
Linux desktop market share over 3% - AlexeyBrin
https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=9&qpcustomb=0
======
pixelmonkey
Been running Linux since 2002.

I do have to say, though it took 10 years longer than I thought it would, the
combination of hardware standardization in consumer laptops and maturity of
Linux kernel has meant that, in the last few years, Linux has "just worked"
more often than not (and WAY more often than it used to). I recently upgraded
from a Lenovo X220 to a 4th-generation Lenovo X1 Carbon, and installed Ubuntu
GNOME 17.04. Didn't need to tweak a single thing about the hardware.
Everything just worked.

That said, I did hit a weird GPU bug[1] that reminded me that no matter how
good Linux on the desktop has gotten, there's always something. :-/

[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-
video...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-
intel/+bug/1710051)

~~~
bitexploder
To be blunt, those i915 GPU drivers are shit. I battled a brand new Dell XPS
13 for like two weeks before I hit a stable mix. Once I fixed everything it is
great.

In particular virt-manager/virt-viewer/libvirt/KVM have come a long way. I
don't need Workstation or Virtualbox any longer. Having Docker and a real X11
server is nice. Everything /generally/ works. A few things I have to run a VM
for like Webex.....

Regardless I don't think I experience much more bugginess than my Mac peers
now, and most things work out of the box.

Linux on the desktop: Most things work out of the box ;)

~~~
gtaylor
My XPS 15 with i915 + Mobile Nvidia GPU has been really un-fun to deal with,
but it's finally getting better now. Docking and undocking is still an
adventure every time, though.

~~~
bitexploder
It's interesting, most of our company is on Macs and people experience lots of
issues waking up from sleep. Mac didn't used to be that way for many years.

I run i3 and just logout before any sort of monitor changing.

------
jxn
That seems like a suspiciously large bump. I could imagine a scenario where
the numbers are right, though. Is Chrome OS counted as Linux? School is
starting up again in many areas...

~~~
SEJeff
If you're counting operating systems by the kernel, why would ChromeOS be
counted as anything _other_ than Linux. Sure it is a variant, but so is Fedora
or Gentoo or Arch.

~~~
IshKebab
I don't think you should really count the operating system by the kernel. You
should count it by the API it exposes. That's what really matters.

Under this system Android and ChromeOS wouldn't really be counted as Linux
because you can't easily run normal Linux programs on them. Although they may
use Linux under the hood, that isn't really visible to user-space programs.
Android, and especially ChromeOS could easily switch kernel with no visible
effect to apps. The kernel is an implementation detail.

~~~
pjmlp
Many people that count on Android as Linux, just because of the NDK, usually
don't have any idea how little of Linux is actually exposed to developers
using the NDK for app development.

Basically any POSIX like kernel with enough support for libc and libc++ would
do the job.

------
sitepodmatt
This partially thanks to Apple, every developer I know using Apple has some
issues with OS X quality and/or the increasing price (they already subscribed
to the premium idea years ago but the touchbar price boost was a new level of
kicker). Strangely I suspect Microsoft may of actually dented some of this,
social media around win10 and wsl generally seem positive. Disclaimer bounce:
Long time ubuntu user, just listening social media.

Also, I'd be interested to know if chromebooks factor into this stat?

~~~
alexanderstears
I can only chime in with my anecdote but I started hitting hardware limits on
my macbook and I went to shop for a new computer.

The cheapest mac that solved my bottleneck (ram) was a $900 Mac Mini but that
computer had no upgrade room and I recently got a 4k display and I didn't want
to find out whether the Iris graphics were up to the task.

I built a badass linux box for $850 - Ryzen 1600, 1050 ti, SSD, 32 gb of ram.
It's hard to make an linux to apples comparison because mine is just a desktop
and most macs come with displays but the apple premium just wasn't worth it.

I had a few issues out of the gate (not getting it running, but installing
Nvidia drivers and getting tensorflow to use GPU acceleration) but it was an
excellent learning experience and a few hours of time (which was honestly an
enjoyable use of time) saved me considerable money over Apple. My desktop is
the performance peer of an $2,400 iMac.

I'd pay a premium for an Apple but not 3x as much. And I'll probably continue
to use a Macbook as a secondary device but when my Macbook fails, it's going
to be harder and harder to shell out Macbook money when I know that a used
Lenovo with Ubuntu will get the job done.

