Linux desktop market share hit an all time high in July, according to one measure

there's a lot of great indie developers out there supporting Linux and some bigger developers too (hello Feral, Aspyr, VP etc).

^This. Thank you, devs! Really appreciate all your hard work.

I already converted 2 off my friends, the rest is hesitant, but I am more resiliant :D

Also very important if you convert someone, please support them.

Oh I do, but the funny thing is, their are pretty normal office PC users, so the need to support them is actually lower then when they were using Windows. ;)

But, my xbox360 controller does not work with newest games.

I don't own a xbox controller but I got my ps3 controller to run without installing any drivers just by starting steam in big picture mode with my controller attached. steam detects the hardware automatically. it also works for non steam games if you manually add them to your steam library.
Maybe this helps with your controller issue.

If you need to compile a regular program on a Linux desktop system today, you're doing it wrong. There's guaranteed to be a better way or you've stumbled across an extreme edge case.
I've not compiled a source code package on my Ubuntu system in what must be ten years now,and I use my machine for gaming, music production and all general use. Most of the time you just use software from the default repositories. It's way, waaaaaaay easier than on Windows - it's literally just a command to install.

Since capitalism is the current global economic system it is fitting that the OS's of large corporations takes the largest market share. It is thus impossible for community-driven OS's to take up larger share than what is shown in the statistics, I think.

In a pure socialist economy, all software would be open source and have a community-based development.

US citizen ?

I don't get how the OS market share would relate so much on politics. In a capitalist market if a product is good it would be adopted so an open source software could compete with a closed source one as long as it offers a good service. Also Linux is not only community driven, it is also backed by large corporations. And go apply your logic to the server side of computing, where's the largest market share of the said large corporation ? See, no need for evil communism for Linux to succeed :D

But, my xbox360 controller does not work with newest games.

I don't own a xbox controller but I got my ps3 controller to run without installing any drivers just by starting steam in big picture mode with my controller attached. steam detects the hardware automatically. it also works for non steam games if you manually add them to your steam library.
Maybe this helps with your controller issue.

I have that trick in mind; did not tried it so far. Problem is, the big-picture mode does (on my pc) not work under wine (PlayOnLinux). So, i had to start nativ steam, and add a link to "PlayOnLinux->steam->NierAutomata" ....
I´m not so convinced this will work properly and without performance-problems.

Recently, 3 families switched from Windows 7 to OpenSUSE and 1 from Windows 8 to Fedora. While they are happy with their new OS, the lack of tools such as ADOBE and some missing AAA games annoyed them a little bit

tuubi, with all due respect you are way off base here. To clarify, you are absolutely correct. Now throw all that logic out and insert the human factor. We are talking about market share here, and billions of users don't care about fair comparisons or specifics. They only care about one thing: does this object do what I want it to do?

If we want to see an increase in market share, then users need to feel confident that Linux will do what they need it to do (and it does, plus so much more). All it takes to turn away thousands of users is one program that doesn't work. I almost had my brother sold on Linux, then Marvel doesn't work on it. He went that day and dropped $120 for a new copy of Windows. I almost had my friend and his whole coterie sold on Linux, then ARMA 3 doesn't work.

Should users expect everything to work? No, of course not. Should Linux users and developers do their best to make things work? Yes, and I see evidence everyday of that happening. Every day or two a new release comes out that fixes some kind of compatibility issue somewhere. It would be smart to focus on the big issues first though. It's great that shadows now work finally on Game XYZ part 2. Now can we get the most common peripherals that millions of users own working properly?

I don't get how the OS market share would relate so much on politics. In a capitalist market if a product is good it would be adopted so an open source software could compete with a closed source one as long as it offers a good service. Also Linux is not only community driven, it is also backed by large corporations. And go apply your logic to the server side of computing, where's the largest market share of the said large corporation ? See, no need for evil communism for Linux to succeed

Basicly windows is a product of microsoft with copyright bullshits license which exactly protects Bosses rights not owner of codes. While its backed with software monopoly of microsoft. So what is microsoft and windows then= developer slavery with capitalist laws. Monopoly with alongside. Also people doesnt benefit. No security no crystal clear product. No privacy. No speed at all. Directx port of arma3 almost has same performance under linux. Imagine if linux was more mature as a gaming platform.
And if communism evil so the ideas of it too as linux.

I did convert my grandmother to Linux. Her needs the OS and Applications fit perfectly well, so ye, that worked out (my grandmother is good in adopting to things too, and she's over 80).

