Linux desktop market share has hit another all time high above 3%, according to netmarketshare

It's worth noting that all ways of tracking it come with their own flaws.

Flaw in here is , Chromebook's counts as Linux.

Nice to see Linux continuing to pick up more users. I did make a prediction that Linux would reach 5% by the end of this year. Hopefully.

I have Just got a steam survey in wine GRRR so I logged out without accepting and loaded native steam and got no survey. I then logged back into wine steam to play a windows game and the survey popped up again.

I believe I triggered a survey as I have just received my roccat sova today.

It's worth noting that all ways of tracking it come with their own flaws.

Flaw in here is , Chromebook's counts as Linux.

Yup, and Google recently released Chrome Enterprise, which I'm sure accounts for some of it.

It's worth noting that all ways of tracking it come with their own flaws.

Flaw in here is , Chromebook's counts as Linux.

Chromebook is Linux, its problem is that it is not GNU. Still, better than the rest.


Last edited by Teodosio on 1 Sep 2017 at 3:13 pm UTC

Yeah, it's very likely that it's chromebooks which change the market share. It's becoming popuplar in the US. My best guess is that we've a quite stable number of linux users (~1.5-1.6 % marketshare), and that chromebooks account for about the same number, if not even more.

That would clarify as well why steam sees quite stable numbers on Linux while the marketshare is rising by a lot - there is no steam on chromebooks.

All the time, I can't avoid noticing one thing. You Linux users you are not aware how much you are lucky and all the time I see that most of you are feeling like second class computer users. And, that's the opinion of one recently converted Windows user (me). I switched to Linux because of constant and super irritating problems that I couldn't stand anymore.

I will not count all the problems I experienced with Windows, but I will just describe the worst of all of them: when I finaly stoped using it and decided to switch to Linux I done it because CPU usage on my computer started growing last months every time by some prcent and finaly riched 99%. After some time I found that I need to disable some proceses with strange names every time when I log in to The OS, and that I can do it only manually. But the last time I loged to Windows I noticed that apps requiring much of the GPU time can't work normally anymore (Unreal engine, in my case...) and I checked GPU use. I found that Windows is using 99% of my CPU and 100% of my GPU all the time without doing anything. I done everything what was possible to find and resolve the problem but didn't succeded. I found that so much of people were complaining about the same problem that Windows is using 100% of GPU and are screaming against nVidia to fix drivers, but without reusults. If you don't belive me, just try to find how much of people are asking what to do about hight GPU usage in Windows. The worst thing of them all is that GPU fan worked just at 200-300rpm and themperature riched 75 degrees. In Linux, when temp goes beyond 60, fan starts working and cooling it. In Windows that is not happening without some external application.

Than I gave up, restarted computer and log in to Linux where EVERYTHING is working perfectly and where nothing similar will ever happen. So, it's not strange that people are running away from Windows, but it's strange that Linux and MacOS users are complaining about such a good operating systems that they are using.

Nice to see Linux continuing to pick up more users. I did make a prediction that Linux would reach 5% by the end of this year. Hopefully.

I have a crystal ball that can make more accurate predictions than that. :)

I will not count all the problems I experienced with Windows, but I will just describe the worst of all of them: when I finaly stoped using it and decided to switch to Linux I done it because CPU usage on my computer started growing last months every time by some prcent and finaly riched 99%...

Sorry, but it could be solved via re-installing OS after formatting system drive.
Still, I glad you came to GNU\Linux.

It's worth noting that all ways of tracking it come with their own flaws.

Flaw in here is , Chromebook's counts as Linux.

Chromebook is Linux, its problem is that it is not GNU. Still, better than the rest.

Yes, an increase of almost 1% in a month can only indicate some abnormality in the counting of the numbers. Chromebooks should be entering the Linux count, but since they are Linux, that's not entirely wrong, and it's very cool to see Linux passing 3%, maybe this call the market's attention to software and games support on Linux.

Flaw in here is , Chromebook's counts as Linux.

Yeah, Chromebooks count as linux in the same way that this counts as Batman. I've had some luck liberating HP's chromebooks with Mint, others probably aren't very hard either.

Spoiler, click me

All the time, I can't avoid noticing one thing. You Linux users you are not aware how much you are lucky and all the time I see that most of you are feeling like second class computer users. And, that's the opinion of one recently converted Windows user (me). I switched to Linux because of constant and super irritating problems that I couldn't stand anymore.

