Glad for Linux going up, but the numbers should really come from Windows more than from MacOS.
Just a reminder to take the data in that site with a grain of salt. I used to share them a lot, but then decided to read more about their methodology, and turns out it's mostly a black box, so they may be subject to several kinds of biases, and we can't even know. For example, we don't know which sites use their analytics and if there's a geographical bias. We also don't know how their scripts work and how the data is collected from devices. It would be nice if we had more sources of marketshare data to compare
For sure, I wish they gave us more data. The trend seems to be going up so that's nice.
You're welcome guys. I installed Linux on an iMac yesterday. It was all me.
How much of this is regular people just not buying new computers anymore?
A lot of households that used to have had a laptop for each person have replaced those devices with phones and tablets. They weren't using Linux, so by removing them Linux market share would go up even if it hasn't actually grown.
Last I checked, Linux users also use phones.
I think the argument is that as less people have desktops and laptops, the only people left will be more technical (otherwise they'd just use a phone or tablet). The more technical people are also likely to use Linux. So as non-technical people move to tablets and phones, technical people make up a larger share of laptop/desktop users.
seems I'm too boomer for this shit, apparently phones count as "personal computers".
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/
look at this graph and tell me that mac os is "dominant".
(the numbers for those who don't want to click the link)
Android = 43.86%
Windows = 27.97%
iOS = 17.8%
OS X = 5.64% (when did they stop calling it mac os?)
unknown = 1.96%
Linux = 1.44% (we're still last place guys!)
Three cheers for King Torvalds and Lord Gaben!
I don't think Microsoft (or Apple) want people to have personal computers anymore in the way that PCs have historically existed. That is to say, they don't want your computer capable of running arbitrary code of your choosing. They don't want your computer to have the potential to do everything, to run everything, to make anything.
They want to control and lock down all aspects of your machine and what it can do, retain ownership of hardware via software licenses, and monetize every click and keystroke.
Microsoft doesn't want you to have a functional computer anymore, they want you to have a dummy terminal that runs Office 365 and Copilot.
They want PCs that work like smartphones, with apps completely self contained and unmodifiable, where the OS is a black box that no one but them can see in to.
Smartphones are actually a good window into what computers in general would have been like had the IBM bios not been reverse engineered and survived a bunch of legal challenges.
I think if it was up to them, and latency was low enough, they probably would have pushed some kind of "fully remote convertible laptop" where they literally own everything you do in a cloud, I don't even want to search if this is a thing that exist already
We've been most of the way their for a long while with thin clients. They have just enough computational capacity to connect to someone else infrastructure. Its also how schools use Chromebooks for the most part too
You'll own nothing and you'll be happy - Ida Auken
Now that we don’t have to pay for any of the infrastructure, it turns out that mainframes and timesharing is awesome. Can we go back to that please? - Silicon Valley, 2024
Yes, this was big news all over Lemmy when it happened.
Thanks for bringing it up though! Not everyone might have known that.
Linux people generally use adblockers so I somewhat doubt all these analytics websites that don't have a methodology that wouldn't be blocked by adblockers listed
I've had LMDE on a USB stick for a few months now, waiting for the right time to boot it up on my wife's PC, and she finally agreed to try it tonight. Cross your fingers, boys; we may soon have another convert.
If she doesn't like it, find a new wife!
/r/relationship_advice is leaking.
My wife struggles with tech, she had such a hard time with windows, and the slowness of it was making her wxperience worse. I put GNOME DE on her old laptop, she can be autonomous now
How much of this is decline at the expense of Windows 11, due to Steam lowering barriers to entry, fatigue with Windows' hard selling, and/or extending the useful like of hardware that W11 abandoned.
I 100% put money on the fact that linuxes surge in popularity and usability is 100% because Valve, a multi-billion dollar company, stepped in and started dragging it forward in ways that the fractuous nature of the community never could.
Windows 11 being a spytastic invasive dogpile was just extra fuel on the fire.
Copilot / Recall was the last straw for me. My only relationship with Microsoft for the last 10 years has been, "how much more of Microsoft's sh*t am I willing to put up with?"
First off, I DO NOT count ChromeOS, but whatever.
