Linux market share passes 4% for first time

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DukenukemX

Supreme [H]ardness
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Jan 30, 2005
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I'm sure this is news that'll make a lot of people here happy. Anyone? No one? Anyway, Linux has for the first time hit 4% market share world wide. We're not including ChromeOS which is at 2.26%, and Unknown which is at 6.11%, cause we don't count those as Linux. Mac users dropped from 21% to 16% while Windows seems to have gained market share. I guess Windows 11 wasn't that bad.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/linux-continues-growing-market-share-reaches-4-of-desktops/
ww-linux.jpg



View: https://youtu.be/QaKIQiu_phs?si=SAsJedBPwpoKLaX7
 
This only counts computers which are used to browse the websites which they sample from.

Something tells me the actual Linux market share is considerably higher than this. If we factor in IoT and embedded applications I'd be shocked if Linux numbers were still this low. If we count VMs I'd actually be shocked if they weren't dominant!
 
Linux users are going to get skewed up on those counters and Mac users similarly skewed downwards

Do you define a unique visitor based on cookies? How do you handle browsers which don't allow cookies?
In this case, each page view is counted as a unique.
Or do you use IP address? How do you handle dynamic IPs (such as AOL) where the IP changes with every page view?
In this case, each page view is again counted as a unique.

Every Linux user I know is blocking cookies and JavaScripts by default most are also masking or randomizing their outward facing IP so they get counted as unique far more often than Mac users who honestly don’t, the frequency with with they click “Accept All” is astounding, almost like they are just clicking the Accept on the Terms and Conditions windows, or a Windows user would click on the “Are you really sure you want to do this” Button.

TLDR;
Linux users inherently appear as unique views more often with their data collection methods because they do a better job at maintaining a no tracking policy on their hardware.
 
Back when I used Linus, (and maybe I still do), I made sure to specifically make my browser footprint appear to be the most popular browser and version of Windows at the time.
 
1337Goat said:
Back when I used Linus, (and maybe I still do), I made sure to specifically make my browser footprint appear to be the most popular browser and version of Windows at the time.
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Didn't, doesn't everyone?

4% seems reasonable to me. However, drawing conclusions out of this sort of data collection, is more art than science.
 
Gorankar said:
Didn't, doesn't everyone?

4% seems reasonable to me. However, drawing conclusions out of this sort of data collection, is more art than science.
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But so what. As Macbeth says in Act 5, Scene 5, in a famous soliloquy that starts with ,"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day," and ends with "Signifying nothing." And so it is with Linux. Even putting aside issues of flaws in data sampling and data collection.

Linux is strong in servers and maybe in some IoT devices, but again, so what.. A real nothingburger. How many PC users have even heard of Linux? Has your mother-in-law? Your neighbors? The postman? Your car mechanic? Is the chairman of Lenovo going to sputter his morning coffee, slap his hand on his forehead, and order that all future Lenovo machines ship with Linux instead of Windows 11? (By the way, which distro? It's great that there are so many to choose from. o_O ) Is Amazon going to shop selling Windows systems? Is Apple going to drop MacOS in favor of Linux? (Again, which distro?)

This report has exactly 0% impact on my short-term and long-term PC plans.
 
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Lakados said:
Every Linux user I know is blocking cookies and JavaScripts by default most are also masking or randomizing their outward facing IP so they get counted as unique far more often than Mac users who honestly don’t, the frequency with with they click “Accept All” is astounding, almost like they are just clicking the Accept on the Terms and Conditions windows, or a Windows user would click on the “Are you really sure you want to do this” Button.
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I'm not blocking cookies and JavaScripts but maybe it's just me. It's probably more to do with China and India who both seem to have surged in Linux usage. Though MacOS's decline does match with the 34% year over year decline we've seen. Also if what you said was true then what about iOS and Android?
Linux users inherently appear as unique views more often with their data collection methods because they do a better job at maintaining a no tracking policy on their hardware.
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That's a hell of a stretch. My belief is that people are sick of Windows and Mac and have moved onto Linux. Tech nerds of course. You're not seeing people with M1 Macbooks installing Linux as their daily driver, but that guy with an old Thinkpad might be installing Linux. Specifically Linux Mint because it's an easy transition for Windows users. About 5 years ago Linux was just 1.5%, so something more than just Linux users with JavaScripts and Cookies disabled who happen to be clicking on 3X as many websites as before. If you look at the graph you see that Windows increased at the same time MacOS decreased, and for nearly the same amount. I'm not sure where all the Linux users are coming from, but I know where all the Mac users have gone.
 
philb2 said:
But so what. As Macbeth says in Act 5, Scene 5, in a famous soliloquy that starts with ,"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day," and ends with "Signifying nothing." And so it is with Linux. Even putting aside issues of flaws indata sampling and data collection.

