this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2024
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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It peaked at 4.05% in March. The last 2 months it went just below 4% as the Unknown category increased. For June the reverse happened, so 4.04% seems to be the real current share of Linux on Desktop as desktop clients were read properly/werent spoofed.

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[–] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 59 points 2 months ago (4 children)

In all seriousness, I think government bodies switching to Linux (UK's, China's, some Indian states') attributes the most to this.

[–] poki@discuss.online 54 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Even if that's the case, it's telling of Linux' maturity.

[–] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 9 points 2 months ago

Oh absolutely!

[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 38 points 2 months ago (6 children)

No I think it's the Steam Deck. It's like half of all actively used Linux machines.

[–] thingsiplay 42 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Half of the Linux machines on Steam, not the entirety of Linux.

[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 months ago

Yes sorry you're right

[–] FippleStone@aussie.zone 5 points 2 months ago

A very important distinction

[–] wischi@programming.dev 13 points 2 months ago (3 children)

But that's not really a Desktop is it? If we'd count mobile device we'd also have to include Android and then the situation would look completely different.

[–] thingsiplay 10 points 2 months ago (8 children)

Steam Deck is a desktop. It is exactly the same PC hardware and software you are using on your desktop PC. It runs the same games and is software compatible. Steam Deck is a desktop PC.

Android has a different hardware (not x86 compatible), is focused on phones, its eco system of software is not compatible with PC and in reverse does not run your PC software. Android based smartphones are not a PC.

[–] flux@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

But how many use it for browsing, which I imagine this data is from?

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[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 months ago

We don't include Android here. What I meant is that the Steam Deck does count in that statistics.

[–] Bulletdust@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Connect the Steam Deck to a compatible dock and you can quite easily use it as a desktop. At the end of the day, it's still an x64 based PC that's just handheld.

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[–] leopold@lemmy.kde.social 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Source? Last I checked, the Steam Deck was very much in the minority even when narrowed down to just desktop Linux.

[–] thingsiplay 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Source is the Steam hardware survey set to show Linux data only. He forgot to mention the statement is only true for Steam Gamers, not for all of Linux desktops outside of Steam.

~ https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/?platform=linux

[–] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I believe the Steam Deck would be a significant portion of the Linux desktops, but Steam's survey might be a biased source, still

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[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 months ago

I confused it with Steam statistics sorry

[–] 737@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 2 months ago

no, the statistics are based on browser agents, very few steam deck users browse the Internet on their devices. it's also only half the Linux devices on steam, not of all Linux desktops

[–] istanbullu@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In Steam maybe. But this is StatCounter which is website visits. I doubt many Deck users are browsing the web.

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[–] Vincent@feddit.nl 11 points 2 months ago

I'm fairly sure it's deficiencies in StatCounter's measurement that's accounting for it. Statistical noise, basically.

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 months ago

China is actually down. India is high but not increasing

[–] Dark_Dragon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 51 points 2 months ago (3 children)

The youtuber matt from thelinuxcast sucks.

I am regular user, i don't code for living and my job is not tech related. I wanted to try linux and many of you guys supported and now I'm using Linux since 2 weeks its linux mint. That matt guy was so against linux mint that i thought it was shit too. But when i installed and started using it. It has been a smooth journey. Many people in linux community were helpful. But people like matt really make it for us regular guys scared to use linux. I really hope many good linux user help regular people switch to linux and increase this number.

[–] SimplyTadpole@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I get what you mean. I see a decent chunk of often more tech-proficient Linux users putting down Linux Mint, and it saddens me because even though I don't use Mint anymore, it was still the first distro I properly daily-drove and I still consider it an amazing system for people who are new to Linux.

I'm very glad you've been having a good experience with Mint!

[–] laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 2 months ago

I don't get them putting Mint down either, and I've built multiple Gentoo systems... I don't need an easy distro but still use Mint and like it for what it brings (basically, it's Green Ubuntu, what Ubuntu was supposed to be before they lost their way)

[–] Synnr@sopuli.xyz 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I assume the problem is hardware. Matt's hardware didn't work well with LM, therefore Matt thinks LM sucks.. I do wish there was better hardware support but it's the reason apple went with 1 product = 1 OS = 1 general set of hardware. Sure not every iPhone has the same hardware, but that's why they have the model numbers, and it's so much easier to test 200 model mixes than 2,000,000 (Android). Windows gets all the debug info sent directly to them like the others but they also have a huge stack of hardware they can use or they can buy it to test.

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[–] secret300@lemmy.sdf.org 41 points 2 months ago (4 children)

I switched to librewolf so I will now show up as windows

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 25 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

After seeing Garuda Linux set my user agent to Windows, I set my Windows install user agent to Linux.