I am fairily confident I could do the same with my Parents. I certainly couldn't with my Sister, my best friend (she's graphics designer) and a few other persons in my Family, because I know they use tools they'd miss.

We are not, and will not in the near future be anywhere close to taking a market share as Apple does, because yes, the users are using those tools and they'd miss it. It's not about the OS, the regular user couldn't care less. It's all about the applications.


Last edited by STiAT on 4 August 2017 at 3:02 pm UTC

tuubi, with all due respect you are way off base here. To clarify, you are absolutely correct. Now throw all that logic out and insert the human factor. We are talking about market share here, and billions of users don't care about fair comparisons or specifics. They only care about one thing: does this object do what I want it to do?

Hey, you're the one forgetting the human factor. Namely the fact that we're not a homogeneous group with the same values, priorities and preferences. For me personally market share is secondary. I just want as many people, communities and businesses as possible to discover the joys of using a sane, secure operating system and taking control of their computers. Oh and games are fun too I guess.

Oh, of course a large market share would bring a lot of AAA games and software to our platform. I get why some of you/us are not quite as happy with Linux as I am, but hey, human factor and all that.

And if communism evil so the ideas of it too as linux.

Seems like people on both sides of the fence keep mixing up communism and socialism, capitalism and democracy, and propagate the delusion that any of this is about good and evil. Linux is equally great for communists and capitalists alike. And for us who don't much care for either.

Since capitalism is the current global economic system it is fitting that the OS's of large corporations takes the largest market share. It is thus impossible for community-driven OS's to take up larger share than what is shown in the statistics, I think.

In a pure socialist economy, all software would be open source and have a community-based development.

US citizen ?

I don't get how the OS market share would relate so much on politics. In a capitalist market if a product is good it would be adopted so an open source software could compete with a closed source one as long as it offers a good service. Also Linux is not only community driven, it is also backed by large corporations. And go apply your logic to the server side of computing, where's the largest market share of the said large corporation ? See, no need for evil communism for Linux to succeed :D

I, personally, would be happy to see a bit of that evil communism ;) (if by that you mean any and all non-capitalist stuff), but I do agree that it's perfectly possible for open source software to succeed under capitalism; as you say, we know this because plenty of it does. The desktop situation is a matter of timing and the particular players and their particular strengths and interests. If, say, Linux had started development a little earlier, or some strong competitor to Microsoft had emerged--say a ruthless, ambitious IBM executive had been in charge of OS/2 and played hardball with MS--things might have been quite different.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 4 August 2017 at 5:18 pm UTC

Should users expect everything to work? No, of course not. Should Linux users and developers do their best to make things work? Yes, and I see evidence everyday of that happening. Every day or two a new release comes out that fixes some kind of compatibility issue somewhere. It would be smart to focus on the big issues first though. It's great that shadows now work finally on Game XYZ part 2. Now can we get the most common peripherals that millions of users own working properly?

Except as near as I understand from the factual bits of the discussion, they do. That is, the problem cited is not that Xbox controllers don't work under Linux, it's that Xbox controllers don't work in Wine for certain games whose Wine support is experimental, unless you do some fiddling to get some experimental thingie that fixes it to work. That would seem to come under the "shadows not working on Game XYZ part 2" category.

If Adobe didn't seem to hate Linux we'd be a lot better off.

it's perfectly possible for open source software to succeed under capitalism; as you say, we know this because plenty of it does.

OSS cant be monopoly. it may be tool for monopoly. OSS may replace commerical closed sources softwares where stuations are critical. DNS servers, universities , R&D , medical. But in capitalist regime these must be support by organisations communities or so. Unless they become commerical economy driven thing.

And both ms and its softwares are showdown of capitism. Closed source ,copyrights, lock-in. DRM. And so on. And all of these hurts both people and linux(FOSS) This is why we need socialist economy. there is 1 or 0, there isnt something between 1 and 0 there wont be.
And actually "market" is not correct term for linux. Neither the bazaar is.
Also socialism is reason why lesser number is using linux. Many has no problem with capitalism and its toys.


Last edited by Kuduzkehpan on 5 August 2017 at 7:19 am UTC

I gave up to try to convert people to use Linux. Sure when someone ask me I will recommend it of course. There are two reasons why I stoped.

