Statcounter, a website that tracks the market share of web browsers, operating systems, and search engines, is reporting that Linux on the desktop has over 4% market share for the very first time (Statcounter records ChromeOS as a separate operating system despite being based on Linux). Statcounter doesn’t provide any explanation about why the market share has increased but we can speculate what’s going on.
Linux’s march to its 4.03% market share has been a steady process ever since the final months of 2020 when Linux held just 1.53% of desktop market share. One of the biggest contributors to the growth of Linux is likely the stringent hardware requirements of Windows 11.
I’d of thought steam and proton would of been a large contributing factor
I think the spotlight on KDE from Steam Deck definitely helps. It’s polished as shit, and it acts like Windows by default, and that is a good thing.
And the most of distros defaults to shitty gnome, slowing down Linux adoption. Steam finally showed that anybody can use Linux, with proper WM.
I much prefer Gnome. Sure other UIs are more “familiar” but I found Gnome had basically zero learning curve and makes a much cleaner and more modern workspace, and a better use of screen real estate, which is super important for multi-tasking.
This! Gnome is absolutely a foil to adoption. Everyone I’ve seen try to start with Ubuntu has bounced right off back to Windows. You’re already wrapping your head around a new OS, you do not need an entirely new desktop paradigm.
So happy Valve went with the setup they did.
It was for me at least, only moved to Linux after spending a long time with the steam deck
I’m guessing he’s just pointing out that it is incorrect grammar and wondered if you were a native speaker.
Replace “of” with “have”, and you’re golden 👍
gaming was THE missing piece for me since i first tried desktop linux long ago. and it has improved massively in many other ways since then.
i suspect many other people think alike me too.
The insane requirements of Win11 (and the added Ai features) are definitely factors for me to switch to Linux
How was your experience? What information did you miss, to make this a smooth transition?
Right so I haven’t switched just yet, I’m waiting on Win10 EOL because there is still stuff I use that is windows only (Adobe suite [ I fucking hate gimp ] and some games)
However, I did look into distro stability, and what apps are avalabile. Everything else I use IS either Linux native or runs great on Linux.
Inevitably, when I switch, I will miss Photoshop and not having to tinker with making games work
You should look into Krita. Not a replacement for Photoshop but I find it more intuitive than GIMP, at least.
People often forget that they also often have to tinker with making games work in Windows, because they are more familiar with the OS and get it done faster. Also I think you’d be surprised how many games just run without any tinkering at all nowadays. But then there are some that don’t run at all, mostly due to invasive rootkit ‘anti-cheats’. That’s no real loss for me, I wouldn’t install something like that on a Windows machine either.
Most games so far I haven’t had to tinker with. I just switched a few months ago and it’s been smooth sailing. That said, I can’t speak to using any photo editing software.
I’m keeping windows on my computer now for a piece of software for programming my non-custom keyboard and other miscellaneous windows only things like updating Xbox controller firmware. But it has been a blast and being able to make the PC work for me instead of the other way around has been an extremely positive experience.
I just switched from 10 myself.
I started on NixOS for some reason… that was a pain in the ass. Every time the machine locked for inactivity it killed my session and I had to relaunch all my apps.
I now have ZorrinOS installed and I’m much more at home on a Ubuntu/Debian base. I’m not seeing the same session issue anymore - it resumes as you would expect.
The install for Zorrin has an “install with Nvidia drivers” option (others may too - idk) which made it easy.
I haven’t had to use it yet but I guess wine is there if I have a Windows only app I have to run.
I would install Manjaro. It runs KDE, which is super familiar, and maybe more polished than Windows. And it is Arch-based, which means you have access to AUR apps, which makes finding programs super easy. It’s like if the MS app store actually had every program on it.
Keeping the explanations simple.
Don’t start with Ubuntu/Gnome. The desktop is way too weird, and app repository is limited.
Don’t start with Mint or Cinnamon or LxDE. Linux nerds will recommend these, but they feel “old” and are not really lighter on resources than KDE.
Highly recommend Arch-based distros. AUR feels like a miracle coming from the Windows paradigm of tracking down installer EXEs and MSIs.