Linux is strong in servers and maybe in some IoT devices, but again, so what.. A real nothingburger. How many PC users have even heard of Linux? Has your mother-in-law? Your neighbors? The postman? Your car mechanic? Is the chairman of Lenovo going to sputter his morning coffee, slap his hand on his forehead, and order that all future Lenovo machines ship with Linux instead of Windows 11? (By the way, which distro? It's great that there are so many to choose from. o_O ) Is Amazon going to shop selling Windows systems? Is Apple going to drop MacOS in favor of Linux? (Again, which distro?)

This report has exactly 0% impact on my short-term and long-term PC plans.
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I don't know how many PC users have heard of NIX, I don't have a MIL, my neighbors, postman, and car mechanic are not the sort I have conversations regarding operating systems with, (my BMW mechanic can die in a fire btw), so I don't know that either. I don't know what the Chairman of Lenovo is planning, or what Amazon intends to sell or not sell in the future, nor do I have any idea what moves Apple intends to make OS wise next. I also don't have a clue what any of this has to do with the post you quoted.
 
DukenukemX said:
I'm not blocking cookies and JavaScripts but maybe it's just me. It's probably more to do with China and India who both seem to have surged in Linux usage. Though MacOS's decline does match with the 34% year over year decline we've seen. Also if what you said was true then what about iOS and Android?
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Brave, Firefox, and Safari (iOS) all by default block the tracking cookies these site requires as well as the Java Scripts involved. You would need to manually enable them to be tracked. So unless you are a Linux user who is using Chromium, or you have gone through the trouble of implicitly allowing tracking cookies then they are by default blocking these sites from accurately tracking them.

Furthermore if you are using a VPN these sorts of cookies are effectively blocked by the nature of the service and they would register each visit as a unique user.

These sorts of cookies can be blocked by many add blockers and while services like Pihole alone can’t keep them out when paired with an add blocker it is very good at it.

Does any of those services alone or in multiples sound like unusual behaviour for the average Linux user?

Additionally and more disturbing the tracking cookies these sites use can be disrupted by ISPs who are invalidating them as a result of injecting their own advertisements in place of the websites ones. Even when a site is not broadcasting advertisements the ISP would still be overriding the cookies (a very common practice in India and China)


Just saying their numbers are little better than speculation, and I really hate how many sketchy ways “legitimate” companies monetize us online.
 
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"Usage". The numbers assume what that means. My Linux based Plex server is in use. Does it browse websites so as to contribute to these counters? No.

Funny (old, I'm old) story. I used be involved in a Tcl/Tk User Group. Sun Microsystem had recently "paid" for Tcl/Tk ownership and Jacob Levy came to the group (well attended) at a Ratheon site to talk about the Tcl Plugin. In his presentation he asked the question, "How many people use Windows?" And, as you would expect, pretty much every hand went up. So... I interrupted him (as he felt he had made "his point") and I asked the same room, "How many of you use another OS like Unix or Linux in addition to Windows?" And, again, pretty much every hand went up. At that point Jacob said the following, "What is it with Dallas and Unix?"

In short, we need to be careful when making assumptions with regards to "how we count" OS usage.
 
If you want market share, you compare sales of computers attached to a given OS. That's easy for macOS, but you probably won't get a realistic picture of Linux use between the lack of transparency from OEMs as well as the ability to install Linux after the fact.

Usage share is also risky to measure as it fluctuates based on collective habits. For example, Windows share might go up in September as everyone goes back to work, but drops in December as people go on break.
 
the day of linux is any day now ;)



numbers seem aboot right, i wouldnt count iot or non interactive embedded devices though. should only count if you use for a desktop/server...
 
pendragon1 said:
obviously, but it should count towards the install base.
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But the site in question uses tracking cookies from partner sites to get their numbers. So it’s not really counting an install base, if we just look at Linux installs that number goes way the hell higher than 4%.
 
Just remember, the "paltry" number mean that millions and millions of people world wide are using Linux. And IMHO, that's pretty good when you're up against a monopoly provider.