First, you have to do the whole support and then someone else is talking about a cool application which runs only on windows, Linux is replaced by windows as fast as possible. A friend of mine was happy with Linux using Inkscape and Gimp. Then someone showed him Photoshop (the one for >$1000 some years ago). The next time I visited him, the Linux system was replaced by windows and Photoshop, of cause he did not pay for it.
Not sure this is possible today with all the DRM. As long as someone gets the application for free, there is no pressure to use something else.

The 2nd reason is that I always felt like I have to defend Linux against the other OS (often that includes the applications). People don't like changes. And usually there don't care about rights and security as long as its easy to use. How else could someone explain why so many people using cloud systems? And has anyone read the EULA of windows 10? (I'm sure not even one lawyer of MS knows that thing in full.:)

What I do if someone ask me for help with her or his computer I ask what OS is installed. Sometimes there don't know what that means or that there are alternatives to windows. If its windows I say that there should find someone else. Why should I spend my spare time to fix a system form a multi billion $ company? MS should give there costumer better support.

One last thing. Reading the postings in this thread I read about capitalism. As I understand that this means the market are all what its needed to do the regulations. But for one thing, there will never be a pure capitalism like there will never be a pure communism. The other thing is that capitalism always will lead into monopolies like we have with windows. MS had never a real competitor in the OS market. And in the other market there where very aggressive to competitor.
(For people who are interested in how the money system works and understand german, look in youtube for 'Bernd Senf'.)

Just my 2cents

it's perfectly possible for open source software to succeed under capitalism; as you say, we know this because plenty of it does.

OSS cant be monopoly. it may be tool for monopoly.

Just in case you've misunderstood, monopolies are not desirable in capitalistic economies. Sure, one of the big problems of the system is it depends on competition to keep the market healthy, while every one of these competitors strive to beat their competition, in effect striving to attain a monopoly of their market.

The system obviously doesn't benefit the society itself -- meaning the people the society consists of -- without strict rules and state oversight, because it is not in the financial interest of uncaring companies to be satisfied with balance and stability. It's all about unlimited growth, which is just as absurd as it sounds.

I'd argue there's no economic system currently around that's any better though, because all of them tend to be based on flawed, simplistic models of societies where the human element and other critical factors are almost completely ignored. This goes for capitalism as well.

error-message, some kind of SDL2 library missing. Opened the software-manager, type in "SDL2", an get about 20 results. ?? Which one do i need?? Get the first one. Press "install", and got a message, that a lot of libs will be removed, if i install that library. This was the part, where i gave up.

Actually, this is easy. Most of packages necessary for compiling have their names with "lib" at the beginning and "-dev" at the end (for Ubuntu and Mint). So, you probably needed libsdl2-dev.

I did convert my grandmother to Linux. Her needs the OS and Applications fit perfectly well, so ye, that worked out (my grandmother is good in adopting to things too, and she's over 80).

I am fairily confident I could do the same with my Parents. I certainly couldn't with my Sister, my best friend (she's graphics designer) and a few other persons in my Family, because I know they use tools they'd miss.

We are not, and will not in the near future be anywhere close to taking a market share as Apple does, because yes, the users are using those tools and they'd miss it. It's not about the OS, the regular user couldn't care less. It's all about the applications.

Well, if in US there are more ChromeOS laptops, than GNU\Linux ones, does it mean, that ChromeOS provides more applications (tools), rather than GNU\Linux ones? I doubt it, because in almost every distro anyone could install Chrome and get all ChromeOS applications which are basically Chrome's extensions.
Marketing, indeed, has a very important role. I cannot buy a cheap laptop less $150 in my country, and portable laptops (11.6" or so, previous called netbooks) here cost $200. But any american student can buy Chromebook with $100 discount, so it will cost him $100 or more.
I think we should thank Google, that the company doesn't sell and promote their laptops almost nowhere else than US.
BTW, Chromebook in my language pronounced like Cripplebook.

I'd argue there's no economic system currently around that's any better though, because all of them tend to be based on flawed, simplistic models of societies where the human element and other critical factors are almost completely ignored. This goes for capitalism as well.

I'd argue there is no operating system that is any better.

Both sentences are same and false.
Gnu/linux and its ecosystem are opposite of windows and its ecosystem.
Also communism and its ecosystem are opposite of capitalism and its ecosystem. And yes there is a good world we can create where privacy humanity and freedom(not freedom of 'you can buy any rights as you can afford) exist.
And thus who dont understands economics i recommend to read Das Capital (Karl Heinrich MARX)