~~~
hak8or
Any specific reason you used a dedicated eh GPU instead of just the integrated
one? Or do ryzen igp's not do too well?

~~~
ahartmetz
Ryzen plus IGP products are not available yet.

------
jetti
As of about a month ago I'm officially Windows free. I have an iMac for
desktop and had a 2012 MBP for laptop (that dual booted Windows via Bootcamp).
A torrential downpour that soak my backpack ended up destroying that MBP so I
bought a used Dell Precision workstation (that came with Windows 10) and put
Fedora 26 on it. I don't miss Windows at all. I can play my games on my Mac
and while I'm a professional C# dev, I'm working on migrating away from that
stack so it isn't like I'm any worse off.

Edit: One thing that I do wish was on Linux is Microsoft Office. I'm working
on a book (which I will need Windows for, so I'll have to run it in a VM until
I finish the book) but being able to use the Word on Linux would make things
so much easier.

~~~
papul1993
Have you tried LaTeX? It has a learning curve but the output is far better
than MS Word.

~~~
sidthegeek
I've had good luck with Wine on all my Linux machines.

------
WoodenChair
I question the reliability of these statistics. Look in particular back 1 year
(before the default view) at April 2016. In that month Windows was < 90% and
the Mac was nearing 10%. Is there really such a large variability? Regarding
other comments on Windows, it's all about where your starting point is. If
your starting point is April 2016 then Windows is actually up.

Further I would like to see ChromeOS separated into its own category. Are we
going to start counting Android running on a laptop as "Desktop Linux?" Do we
care about the kernel or the userland?

------
Cerium
Linux is ready for a lot of people. Inset my parents up with Ubuntu six months
ago and they like it. Not super tech savvy, they can wait word docs, email,
and browse the web. All their purchase price went to hardware and none to
Microsoft!

~~~
oelmekki
Have Ubuntu quit making a separate partition for /boot on install by default?
In my experience, this was the reason most non tech savvy people quit using
linux a decade ago.

The symptom was always the same : "I can't upgrade anymore". And the reason
was always the same : like 20 different kernels in /boot, which has no more
free space and was breaking upgrade process for any package.

EDIT : sorry to have to ask that, by the way : I'm on kde neon myself, but I
always make my own partition scheme, so I can't answer that question.

~~~
mmagin
Most Linux distributions do that by default today, Ubuntu included.

It is definitely one of those things where the default case has been made to
cover everything and has gotten really complicated.

But the upgrade tool really should be smart enough to clean up the oldest
kernels when /boot gets full. That's pretty sad if they haven't fixed that
yet.

~~~
jackweirdy
I think it's a fear thing. Do you wanna be the dev who introduces a bug to the
/boot cleanup code and accidentally nukes all the kernels?

~~~
zie
It's basically done already:

apt-get autoremove

It's just not enabled by default, you have to put it in /etc/cron.monthly, if
you want it to just run for you.

------
ashark
I switched my gaming desktop over to Linux this year because I just couldn't
stand Win10 any more. Ubuntu is, if anything, _less_ stable and _less_ user-
friendly than when I left it nearly a decade ago (8.04 or 8.10 was when I got
fed up and left, I think, mostly over Pulseaudio ruining everything), but
Win10's just intolerable. I mean, 8 was bad, but this is another level of
garbage. I've been a user of almost every desktop Windows since 3.1 (only
exception: ME), plus a couple of the server/workstation versions (NT4, 2K),
but 10 finally got me to drop it.

If the Mac Mini gets an update and external video card enclosures stop costing
as much as an entire mid-tier video card and/or manage to convince me I won't
have to replace them every 2-3 years to keep up, I'll probably go that way.
Until then, it's Linux.

~~~
zeveb
> Ubuntu is, if anything, less stable and less user-friendly than when I left
> it nearly a decade ago (8.04 or 8.10 was when I got fed up and left, I
> think, mostly over Pulseaudio ruining everything), but Win10's just
> intolerable.

Give Debian a shot. Given that Ubuntu is based on Debian, plus some decisions
of dubious worth, Debian is basically all the good parts of Ubuntu and none of
the bad.