I will not count all the problems I experienced with Windows, but I will just describe the worst of all of them: when I finaly stoped using it and decided to switch to Linux I done it because CPU usage on my computer started growing last months every time by some prcent and finaly riched 99%. After some time I found that I need to disable some proceses with strange names every time when I log in to The OS, and that I can do it only manually. But the last time I loged to Windows I noticed that apps requiring much of the GPU time can't work normally anymore (Unreal engine, in my case...) and I checked GPU use. I found that Windows is using 99% of my CPU and 100% of my GPU all the time without doing anything. I done everything what was possible to find and resolve the problem but didn't succeded. I found that so much of people were complaining about the same problem that Windows is using 100% of GPU and are screaming against nVidia to fix drivers, but without reusults. If you don't belive me, just try to find how much of people are asking what to do about hight GPU usage in Windows. The worst thing of them all is that GPU fan worked just at 200-300rpm and themperature riched 75 degrees. In Linux, when temp goes beyond 60, fan starts working and cooling it. In Windows that is not happening without some external application.

Than I gave up, restarted computer and log in to Linux where EVERYTHING is working perfectly and where nothing similar will ever happen. So, it's not strange that people are running away from Windows, but it's strange that Linux and MacOS users are complaining about such a good operating systems that they are using.

What hardware was this on? I've noticed that happens easily to laptops that are either older and have been upraped to Windows 10 or that are just very low end machines. If not that, could have been malware... perhaps even somebody mining cryptocurrency on your dollar.

I don't think GNU\Linux has grown 33% in one month. I see the table with data above, but I assume they could change their algoritmhs, and thus change the percentage.

Not sure how we were supposed to grow by THAT much in one month, indeed. Chromebooks are indeed getting quite popular here, but I doubt that millions of people bought them all of a sudden last month. One should expect a more gradual increase. Let's see if the number is getting confirmed by more measurements in the coming months, otherwise I'd guess it to be an outlier.

I will not count all the problems I experienced with Windows, but I will just describe the worst of all of them: when I finaly stoped using it and decided to switch to Linux I done it because CPU usage on my computer started growing last months every time by some prcent and finaly riched 99%...

Sorry, but it could be solved via re-installing OS after formatting system drive.
Still, I glad you came to GNU\Linux.

Emphasis on the "it could be solved" and nevertheless: one has to repeat that re-installation every few months to keep it "fresh" / getting everything as it was prior.. At worst takes couple of days, right. Fun all the way XD

Nice to see Linux continuing to pick up more users. I did make a prediction that Linux would reach 5% by the end of this year. Hopefully.

I have Just got a steam survey in wine GRRR so I logged out without accepting and loaded native steam and got no survey. I then logged back into wine steam to play a windows game and the survey popped up again.

I believe I triggered a survey as I have just received my roccat sova today.

Actually, I just got my first ever Steam Hardware survey last night. I never use windows (or steam on WINE). I have had a steam account for 4.5 years now.

I think most of Linux users aren't seen as that. Using a VPN or an anonymizing proxy your http user agent may be Windows or whatever.

If the numbers can be attributed to Chromebooks, it's almost certainly because school is starting back up and students, more and more, are using personal Chromebooks in the classroom.

It would definitely make sense for a big spike in the last month.

Growth of Chromebooks should be good for Linux gaming, since it's possible to run regular Linux games on ChromeOS (from chroot for instance), but it requires some extra steps. Google should just use the opportunity, and make the process easier and out of the box comfortable.


Last edited by Shmerl on 1 Sep 2017 at 4:14 pm UTC

What hardware was this on? I've noticed that happens easily to laptops that are either older and have been upraped to Windows 10 or that are just very low end machines. If not that, could have been malware... perhaps even somebody mining cryptocurrency on your dollar.

Not a laptop. Desktop computer with 6700K and gtx1080. First thing I thought was malware and mining cryptocurrency, but virus scanner found nothing.

And no, I'm not entirely new Linux user. I switched about 2 years ago maybe, but I still feel a little like I'm new here.

Yes, reinstalling os would resolve everything maybe, but is that a solution you want as the only solution to every problem?

Flaw in here is , Chromebook's counts as Linux.

Where did you get that information? Chrome OS user agent string report it as CrOS, all other major Linux distro report as Linux. Why would they put them together, it's not the market share of kernels.

I made the comment last month about the German Linux market share reaching 4% according to Statcounter. Now one month later it's at 4.9%, so something moved last month. Statcounter also count ChromeOS separately.

http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/germany/#monthly-201608-201708