market.
Something similar could be happening in the "business users" segment. Your everyday businessy tasks can be done on a phone or tablet now.
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Both can be true? Meanwhile Linux also has a hammer lock on the segments that are growing like gangbusters.
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Business users generally still use traditional general purpose computers, but more and more applications are now web based rather than precompiled binaries so the platform doesn't matter.
But yes outside of business and certain niches, a general purpose computer was never a good tool for the average user. Too complex, too much to go wrong, they were used because special-purpose systems did not exist yet. Nowadays there are much better systems available for typical end user usage patterns.
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Stands to reason. What business would want to put its livelihood at risk by running Microsoft?
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The Register ( https://www.theregister.com/20... [theregister.com] ) has an article on this, which highlights the interesting aspect that there is significant growth in the number of _business_ desktop/laptop hardware running under Linux. Meanwhile, Windows disciples around the world still try to wage their computer holy wars on anyone who dares to use not-Windows for work.
The most fun part is when they whine-brag about having to use Windows.
It doesn't have to surpass Windows to be big (Score:5, Interesting)
It's already night and day using a Linux desktop with regard to how vendors support it from a few years ago. Not that long ago, expecting things like Netflix and Spotify to work was out of the question, now you can pretty much assume they are all aware of and support Linux.
More and more hardware vendors, peripheral makers, are contributing their own support, directly to the kernel. I bought a PS5 controller a few years ago but no PS5, because I saw Sony had contributed the drivers directly to the kernel, and they work great. It seems extremely likely that in another 2-3 years, it will surpass 10%. At that point, you'll really be able to expect to go and say, buy a mouse or a monitor or some USB speakers, and have the hardware manufacturer be paying attention to Linux. At that point, I don't really care what the market share is, but normal people can have a big tech alternative without a lot of hoops to jump through, and that's a good thing.
If it becomes too big it might be bad (Score:3)
That's when the commercial interest co-opting and enshittification tries to creep in. I know independent forks could always be maintained of the software we use but there could be commercial software that tries to get software to become reliant on it like Play Services does for Android.
Re:If it becomes too big it might be bad (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't see that happening. The Linux ecosystem is too unruly for it to succumb to corporate enshittification. There will always be Debian, Slackware, and other non-corporate distros, and if commercial software becomes too onerous, we'll do what we do now... not use it.
Re: If it becomes too big it might be bad (Score:1, Troll)
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That's not corporate enshittification, that's enshittification done by crazy purplehairs.
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Was waiting for one of those whiners to pipe up.
Debian's open-source. Don't like the CoC? Fork it and make your own Incelbian distro.
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I went far beyond that and created my own distro from scratch. I call it "Linux: For People Who, Unlike dskoll, Aren't Bootlicking Fags."
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Meh. Systemd is fine. A bit of a learning curve, but it's fine and a lot more reliable than sysvinit. But you have choices; Slackware doesn't use systemd (I believe) and neither does Devuan.
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Meh. Systemd is fine. A bit of a learning curve, but it's fine and a lot more reliable than sysvinit. But you have choices; Slackware doesn't use systemd (I believe) and neither does Devuan.
This. I've told people for a long time that if systemd is an abomination that they cannot abide, they have options. The ultimate options are rolling your own distro https://www.linuxfromscratch.o... [linuxfromscratch.org] https://thelinuxcode.com/tools... [thelinuxcode.com]
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That's exactly what I did. I remember well the last days of systemd on Linux Mint as I built the first iteration of my system. A couple times I accidentally double-mounted virtual filesystems on the target volume (mounted them twice on the same mountpoint), which whenever it happened, caused systemd to crash the whole system 60 seconds later, even if the error were discovered and immediately undone. LOL. Enjoy your shitware, goon.
Re:If it becomes too big it might be bad (Score:4, Informative)
That's when the commercial interest co-opting and enshittification tries to creep in.
It must be nice under that rock where you haven't heard of Redhate violating the GPL, or pushing systemd into our lives.
