Looking at multiple places, it appears like the Linux desktop has been on something of a roll lately with the market share starting to trend upwards. As always with any kind of statistics gathering, you need a pinch of salt.
On the NetMarketShare website, the Linux share as we reported last month suddenly had an upwards surge from 1.36% to 2.87%. You could easily write it off once but here we are again and the Linux share has risen up to 3.17%. Even on their stats, it rising twice in a row is quite rare and never usually this much either. Looking into their stats further, it appears Ubuntu is the clear winner and what's pushing it going from 0.27% in March up to 2.11% in May.
It's somewhat backed up by Steam's statistics too, when you look at their monthly hardware survey. The Linux user share on there has risen now three months in a row which we keep an eye on with our Steam Tracker, and the trend there is pretty darn clear. Currently Linux is sat on 0.91% according to Valve's Steam survey.
We can speculate as much as we like as to why but we may never really know what's going on. More people at home, more people using Linux in the home than the old Windows machines at the office? Could be any mixture of things but it's still interesting to see.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Quoting: ShmerlIt depends on the browser used and from which sources it was installed.Quoting: x_wingUser agent reports that information:
https://www.whatismybrowser.com/detect/what-is-my-user-agent
I don't see anything about the distro in mine:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/78.0
So I'd consider it a very unreliable method for that.
With Google Chrome I get this agent string with the link:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/83.0.4103.61 Safari/537.36With Chromium:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Ubuntu Chromium/81.0.4044.138 Chrome/81.0.4044.138 Safari/537.36With Firefox it looks like this:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:76.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/76.0I installed Firefox and Chromium from the Linux Mint (Ubuntu) package sources. The Google Chrome Browser manually.
Last edited by KuJo on 2 June 2020 at 10:09 pm UTC
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oldrocker99 Jun 2, 2020
It is quite true that ChromeOS has captured a significant number of former Windows users, and ChromeOS is a Debian system carved down to what will allow a browser to run, so they are running Linux...:|
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Quoting: oldrocker99ChromeOS is a Debian system carved down to what will allow a browser to run
ChromeOS is based on Gentoo.
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Quoting: CatKillerI remember that article. It's not a surprising policy decision, but seems like there hasn't been a peep on the interwebs about it since, so I dunno how much is actually happening.QuoteBeijing has ordered all government offices and public institutions to remove foreign computer equipment and software within three years, in a potential blow to the likes of HP, Dell and Microsoft.
Report from the Financial Times.
They have their own distros in Kylin and Deepin already. Whether that will translate to more people using Linux in their leisure time it's too early to say (or even if they'll manage to achieve it for government computers) but people wanting to use the same system at home that they were used to at work was a part of Microsoft's desktop dominance back in the day.
Edited to add: On the other hand, the new GoL article about LeNovo adding Ubuntu and RHEL to a bunch of workstations . . . I wonder if that's related?
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 2 June 2020 at 10:54 pm UTC
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Quoting: iiariSo I believe the Linux desktop future is gunning for the makers, enthusiasts, gamers, and tinkerers who like to explore who have always been fueling Linux. I'm still surprised how many people who fit that description haven't tried Linux yet, and of those I've seen who switch to Linux and keep it long term tend to be from that group.Just for the record, I would like to note that I am a counterexample. I'm an artsie and at most a casual gamer, and to the extent I am a gamer it's mostly strategy, no twitch. I'm neither a tinkerer nor a maker; I love that stuff in theory but never seem to get around to it in practice. And yet I've been on Linux most of the time since early Mandrake days.
I also don't see that there's a massive overlap between gamers and those other categories you list.
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Quoting: KuJoIt depends on the browser used and from which sources it was installed.
Which means this method is pretty useless if not even misleading for analyzing distros data.
Last edited by Shmerl on 2 June 2020 at 11:04 pm UTC
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Quoting: Purple Library GuyEdited to add: On the other hand, the new GoL article about LeNovo adding Ubuntu and RHEL to a bunch of workstations . . . I wonder if that's related?
It certainly seems feasible: if you're going to make your hardware work with Linux anyway for the domestic market, why not try to leverage that work into a wider market? Or they could just be competing with Dell, or it could be an independent move to start offering Linux.
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Quoting: HoriIt's because Bill Gates invented the coronavirus, and because Windows comes with 5G preinstalled.
You never know when the next Windows update comes and it installs a microchip in you!
Wake up sheeple!
Microsoft's in cahoots with the CCP? So that's why I should wear a tin-foil hat when using a Windows system.
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Quoting: Sojiro84Well, this week I finally got a steam survey. The last time I got one, I was still on Windows. So now finally, since November 2018, I am also counted as a Linux user.I recently logged into Steam on two PCs. Both Linux, and I got the survey on both of them. Either on same day or a day apart, I don't remember.
Valve really should just sent out a survey for once to all active users. That way we get a proper look.
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Quoting: Purple Library GuyQuoting: iiariSo I believe the Linux desktop future is gunning for the makers, enthusiasts, gamers, and tinkerers who like to explore who have always been fueling Linux. I'm still surprised how many people who fit that description haven't tried Linux yet, and of those I've seen who switch to Linux and keep it long term tend to be from that group.Just for the record, I would like to note that I am a counterexample. I'm an artsie and at most a casual gamer, and to the extent I am a gamer it's mostly strategy, no twitch. I'm neither a tinkerer nor a maker; I love that stuff in theory but never seem to get around to it in practice. And yet I've been on Linux most of the time since early Mandrake days.
I also don't see that there's a massive overlap between gamers and those other categories you list.
Yeah I don't fit into that either. I've been using it since the mandrake days in '94. I've used it this long because I like how open it is. My parents are not very technical and have used it for 15 years without a single issue.
Most people that I know that fit into the mold you describe above don't have any interest in Linux. They just want the most software available to them.
Last edited by KohlyKohl on 3 June 2020 at 12:55 am UTC
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