Agreed re. Windows 10. I have a Windows 10 laptop for use with software &
websites which don't work on Linux (as an aside: websites that don't work on
Linux: how is this even a thing in 2017?), and it's just appallingly bad. I
have to wonder if the people behind its UI have ever actually _used_ it. This
isn't an issue of unfamiliarity with Windows metaphors on my part: although
I'm primarily a Linux user, I've been using Windows secondarily since the 90s,
and Windows 10 is essentially unusable, at least on a laptop without a mouse.

~~~
ashark
> Give Debian a shot. Given that Ubuntu is based on Debian, plus some
> decisions of dubious worth, Debian is basically all the good parts of Ubuntu
> and none of the bad.

Debian and Gentoo were my main distros before I went to Ubuntu for its
sensible defaults (c'mon early 2000s Debian, obviously I don't want Galleon or
whatever, I want Firefox, and so on for basically every other Debian default
program) and pretty good just-worksitude, but maybe I do need to give Debian
another shot. If Ubuntu 17.10 isn't a big improvement (Wayland is finally a
thing now I guess? Mostly-vanilla Gnome as the default DE again which is
obviously the right move assuming they're not willing to jump onboard with one
of the retro-Gnome DEs, so maybe it'll be good?) I might visit my old friend
Debian.

> Agreed re. Windows 10. I have a Windows 10 laptop for use with software &
> websites which don't work on Linux (as an aside: websites that don't work on
> Linux: how is this even a thing in 2017?), and it's just appallingly bad. I
> have to wonder if the people behind its UI have ever actually used it. This
> isn't an issue of unfamiliarity with Windows metaphors on my part: although
> I'm primarily a Linux user, I've been using Windows secondarily since the
> 90s, and Windows 10 is essentially unusable, at least on a laptop without a
> mouse.

Yep. I ditched Windows on my home desktop, but I have a Surface3 at work I
have to use for certain testing. I don't know how people can be productive on
it. The Surface3 itself is pretty bad (I was kind of excited to try it because
I know the Surface line has a lot of positive buzz, but am now very confused
where all that came from) but the hardware plus Win10 is a total disaster.
Just, wow. And like you've I've spend a _lot_ of time over a _lot_ of years in
Windows, so that's not the problem. Every time I use it any desire to go back
to Win10 on my desktop vanishes.

------
thinbeige
My notebook with Arch is my favorite. The reason: I can run the system without
any desktop environment. I use just i3 as my window manager. Can't do this
neither with Windows nor macOS.

~~~
extr
Tiling WMs are just too good to pass up. In some ways I prefer my workflow on
my 13" laptop with arch/bspwm to my massive dual monitor windows setup at
work. As soon as you get used to it you wonder how you ever used a laptop
without it.

------
ruskimalooski
As nice as Linux on the desktop can be sometimes, it was actually refreshing
to come back to Windows 10, especially after my time with Arch.

I had forgotten how nice having certain things simply work out of the box was
(wifi drivers, bluetooth drivers, etc).

I like Linux a lot, but its hard to see myself using it as a primary computer
anymore, especially as a more personal, recreational machine.

~~~
Rotareti
> _I had forgotten how nice having certain things simply work out of the box
> was (wifi drivers, bluetooth drivers, etc)._

If this is what you want, why did you pick Arch Linux out of all distros?

I'm using Linux Mint and it ran flawlessly out of the box on my ThinkPad.

~~~
ruskimalooski
Yea, I've used Mint. I didn't care for it. Arch was not my first pick, I used
it after using it a bunch.

------
jdlyga
Linux Desktop is definitely gaining more users. Personally, I didn't start
really using Desktop Linux until Ubuntu 16.04. Now I use Ubuntu at work and
Manjaro at home.

~~~
csdreamer7
A fellow Ubuntu & Manjaro user!

~~~
Zigurd
All of that bump can be accounted for by back-to-school Chromebook purchases.
That gives ChromeOS what is still a very low penetration, but perhaps as much
as a third of "desktop" Linux, and a very high growth rate. I could see it
outpacing legacy Linux distros in a year and challenging Mac OS in three
years. Fast changes in a market that barely budges year to year.

------
loudmax
Are there really more than half as many Linux desktop users as Mac users? If
so, it's heartening our share increasing, even if's still tiny.

FreeBSD and OpenBSD are pretty great OSs too. I wonder if their share isn't so
tiny because BSD enthusiasts have an easy option of running a Mac and still
have access to BSD tools under the hood.

~~~
2trill2spill
> FreeBSD and OpenBSD are pretty great OSs too. I wonder if their share isn't
> so tiny because BSD enthusiasts have an easy option of running a Mac and
> still have access to BSD tools under the hood.

Yea and the driver situation for laptops on FreeBSD doesn't help. I've never
had problems installing FreeBSD on server or desktop hardware, but on laptops
either the wifi doesn't work or suspend and resume doesn't work, or of course
both. But this reflects the goals FreeBSD so one shouldn't really be that
surprised.

~~~
sydney6
I run FreeBSD on my Laptop (X230) and i can assure you that both, wifi and
suspend/resume, are working perfectly fine..

edit: Typo.

~~~
nekkoru
Yeah, awesome, what about the tens of thousands of other laptop models on the
market?