Think about it this way, the number of Linux users in the world is greater than many "favorite software application" in terms of usage. That's not bad.
 
Lakados said:
But the site in question uses tracking cookies from partner sites to get their numbers. So it’s not really counting an install base, if we just look at Linux installs that number goes way the hell higher than 4%.
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ok you win.
 
Lakados said:
But the site in question uses tracking cookies from partner sites to get their numbers. So it’s not really counting an install base, if we just look at Linux installs that number goes way the hell higher than 4%.
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Distrowatch is often criticized by Linux users as not being accurate, because it counts the amount of downloads. It still shows Linux Mint and MX Linux as the top Linux distros that people download. Doesn't mean it's the distros people continue to use. Steam sees less than 2% Linux users but to be honest I almost never use Steam nowadays because most of my games are off Steam like WoW. I just use Wine-GE-Proton and it just works. At the same time you see even less MacOS users on Steam, compared to the 16% that statcounter sees. The trend shows that Linux is going up, no matter where you look.
 
I have been using Nobara for a couple of weeks. Bought hell divers 2 and deep rock galactic for me and my son over the weekend. Both just worked.

Updated to KDE 6 last night and really like it. Just wishing HDR support was in a better place.
 
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Microsoft is funny. "Common folks" ask their IT savy friends which computers/OS to go with. IT savy people hate the direction Microsoft is going with Windows, so they recommend other devices. Maybe someday Microsoft will learn from this. Their still operating like they are making Windows XP again regarding customer growth and retention.
 
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equinox654 said:
I have been using Nobara for a couple of weeks. Bought hell divers 2 and black rock galactic for me and my son over the weekend. Both just worked.

Updated to KDE 6 last night and really like it. Just wishing HDR support was in a better place.
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You mean deep rock galactic? If so, rock and stone, brother.
 
equinox654 said:
I have been using Nobara for a couple of weeks. Bought hell divers 2 and deep rock galactic for me and my son over the weekend. Both just worked.

Updated to KDE 6 last night and really like it. Just wishing HDR support was in a better place.
Click to expand...
I've been wanting to go KDE Plasma but I want it on Wayland. Right now if you use multiple monitors and one has a higher refresh rate than the other, then you won't be able to set that refresh rate with X11. X11 is also just slower compared to Wayland when it comes to smoothness and scrolling. You also get HDR with KDE Plasma on Wayland, so another reason to switch. I'm on Linux Mint Cinnamon which doesn't support Wayland and has just got started with Wayland support, so it maybe time for me to jump to another distro that has good Wayland support. Something like Kubuntu, depending on what I see with Linux Mint 22.


View: https://youtu.be/9vjVT-Pp4R8?si=HRliEiVm6_WImBWv
 
DukenukemX said:
I've been wanting to go KDE Plasma but I want it on Wayland. Right now if you use multiple monitors and one has a higher refresh rate than the other, then you won't be able to set that refresh rate with X11. X11 is also just slower compared to Wayland when it comes to smoothness and scrolling. You also get HDR with KDE Plasma on Wayland, so another reason to switch. I'm on Linux Mint Cinnamon which doesn't support Wayland and has just got started with Wayland support, so it maybe time for me to jump to another distro that has good Wayland support. Something like Kubuntu, depending on what I see with Linux Mint 22.


View: https://youtu.be/9vjVT-Pp4R8?si=HRliEiVm6_WImBWv
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Nobaras KDE version has wayland on by default. Also has all the packages for gaming. The current release updates to KDE 6 and has HDR. I just read a guide to fix my HDR issue, so should be all good.
I don't even play anything competetive anymore, so I probably won't need windows at home. Solidworks has me by the balls at work though. That and the substance suite I use for renderings. (They probably will work in wine/proton)
 
DukenukemX said:
I've been wanting to go KDE Plasma but I want it on Wayland. Right now if you use multiple monitors and one has a higher refresh rate than the other, then you won't be able to set that refresh rate with X11. X11 is also just slower compared to Wayland when it comes to smoothness and scrolling. You also get HDR with KDE Plasma on Wayland, so another reason to switch. I'm on Linux Mint Cinnamon which doesn't support Wayland and has just got started with Wayland support, so it maybe time for me to jump to another distro that has good Wayland support. Something like Kubuntu, depending on what I see with Linux Mint 22.


