I just installed Linux on a six-year-old budget laptop this morning. My first time using Linux. What was a uselessly slow machine is now just humming along.
I’m doing my part!
Welcome to the linux world! We wish you software freedom and hardware longevity.
Nice. That is what started me into Linux. Wife’s 2011 laptop became useless with W10 upgrade, now it runs linux and she has fast browsing, zoom calls etc, and it is peppy like a new computer.
Welcome!
I suspect that it’s not Linux that is on the rise, but overall PC market that is shrinking. It’s been a trend for quite a while for non-linux people to dump the PC entirely in favor of using just phone.
The desktop/mobile ratio chart aligns with this
https://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet
I remember looking at pc sales data, and they have been shrinking in the last decade, with the curve flattening until the pandemic, when sales grew substantially, almost to the 2000s level. Now it’s shrinking back slowly. I’m not sure if people are abandoning desktops in favor of phones as much as we think. desktops are durable and we tend to have only one, while mobile devices are gaining different forms, and people are getting more of them. Perhaps the desktop market has not much more room to grow while mobile devices are still booming.
But that’s just one possible explanation, I might be wrong. I was going to post the data, but statista requires login to see it.
I don’t know if we know it’s shrinking back for sure. With the exception of Q1’23, there seems to be a balance around 19M sales per quarter. There’s a way to read it as shrinking, but there’s also a way to read it as stabilizing. There’s just not enough samples to be certain.
What we have to remember is that we’re finally reaching a turning point in GPU pricing. Laptops that were in the $2000+ range a year or two ago are closer to the $1000 commodity price. There had been a “value stall” that just broke, where a new computer used to not be a significant upgrade on an old one, and so people might hold onto their current computers a year or two longer.
I mean, I sure I pulled a few discounts out of my ass, but I just landed an i9 laptop with a 4090 for just over $2k as a replacement to a computer that died. Two years ago almost to the day I bought a middle-of-the-road gaming machine with a 3070 in it for about the same price.
And yet here I am looking to expanding my devices with a replacement server (linux) and a NUC (linux).
Finally ditched Windows on the desktop forever, about 7 months ago.
I agree with you on mobile. I my country many ppl ditched laptops and desktops for their phones.
Although I have a hard time understanding how they can actually get some work done on the phone, if they do any work from home that requires a computer. Well those ppl probably have an old laptop laying around.
I don’t know what everyone else’s case is, but my work provides a laptop. None of my home machines have Windows, but the work laptop does.
Yeah, many workplaces here do not offer a laptop, its more of “bring your own device” kinda thing.
But of course, some do.
I wonder at the various nuances of that. My wife and I have 4 phones and 3 tablets between us between home and work. It would seem any multi-person household would be likely to have more mobile devices than PCs due to the variety of the former. So that chart seems to be that there are more mobile devices per person, but perhaps no reduction in PCs.
In fact, PC sales rocketed up in Q3’20 for very obvious reasons, and have largely not come back down to pre-COVID levels.
It’s been a trend for quite a while for non-linux people to dump the PC entirely in favor of using just phone.
Can’t do that if you play games.
Also that’s half of the reason Windows hasn’t lost the war on home desktop PCs yet. Another half is office applications.
Actually, these are thirds.
Another reason making me say so is that no major user-friendly distribution wants to be just that, they all have a particular madness with no good reason for it.
So I don’t know what to recommend, there should be something off the top of my head, but that’d be “just install Debian, it’s fine”.
So, any single reason of these going away would accelerate Linux adoption notably. Any two would make it a trend visible to housewives. And all three would resemble the flight of ICQ users to Skype.
Can’t do that if you play games.
I recently been arguing with some dude about some PUBG mechanics. It took me quite some time to realize that he was playing PUBG mobile, never played the PC version or even knew that it even existed for that matter. For him, PUBG simply meant PUBG mobile. For those people, they don’t even consider using PC for gaming. They might consider console, but PC to them is just more or less a typewriter for school/office tasks.