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The rock of being an end user and just using my OS without having to follow news about it? Sorry boss, I apologize for not knowing about that incident.
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or pushing systemd into our lives.
Not very effectively. I have systemd on none of my Linux systems and I have already avoided several massive security problems because of that. As expected. I have yet to find any disadvantages of being without systemd. I suspect there are none.
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Not very effectively. I have systemd on none of my Linux systems
That's easy enough now but it was a big hassle a few years ago when practically everyone switched to it but gentoo, which is itself a big hassle (just following the installation instructions fails more than it succeeds.)
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Not really. I have been running Debian for about 25 years now and I never had systemd on it except a few time as an intermediate step during installation. Debian has had a page explaining how to stay with sysIV init for ages. I used that before Devuan became stable.
As to Gentoo, I have had one Gentoo installation for a few years now, no systemd, no problems with that? What are the issues you identify with the Gentoo installation process? I do have enough Linux and Unix experience that I can almost install G
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Not really. I have been running Debian for about 25 years now and I never had systemd on it except a few time as an intermediate step during installation. Debian has had a page explaining how to stay with sysIV init for ages. I used that before Devuan became stable.
Yes, because I also did that, I know that it was a pain in the ass. Making the switch was easy enough, but then you had to fiddle with literally dozens of other things to make them work right because Debian didn't include enough of the other packages' config files etc to make them work properly with sysvinit.
What are the issues you identify with the Gentoo installation process?
I didn't commit to memory exactly where the process broke down, as it wasn't worth remembering.
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Not really. I have been running Debian for about 25 years now and I never had systemd on it except a few time as an intermediate step during installation. Debian has had a page explaining how to stay with sysIV init for ages. I used that before Devuan became stable.
Yes, because I also did that, I know that it was a pain in the ass. Making the switch was easy enough, but then you had to fiddle with literally dozens of other things to make them work right because Debian didn't include enough of the other packages' config files etc to make them work properly with sysvinit.
Hmm. I did not have that experience. It just worked for me. Issues with the window-manager and the like? I am still using and will continue to use fvwm2 and that predates all that "DBus" crap and things like it. In fact, I removed DBus from the kernel and besides Firefox complaining, I have not noticed any effects.
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Lots of services in particular just did not function correctly without a bunch of tweaks to configs to undo changes made for use with systemd. The problem wasn't so much with UI stuff as everything else. If stuff worked properly in Debian with sysvinit without tons of tweaks there would be no reason for Devuan to exist, and I would never have switched from Debian without systemd to Devuan as I'd have had no reason to do so.
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That actually reflects a key advantage of Linux on the desktop for non-power users, it makes a better base for all the web based programs that have taken over from native programs you had to install. The Linux desktop is quite happy for you to ignore it and run a web browser without being an attention whore that demands installs, reboots, subscriptions and pushing ads.
Still I don't expect the p
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Indeed. 6% means it is viable for many people now, including many non-experts.
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Will companies like Adobe release versions for Linux? If so everything can snowball.
Thanks Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Windows 11 was the best thing to ever happen for Linux.
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You've been modded funny but it's absolutely true.
Re:Thanks Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
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I find it interesting, despite the pain of Win10 and Win11, and privacy invasion [slashdot.org], and spyware [slashdot.org], still people are willing to put up with that than to convert to Linux.
Linux isn't bad just because of apps, but because it's a chaotic experience for the average user.
Every app reinventing the wheel and fragmented, and every distro and developer fighting against the other rather than all coming together to cooperate and build something amazing and unified.
Anytime a user is told, RTFM, there's something fundamental
Re:Thanks Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
Linux isn't bad just because of apps, but because it's a chaotic experience for the average user. Every app reinventing the wheel and fragmented, and every distro and developer fighting against the other rather than all coming together to cooperate and build something amazing and unified.
