Linux Hits All-Time High of 3% of Desktop PC Share After 30 Years
tomshardware.com
tomshardware.com
From the bonkers stability and reliability guarantees of Debian to the tightrope-walking offerings of Arch, we are truly spoiled for choices.
But there is so much else that just works nowadays that was a nightmare 20 years ago, the blutooth stack has gotten way better, audio is crazy good at this point (pipewire), gaming is incredible (all thanks to valve/proton), blender of course and moving so much stuff to the modern web (as well as electron) has opened up so much for linux by accident (like video conferencing, finally a decent office suite with google docs, figma, etc.). Of course the development/sysops story has always been better than anywhere else since everything is Linux on the server already anyway so its always been very friction less.
Photoshop is already moving to become a web based application as a result of it for example.
Shame they don't have native linux support really.
This, and the occasional firmware flash utility that only has a Windows or MacOS build.
I speculate that many of the most controversial changes in GNU/Linux were rooted in chasing after this goal.
I feel there is a moderate middle path when it is possible to get Linux desktop to a state that many can use it but without compromising on the flexibility it can provide. Distro's like Linux Mint are so close nowadays, in a way it is very boring. But boring is what you want. It doesn't just tumble over for like... reasons, but it also it really easy to use if very predictable.
I'm not sure what, if anything, I materially gave up other than that all of those components have a contracted API now so all future components will need to adhere to that API.
For example, OpenRC had comparable boot times as did systemd and it was modern and stuck to the "do one thing" principle. Systemd was chosen because lennart and corporate/rhel people who have influence and a financial interest in expanding market share pushed it. Just like how things are done at apple and microsoft.
I love their Terminal as well, it's perfect for Ubuntu things.
So yeah I'm on Windows, but I'm also on Linux. :D
No need for the commercial Docker parts that drain all performance.
If we are just going to be using VS Code or IntelliJ and run Linux, what are we even using MacOS for? The terrible UI?
I don't know if the situation has changed but most of them used to tell us to not run multiple ones together.
The idea that some of the Linux community has that anything that makes Linux actually user friendly or gives it wider appeal and gets popular no longer counts as "Linux" is a self defeating mindset.
On some selected models, one is able to start a sandbox version of a GNU/Linux distribution, just like WSL on Windows.
Android Tablet with keyboard and mouse do provide a desktop experience, which doesn't matter for Linux desktop, as the userspace is Java/Kotlin, ISO C, ISO C++ and Android specific native APIs, zero POSIX.
Now I wonder if notebooks are counted in "desktop PC category" assuming they are x86 notebooks (x86 ~ PC).
So maybe Windows 10/11 also count.
Linux users are just less prone to jumping ship, because on average, we actually USE our devices more, as something other than a simple appliance.
I expect this percentage to grow, but not because the world has suddenly decided to adopt Linux; rather, because it has largely decided to ditch desktops.
In fact I consider Linux a Unix specifically to annoy the sorts of people who think OpenGroup has the last word on what constitutes a Unix. ACAB.
- Before 30: many distros
- Before 35: Mostly ubuntu, latest version (install after a couple of months of general availability)
- After 35: ubuntu LTS versions (install after a couple of months of general availability). Since 16.04 I've been on LTS only; should have done that earlier.
Fun fact: You don't really need to install any of the "flavors" of Ubuntu to get the various desktop environments (KDE, GNOME, Cinnamon, etc.), you can just install them as a package! (`apt install kde-full`). You can switch between them when logging in.