~~~
sydney6
Well, i can only account for the machines that i have, of course.. Most
Business Laptops come with Intel Chipsets (Wifi, Ethernet, Graphics, etc.)
throughout and at least these should be working fine.

------
midnitewarrior
Is this finally the year of the Linux desktop???

~~~
samfisher83
Well how many years have they been predicting this? I guess it has won mobile.

~~~
midnitewarrior
Nobody uses Linux on mobile. Phone users use Android. Android uses Linux.
Phone users do not use Linux.

------
Retric
Interesting, looking at their past data windows had a 5% drop in market share
over the last 10 years (~95.5%>%90.5%) which is much larger than I was
expecting.

------
bdcravens
I've been a "Linux user" since 1998, but never have used it as my primary
desktop. I recently tried going to Linux on an XPS 15 (with 4k display). I
plugin into multiple monitors at home an work: 2 1920x1080, 1 2560x1440, and
one 4k. I tried multiple distros, and even both Gnome and KDE Plasma. I'm sure
given enough time I could have made it work, but eventually I had throw in the
towel and go back to my MBP.

------
kruhft
One less user, as I've switched to macOS. Unix under the hood, working
software/hardware with no or little fuss, sudo port ... works with all the
free software I could want and the rest generally compiles relatively easily),
and I can buy devices at a store and they 'just work.' Kernel is open source,
and the rest is 'good enough'. I'd use linux for embedded, but as a desktop,
not anymore.

~~~
kruhft
macOS let's me get work DONE with the computer, not just work ON the computer.

------
SEJeff
Now to flip this over a bit, I wonder what the Linux mobile share is and the
Linux embedded share is.

Not too many Windows CE devices around, and even some SCADA systems are moving
to Linux.

Perhaps I'm biased, having used Linux on the desktop since late 1999/early
2000 or so.

~~~
nthcolumn
Microsoft make more money from Android than their awful Windows phones.

Personally worked on SCADA systems for powers stations but never on windows,
all DEC-Unix and Linux in fact how I got into linux in '97.

My kids both nearly teenagers have known only Linux and Apple (except Windows
at schools*).

I recall also how many of those years were hailed as 'Year of the Linux
Desktop'.

Also 'Linux' desktop - please people don't forget all the work by unsung
heroes on e.g. KDE and Gnome apps, package managers, Drake installers, Compiz
and Beryl, getting winmodems working, nvidia drivers, goddamn pulseaudio,...
you get my drift.

------
bdcravens
Worth noting this is international. The share in a poor country where the
additional cost of Windows matters paints a much different picture than the
share would in the US, for example. (drilling down to country requires an
expensive upgrade)

~~~
pjmlp
Most poor countries just pirate, so licenses don't play any role.

------
balladeer
When my 5 year old MacBook Air dies, and it doesn't look like I will have a
replacement in the price range, I will go for a really lightweight laptop (I
hope there'll be one like Air and similarly priced) and install
ElementaryOS[0] on it.

My needs are simple - sleek, lightweight ~13 inch laptop with normal computing
needs for movie, music etc and little bit of coding in Vim (or some other text
editor) and all.

Linux Desktop has indeed come a long way since 2006 (that was when I
introduced to them).

[0] [https://elementary.io](https://elementary.io)

~~~
dhimes
How is this different from other linuxes?

------
thomasthomas
makes sense. as majority of the population moves away from desktops, windows
and mac will lose market share. the hardcore Linux users that aren't going
anywhere will gain market share.

------
emergie
Other source, PL traffic only, 2.36% in W34 2017:
[http://www.ranking.pl/en/rankings/operating-
systems.html](http://www.ranking.pl/en/rankings/operating-systems.html)

No visible bump in data, just slow growth from 1.55% in Q3 2015 through 2.00%
in Q3 2016 to 2.40% in Q3 2017. So oversimplifying a bit it means about 4
converts per 1k citizens annualy.

------
nicodjimenez
Having a Linux desktop is a no brainer. Linux laptops, on the other hand...
Has anyone had a good experience with a Linux laptop? As soon as that's
possible I'd happily ditch MacOS

~~~
dbcurtis
I've had various Lenovo T series laptops at home and at work for over 10
years, either running Linux only, or as Linux/Windows switch-boot systems. The
only reason I've ever had windows on any of those laptops is to run embedded
development tools required by employers. The Linux part of the experience has
been largely smooth and painless. Before purchasing, make sure that the video
and wifi are well supported by Linux and meet the needs of your application,
but I've found with most Lenovo's the laptops hit all the checkboxes for me.

I'm not trying to shill for Lenovo, there are certainly other quality laptops
out there. I happen to like the pointing device and keyboard and general build
quality, and I try not to spend a lot of time over-optimizing my purchases
with a lot of research.

So, yes, I've had great experiences with Linux laptops.

