Take it with your usual dose of salt and scepticism but when looking over the Linux market share, at least on NetMarketShare it appears to continue rising.
While the latest from the Steam Survey shows a dip during June, the opposite is true here. We reported last month that NetMarketShare was showing a clear upwards trend. The sort of thing you can easily write-off across one or two months but now three months in a row it gives it a bit more credit.
Going from 1.36% in March 2020, up to 2.87% in April, 3.17% in May and now June's figure is in with 3.61%. Looking over past figures from them, this might be the first time we've ever seen it rise three months in a row without a break. This is not counting Chrome OS either, like some other stats end up bundling with Linux. Chrome OS has stayed around ~0.40%, with Ubuntu over this period rising from 0.27% in March to 2.57% in June which is crazy.
Still not clear what's driving this big uptick in Ubuntu users on their statistics and we can speculate until the end of days, still interesting to see though and quite possibly as a result of people working from home during the COVID19 outbreak.
What are your thoughts?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Some hypothesis:
* Windows 7 end of life.
* With Covid19 people trying to revitalize their old hardware for the rest of the family.
* Windows 7 end of life.
* With Covid19 people trying to revitalize their old hardware for the rest of the family.
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Is it possible that the apparent increase in Linux share is due to Windows users dropping their desktops/laptops entirely and going purely mobile? Meaning that Linux users aren't increasing, it's just the number of people using a web browser on a desktop or laptop is decreasing across the board?
This is probably it.
COVID lockdowns started in march and lots of people stayed at home. So fewer Windows PCs online and more mobile devices. Many don't have a PC at home. If so, I expect the numbers to go down in the upcoming months, back to the 1.5% territory.
That, or they changed the sampling methodology.
2 Likes, Who?
There have a been a few Linus Tech Tips videos that were very pro Linux. The impact of a channel with 11.2M subscribers (as of now) can't be ignored.
LTT is a gaming channel and Steam numbers went down, not up.
4 Likes, Who?
I bet LTT is responsible for a lot of the Steam uptick. Why in general, though?
No idea, but I have one theory, and it's an expansion of what's been happening in my family. In the last two years, my sister and parents have separately called me and said, "hey, I need I new computer, what should I do?" I bought them each units and installed Linux and said, "Here, use this, call me with questions or problems." That replaced two iMacs. My wife and kids Chromebooks died (or they killed them) and I replaced both with laptops with Linux. None of these people care that they're using Linux. As long as they can load Firefox, Steam, and/or their apps as expected, no worries, no questions asked. And Linux is plug and play enough now that no one questions it.
So my theory is that Linux is now muggle friendly enough that we enthusiasts are spreading it amongst friends and family. So my family went from one person to 7 people using Linux daily. If enough people do that, it shows up in stats... We should all have a goal of turning 1-2 people per year to Linux.
Last edited by iiari on 2 July 2020 at 6:45 pm UTC
No idea, but I have one theory, and it's an expansion of what's been happening in my family. In the last two years, my sister and parents have separately called me and said, "hey, I need I new computer, what should I do?" I bought them each units and installed Linux and said, "Here, use this, call me with questions or problems." That replaced two iMacs. My wife and kids Chromebooks died (or they killed them) and I replaced both with laptops with Linux. None of these people care that they're using Linux. As long as they can load Firefox, Steam, and/or their apps as expected, no worries, no questions asked. And Linux is plug and play enough now that no one questions it.
So my theory is that Linux is now muggle friendly enough that we enthusiasts are spreading it amongst friends and family. So my family went from one person to 7 people using Linux daily. If enough people do that, it shows up in stats... We should all have a goal of turning 1-2 people per year to Linux.
Last edited by iiari on 2 July 2020 at 6:45 pm UTC
6 Likes, Who?
Arehandoro Jul 2, 2020
Interesting now that I'm turning more towards the RedHat* world the actual world is doing the opposite xD
* Fedora and CentOS for work hobby projects. For now, Manjaro still for gaming.
Last edited by Arehandoro on 2 July 2020 at 7:42 pm UTC
* Fedora and CentOS for work hobby projects. For now, Manjaro still for gaming.
Last edited by Arehandoro on 2 July 2020 at 7:42 pm UTC
0 Likes
Neat. Too bad it's Ubuntu, we don't need Canonical to grow too big for their shoes.
2 Likes, Who?
I remember at my last job I had to ask them to flip on Linux support for the Cisco VPN. They didn't want to right away but I talked them into it.It can be challenging. There is a strong cultural gap between Windows and Linux administrators. Unfortunately in Windows it is very common to use proprietary configuration management solutions that completely hide what it is actually doing. There is no standardization and proprietary wrappers are used even for the most basic functionality.
They refuse to support Linux at my current job.
I found that the best chance to get your way is to demonstrate that you can take care of yourself and try to earn the respect from the IT guys. They are techies like most of us here, and if instead of being a constant burden on them, you show them something cool, they may be way more willing to assist you. Something like yeah I can run Microsoft Teams, but have you seen KDE Connect, so that you can get notifications from your phone as well? Or no, unfortunately I don't have Visio, but take a look at this fancy Graphviz diagram that I made in 20 lines of shell script that maps out our entire network.
What I did is publicly document all my setup with configuration scripts for everything in the company: communication tools, email, Samba shares, printers, network, VPN, programming tools, etc., so that anybody that wants to use Linux can get up and running in no time. Also openly showing what exactly you are doing removes quite a bit of friction and uncertainty.