I’ve been thinking for some time what to answer and concluded that the normie world is a world of pain.
We - as in FOSS OS users and FOSS paradigm users - desperately need open hardware, so that the rest of the industry could eat all the rubber dicks they want without affecting us significantly.
And I mean not only hardware design, but fabs.
It may seem an impossible future, with semiconductor deficit etc, and Taiwan being that important.
And with starting a fab being so expensive.
Still, they only way a conclusive FOSS victory resulting in even balance happens is if there is a public fab producing general-purpose hardware with public design.
Because right now lots of resources are being wasted on catching up in inherently disadvantageous areas, like supporting proprietary hardware which is always harder for FOSS developers than for MS or Apple.
Without full-chain FOSS hardware production it’ll always be bare survival.
What’s Ubuntu’s “particular madness”? They used to be a little FOSS-only, but they’ve chilled out on that.
I agree on the other points, though, with one caveat on both.
No matter how many games run on linux, it won’t be enough because there aren’t ever going to be linux exclusives. Without linux exclusives, there will always be more games that run in Windows than Linux, even if the majority of them run in linux AND run better than in Windows.
Office sounds like a big deal, but Apple managed to prove you don’t need it. The real problem Linux has with office is that it has no well-marketed office suite. There’s nothing wrong with Libre- or Open- except the complete lack of advertising and passive training to its nuances that we get from MS and Apple office products.
It’s not that linux can’t win on games or office. It’s that the game is rigged against it on both. It took me a few years back in the early 00’s, but I quickly realized that there will never be a “year of the linux desktop” regardless of how good Linux gets at games, office, user-friendliness, or anything.
And that’s ok because MY life is easier when I use linux.
What’s Ubuntu’s “particular madness”?
I remember that it does too much, but without specifics. It’s been 4+ years since I touched Ubuntu.
They used to be a little FOSS-only
I vaguely remember that “Amazon lens” for Unity, I don’t think they ever were that much FOSS-only.
No matter how many games run on linux, it won’t be enough because there aren’t ever going to be linux exclusives.
It’s fine. That’d still be goal fulfilled.
Office sounds like a big deal, but Apple managed to prove you don’t need it.
How so?
There’s nothing wrong with Libre- or Open- except the complete lack of advertising and passive training to its nuances that we get from MS and Apple office products.
I recently had a problem with LO, while editing a document with lots of math formulae - from time to time while adding a formula about half of others (in the whole document) would just become empty.
Not sure something like that would happen under Apple suite’s analog of Word, whatever it’s called.
It’s not that linux can’t win on games or office. It’s that the game is rigged against it on both.
With that I agree, somewhere in 2012 I somehow realized that it’s already much better than the alternatives, and yes, for a housewife’s desktop just as well, if one’s honest and thinks of their own needs.
And if one’s comparing it to advertising of the competing commercial products, then it’s hopeless.
Okay, I guess I’ll say it. Year of Linux Desktop!
Next year is the year of IPv6!
which one?
What a great news.
it would be very interesting also the kids had some aknowledge on school about linux, besides windows. Would be open mind to get new apprentices. Besides that, for the normal human being/worker, who only uses PC for internet and office, linux can be taken into account, since it is open source.
I know linux is harder to learn than windows for an average joe, but I guess teaching kids with two OS (windows and linux) give to them more capacity too choose and give them more software/hardware skills
(Im not using linux rn just because imo windows is more stable to edit videos, but in the future, is probably to return to the pinguin)
(Sry about my bad english)
No need to apologize for your English ability.
I have been trying to start a community here where people can ask English questions.
I can see a few mistakes with your grammar and I would be happy to help or answer any questions you may have.
Thats class! Ty for the reply and your help. Sometimes I use translator apps/sites, but I know is not too accurate and I do some corrections (I guess?! Ahah) from these apps/sites. And yeah, other times i just write without any help.
My problem is with grammar plus I dont have too much vocabulary too understand certain things. But, one more time , ty for your help, appreciated a lot!
