I am from india. These numbers are inflated due to our population and government and health sector office pc using linux (ubuntu). These office pcs just require a chrome browser and all the work is done on the browser Nobody here cares what os they use in their office pc. I don’t see anyone here switching to linux on their personal pc other than the IT students who are forced to install kali linux. And most of them are running linux on virtualbox on windows.
Steam deck is not even officially sold here and imported ones that are sold cost 950$ for the 512 gb variant. So it is a ultra niche item here. .
People here buy desktops only for gaming/content creation, which means most households here doesn’t need/require a desktop. And these people always prefer mac or windows.
Also gaming scene here is dominated by mobile games (because gaming pcs and consoles are too expensive and we have the cheapest internet and phone prices) As for pc games it is dominated by valorant, Minecraft and gtav (fivem rp).
Edit - Many consider this a huge win. But getting market share in the office space for basic browsing and word processing inflates the numbers for actual game/app developers who wants to support linux and they will disappointed seeing the actual usage and they will abandon the linux support. Also the indian market isn’t buying laptop/desktops for browsing, they just use their phone because pc hardware is expensive and phones prices are cheap. And anyone who is buying desktops for serious tasks stick to windows and mac.
What do you want? A stat counter for everyone’s personal PC?
The government of India, the largest country by population, using Linux is… a huge win?
It’s a huge win, but not the kind of win people reading the statistic with no context (like me) probably thought.
I’m sure a lot of us looked at “15 percent of desktop PCs in India run Linux” and, regardless of whether it was hasty and irresponsible for us to do so, extrapolated that to, “15 percent of Indian PC users are personally selecting Linux and normalizing its paradigms”.
But in reality, it sounds more like “15 percent of Indian PC users use Linux to launch Google Chrome”. Which is impressive, but not the specific kind of impressive we wanted.
It feels a bit like how I imagine, say, a song artist feels when they pour their heart and soul into a piece of music, it gets modest to no traction for a while, and then years later a 20 second loop becomes the backing track for a massive Tiktok meme, and almost zero of that attention trickles back to their other work.
Most people on MacOS only use a web browser. Most people on Windows only use a web browser. Its nothing to be ashamed of.
It’s a win, but not something that has any meaningful impact on normalizing Linux desktop usage.
It’s not going to help the network effects of convincing vendors or manufacturers provide better support for Linux.
All they need is a chrome browser, so why would the government waste money on windows licences? A huge win is when personal pcs switch to linux. Linux doing basic web browsing and word processing is not a huge win.
My sister only uses her MacBook to access Safari and watch YouTube videos. Should she be counted?
I understand what you mean, and these aren’t people intentionally installing Linux in their houses… And while that would be better, it’s not the only win. Government employees in India using Linux on Chrome means that Google has more incentive to make Chrome better on Linux. It means that people have less reason the arbitrarily block Linux users from their website. It means maybe in the future, Linux will be installed on school laptops as well.
Is it the Year of the Linux Desktop? No. Is 15% still misleading, hence your post is a good PSA? Yes. But is the 15% not a win? Nah, it’s still a win!
My point being web browsing and word processing was never a problem on linux or any other os. It is being used just because it is cheaper and people who buy personal pcs are still on windows or mac and they dont switch
I would highly disagree with you. Linux doing basic web browsing and word processing is a huge win. Those two are where people who don’t care just default to Windows, which makes it much harder for people who want to use Linux in a professional setting outside of software development. If professional documents default to .odt instead of .docx, that’s massive progress in my mind.
Linux doing basic web browsing and word processing is not a huge win.
This is what the majority of desktop computers and laptops are used for, so if the majority of people can start using Linux and not care or notice any difference, then that is a huge win. It means more software developed for Linux, more open file formats, etc.
@caustictrap @OsrsNeedsF2P you are entirely missing the point about linux
You cant count out office PCs where do you think all the windows stats come from?
This. OP seems to discredit those numbers based on two arguments.
- They’re not personal computers but work PCs
- Those computers are mostly using a web browser and that’s it - no “paradigm change”
However, this is ignoring that
- those computers counted when they were on Windows too
- those genuinely working from a browser could probably have done so on Windows as well, no “paradigm change” either going on here
- the usage stats are counted from web hits anyway
Considering this, I’m not entirely sure why the numbers wouldn’t be any more or less significant than before.
People who switch to linux on their personal pc know what linux is and why it is better. But people who use office pc dont know what os they are using and they still use windows on their personal laptops and desktops.
What you are describing is the commoditization of the desktop market. What follows from that is a lack of profitability. What follows from that is a lack of corporate investment and a lack of corporate leadership. That makes the cycle repeat but faster.
Microsoft already knows the desktop market is lost. It is still a cash cow but they are not investing in it. Azure, 365, and AI are all much more important to them.
I use Microsoft Teams on Linux every day. You can say I just click the icon and do not care what OS I am using. What you miss is that Microsoft does not care either.
If I can “not care” what OS I am using, I can choose Linux. If I do “‘not care”, it is very hard for Microsoft to monetize me. If they cannot monetize me, they do not care either. They will stop investing in keeping me on their OS. At some point, Linux is better and the obvious default.
The question is not how long it takes Linux to grow. It is the inevitability of it and the fact that the trend will be one direction over time. Once large numbers of people switch ( even if Indian office workers or Greek military ), most of them will not switch back.
