5 reasons why desktop Linux is finally growing in popularity
5 reasons why desktop Linux is finally growing in popularity
StatCounter reported that desktop Linux reached over 4% market share for the first time. I've used Linux for years. Here's why I think it's finally catching on with more people.
I can list the biggest one without having to look: Because the most popular alternative has progressively gotten worse for the past 12 years, and what was once a quality OS (sure,it had its faults and flaws, but I'll concede that Win7 was objectively a good OS) has now morphed into a combination of spyware and adware.
Microsoft being uninterested in Windows Desktop and focusing on Saas and the cloud is indeed the first bullet point.
- Microsoft isn't that interested in Windows
- Linux gaming, thanks to Steam, is also growing
- Users are finally figuring out that some Linux distros are easy to use
- Finding and installing Linux desktop software is easier than ever
- The Linux desktop is growing in popularity in India
I get the sense that Microsoft doesn’t care about their desktop users and as much as views desktop as another small side market.
MacOS only runs on their particular hardware, so Linux is free to gobble up market share limited mainly by user technical know how and the general shift to most web traffic coming from mobile.
Users aren't finding it out. The distros just actually got usable and stopped being super elitists.
Also the updates situation has caused many to dislike Windows.
Linux is a perfectly viable OS at this point, it's not just for tech geeks. I did have a problem with my USB Wi-Fi adapter during the install but other than that everything was just as smooth and less creepy than Microsoft.
what was once a quality OS (sure,it had its faults and flaws, but I’ll concede that Win7 was objectively a good OS) has now morphed into a combination of spyware and adware.
The last objectively good Microsoft OS that didn't have any significant user-hostile features was Windows 2000, IMO. Windows 7 -- specifically, before invasive "telemetry[sic]" started getting backported to it from 10 -- was just the last version before the hostility got bad enough to get me to switch.
The last objectively good Microsoft OS that didn't have any significant user-hostile features was Windows 2000, IMO
Hard agree. Windows 2000 was rock solid, reasonably lightweight and had no shenanigans going on in the background. It's EOL (edit: actually I think it might have been a specific version of directx only being supported on XP maybe) was one of the things that pushed me to Linux.
That and the native Linux Unreal Tournament 2004.
Besides the backported bullshit from windows 10 (which could be removed, admittedly, you'd have to know it was there, and which package to uninstall..so not exactly newbie friendly), what was hostile about windows 7?
I used it from release day until EOL and I found it to be the best version of windows ever and the pinnacle of the platform, before it started taking a hard drive with Windows 8 and fell off the cliff with 10/11.
Windows 10/11 is why I'm on linux now, and on linux to stay.
10 was bad. 11 is... awful.
I'm running it on my daily driver / gaming rig to learn its flaws and how to work around them, because work may be moving that direction. My hardware, my license, not like they can stop me.
I've never had more problems with any OS than 11 on day to day stability issues. Vista? At least it had direct X 10. 8? Yeah, a total design fuck up, but even supporting it professionally I never had this many problems.
Looking back on it, Vista got a lot of hate but I don't think my experience was that bad. It was really annoying with user account control permissions but honestly as a proto 7 it did okay. Compared to 11 I kind of miss it.
That's 1. point in the article
"How about subscribing to your own computer? Not now? Ok, see you in a bit." Even the Windows fans are full of resentment that they have to know which magic numbers to type under which registry entries to actually disable the constant ad screens. And then Windows restores the nag on updates.
- Users are finally figuring out that some Linux distros are easy to use
so recommending arch linux to newbies was counter productive all along?
suprised_pikachu.bmp
I refuse to accept that. The ArchWiki is super well documented, so there should be no issues for newbies!
A major reason that Windows is “popular” is because it’s pre-installed on desktops and laptops. Users don’t have a choice when they go to the store to buy a laptop for doing banking stuff or save pictures from their old camcorder.
It’s the same way with browsers. IE was “popular”, but only because that was the browser that was pre-installed on Windows. The IE browser was complete shit.
What needs to happen is that all the laptop makers, HP, Lenovo Acer etc. start having Linux pre-installed on their laptops in the stores. That probably won't happen, as I imagine that Microsoft pays these companies to sell their laptops with Windows on them.
In theory, in the EU, as well as some other places, you have the right to get refunded for Windows if you don't want it. In practice that's often hard to pull off in most shops.
Imagine a "Choose your Browser"-style pop-up, but for your OS on first boot. I'd really love to see it, partially mostly for the amount of pure chaos it would cause.
