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

Here's my theory of the huge increase in just 1-2 months...

I think it's a little bit of several factors, all playing in favor of Linux.

First of all, I'm not so convinced that the increase is due to an increase in ChromeOS. Two different statistics sites that separate Linux and ChromeOS actually register a decrease in ChromeOS marketshare over the last 1-2 months while registering an increase in Linux's marketshare.

http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide

https://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

So, honestly, I think Linux is really growing... The reason in my opinion:

The recent events over the past few months: the WannaCry and Petya debacles were huge in the news and a significant number of people and businesses were affected, making them consider (and apparently take action) on switching to Linux. In the past (5-10 years ago), events like these might have turned people to Linux, but Linux 5-10 years ago was still to "hostile" for the average user (hello, wireless connections) and they just went back to Windows (that was my case)... Today? Things have improved A LOT. Hardware now works out of the box, driver performance and features are everyday closer to Windows levels, GUIs for programs are replacing the daunting CLI stuff... Things are getting much more "average user friendly".

So, I really think people are slowly turning their heads over to Linux... This rate of adoption will slow down a lot over the next weeks while the ransomware fears dissipate, but I still think we will stay over 3% and maybe reach 4% by the beginning of 2018.

Excellent!:D

ha ha nice!

I will be happy once we pass up MacOSX in market share. In server, embedded and phone markets, Linux usage is already trouncing everything else.

I think Linux passed the line of being a nerd toy. Previously you had to be an IT pro to use Linux distro. Now you don't have to be. Mount disks in fstab? There's gui program. Use network share? Files program can handle it.
It was funny for me to observe my friend at work. He's a gentoo user from the old days. When we received a Linux laptop from a client he has been running most of the things from cli. He was very surprised to see that some tasks can be this straight forward using gui programs.
I also would like to remind you guys to give your pinguin love back. I have qritten yesterday a simple samba client in a gui form, available on the github. It is a very simple program, but maybe it will help somebody in need. From what I saw using Files gnome program you do not mount smb filesystem, but just access it. For me mounung samba share was a necessity so I wrote the program. Cheers.

Quoting: Nyamiou

Quoting: LeopardFlaw 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.

Sorry, but you're wrong. Check any month from the table above: sum Windows+Mac+Linux. What do you see? You'll see 100%. There are no spare percentage for "other" OSes, such as ChromeOS, *BSD, even ReactOS (OS binary compatible with Windows, from crazy Russians).


Last edited by Areso on 2 September 2017 at 4:37 pm UTC

Quoting: Perkeleen_VittupääEmphasis 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

This looming nightmare on Windows of having to manually reinstall everything after something went wrong (even be it a very rare hard disk crash) brought me to Linux. Now I can save a list with all installed programs and only have to backup my /home (which can be done automatically in the background every 30 minutes or so if needed).

After a hard disk crash e.g. I reinstall Linux from disk/usb stick, tell the package manager to read the list with my previously installed programs to let it reinstall all of them automatically. It might take 2 hours but all the work is done by the computer. After that you only have to copy the backup of /home to your new /home and all is back: your programs, your files and all settings inside your programs – as if nothing ever happened to your old hard disk.

This easy, secure and reliable recovery mechanism on Linux gives an ease of mind which can't be bought with money on Windows - because Windows lacks a package manager with a central repository of software. On Windows you only could make whole disk images - but that takes time, lots of space, isn't that hassle free when you actually have to rewrite the image to new hardware and you can't use the computer while you create the image.


Last edited by Micromegas on 2 September 2017 at 8:33 pm UTC

Quoting: MicromegasThis easy, secure and reliable recovery mechanism on Linux gives an ease of mind which can't be bought with money on Windows - because Windows lacks a package manager with a central repository of software.

They've already perverted the idea of a central software repository into a commercial 'app store'. Once they start really pushing to make it the only way to install 'apps' on a pc iOS-style, they'll be relying heavily on this convenience argument.

Quoting: ertuquequeThe recent events over the past few months: the WannaCry and Petya debacles were huge in the news and a significant number of people and businesses were affected, making them consider (and apparently take action) on switching to Linux. In the past (5-10 years ago), events like these might have turned people to Linux, but Linux 5-10 years ago was still to "hostile" for the average user (hello, wireless connections) and they just went back to Windows (that was my case)... Today? Things have improved A LOT. Hardware now works out of the box, driver performance and features are everyday closer to Windows levels, GUIs for programs are replacing the daunting CLI stuff... Things are getting much more "average user friendly".

Sounds reasonable. Lots of articles in computer related magazines and on their websites were dedicated to the ransomware problem in the last months. Some tried to scare even Linux users, but alas, just save your backups with an automatic root process to a folder that only root can access and any possible future Linux ransomware entering your system via e-mail (I click all elf binaries which are send to me via e-mail, you know...) or via a browser plugin security hole looks very sad.


Last edited by Micromegas on 2 September 2017 at 8:26 pm UTC

Quoting: ertuquequeHere's my theory of the huge increase in just 1-2 months...

I think it's a little bit of several factors, all playing in favor of Linux.

First of all, I'm not so convinced that the increase is due to an increase in ChromeOS. Two different statistics sites that separate Linux and ChromeOS actually register a decrease in ChromeOS marketshare over the last 1-2 months while registering an increase in Linux's marketshare.

http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide

https://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

So, honestly, I think Linux is really growing... The reason in my opinion:

The recent events over the past few months: the WannaCry and Petya debacles were huge in the news and a significant number of people and businesses were affected, making them consider (and apparently take action) on switching to Linux. In the past (5-10 years ago), events like these might have turned people to Linux, but Linux 5-10 years ago was still to "hostile" for the average user (hello, wireless connections) and they just went back to Windows (that was my case)... Today? Things have improved A LOT. Hardware now works out of the box, driver performance and features are everyday closer to Windows levels, GUIs for programs are replacing the daunting CLI stuff... Things are getting much more "average user friendly".

So, I really think people are slowly turning their heads over to Linux... This rate of adoption will slow down a lot over the next weeks while the ransomware fears dissipate, but I still think we will stay over 3% and maybe reach 4% by the beginning of 2018.

I agree :) Computing is no longer Windows-centric, so a lot of the "fear" of using something other than Windows is gone. A few of my friends have got sick of all the privacy and security issues that come along with Windows so have switched from Windows 10 laptops to ChromeOS and Linux.

All the FUD about using Linux is gone "have to use the command line", "no games", "amateur looking GUI", none of these are true and haven't been for a very long time, so there are less and less reasons not to switch, and many positives for switching. As there's no marketing and push for consumer Linux like there is Windows, Android, ChromeOS and iOS I think the take up will continue to be very slow and gradual.