Not mine but sounds like a showerthought to me. TL;DR ChromeOS is the “wrong” version of Linux and has 4% while GNU/Linux has 3%
Y’all have some wierd showers.
Interesting read. I was genuinely surprised to read that ChromeOS has 4%+ desktop market share. It’s not popular at all where I am from. I’ve never ever seen one in person.
A lot of schools use Chromebooks for their students. They’re cheap laptops that are easier to administer than Windows.
Chromeos isn’t counted with Linux’s marketshare.
TBF it is also not really a linux experiance, tho i do see what you mean.
You could say the same thing about other distros that hide the difficult bits, tbh. Is Endless Linux? What about Elementary?
The thing about Linux is that it’s extremely flexible, and there’s a lot of choices about interface and user experience.
So what is it about ChromeOS that makes it not Linux? Is it that it doesn’t have GNOME, KDE, XFCE or the hundreds of other DEs? Is it that you don’t need to use the terminal for anything? I mean, it’s not the kernel or the userland or even the compiler…
So what is it?
Generally, Linux as a term refers to the Freedesktop standards, Linux kernel, and GNU userland. ChromeOS fulfills the latter two, but it lacks the Freedesktop standards, which are an essential part of the Linux platform. Therefore, it is logical to distinguish ChromeOS from standard Linux distributions since it diverges significantly from them. This differentiation has nothing to do with the Terminal, as it isn’t necessary to use it at all on most distributions. Elementary OS and Endless OS adhere to the Freedesktop standards, they are parts of the same platform as other Linux distributions.
It’s that we don’t like the company google probably. But also it could be a combination of the factors you listed.
I think it’s valuable to make the distinction, whether it’s based on linux or not. Just like it’s valuable to make the distinction between unix and macOS.
Because despite all that sophistic nonsense, one of those allows an already too powerful corporation to extend its monopoly into the hardware realm, while reducing user agency.
Never understood why “market share” matters to so many Linux enthusiasts. It’s not like Linux is a product that needs to generate revenue.
Because the biggest practical downside of Linux is a lack of natively developed big name software. It’s annoying to find some great software that perfectly meets your needs and then discover than it can’t run with decent performance on Linux.
Market share growing means that Linux becomes a better and more accessible option.
So what’s the magical percentage of market share that gets Adobe to port their proprietary software over to Linux?
So what’s the magical percentage of market share that gets Adobe to port their proprietary software over to Linux?
Something more than what it currently is.
But as a linux-only user since 2007, it’s my opinion that this sort of thing is less and less of a problem for most (note I did not say all) use cases.
There’s very few things I have wanted to do with a computer (as a tech enthusiast since the 80s) that isn’t doable on Linux. At this point I find most things I personally want to do are easier on Linux.
Gaming is coming along nicely thanks to Proton, which is not as good as native support, but which is still such a turnaround from even 10 years ago that it’s pretty amazing.
Non-gaming applications usually (not always) have a Linux equivalent that requires nothing more than decoupling what you need to do from the software you think you need to do it. That’s a hard sell if your boss or your teacher tells you all your tasks MUST be done in tool XYZ, but for other things it’s not so bad.
99% of what a non-professional thinks they need photoshop for is going to be doable in Krita or Gimp for example. Inkscape and Blender are well regarded for their purposes even outside the Linux community, very few people are really doing something in Word that can’t be done in Libre Office Writer, etc…
This isn’t intended as a campaign speech for Linux - I’ve long ago realized that for various reasons it’s not a good fit for some folks, or it could be but they aren’t interested. That’s fine, IMO. However, for the vast majority of what people use a PC for these days, I personally am doubtful that Linux is an obstruction to completing those tasks so much as it might be a paradigm shift for folks to rethink how they intend to complete those tasks.
It’s been many years since I’ve even wanted to run anything from Adobe on Linux. YMMV.
If they support Macs then whatever these things’ market share is, I suppose.