Secondly, when is 18% of anything “dominant”??? The fuck? Arstechnica back up off the pipe.
Linux founder Linus Torvalds, for example, has suggested that a lack of a standardized desktop that goes across all Linux distros has held back Linux adoption on desktop.
Yeah. Well, in on Linux in large part because of the diversity, choice, and options. If I wanted a monolithic, incestuous lock-in culture, I'd be on Windows, or a Mac.
Linux may have been simply making an observation, not a judgment, but fuck monocultures.
fuck monocultures.
I have to disagree. We can't have too many monocultures.
To much diversity of options and choices are just as bad and damaging as having none at all.
But how much is too much? Diversity is a great thing for people, makes technology less authoritative and more inclusive.
Authorative drive is what makes software more inclusive. It can focus the resources and attention where its needed, to create a superior product. Linus being a bulldog with the Kernel is proof enough with that.
Design by commitee does not make things more inclusive. It just leads to people not getting their way, having a huff, and screaming "I'M GOING TO FORK THIS AND GO MAKE MY OWN VERSION, WITH BLACKJACK, AND HOOKERS!", and now you have two teams doing the same thing, and being lesser due to the split dev time and attention. and will probably lead to more forks, and more splits of teams.
Doesnt mean it has to be monolithic/monoculture. but a single product that serves 80% of everyones wants and desires is a better, superior product to one that tries to cater to and serve 100% to each, different individual.
and most people wont even notice the 20% difference in their everyday usage and life. They just get told something, or get a wrong idea, and are hard pressed to give it up cause humans can rarely admit their own wrong.
Authorative drive is what makes software more inclusive. It can focus the resources and attention where its needed,
Where a particular groups think it's needed.
Let's take some examples. In the linux world, there are multiple DEs, with different GUIs and approaches on how to interact with a computer. People used to the windows look might feel better and be more productive in KDE, while people who are more used to phones might prefer GNOME. There are DEs that are very lightweight with resources, so that people with older machines aren't left out, and there are people who don't even like DEs at all, who might prefer something like i3. In the end, everyone can have something to run on their machines, and which they will feel more comfortable with, instead of a particular group of people deciding how someone should interact with a computer, and people having to use it the way they want, whether they like it or not.
Doesnt mean it has to be monolithic/monoculture. but a single product that serves 80% of everyones wants and desires is a better, superior product to one that tries to cater to and serve 100% to each, different individual.
I agree with that, and maybe we're talking about different things? The kind of diversity I mention is multiple projects aiming at 80% of different people, but coexisting.
I'm thinking this comes from the consideration of taking imagery at the root of people's brains when they hear Linux. Reiterating elements of the Windows or Mac UI over the decades, even if they had small visual changes, enable a significantly large population of the world to imagine the desktop even just while mentioned in a passing. Anyone that doesn't use either of these OSes at least can have a basic imagery popping up about it due to constant advertising of the desktop via direct ads, support pages, tech websites using generic desktop images, screen shares, etc.
Linux is wild west in this regard. Everyone knows how Windows or MacOS looks like thanks to their abundant copies of descriptive bounty posters, but only other Linux users are familiar with other Linux desktops and that is usually as the names of fellow bounty hunters.
Yeah. When I think of Linux, I think of the terminal. It's the only constant over the years.
My septagenarian father thinks Linux looks like Linux Mint, because that's what I first set up for him, and that's what I walked him through installing on a new computer.
Viva la difference.
Isn't ChromeOS just a flavour of Linux?
Technically, yes. Practically, it's complicated. It doesn't really exist within the same ecosystem as other Linux distros.
It's not as different as Android (which is also technically a Linux distribution), but running a normal DE and all the programs that come with it is very clearly still an advanced user thing locked behind knowledge of how bash and virtual environments work.
It's cool and all, but I'm surprised it's not 10% at this point. Microsoft is shitting in their customers mouth and Apple is a luxury brand at this point.
Because every computer bought by the average human being, has Windows on it.
4% is high considering there are probably more corporate desktops tham personal ones
Institutuonals like governments and businesses do embrace Linux, too, and I don't find many regular users running Linux on their machine for anything but IT work
Played csgo last night and this guy brought up he was playing on Linux Mint. Lfg, I was so happy.
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