When people build new gaming pc they still choose to install windows, because everything just works.
That's not the segment I am talking about. I'm talking about "regular folks", who know nothing about IT, but need a laptop for whatever reason. Checking their bank, mail... That's the majority of Windows users. Not the PC builder. They probably don't even know what "Windows" is, if you asked them.
If Linux were pre-installed on PC's, most people wouldn't even notice a difference, because all they need is a browser and maybe an office suite, for very simple work.
Gaming PC means video games, video games have historically been Windows or maybe Mac compatible. Only in the past couple years have game makers started making Linux compatibility a priority, and even then its a small percentage.
Until all systems align, Windows will continue to dominate. But things like HTML5 over Flash are helping those efforts!
Most things*
Definitely not everything.
A major reason that Windows is “popular” is because it’s pre-installed on desktops and laptops
I think thats being a bit disingenuous
its also that Windows has always been easy to use because it has an good GUI thats easy to navigate and figure things out with. You can sit anyone in front of a windows machine and they can figure out how to use it and what to do in relatively short order without spending half the time in internet searches or trying to decipher esoteric terminal commands. Its easily one of the best point/click/discover UIs as far as OS's go.
And its understandable that it easy, considering they've probably poured billions of dollars into making the GUI easy to understand and use for any layperson since windows 95 began development and the move away from dos command line.
Sadly their GUI started to decline with Windows 10, and I have not touched 11 with a 10 foot pole, so I dont know how good/bad it is..but I wouldnt be surprised if its worse than 10.
I think you are partially right, but I think the only reason Windows is easier for the user, is because they are pre-exposed to Windows.
If you took someone, who has zero knowledge of any OS or its GUI, I honestly doubt that Windows would be better.
It’s the same if you take a person who has only known MacOS their whole life and ask them to navigate in Windows… or vice versa… You won’t see positive results.
Watch out son, don't you know your in Linux land (Lemmy)? You're likely to get shot for them thar words. /s
Number 2 was huge for me, and it hit home when I realised that 99% of my Steam library was supported. Thankfully I don't need to use any Windows only apps (Adobe suite, etc) so the decision to move over to Linux was trivial personally
Yup, I'm guessing that's the main contributing factor here. Just like how Chrome grew in popularity because the nerds (e.g. me) shilled for it, Linux is also growing because gamers still for it. It turns out that if you can solve one major pain point for a very passionate subset of the population, you get a lot of free evangelists and people will follow.
I wish installing linux for non-technical people using windows were as easy as downloading an
.exeand walking through an installation wizard. Something that gave very very simple instructions, backed up their stuff, rebooted to install linux with the chosen settings, and restored their backup into linux.IMO if it were that simple or as simple as double clicking an
.exeand hittingInstall Linux (with default settings)that did all of the above with a default distro set by the installer, more people would be willing to install linux.And non of that Gnome shit. Drop them into a distro with a DE configured to look like windows (probably KDE or Cinnamon).
Anti Commercial AI thingy
I think the best we can do is "easier to install than Windows." Which it currently is, barring the fact most devices ship with Windows pre-installed. If you're a PC or gaming enthusiast and you've built your own computer from spare parts, installing Linux is a similar though more streamlined process than Windows.
Non tech savvy people don't install windows or macos either. Everything comes pre-installed with the machine you buy.
If you make it to the point where you kinda know what Rufus and an iso file are, Pop! OS and Mint are easier to install than Windows.
I suppose a program could be made that partitions your OS drive and installs a distro on the second partition with a dual boot selection screen on next boot, but if you're at the point where you're curious enough about Linux to try it, you've probably learned enough to use Rufus and an iso file.
The answer is system integrators need to pre install and actively support one of the more friendly distros (like Valve with SteamOS on the deck) or it'll never catch on.
Simple users don't care what OS you present them with, as long as it's already there and it's easy to use.
I think you're assuming too little and assuming too much of average users at the same time. Either you don't deal with them or have forgotten what it was like to be one.
- normal users install software. OS to a user is just software. let it be installable like MPV, VLC, GIMP, Regex cleaners, games, ...
- just because you know what linux is doesn't mean you understand Rufus, the BIOS, partitioning, ISOs vs EXE, etc.
Anti Commercial AI thingy
I think Fedora Media Writer kind of hits those boxes, and the Fedora installation (with the Blivet partitioner) is fairly easy.