View: https://youtu.be/9vjVT-Pp4R8?si=HRliEiVm6_WImBWv
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I've seen the word "future proof" thrown around a lot but Mint is my go do desktop distro so...
 
Gorankar said:
I also don't have a clue what any of this has to do with the post you quoted.
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Simple. Those people (e.g. your MIL.) are the mass of the market. The Lenovo guy has to stay on top of the market so that his company continues to be successful. That 4% (if is it that much) is almost noise n the market data. The future success of Lenovo and its Windows system competitors depends far more on how well Microsoft executes on Windows 12 than what happens with Linux. The Linux issue is just a small table scrap, that's all.
 
DukenukemX said:
Distrowatch is often criticized by Linux users as not being accurate, because it counts the amount of downloads. It still shows Linux Mint and MX Linux as the top Linux distros that people download. Doesn't mean it's the distros people continue to use. Steam sees less than 2% Linux users but to be honest I almost never use Steam nowadays because most of my games are off Steam like WoW. I just use Wine-GE-Proton and it just works. At the same time you see even less MacOS users on Steam, compared to the 16% that statcounter sees. The trend shows that Linux is going up, no matter where you look.
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Hijack....

So, my laptop has become basically a WoW machine these days and my kids are done caring about games like Fortnite and Roblox, which were the two keeping me in windows, as they use cheat protection that breaks in Linux.

That said, is WoW pretty solid? I tried it last time, iirc, and it seemed ok, but is it still managing?
 
I've been dual booting Arch and Windows on my computer for 5 years now. Mainly use Arch, Windows for Flight Sim 2020 as my yoke/throttle/rudder pedals/panels work.

sam
 
auntjemima said:
So, my laptop has become basically a WoW machine these days and my kids are done caring about games like Fortnite and Roblox, which were the two keeping me in windows, as they use cheat protection that breaks in Linux.
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Roblox did work fine under Linux using Wine right up until about last week where Roblox devs actively blocked their client from running under Wine.

Personally, I found Roblox to be a predatory platform full of script kiddies tricking young children into installing RAT's on their PC under the guise of 'free Robux', and individuals luring kids into Discord groups with the intent of grooming. These days Roblox is blocked by the PiHole, along with the blocking of the application via Microsoft's parental controls, and life is good.
 
Mazzspeed said:
Roblox did work fine under Linux using Wine right up until about last week where Roblox devs actively blocked their client from running under Wine.

Personally, I found Roblox to be a predatory platform full of script kiddies tricking young children into installing RAT's on their PC under the guise of 'free Robux', and individuals luring kids into Discord groups with the intent of grooming. These days Roblox is blocked by the PiHole, along with the blocking of the application via Microsoft's parental controls, and life is good.
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I had no Roblox luck, only Roblox studio.

Roblox is definitely a cesspool, but I've explained to my kids the dangers of the online world. At least I feel I have to ab adequate degree. I make them watch Sound of Freedom, telling them that's a real situation and they would never see us again.

They were careful before that and now, yike.
 
auntjemima said:
Roblox is definitely a cesspool, but I've explained to my kids the dangers of the online world.
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I explained to my Child the dangers of the online world. Unfortunately, like adults that fall victim to scammers, quite often it's those that believe they're smarter than someone with malicious intent that fall victim to their practices.
 
auntjemima said:
Hijack....

So, my laptop has become basically a WoW machine these days and my kids are done caring about games like Fortnite and Roblox, which were the two keeping me in windows, as they use cheat protection that breaks in Linux.

That said, is WoW pretty solid? I tried it last time, iirc, and it seemed ok, but is it still managing?
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I've been playing competitively since classic TBC on Linux. Was rank 1 Ret Paladin for a couple of years until everyone quit in my guild. Now I just play on SOD. What I do is just place Wine-GE-Proton in the /opt/ folder and then make a .wine-proton prefix in the home directory. Something like WINEPREFIX=~/.wine-proton /opt/GE-Proton/bin/winecfg to create it, and then whatever you install just type "WINEPREFIX=~/.wine /opt/GE-Proton/bin/wine". Of course you could just use Lutris and then use Wine-GE-Proton there but I like it this way.
 
Mazzspeed said:
Roblox did work fine under Linux using Wine right up until about last week where Roblox devs actively blocked their client from running under Wine.