You completely missed the point.
You’re using a statistic that literally tracks web views to justify your view that Linux users that just use it for work by browsing the web don’t really count. You say this despite them having counted as Windows users on their work machines, using the same metric, since forever before they had to use Linux.
These numbers are inflated due to our population and government and health sector office pc using linux (ubuntu).
They are not inflated. Office use is the majority of desktop use elsewhere in the world too. It’s very much a apples to apples comparison.
Indeed. I know someone who bought the latest mac laptop. Very expensive, as they are. And all it’s used for is browsing the internet.
And when I say that’s all it’s used for I mean it.
Truth be told, that battery life is sweeeeet. I hope by the time I need a personal laptop arm is more popular or Linux on M chips is fully matured.
These numbers are inflated due to our population and government and health sector office pc using linux
So just like Windows numbers being massively inflated because of corporate computer fleets?
These office pcs just require a chrome browser and all the work is done on the browser Nobody here cares what os they use in their office pc.
Right, so again, the mostly the same with Windows for both office and personal use.
I don’t see anyone here switching to linux on their personal pc other than the IT students who are forced to install kali linux.
What are you expecting exactly? Is the choice of each person supposed to be formally announced? Are we supposed to real into a populated areas and declare like Micheal Scott “I declare: I’M USING LINUUUUUX!”?
People here buy desktops only for gaming/content creation, which means most households here doesn’t need/require a desktop.
You just described the entire world. This is far from unique to India. Most people I know don’t have a desktop and maybe have a laptop, and I live in North America.
Not to be conceded, but I’m guessing this post is in response to my comments from a couple days ago?
I really don’t understand your point. It’s like you’re saying “the users in India don’t count because they’re not using Linux the way I do”.
Does that mean that all the workstations at CERN don’t count? Or that the systems up on the ISS don’t count?
To me (and I’m certain most people in general would agree) the ISS story is very important, because they were originally running Windows on those systems, but it kept crashing. They switched to Linux to get more stability out of those systems and have been using Linux ever since.
Also, does the story of the City of Munich switching to Linux not count either? It’s supposed to be a major win, btw. A city government switching away from Windows and choosing to go with Linux is huge. I see it the same way with India. The more often people are Linux in the wild, the more normalized it is and the more mind share it generates. And mind share is huge in getting people to make a certain choice. It’s the reason why product ads are everywhere. The more often you see a product/brand, the more likely you are to say to yourself “that’s the thing I’ll buy”.
Before anyone says Munich switched back to Windows, they didn’t. Microsoft made an under-table deal with some officials with the at-the-time in power government to switch back to Windows if they set up a Microsoft office in Munich. Then a new government was voted in a few months later and said “hell no, we’re continuing with the Linux rollout” and that’s where we are today. The City of Munich is a Linux success story.
Ultimately your post was just stating some facts and then waffling on about how it doesn’t count.
People here buy desktops only for gaming/content creation, which means most households here doesn’t need/require a desktop.
You just described the entire world. This is far from unique to India. Most people I know don’t have a desktop and maybe have a laptop, and I live in North America.
Pretty sure that they mean that most people’s only device is a phone. Desktops and laptops are basically the same thing, packaged slightly differently.
Yes, which is why I said “Most people I know don’t have a desktop and maybe have a laptop”.
My sentence implies that most people don’t have a desktop or laptop, and if they are to have one, then it’s more likely to be a laptop.
You just described the entire world. This is far from unique to India. Most people I know don’t have a desktop and maybe have a laptop, and I live in North America.
I’m pretty sure in Europe, UK and Switzerland almost every household has at least one PC. A lot even one per person. Everyone I know from Europe has their own in their room and kids usually get their own in their teens. The difference between poorer households and rich are usually just how good/new those PCs are.
I’m in Canada and work in IT. Most of the people I know that have desktop systems are other IT people or PC gamers. Otherwise most of everyone else uses a laptop.
You work in IT but you distinguish between desktop systems and laptops? Why?
So most of the entire world is using windows/mac if they want to do something serious other than web browsing. And most of the linux desktop usage is contributed by enterprise and office pcs using linux. People still use windows and mac on their personal pc. So it is not a huge win if you want developer support for games and apps. Even if developers follow these numbers and start supporting linux, they will soon realise it is not worth their time because linux usage is mostly due to enterprise running chrome.
So most of the entire world is using windows/mac if they want to do something serious other than web browsing.
Absolutely not. Depending on what you want to do, Linux enables you to do way more than Windows.
And most of the linux desktop usage is contributed by enterprise and office pcs using linux.
Do you have actual numbers for this, or is it just entirely your own anecdotal observation?
Even if developers follow these numbers and start supporting linux, they will soon realise it is not worth their time because linux usage is mostly due to enterprise running chrome.
Garbage argument. It’s like the whole induced demand nonsense city project planners use. No one ever says “I’m only using Linux because I don’t need the extra stuff Windows can offer”, instead what you often hear is “I’d switch to Linux if this one specific application wasn’t Windows only”.
The largest thing that has held Linux adoption is application compatibility.
And one fact that I know that questions your “it’s only cheap enterprises” argument is that Linux is huge in the academic sector in India (and the world also). More than half of the AI and ML demo videos on YouTube are from Indian accounts.
