According to one measurement by one firm, Linux reached 3.07 percent market share of global desktop operating systems in June 2023. It's a notable first for the more than 30-year-old operating system, though other numbers in Statcounter's chart open it up to many more interpretations. It's either the year of the Linux desktop or a notable asterisk—your call.
As Statcounter explains, its numbers come from tracking code installed on more than 1.5 million websites across the globe, capturing roughly 5 billion page views per month. Statcounter says it does not collate, weigh, or otherwise adjust its data aside from correcting for bots and Google Chrome's prerendering. Laptops are included in "desktop" because there is no easy way to separate them. And they're subject to revision for up to 45 days after publication.
[...]
Because we couldn't help ourselves, we asked GPT-4 to graph out when, assuming a similar growth pattern from 1991 to 2023, Linux would reach 100 percent desktop market share. GPT-4 told us that, assuming linear growth, "which is a significant simplification and not likely accurate for the real world," it could see the existing 0.096 percent-per-year growth rate average reaching 100 percent in the year 3033.It's worth noting that two other prompts resulted in answers of "January 2121" and "2002." The Year of the Linux Desktop is in the past; it's in the future; it's at 3% or 7.2% or neither; it's global or local; it's impossible and inevitable. It never stops being fascinating [to nerds].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by canopic jug on Saturday July 15 2023, @04:47PM (15 children)
If you include Chromebooks, the percentage is much higher. If you include even Android, then the percentage is up in the high 80s low 90s.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Informative) by requerdanos on Saturday July 15 2023, @09:00PM
Reading between the lines, it appears they're talking about (but not saying) "GNU/Linux" and not merely Linux itself.
Chromebooks and Android both expressly include Linux, but GNU/Linux doesn't include Chromebooks nor Android.
It's okay to say GNU/Linux if that's what you mean, especially if there would be ambiguity vs. just the kernel called Linux.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday July 15 2023, @10:09PM (5 children)
There aren't that many Android desktops.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by canopic jug on Sunday July 16 2023, @05:12AM (4 children)
True, there aren't Android desktops, but both mobiles and desktops/laptops are on the client end of things and the way through which most people interact with remote services.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday July 16 2023, @07:54AM (3 children)
I came here to say exactly the same thing. Laptops are not desktops. Smartphones are not desktops. The clue is probably in the name....
When we publish a story about the decline of desktop production nobody chimes in saying whatabout smartphones, or whatabout laptops. They are not the same thing.
(Score: 2) by pe1rxq on Sunday July 16 2023, @10:58AM (2 children)
I would argue that laptops are much closer to desktops than the average smartphone.
I don't even own a 'real' desktop (if your definition is a clunky box on the table) but I hook my laptop to an external monitor, keyboard and mouse on a daily basis and run the exact same software as on a desktop.
For me, both are a personal computer.
Hooking your smartphone to this stuff might work (depends on make and model) but it will not give you the same user experience.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday July 16 2023, @11:06AM
You don't even need the screen.
I Turned This Broken Laptop Into A Powerful Desktop Gaming PC [youtube.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Sunday July 16 2023, @04:06PM
I would argue that laptops are much closer to desktops than the average smartphone.
I'd say it's not even about form factor but simply the fact, regardless of device, that a person is using something to interact with remote services. For most of the world, especially the 3rd world, that means Android or iOS. Almost none of those people are going to ever have a laptop and certainly not a desktop. No one they know has one, so peer pressure. Everyone has Android or iOS instead. On top of that, laptops and especially desktops are even more unaffordable than a "smart"phone. There isn't a sufficient electricity infrastructure, so desktops are out. Even where (and when) there is electricity, there is no broadband networking aside from 3G/4G. So a "smart"phone it is.
When looked at from that angle, the M$ Windows market share plummets to single digits in many developing areas.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday July 15 2023, @10:45PM (6 children)
Why would you? Can those machines even get a terminal window? (serious question, ive never tried)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2023, @11:23PM (5 children)
The short answer is "yes". The long answer is "it's complicated", because it involves "developer's mode" and a thing called "crosh" (aka: chrome OS shell). Drop the question into DDG if you need details. It's been years since I've touched it. I just buy the chromebooks for the relatively inexpensive hardware and run various native linux distros on them. I only keep one unhacked low-end chromebook for visitors to use in a pinch and to look up recipes in the kitchen.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday July 15 2023, @11:28PM (4 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Sunday July 16 2023, @12:11AM (1 child)
Yes, Android is a Linux operating system. It runs a Linux kernel.
It doesn't use any X windowing, t doesn't use the desktop environments that we're used to, and it makes it very hard to use without Google knowing everything about you, but it's still Linux.
(Score: 4, Funny) by gawdonblue on Sunday July 16 2023, @12:14AM
Forgot to add:
Just like Ubuntu, really...
