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.
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.
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.
Definitely this is huge. Proton and the respective Wine advancements are exactly what needed to happen. And the headlines about some games running better on Linux really gives it a good look.
I’d of thought
would of been
Interesting grammar.
Where are you from?
Interesting good or interesting bad? I’m from UK Devon
Im building up to switch over thanks to proton. I will still have to dual boot for edgecase games though.
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.
Oh yeah 100%, I’ve used Krita before on windows and it’s enough to cover most of my use cases, also it’s by the KDE community, which I adore <3
There’s this: https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP
Far from the first attempt at making GIMP behave like Photoshop and most likely not the last either.
This is very interesting, I think I’ll try that out. I wanted to give GIMP a real try at some point anyway.
Affinity Photo is also really really good. I’d imagine it’s high profile and will have good support in wine.
Affinity absolutely does not work on linux easily, or well. Some people have gotten a barely-functioning app working in bottles, and reportedly some have gotten it “mostly” working through wine, but it is through a convoluted process that will be beyond many newer linux users and prone to errors. (And you have to dig through 100 pages of the affinity forum to try to figure it out.)
It doesn’t support hardware acceleration and seems to tend to be glitchy and crash often.
Which… is still a vastly better state than the last time I checked, at least, ha. But that’s been progress over the course of 4 years.I think this page is the best bet for even trying: https://codeberg.org/Wanesty/affinity-wine-docs
It’s legitimately the only thing I miss from windows. I might try again with this installer when I have the energy… sigh hahah
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.
I think the largest extent I went with messing around was using a Locale Emulator for a Japanese game, never had to do more than run the exe.
On Linux it’s a bit of a “will it run under proton?” type game, but I’m not really thaaaaaaat bothered by it. Also fuck invasive anticheats, only shit games use it anyway.
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’m a game dev, so I’ll have to at least keep around either a Windows VM or a dual boot system, since Windows is still very popular.
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’m doing my part!
Proton is what allowed me to make the switch. I do dual boot but almost never use my windows partition.
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.
I haven’t used Windows in years, hearing the forced updates stories always confirms that’s the right choice.
I added 2 to that count this week!
I resurrected my Asus T100TA tablet/laptop that got killed by Windows10 and installed Linux Mint. I can now stream the seas in the comfort of my TV.
Then updated my Lenovo Flex from Win11 to Kubuntu. I used to play Android games via LD Player and it was so slow in Win11. But with Kubuntu+Waydroid, I was able to play my mmorpg game at the highest setting without lag!
One of the biggest contributors to the growth of Linux is likely the stringent hardware requirements of Windows 11.
Keep it up, Microsoft! You’ll make life better for us all yet. Windows 12 should be only for the elite few.
I used windows all my life up until May 2023 when I decided to try Debian and then never went back. Now that Debian 12 is easy to install I hope more people will join.
“I’m doing my part!”
Can’t wait for MS Linux
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