Were are in this for the long haul.
P.S. Being willing to risk getting fired for going against the corporate policy helps a bit too.
5 Likes, Who?
I think the "the proportion of Linux is larger at home" thing is likely a part of it. But while that explains a sudden jump, it doesn't explain the continued rise--at this point, lockdown is becoming less stringent most places, people have been going back to work for a month or two, but the share is still rising.
I'm wondering if there's been an odd interaction between Covid and the Windows 7 end-of-life problem. Might be a lot of people who were thinking "Blast it, I have to do something about my computer" suddenly had time to actually deal with the issue, and some of them dealt with it by going Linux.
As to the Steam down-tick, I notice that Simplified Chinese went up again. Honestly, Linux share and Simplified Chinese share on Steam seem to practically mirror each other. More Simplified Chinese, less Linux; less Simplified Chinese, more Linux.
I'm wondering if there's been an odd interaction between Covid and the Windows 7 end-of-life problem. Might be a lot of people who were thinking "Blast it, I have to do something about my computer" suddenly had time to actually deal with the issue, and some of them dealt with it by going Linux.
As to the Steam down-tick, I notice that Simplified Chinese went up again. Honestly, Linux share and Simplified Chinese share on Steam seem to practically mirror each other. More Simplified Chinese, less Linux; less Simplified Chinese, more Linux.
7 Likes, Who?
DefaultX-od Jul 3, 2020
Neat. Too bad it's Ubuntu, we don't need Canonical to grow too big for their shoes.Jesus Christ what's wrong with you people, why you can't just be happy?
3 Likes, Who?
Give it up. You are not going to single-handedly hector people, with one-liners yet, into ceasing to dislike Canonical.Neat. Too bad it's Ubuntu, we don't need Canonical to grow too big for their shoes.Jesus Christ what's wrong with you people, why you can't just be happy?
1 Likes, Who?
DefaultX-od Jul 3, 2020
Give it up. You are not going to single-handedly hector people, with one-liners yet, into ceasing to dislike Canonical.Neat. Too bad it's Ubuntu, we don't need Canonical to grow too big for their shoes.Jesus Christ what's wrong with you people, why you can't just be happy?
They are doing pretty good job to increase performance of gnome shell, isn't it a good reason to stop hate them?
Last edited by DefaultX-od on 3 July 2020 at 7:03 am UTC
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They are doing pretty good job to increase performance for gnome shell, isn't it a good reason to stop hate them?
It *is* nice to finally see Canonical contributing useful patches upstream!
1 Likes, Who?
DefaultX-od Jul 3, 2020
They are doing pretty good job to increase performance for gnome shell, isn't it a good reason to stop hate them?
It *is* nice to finally see Canonical contributing useful patches upstream!
I remember first release of Ubuntu with gnome shell, and I was like: What is that, why you doing this to me, where is Unity or at least why gnome and not KDE?, but now it's like I miss Unity only 30%.
Last edited by DefaultX-od on 3 July 2020 at 7:09 am UTC
0 Likes
Neat. Too bad it's Ubuntu, we don't need Canonical to grow too big for their shoes.
One of these gratuitous comments... Now let's hope that Red Hat or SUSE doesn't grow too big either or we might end up with enough market share for proper recognition by hardware vendors and software developers.
4 Likes, Who?
TheRiddick Jul 3, 2020
Still got 3 tick boxes I'm waiting for under Linux
1) EAC/BE Anti-cheat support under Proton
2) Better VR support so I can use my Quest under Linux (via wifi app).
3) Nvidia to offer Wayland support.
Once those 3 things happen I'll be pretty happy.
1) EAC/BE Anti-cheat support under Proton
2) Better VR support so I can use my Quest under Linux (via wifi app).
3) Nvidia to offer Wayland support.
Once those 3 things happen I'll be pretty happy.
1 Likes, Who?
DefaultX-od Jul 3, 2020
3) Nvidia to offer Wayland support.
They are offering it, it's just none of DE willing to implement it
1 Likes, Who?
What do you mean? Is there something Nvidia-specific they need to implement?3) Nvidia to offer Wayland support.They are offering it, it's just none of DE willing to implement it
0 Likes
DefaultX-od Jul 3, 2020
What do you mean? Is there something Nvidia-specific they need to implement?3) Nvidia to offer Wayland support.They are offering it, it's just none of DE willing to implement it
EGLStreams
Last edited by DefaultX-od on 3 July 2020 at 9:14 am UTC
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Neat. Too bad it's Ubuntu, we don't need Canonical to grow too big for their shoes.
I still think it is a good distro for people.
Maybe not the most recent stuff in there, but that is not needed if it is a solid experience.
They reverted bad ideas like amazon lense so why should we still bad mouth them?
My Computer dual boots into Kubuntu 20.04 and i like it. There is a problem with the old nvidia card, but i can safely blame nvidia for that and go to my amd.
The problem is hardware not the distro.
1 Likes, Who?
DefaultX-od Jul 3, 2020
What do you mean? Is there something Nvidia-specific they need to implement?3) Nvidia to offer Wayland support.They are offering it, it's just none of DE willing to implement it
EGLStreams
And you guys know what's the funniest thing? Windows 10 will soon have Wayland support in WSL2 no matter what GPU will be in use.
1 Likes, Who?
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