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: CatKillerQuoting: KohlyKohlI get the survey on Linux all the time. I'd say once every 3-4 months.
Do you reinstall or distro hop a lot? My understanding is that Steam is only supposed to ask at most once a year.
I switch every couple of years.
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Quoting: ShmerlThis is not useful for an accurate calculation. I agree with you.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.
But at least there are clues from which a extrapolation can be made. Especially in comparison to data from previous months.
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Quoting: ShmerlFrom an analytics perspective, I don't feel it is misleading at all. Misleading would tell something that isn't. It's incomplete, not misleading. Reasonable conclusions can be drawn from the data such as a minimum floor of specific users. For example we could know that 10% of all users are Linux based and of those at least 47% are Ubuntu based. That doesn't mean there aren't more, so the conclusion we can draw is that a FLOOR value of people use Ubuntu. We can't draw a conclusion that there are exactly 'X' number of users, but that fuzzy set is still useful. It can be added to other sets of data as a point of reference too.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.
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Quoting: randylFrom an analytics perspective, I don't feel it is misleading at all. Misleading would tell something that isn't. It's incomplete, not misleading. Reasonable conclusions can be drawn from the data such as a minimum floor of specific users. For example we could know that 10% of all users are Linux based and of those at least 47% are Ubuntu based. That doesn't mean there aren't more, so the conclusion we can draw is that a FLOOR value of people use Ubuntu. We can't draw a conclusion that there are exactly 'X' number of users, but that fuzzy set is still useful. It can be added to other sets of data as a point of reference too.
Sure, if you analyze it correctly, you can draw proper conclusions. Misleading means that it's easy to draw incorrect conclusions if you treat it as "look, Ubuntu must have this percentage". Which I easily can see happening.
Last edited by Shmerl on 3 June 2020 at 5:33 pm UTC
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Quoting: ShmerlI can see that happening too, but most data can be misinterpreted if a user isn't trained or has an agenda. I do agree that presenting distro data too strongly could easily be misinterpreted. In context of the data collection being able to assert claims based on the distro data has some pretty strong limitations.Quoting: randylFrom an analytics perspective, I don't feel it is misleading at all. Misleading would tell something that isn't. It's incomplete, not misleading. Reasonable conclusions can be drawn from the data such as a minimum floor of specific users. For example we could know that 10% of all users are Linux based and of those at least 47% are Ubuntu based. That doesn't mean there aren't more, so the conclusion we can draw is that a FLOOR value of people use Ubuntu. We can't draw a conclusion that there are exactly 'X' number of users, but that fuzzy set is still useful. It can be added to other sets of data as a point of reference too.
Sure, if you analyze it correctly, you can draw proper conclusions. Misleading means that it's easy to draw incorrect conclusions if you treat it as "look, Ubuntu must have this percentage". Which I easily can see happening.
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BrazilianGamer Jun 3, 2020
I hope it's people migrating from deceased windows 7
Last edited by BrazilianGamer on 3 June 2020 at 5:46 pm UTC
Last edited by BrazilianGamer on 3 June 2020 at 5:46 pm UTC
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QuoteWe can speculate as much as we like as to why but we may never really know what's going on.
Probably due to Microsoft employees working from home
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Quoting: TiixxelIt would be beautiful if this rise would stay and be consistent.I think us users can contribute. Marketing costs. When anticheat support lands for WINE (EAC/BattleEye only) whole community should band together to spread the word. Where someone could edit a video displaying how many games can be played on Linux, like Marc Di Luzio did. From there we can share that video across social medias. There is a Twitter feature that I vaguely know off where many users can sign up to a premade tweet, and when the date and time that's set is met all the users who have signed up to it will tweet out.
As an example if 10,000 people participated in tweeting this:
QuoteLinux Gaming In 2020 - You'll Be Amazed By What's Now Possible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsylLTGIr_sThen that many tweets would flood Twitter. The first link would be video displaying gaming on Linux, the second one is link to Liam's Steam Play guide.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/14552
I think that would surely help get the word out about Linux. And it could become a yearly thing.
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Philadelphus Jun 4, 2020
Quoting: LinuxwarperWhere someone could edit a video displaying how many games can be played on Linux, like Marc Di Luzio did.This, uh, huh.
Giving me some interesting ideas to consider… :S: I've got over a hundred games in my Steam library, I wonder how many I could splice into a coherent video? :)
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