That's simultaneously a bug and a feature. Yes, Linux is in many ways fragmented and inconsistent when it comes to UI, configuration, etc. But therein lie the variety and the choices that a more cohesive OS simply has to forego in order to get shit done and to enable widespread support for users who are, largely, technically illiterate.
The "coming together" you mentioned, can only happen to the extent you want to see if developers are being paid and being told what to do. When that happens, the work is a job rather than a passion; then salaries have to be paid, HR departments funded, etc, etc. Then what was Open Source becomes closed and proprietary. At that point you have just another Microsoft, or Apple, or Google.
As a 15-plus-year user of Linux almost exclusively, I share your frustration. But what you and I want from Linux would be its death knell, so I swear and curse while simultaneously thanking all those hard-working devs who gave me a choice and allowed me to throw off the yoke of Windows, MacOS, and stock Android.
Anytime a user is told, RTFM, there's something fundamentally wrong with the usability and perhaps the entire OS.
If that's the case, then I've never used an OS that doesn't have "something fundamentally wrong" with it. Even trying to do stuff on my wife's Windows 10 computer has me scratching my head, and Windows 11 is worse. Also, I'm in the process of converting a Pixel phone to LineageOS; getting around the native Android OS on it is like playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey - and I've been using Android of one flavour or another for 12 or more years. So I'd say that mainstream OSs aren't what they used to be, and in fact they never were.
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If that's the case, then I've never used an OS that doesn't have "something fundamentally wrong" with it.
Never used MacOS 6? You really didn't need a book for that. If you needed help with a reinstall or something you could call or visit your Apple store and they would tell you how to go about it, although the process was so simple that almost nobody should need help unless they didn't know the meaning of the word "Install" since all you had to do was boot from that disk and then follow the prompts.
With that said, MacOS 6 hardly did anything, so no surprise there.
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Never used MacOS 6?
Fair question, and no, I don't think I have - I can't be sure because I have next to zero experience with Mac. The last time I had hands on, the video was monochrome and the mouse had one button. For me, even Windows 3.0 seemed miles more intuitive. Plus it had DOS underneath it, and I was quite comfortable with that.
With that said, MacOS 6 hardly did anything, so no surprise there.
Thanks for the chuckle!
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The last time I had hands on, the video was monochrome and the mouse had one button. For me, even Windows 3.0 seemed miles more intuitive. Plus it had DOS underneath it, and I was quite comfortable with that.
That most likely was MacOS 6, unless it was an even older version. Few people installed 7 on B&W macintoshes, most software at the time would run on either or even ran better on 6 due to the lower resource use. I was familiar with other operating systems and found it to be the least impressive, but once you got used to it, it was pretty usable. My mother was an old school physical pasteup graphic artist, and she got a IIci and Pagemaker and was able to use the system with very little help from me. It ca
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The "coming together" you mentioned, can only happen to the extent you want to see if developers are being paid and being told what to do. When that happens, the work is a job rather than a passion; then salaries have to be paid, HR departments funded, etc, etc. Then what was Open Source becomes closed and proprietary. At that point you have just another Microsoft, or Apple, or Google.
Not necessarily closed/proprietary.
See: mozilla / The Document Foundation / Chromium / Apache / Eclipse Foundation / etc
Great, unified products keep coming out of those orgs.
Central organisations foster collaboration, clear vision, provide direction, and disagreements lead to productive debates and coming together of ideas, not bickering and then each person going off and creating a fork.
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Not necessarily closed/proprietary.
See: mozilla / The Document Foundation / Chromium / Apache / Eclipse Foundation / etc Great, unified products keep coming out of those orgs. Central organisations foster collaboration, clear vision, provide direction, and disagreements lead to productive debates and coming together of ideas, not bickering and then each person going off and creating a fork.
Good points - thanks for the insight. That said, I think Mozilla drank its own Kool-Aid, which was spiked with Google juice. But even at that, they made a good product for a long time, they made some decent forks possible, and they managed to not jump the shark until quite late in their history.