Personally, I found Roblox to be a predatory platform full of script kiddies tricking young children into installing RAT's on their PC under the guise of 'free Robux', and individuals luring kids into Discord groups with the intent of grooming. These days Roblox is blocked by the PiHole, along with the blocking of the application via Microsoft's parental controls, and life is good.
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Doesn't even work with Vinegar anymore? Looks like something happened.
https://devforum.roblox.com/t/vinegar-the-better-way-to-run-roblox-on-linux/2224394
 
Mazzspeed said:
Well Vinegar was based on Wine, if the client detects Wine running it simply won't launch.

No great loss, Roblox is a cesspool.
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Cesspool or not, most things with Epics anti-chest type software won't run in Linux. Not too much lost, but anti-cheat will hold Linux gaming back more than most reasons.
 
auntjemima said:
Cesspool or not, most things with Epics anti-chest type software won't run in Linux. Not too much lost, but anti-cheat will hold Linux gaming back more than most reasons.
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Only 6% of titles are actively denied anticheat support. 47% of all titles are supported by some form of anticheat under Linux, which includes EAC.

https://areweanticheatyet.com/

When it comes to Fortnite, I'm unlikely to shed a tear that it's EAC implementation isn't supported under Linux. At the end of the day, Like Adobe and their software suite which at one stage was slipped as working under Ubuntu via a company released slide, I believe Microsoft are in Tim Sweeney's back pocket. Because the fact is - Linux is now mostly Win32 compatible, client side kernel level anticheat is the only thing preventing Linux being close to 100% compatible with Windows native titles.

Personally, all my games are supported under Linux either natively or via Proton/Wine/DXVK/VKD3D...So I'm happy.
 
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DukenukemX said:
I've been wanting to go KDE Plasma but I want it on Wayland. Right now if you use multiple monitors and one has a higher refresh rate than the other, then you won't be able to set that refresh rate with X11. X11 is also just slower compared to Wayland when it comes to smoothness and scrolling. You also get HDR with KDE Plasma on Wayland, so another reason to switch. I'm on Linux Mint Cinnamon which doesn't support Wayland and has just got started with Wayland support, so it maybe time for me to jump to another distro that has good Wayland support. Something like Kubuntu, depending on what I see with Linux Mint 22.


View: https://youtu.be/9vjVT-Pp4R8?si=HRliEiVm6_WImBWv
Click to expand...

KDE Plasma supports Wayland. Personally I run KDE Plasma via a single 4k monitor running X11, and I can assure you that switching from Wayland to X11 highlights no perceptible difference in desktop rendering or smoothness whatsoever. My X11 experience running Plasma 6 is smooth as room temperature butter.

For the best KDE Plasma experience, I recommend KDE Neon user edition.
 
Mazzspeed said:
Only 6% of titles are actively denied anticheat support. 47% of all titles are supported by some form of anticheat under Linux, which includes EAC.

https://areweanticheatyet.com/

When it comes to Fortnite, I'm unlikely to shed a tear that it's EAC implementation isn't supported under Linux. At the end of the day, Like Adobe and their software suite which at one stage was slipped as working under Ubuntu via a company released slide, I believe Microsoft are in Tim Sweeney's back pocket. Because the fact is - Linux is now mostly Win32 compatible, client side kernel level anticheat is the only thing preventing Linux being close to 100% compatible with Windows native titles.

Personally, all my games are supported under Linux either natively or via Proton/Wine/DXVK/VKD3D...So I'm happy.
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Whether you "shed a tear" or not, it's a game that has half a billion users worldwide. Any game that has that fanbase and will not work under Linux is an issue.

Your anecdotal evidence of "my games work" if a poor take when we are in a thread about Linux adoption.
 
Mazzspeed said:
When it comes to Fortnite, I'm unlikely to shed a tear that it's EAC implementation isn't supported under Linux. At the end of the day, Like Adobe and their software suite which at one stage was slipped as working under Ubuntu via a company released slide, I believe Microsoft are in Tim Sweeney's back pocket. Because the fact is - Linux is now mostly Win32 compatible, client side kernel level anticheat is the only thing preventing Linux being close to 100% compatible with Windows native titles.

Personally, all my games are supported under Linux either natively or via Proton/Wine/DXVK/VKD3D...So I'm happy.
Click to expand...
Sweeney will once again just hang back, let Valve and others take all the risk, make all the investment, do all the heavy machinework boring a tunnel through the linux gaming mountain. And then he'll show up and decry "Steam's outrageous and unfair linux gaming monopoly" as he announces EGS for Linux is coming to save us all.
 
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