~~~
beefield
The biggest trouble I had with my current T was due to me buying it
immediately after launch, and it took some months before the usual distros
started working with wifi and 3g modem without hickups.

~~~
dbcurtis
Fair enough. Waiting until the pioneers' questions have been crawled by Google
is a good strategy.

------
rihegher
"This report contains preview data that has NOT been reviewed by Quality
Assurance."

Does anybody know the methodology here?

I mean it could even be a spike from user now using chrome headless from cloud
linux server.

~~~
andrew3726
Seems to be explained here:
[https://www.netmarketshare.com/faq.aspx#Methodology](https://www.netmarketshare.com/faq.aspx#Methodology)

------
anotheryou
It's funny how it is ready for grandmothers and devs, but everyone in between
will struggle with the commandline or 3rd party software at some point...

------
rrdharan
I wonder if Windows 10's WSL is counted as Windows or Linux when computing
this stat.

~~~
mixedCase
Are WSL users running _browsers_ from WSL? curl at least sends no user agent
unless you manually enter one.

~~~
Meegul
I somewhat regularly use Firefox from within the WSL. It's a privacy by
obscurity thing for me though.

~~~
asdfgadsfgasfdg
Doesn't that give you an amazingly unique fingerprint?

[https://panopticlick.eff.org/](https://panopticlick.eff.org/)

[https://amiunique.org/](https://amiunique.org/)

~~~
Meegul
Seems so. But I meant more privacy on a local machine basis. That is, someone
would _really_ need to dig through the filesystem to find browsing
information, rather than just looking at the standard locations.

I recognize it's a weak privacy measure, but in my situation it gives me a
mostly private browser on a shared user account.

~~~
asdfgadsfgasfdg
OK. This sounds like a perfect use for either private browsing mode or another
profile with history etc set to false though.

~~~
Meegul
Private browsing wouldn't save any browsing information, which is something I
want. Also, using another profile would reveal that the profile exists in the
first place. Using the WSL is much more hidden.

------
jroseattle
Not sure this methodology can be trusted all that much. The same headline, 4
months ago, would read: "Linux desktop market share now less than 2%".

------
jussij
So lets go back to 2009 when it was obvious Linux would kill Windows:

[http://www.pcworld.com/article/181640/linux_will_kill_window...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/181640/linux_will_kill_windows_says_former_microsoftie.html)

~~~
uiri
The point that the source for that article was making is that FOSS will kill
proprietary software, not that necessarily that Linux will (near term) kill
Windows. One only needs to look at Microsoft's open source push (e.g.
[https://github.com/Azure](https://github.com/Azure),
[https://github.com/Microsoft](https://github.com/Microsoft)) to see that that
article's larger prediction is coming true.

~~~
anon1385
It hasn't killed proprietary software at all though; if anything the average
person interacts with more proprietary software per day than ever before. It's
just than now it's all behind a web interface. It's notable that the Linux
stats are being boosted significantly by Chromebooks. Ask RMS what he thinks
of Chromebooks…

Weirdly an entire generation of developers have managed to convince themselves
that by working on proprietary web apps they are somehow fighting the good
fight on the side of FOSS.

~~~
pjmlp
That is the biggest irony of all, isn't it?

------
Chiba-City
Linux is very close to perfect as a "decision support and design" workstation.
Tool performance, ubiquity, interoperability and stability are the big targets
there. We have to name as a goal data and media asset durability and tool
compatibility over years or decades.

Linux has virtues that end up conflicting. An occupational hazard of Linux as
a tool and OS innovation platform are disruptions, disappointments,
instability and dropped balls.

Other people are goofing off without enduring responsibility for a large user
base. We confuse design criteria we inherit from the commercial world. Easy to
use, easy to remember, easy to diagnose problems and "quick to getting going"
are not the same always compatible design targets. The Window Manager wars
took up tons of Linux desktop attention. Gaming is naturally an arena for
hardware churn and 1-upmanship.

I have great hope for Linux desktop stability with government deployments and
thus a global tug for stability against rushing breaking changes. The Linux
platform and package manager contents are remarkable achievements.

~~~
Chiba-City
Did I make a mistake? Is it unfashionable to be for well documented, reliable
and stable Linux And OSS tools? I like old and new programming languages too.
Those are not so incompatible. Is there a thematic disatisfaction I am
missing?