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You're blowing smoke. For the most part, Windows doesn't even have a manual. If the shit Microsoft sprays on you stinks too much then there is roughly nothing you can do about it.
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If the shit Microsoft sprays on you stinks too much then there is roughly nothing you can do about it.
Start by not standing behind where the shit is spraying from.
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Every app reinventing the wheel and fragmented, and every distro and developer fighting against the other rather than all coming together to cooperate and build something amazing and unified.
Anytime a user is told, RTFM, there's something fundamentally wrong with the usability and perhaps the entire OS.
A user should never have to RTFM to get things done.
These problems apply to windows too.
Hence why iOS and Android are successful. For typical end users they are simply vastly superior.
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Every app reinventing the wheel and fragmented, and every distro and developer fighting against the other rather than all coming together to cooperate and build something amazing and unified.
Anytime a user is told, RTFM, there's something fundamentally wrong with the usability and perhaps the entire OS. A user should never have to RTFM to get things done.
This is why the iPhone and iOS were so darn successful, and later Android, and attracted everyone from children to adults.
I've experimented with a fair number of Distros - and it ain't no big deal. Something tells me you picked up your soundbite from other users rather than by using different distros.
It is roughly equivalent to the different versions of Windows, from basic or home, and pro and enterprise.
But with one very important and critical difference needing something on my Linux distro, I can go to a repo and install it. On Windows if I need something pro or enterprise level, I have to buy it.
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With all due respect, Linux was poised to eventually overtake and replace Windows long before its latest [steaming] iteration arrived on the scene.
Not to mention that, by definition, no one has any idea how many Linux installs there actually are out there.
2025 (Score:2)
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Not quite, they'll have to get past the 6.15% milestone first.
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Not quite, they'll have to get past the 6.15% milestone first.
One of the things that the Microsoft people need to understand, and perhaps are not capable of understanding is that outside a a very few Linux users, few give a damn about percentages. Whereas it appears to be very very important to Microsoft fans, that they are using the biggest OS.
And they will drink whatever swill that Microsoft says they will drink. They might grumble a bit, but it is the grumble of love and eternal fealty.
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I did not bring percentages into the story, which has nothing to do with Microsoft.
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I did not bring percentages into the story, which has nothing to do with Microsoft.
So Tony, can I see your subject matter cop badge, and what is the penalty for mentioning Microsoft in a topic that deals with what OS has what percentage of OS share?
At that point, I choose to remain silent until my lawyer gets here. Don't tase me bro!
Come on dude, there is no way to have a discussion about OS percentage that doesn't bring all OSs into the topic. Because that is exactly how the percentages are calculated. Sheesh - relax a little.
Hardware (Score:2)
There is plenty of desktop/workstation hardware out there which performs brilliantly, cost a lost, is not cheap to replace but which does not have TPM 2 support. My desktop does but I still prefer Debian over Windows 11. My perfectly good core-i7 Thinkpad with 16GB RAM cannot run Win 11(!) so it dual boots latest Debian & Win 10. Microsoft puts up barriers to using its product just as the environment offers many alternatives. Very dumb. People are used to using different systems now. Different offi
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Microsoft puts up barriers to using its product just as the environment offers many alternatives.
Microsoft's end goal is to turn Windows into a vending machine. They want to charge everyone by the minute for using their Cloud services, and making desktop Windows unpalatable is part of that plan. They want to lock everyone into a no-exit Cloud prison.
Oh drat! What next? (Score:3)
I can't go on using Linux, there's no longer the cachet, and worse, my friends will start expecting me to give free technical support like anyone with a PC in the '80s.
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There's always BSD, Solaris, and plan9.
Re: Oh drat! What next? (Score:2)
Write your own OS in Rust and then your friends will never mention operating systems or computers around you again.
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There's always BSD, Solaris, and plan9.
FreeBSD and OpenBSD are both in the "about as easy" category with Linux these days. And you can still spin your summer scarf wildly about while discussing your hipster OS with people who don't care.
Steam Games Help? (Score:3)