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 16 2023, @12:56AM
I most definitely count Android as Linux machines. And, I count Apple's OSs among the Unix OSs. Pedigrees might be muddy, but they have the legacies. And, no Android, no Apple OS, owes any of their legacy to Microsoft.
Yeah, I know, there are other OSs out there, that may not owe anything to Unix, to Linux, or to Microsoft - but they have no numbers. The market is pretty much divided 3 ways, and the man in the street couldn't even name an alternative if you offered him $1000 for doing so.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by cykros on Sunday July 16 2023, @07:43PM
Yes. It's just not YOUR Unix machine, unless you jailbreak it. If you do, you can absolutely get a terminal.
And you can get a terminal and a pretty hefty chunk of the GNU userland on android or ChromeOS using tools like Termux.
But, on the other hand, I'm happy to call anything that uses systemd a non-unixlike system anymore too, so let the hair splitting commence.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday July 16 2023, @09:51AM
Yes, yes, we all know that here, we're techies. But TFA is about desktops and laptops. If you want the statistics with Android etc you can soon Google for them, I won't bother doing it for you.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Gaaark on Saturday July 15 2023, @04:47PM (6 children)
So, 97% of the people are not privacy and security minded, and don't REALLY mind viruses and hackers, and having a good, solid OS.
But, as more people get fecked with by 'bad characters' (lol) and Microsoft itself (more bad characters), more people have started caring?
I've told 2 friends and they told 2 friends and so on and so on.......?
Now, if all PC's sold had to have a free operating system installed and you had to separately purchase and install Windows (last time i installed windows, i almost shot myself in the head), what would the number be like? THAT's the true problem with getting rid of windows: people don't want to 'hack' their computer.
"It comes with linux? Okay.... I'm too afraid to fuck with installing windows (and windows drivers, and rebooting, and blue screening, and........" would be the norm.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2023, @05:01PM
Long ago I installed Windows XP for my parents, and left it downloading service packs while I went out in the garden and shovelled a ton and a half of rotted pig shit. Good exercise, nice sunny day and the pig shit didn't crap out and need shovelling again a month later.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Saturday July 15 2023, @05:24PM (4 children)
Now, if all PC's sold had to have a free operating system installed and you had to separately purchase and install Windows (last time i installed windows, i almost shot myself in the head), what would the number be like? THAT's the true problem with getting rid of windows: people don't want to 'hack' their computer.
"It comes with linux? Okay.... I'm too afraid to fuck with installing windows (and windows drivers, and rebooting, and blue screening, and........" would be the norm.
There are Chromebooks for sale, but they are kept out of sight and in the storeroom, not in the display area for potential customers to try out. Macs might be on display but are always kept under password so that people can't actually try them out.
It comes down to the OEM monopoly. Until people can walk into a big box store and come away from the shelf with a Linux computer, the adoption rate is going to remain single digits. That's one of the reasons why M$ came down so hard on Asus over the EEE and had their shills in the press cast aspersions and even write outright lies about the EEE. It was tricky. The EEE netbook came with GNU/Linux pre-installed and was a reasonable price and worked well enough that people who bought it were quite happy with it. There was a matching Windoze model which had the same price but was a slow pig and had a high return rate. Once M$ saw that the GNU/Linux systems were flying off the shelves, they slammed Asus and forced it to stop selling those versions. They continued to produce the Windoze versions and which, despite the high return rates, outsold the GNU/Linux systems several times over. Then when the whole line came to an end, due to crippling the netbook specs, the M$-owned press could produce misleading articles about how the Windoze version outsold the GNU/Linux version (omitting the fact that only a relatively small number were allowed to be produced) all the while quoting the high return rates (while not letting on that the returns were for the Windoze editions).
Windows ® is such a liability that the big box stores don't advertise it in the display area. Even the hardware manufacturers have taken to omitting the stickers on their laptop models which once promoted $CURRENT_VERSION of Windows ®
It's not even a matter of applications any more. These days if the system can run Chrome or Chromium, people won't ask for or expect anything more.
So if the GNU/Linux option were available in the big box stores, once again, it would fly off the shelves: 1) no viruses, 2) no ransomware, 3) lower specs and therefore lower price, 4) runs "normal" web apps in the browser
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday July 15 2023, @06:28PM (1 child)
One interesting point about that is that there are companies in addition to Google selling Linux laptops and such, but they can't get any retailer interested. Now, I'm sure there's nothing anti-competitive going on there, and major retailers like Best Buy definitely don't have deals with Dell, Apple, and HP to limit competition, because that would be illegal.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday July 15 2023, @11:38PM
Maybe what we need to do is ban the sale of any PC (and maybe perhaps phone) from being sold with an operating system pre-installed. Get rid of that UEFI secure boot crap at the same time, it's there solely to provide another obstacle to installing a non-windows O/S.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 16 2023, @02:54AM
The true desktop for most people is the browser.