This is very good. The higher those numbers go, the more pressure there will be for better official support for both HW and SW.
FOSS is fantastic. But lack of options (FOSS or paid) for a few of my use cases keeps me stapled to Windows and WSL. Unfortunately. I’m hoping the momentum shifts.
FOSS or paid
I hope you know the difference between Free(Libre) and Free(gratis)
I suppose what I mean is that i am happy to select whatever software is best for the task at hand. I have no issue with paying for software if it serves my needs. In a few cases, that limits my options to running windows as commercial versions are unavailable on Linux, and it is my hope that more commercial orgs start making their wares available for Linux, especially in cases where there’s no available alternative.
As for splitting hairs on the difference between gratis and libre, life’s too short (so if I used incorrect terminology, c’est la vie…)
I guess you don’t know its difference.
Free software means freedom and not the price. There are paid free software.
By defenition, free software is software that satisfy 4 essential freedoms
Freedom 0: Freedom to run the program any way you want on any of your devices
Freedom 1: To see and study how the program works and change it according to your needs. Source code of the entire program should be visible for this freedom
Freedom 2: Freedom to share copies of the original program(sharing is caring)
Freedom 3: Freedom to share copies of the modified version which you adapted to your needs such that whole community can benefit from your modifications
So yeah this is Free software, and when you say FOSS, its not about the price, but the freedom and control you get with the software. Why is this important? Because theese non-free softwares are taking away our freedom by even limiting “us” from using our “own” devices(DRM, locked bootloader, etc.), and it will be too late to realise how most proprietary softwares we use, and ones we are forced to use, captures our freedom.
When I was part of the KDE marketing working group, we always talked about 5% being the magic number. If we hit that, then the avalanche of ported and supported third party software starts. It’s a weird chicken and egg thing. Looks like we’re close!
This is the year I’m porting my family to Linux. Starting this summer!
Just made the switch at the end of December alongside making my new PC. Feels very refreshing to actually be in control of my own computer. I’ve barely run into any issues gaming either, which is a welcome surprise - Proton remains one of the best things Valve has ever done.
2024 YEAR OF THE LINUX DESKTOP
Nice, at this pace we’ll reach 50% in less than 50 years!
I know it’s a joke, but if linux keeps growing steadly, without saturating, it can reach a point in which it breaks the “I don’t use it because no one else does/ I don’t use it because my software isn’t supported” barrier and start to grow exponentially.
I’m one of the converts. Didn’t like Windows 11 at all, decided to try Ubuntu/Zorin before going back to 10 and ended up staying. I’ve tried various distros many times over the past ~15 years but it never felt “ready” to me until now.
The last few years have had great improvements. For any average user (like a kid or adult that just browses web, streams video, zoom calls, etc) there is no reason a Linux desktop can’t be their main system.
I’ve been really happy with fedora, specifically the KDE spin. Looks amazing and a lot of things just work.
My journey to Linux pretty much started with the reddit thing. I moved to Lemmy and started slowly eliminating corporations out of my life.
This but corps
Remember to include the android distro
I wouldn’t call that “desktop” Linux.
Chrome OS 2.42%
This one good enough to include?
Is the chrome OS not full-fledged? I used it once ten years ago. Seemed fine.
It’s a linux distro that relies on a proprietary JavaScript/web user space
I would only count the ones that aren’t locked down and you can get into the Linux kernel and root user.
That said the low specced laptops might as well be large size mobile phones.
I mean it’s a locked down gento system that now allows you to install popular open source software, and it’s linux-y enough to get businesses to be less linux-hostile in their software and webapps
Wowzer, ok, that’s seriously impressive though, like in 2022 I feel we were stuck at 2-2.5% and in 2023 we passed 3% for the first time and now we’re at almost 4??? That’s like DOUBLING the market share in a year
Steam Decks?
Would that show up in browser stats though?
Steam Deck is neat and all but I’ve never thought of it as anybody’s main browsing device.
idk about others but I do use my Steam Deck for web browsing quite heavily. It’s basically my laptop right now.