I had been on Linux since 2016 when I finally installed Windows 11 on my newer shitty laptop which had a bug that was apparently unresolved no matter what distro or config I tried. But Windows’ issues like it’s famous update times, the modern distasteful UI(in my opinion) and inclusion of more and more features that the user didn’t ask for send me back to Linux. And with Copilot being forced on users, I don’t think Microsoft is respecting their customers choices.
I don’t think Microsoft is respecting their customers choices.
No thinking required. Being forced to have unnecessary software and telemetry running on your computer with no way to globally opt out or remove the software entirely is just blatant disregard for the “customer’s” needs and wants.
What requirements do they have? I remember requiring a TPM module which was quite absurd.
What does TPM even do that it is needed over UEFI secure boot? Validate individual hardware components?
for gaming purposes, it can be used for hardeare level bans that cant be bypassed like Hardware IDs. tpms are tied to the chip (or cpu if using fTPM) so a hardware ban would effectively be making said tom module or cpu outright banned, requiring the user to get a new one if they wanted to continue to play.
I’m doing my part!
Proton is what allowed me to make the switch. I do dual boot but almost never use my windows partition.
The Linux ecosystem has matured to the point where it can work well for the majority of people. Even the worst of Linux like Nvidia is still usable.
If you don’t play games Wayland, if you do play games xorg. I haven’t tested gnome but kde has a screen tearing bug for games on a gsync monitor. I don’t like dealing with gnome when I have 20 windows open, sucks overusing the mouse.
Hyperland has been amazing for games since the Nvidia 550 update but there is still minor stutter in some games like gta 5.
I know you’re talking about Nvidia specifically, but I find it kinda funny how people say that regarding X11 and Wayland even for AMD and Intel, because for me the experience is literally the opposite – when I try playing games on Xorg, they always stutter and freeze really badly to near-unplayable extents even when FPS counters report they’re running at 60 FPS (or if I set them to the lowest possible graphics), but ever since I switched to Wayland, the issue was just gone and games run flawlessly now. And note that I’m using Plasma, the one people often said had a worse Wayland session than Gnome and Wayland-based WMs.
I don’t know why this is the case for me specifically when it seems like literally everyone else reports the opposite happening to them (and afaik Wine and most Linux games still run in XWayland). Does Xorg just hate me in particular?
Wayland is just more responsive and smoother than x11 in all cases I’ve tried short of really old hardware. Nvidia just haven’t caught up to Wayland yet and it makes complex things like rendering a vulkan pipeline through an x11 compatibility layer buggy on Nvidia.
I’m hoping the day they finish porting wine to Wayland it’ll fix all the issues I’m having with Nvidia. Or the open source driver getting good enough for me to drop the proprietary driver.
My experience XWayland apps can get a little weird on Nvidia for some reason. I’ve witnessed flickering ui, misplaced drop shadows, and the xorg cursor popping up at the very edge of XWayland windows. On AMD Wayland just works and at least in games AMD shows an improvement while Nvidia shows a decrease in performance.
kde has a screen tearing bug for games on a gsync monitor
You mean on Wayland? I play a lot of games, so I haven’t dared try it
I have a gsync monitor and that seems like it might be part of the problem. When Nvidia introduced vrr for Wayland to their driver, my gsync screen started to have screen tearing. Disabling vrr in kde didn’t fix it.
On Windows disabling vrr disables gsync on the monitor but not on Linux. It seems to work as intended on the cheap freesync (gsync compatible) monitor my mother uses but she was also on gnome but that’s xorg thanks to gnome not adopting vrr yet.
I’d guess every day someone gets fed up with some MS bullshit and goes looking for something else, for me it was the forced updates/restart and the following waiting to finish updates then 100% disk usage for a few minutes, then removing whatever bullshit that got reinstalled.
For me the infuriating things about Windows are the slowness of everything, the tendency of so many applications to turn white and “not responding” all the time, the coercive setup questions on installation and at random times after installation, the forced Microsoft account and tracking, and the fact that after 29 years the Start menu still doesn’t work about 50% of the time but comes up empty or not at all. Everything is fast and solid under Linux.