Linux as a desktop has been a viable option, if pre installed, for 5+ years now, but as you say: people don't want to install an OS.
Without a major commercial concern pushing pre-installed Linux, it will never hit significant market penetration.
Earlier this year I replaced my wife's laptop with a pre installed Linux laptop from Dell, she complains about it less than she did her windows laptops before it. But Dell clearly would rather sell Windows machines, 20+ Windows options per Linux option, and they gave us Ubuntu 20.04 in 2023, and they gave us a fingerprint reader with no Linux driver...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday July 18 2023, @11:55PM
I bought the first EEE PC netbook that I could ascertain did not require any proprietary drivers.
It happened to have Windows on it when I bought it.
It didn't take long to install Linux. Dual boot in case I still needed it for anything.
(I turned out to need it after all to download DRM-e e-books, but that's all its Windows
ever did for me)
It still runs Linux, and still gets used about a decade and a half after I first bought it.
It no longer has Windows. Windows got left behind when I replaced its hard disk.
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Saturday July 15 2023, @09:29PM (3 children)
I wonder, why you guys just can't brand Windows culturally (or socially, or environmentally, or whatever else) unacceptable and woke it out of the market?
It already worked for other products...
Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Vocal Minority on Sunday July 16 2023, @04:45AM
I know you are joking...but I suspect you may hit upon something very profound of you think it through all the way...
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Sunday July 16 2023, @08:46AM (1 child)
I wonder, why you guys just can't brand Windows culturally (or socially, or environmentally, or whatever else) unacceptable and woke it out of the market?
There's a lot of potential for that. M$ Windows is already so out of fashion that the big box stores don't mention it at their displays nor do the devices for sale sport M$ Windows stickers any more. No mention of that legacy operating system is made anywhere. So that's the first step. There's also a general dissatisfaction with viruses, ransomware, and general instability -- all of which is m$ specific. Seriously, if the general public connected the two dots and realized that Bill Gates has caused everything they hate about computers, it'd be all over for him quickly.
Maybe something could be learned from what we tried before in that regard. Twenty years or so ago there was a lot of attention paid to the energy savings of GNU/Linux over M$ Windows. It was measurable, and when you consider the global scale of deployment or even the national scale there are enormous savings both economically and environmentally. That's just from normal operation. GNU/Linux has been capable of much better remote administration including Wake-On-LAN to keep the operating hours to a minimum. Contrast that with the standard operating procedure of microsofters to leave machines, and displays, running 24/7 on the off chance they may have to update the system on any given Tuesday.
There is no free market when it comes to computing. Already in the 1980s m$ was an OS monopoly. In the 1990s, it built that out to also become a marketing company. By the 2000s, it had added a role as a lobbying firm on top of both of those. Nowadays, it operates closer to a cult but has even greater designs on infiltrating and controlling governments. Right now m$ lobbyists and lawyers are in DC more than they are in Redmond. Then there is the money trail from the few remaining trade journals to the m$ partners paying for the advertising and articles. They will not bite the hand which feeds them, thus you get no mention of other options, especially superior, Free and Open Source Software options.
The main trick would be getting access to the politicians to address the problem at a policy level. Another, in regards to the market, would be to break the OEM monopoly that m$ exploits and get GNU/Linux back onto the shelves in the big box stores. It happened once with the Asus EEE. It can happen again, but not in the same way.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Sunday July 16 2023, @06:33PM
I disagree. Windows NT is the elite hacker operating system of the next generation.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Saturday July 15 2023, @10:43PM (1 child)
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Saturday July 15 2023, @10:54PM
Well, the math seems to check out. It's pretty exciting [youtu.be], when you think about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2023, @11:50PM (3 children)
(Score: 2, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 16 2023, @01:12AM (2 children)
I just want to point out that "under the hood", Win 11 can be tuned to your own liking. Local login, "classic" menus, crap like Xbox and Cortana rooted out, no telemetry, no advertising, etc ad nauseum.
I believe everyone knows that I despise Bill Gates and Microsoft, but, if you invest the time, you can have a pretty solid operating system with Win 11.
And, therein lies the real irony. 25 years ago, Linux was a bitch to get installed, and Windows pretty much installed itself. Today, Linux installs itself, and Windows is the bitch.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Mojibake Tengu on Sunday July 16 2023, @02:38AM (1 child)
Nibbler in Chief is wicked mutated Tux, obviously.
Are you sure Windows will not throw away all of your fancy tuning next Tuesday?
Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 16 2023, @07:10AM
I'm about half sure that it won't do so. Microsoft seems to honor group policy on Pro versions of their software. So, I'm half sure of it. If Microsoft trashes my machine, they'll probably be trashing millions of other machines that belong to enterprise. That would be a pretty bad business move on Microsoft's part. Still, I can't be more than half sure.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Sunday July 16 2023, @05:49AM
In other news, I consulted the Oracle (no, not that one) of Delphi, who told me that Linux will win out in 3202 YOLD, but we need to make Linus a human sacrifice first.
I wish people would shut the hell up about what useless words they got ChatGPT to pull out of its ass about $JRandomTopic.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Funny) by jb on Sunday July 16 2023, @06:36AM
Adding slightly more than another 0.07% should be easy as pi...
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday July 16 2023, @09:47AM (1 child)
Do we know the identity of the unknown OS (or OSes) that peaked in April-May this year at the expense of Windows? Or is it unknown?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday July 17 2023, @03:48PM
Could be any of a number of Operating Systems. I am curious where ReactOS stands. While it's not really a "prime time" OS, the idea is interesting. In all likelihood, ReactOS may not even be counted.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Rich on Sunday July 16 2023, @08:05PM (1 child)
The Raspi foundation says that until now, they have sold 46 million units. Assuming a number of 2 billion PCs in use, that would be 2.3% alone. The real number will be much lower, becaus many will be used for embedded jobs, or stuck in drawers, but those online will definitely make a dent with that amount of sales.
I suspect there's also a "It can't be worse" shift from Windows to Mac and a "I'm not putting up with that crap anymore" shift from Mac to Linux, especially among those who got their perfectly good machine (16/512 A1398 retina MBPs...) end-of-lifed, and those which had soldered-on RAM or SSD faults just out of warranty.
Finally, some local AI use (I think particularly AMD GPUs) works better with Linux, so a few Windows users might have jumped directly.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday July 17 2023, @03:46PM
I own an original RaspberryPi, Pi2, Pi3, PiZW, and Pi4. None of them are in regular use. The Pi4 is the only one that was close to me having it in place as a basic internet machine for my wife. I'm hoping that Pi5 will be able to do that. They are all imminently usable, but the user-interface lags and some of them really chug, especially when it comes to the likes of YouTube/streaming video.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Monday July 17 2023, @01:08PM (4 children)
Linux is great for certain things. It's just that it's not great for most things people use computers for. Yes, you can get Linux to do all the things that Windows and MacOS do, but you need to be a Linux expert to make that happen. Or most anything else on Linux for that matter. Most people just aren't inclined to expend the effort when those other OSes do what they want right out of the box.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Monday July 17 2023, @03:42PM (3 children)
Linux is great for general use and can be perfect for most people. One of the biggest issues is that people in general were taught to use Windows computers. Once upon a time Apple computers were the ones in schools. Now, the only place you'll find an Apple computer at a school is at a teacher's desk or in some sort of graphic design / media class. Windows is losing out to the likes of Chromebooks as well. In the event that it's based on whatever you're taught on. I expect the use of Chromebooks to just continue to trend upward. Linux has been the ugly stepchild for a while. Google used Linux to make their own "user-friendly" OS and have pushed it for all their worth. The fact that Apple's OS and Google's OS all have *nix bases, show that Linux is a viable alternative to Windows. Most people, just go with what they think they know, though.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DadaDoofy on Monday July 17 2023, @11:44PM (2 children)
Yes, Linux underlies the OSes running on the largest number of computers in the world (both iOS and Android devices). However, Linux is a mostly hidden base layer in those OSes, which most users never interact with unless they are more advanced and are doing so intentionally.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by canopic jug on Tuesday July 18 2023, @11:36AM
It's also on most embedded devices, especially in the consumer range: routers, wi-fi, televisions, radios, loudspeakers, soundbars, cameras, and presumably many cars.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday July 18 2023, @02:44PM
Linux OSes like Ubuntu have Long-Term Service releases. Before that, things were a bit more wild. Nowadays, once you get Linux installed on whatever device you're working on, it's not that much different of an experience for the end user. All they need to get used to, for the most part, is a slightly different UI. Especially, if they're thinking about a Chromebook. They'd have to get used to doing things differently anyway. Paying $150 for the cheapest piece of junk Chromebook isn't going to serve them better in the long run either.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Sourcery42 on Monday July 17 2023, @05:19PM (1 child)
I suspect the effect observed here is more people abandoning desktops/laptops in favor of smartphones and tablets and less linux desktop adoption. They're using their phones for 99% of their daily internet consumption and their laptops are rarely, if ever, needed, and that behavior is most likely among the least technical folks who happen to be running windows. The linux userbase is far more likely to be in the "pry it from my cold, dead hands" camp with respect to computing experience.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday July 19 2023, @12:24AM
The "pry it from my cold, dead hands" camp is probably responsible for the success of pinephones and Purism's Librem 5.