My problem, however, and Brodie on YouTube can attest to this, is the language. Open source projects have a problem with communication, messaging and signalling.
It should be the priority of design and the UX to properly communicate actions, events, consequences, etc. It's also about accessibility, as bad messaging can be confusing and off-putting.
There's still some stuff I'm tied to Windows for, namely music players (MusicBee and Apple Music but they can be used in a VM) and VR. But it's nice to see Linux growing.
What music player is tying you to Windows?
Even having moved to Linux, I miss Foobar. Deadbeef isn't that dissimilar but isn't quite close though for me
music players??
Getting 404 on that link. 😩
As much as I'd like to see Linux gaining traction, I have a hard time believing market share is as high as StatCounter reported in some places. For example in Canada, Linux usage is at 1.99%, which even still seems high to me. That's 1 in every 50 desktops. Anecdotally I can think of only 3 people, including myself, who primarily run Linux on desktop. In corporate environments, I have only ever seen Windows, or sometimes Macs deployed to employees. Even with the hate on Windows 11, it still works for most people, so they upgrade to it (begrudgingly, if they care at all), or simply buy a new computer for it. I truly wonder who else out there is running desktop Linux here in Canada...
That being said, I am less skeptical of the growth in users in India, but not for the reason the author listed. I think it's more likely that it is growing in popularity due to its cost (ie, free), as well as the fact that many distros are more lightweight than Windows, which especially benefits older or cheaper hardware. India is still a developing country and I'd imagine many don't have the resources to buy the latest hardware, and instead will make do with what they have or what they can afford. I think this will continue to be a boon for Linux in the developing world as Windows is not getting cheaper or faster.
Overall, I think Linux has nowhere to go but up. Once Windows 10 finally goes EoL, we may see more people looking to make the switch.
That’s 1 in every 50 desktops. Anecdotally I can think of only 3 people, including myself
Can you name 147 people using Windows? If you can, then that's 1 in every 50. Of course, people you know are probably the technical sort that are more likely to pay attention to their OS, but still you'd need to be able to individually name 147 Windows users just to match the 1 in 50 stat. Point I'm trying to make is that one in 50 really is not very many!
That being said, I am less skeptical of the growth in users in India, but not for the reason the author listed. I think it's more likely that it is growing in popularity due to its cost (ie, free), as well as the fact that many distros are more lightweight than Windows, which especially benefits older or cheaper hardware.
Most Windows in India is pirated. Microsoft doesn't care unless you're a big company. The second point is true. Another reason is that schools shifted to Ubuntu 10-15 years ago, and government departments are now shifting to Linux.
I moved to Linux on my desktop back in 2019. I was sick of my slightly old (4 year old) processor running constantly at 20 to 30 percent utilization.
During COVID, there were times I worked from home and did so successfully on Linux.
Gaming was one of the big for me as well but the transition to Linux was not really that painful. There was only one of two games that I had to leave behind, and even then, I was able to set up Looking Glass to play them occasionally (definitely not a task for a regular end user).
I think some people are too comfortable with MS Office to migrate, if anything, I think Office isa bigger barrier to Linux adoption than Windows is. After all, the are plenty of comments saying "Windows 10... Bad. Windows 11... Worse!" There are no comments focusing on the Office suite being bad.
Because honestly, Office is pretty great for what it does.
I know a lot of folks here can't get over it being proprietary or all the other anticompetitive stuff Microsoft has done with Office, but once we got M365 at work, a lot of my work life got a lot easier.
Any time I have tried to use LibreOffice or other alternatives, I feel like I'm giving up ten years' worth of quality of life improvements. That's generally my experience with 99% of FOSS stuff - fully functional but dogshit to navigate and use.
I wish it was friendlier to Nvidia (though, that's no fault of the Linux community), because that's the one hangup for me. I built my rig just a couple years ago around the 3060ti, and the spotty/shoddy support provided by Nvidia (again, not at all the fault of the Linux community) keeps me where I am in the world of Windows.
Hopefully, NVK can successfully remove that barrier for folks like me, because I run Linux on every other computer I own, and it's looking very promising that it may be the case sooner than later.
i'm using a 3070 currently, my next GPU will 100% be AMD.
i have 3060ti too and the only distro that works perfectly is mint, and nvidia driver version 535
Funnily enough I've never had any problem out of my GTX-1080, and I run Mint. Still I've heard irritation stories about RTX cards. Which is why my next GPU is gonna be Radeon.