Seeing Twitch.tv login break after changing my user agent was hilarious

[–] archchan@lemmy.ml 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I unspoofed Librewolf back to Firefox + Linux. That way I'm not contributing to Chrome and Windows market share and perceived dominance. Plus the more people don't spoof, the less of a need there will be to actually spoof at all as the Linux market share increases.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The problem is that websites sometimes change there behavior.

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[–] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 10 points 2 months ago

Same, there must be a percent or so of Windows actually being Linux instead.

[–] theroff@aussie.zone 4 points 2 months ago

Yeah me too, safety in numbers. Maybe if Linux desktop gets bigger than Windows they'll swap it around 👨‍💻

[–] Fleppensteijn@feddit.nl 28 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Fwiw, my blog's statistics say Linux is around 10% and I know a lot of browsers identify themselves as running on Windows when they're not, so I wonder how it's measured.

[–] mindlight@lemm.ee 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What's is the main topic of your blog?

[–] Fleppensteijn@feddit.nl 25 points 2 months ago

Travel, nothing tech related

[–] Nomad@infosec.pub 15 points 2 months ago

I would wager thats your audiences bias showing up. If you did that measurement in lemmy users, you would get likely 90% Linux users.

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[–] PanArab@lemm.ee 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I am still hoping it will hit 10% market share within my life time. I remember when it was predicted to hit that in 2010, obviously it didn't happen*. Of course for me personally, the year of the Linux Desktop was 2007 when I was finally able to use it as my main OS at home, I tried it before many times since 2003.

* not counting systems that use the Linux kernel but aren't considered a traditional GNU+Linux desktop.

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I am still hoping it will hit 10% market share within my life time.

Do we really want that?

We have it pretty good right now. I would actually say we're living in a golden age of desktop Linux: there's constant innovation, good support, you get to do pretty much everything you need, while flying under the radar.

Linux has won the majority of the industry (servers, mobile etc.) so it's not like it has anything left to prove.

If it starts getting noticeable on the desktop I fear we're just gonna get negative attention. Users who take and not contribute, because Windows had taught them to be entitled. Unwanted attention from Microsoft, who I bet are not going to be doing nice things once they start getting paranoid about it.

I really don't think that large companies like Adobe will care about Linux even at 10% and even if they did, they are a super toxic company nowadays, the least we get to interact with them the better.

[–] ulkesh 3 points 2 months ago

Do we really want that?

As long as competition and choice continues to be the mantra of the Linux desktop, then yes, I'd love to see more and more people using it.

We have it pretty good right now. I would actually say we’re living in a golden age of desktop Linux: there’s constant innovation, good support, you get to do pretty much everything you need, while flying under the radar.

Very true.

Unwanted attention from Microsoft, who I bet are not going to be doing nice things once they start getting paranoid about it.

I mean, Ballmer called Linux a cancer pretty early on, so that ship sailed a long time ago.

I really don’t think that large companies like Adobe will care about Linux

Once they start losing large sums of money due to people switching and finding viable alternatives, they certainly will care. Right now Adobe has one main thing going for them -- apathy and muscle memory of the aging demographic of their users. That will eventually change.

the least we get to interact with them the better.

Absolutely. I used to be an Adobe fan, back when Kevin Lynch was a part of it, and I was a Flex developer. Then Jobs wrote his thing about Flash, and a year later, not a month after Jobs's death, Adobe dumps Flex -- and literally overnight my position changed from Flex to HTML5 and Java.

[–] dan@upvote.au 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

not counting systems that use the Linux kernel but aren't considered a traditional GNU+Linux desktop.

Does that mean you don't count Alpine towards Linux market share? It mostly doesn't use any GNU stuff.

You can also compile the kernel with LLVM instead of gcc, use musl instead of glibc, and use BSD coreutils instead of GNU coreutils.

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[–] Mwa@thelemmy.club 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Man i hope linux becomes more popular

[–] lazycat@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I see multiple posts on reddit everyday asking for advice for migrating to linux. I think linux userbase is increasing a lot since Window's questionable recall announcement.

[–] Mwa@thelemmy.club 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

And the valve steamdeck But some people install windows on it which defeats it's linux purpose

[–] blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Nevertheless, Valve's work with proton has pretty much crushed the argument that Windows is needed for games. That use to be a major sticking point, preventing people from leaving Windows - but now not so much.

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[–] lunachocken@lemm.ee 6 points 2 months ago

404: Not found

[–] tombruzzo@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago

OK, who did you guys bully over basic tech support questions?

[–] thingsiplay 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

uMatrix prevents me from loading this statcounter website. :-( Can't lookup how they measure things. In the comments people assume the stats would be counted by just looking up the user agent, which is a naive approach. I don't think agencies dedicated to stats are doing it this simple. They have way more possibilities to track and to look what browser you are using. The stats are more accurate than you probably think. They do not need to know the exact version of browser you are using, just which type and maybe what operating system you are on.

If a script for Windows does not work on Linux and fails, then they know you are not on Windows in example.

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