News Linux market share approaching 4.5% for first time, could hit 5% by 1Q25

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
TheSecondPower said:
Why the sudden rise? Does the Steam Deck make up like 90% of Linux devices?
Click to expand...
IIRC, SteamOS is based on Linux and that's what the Steam Deck runs on. So it's possible those numbers might help with Linux's market share numbers. Also Linux has become more popular as Linux distributions embrace those with limited knowledge of Linux. The average user can use Linux now for the basics.
 
  • Like
Reactions: chaz_music, slightnitpick and spiffyshoes
TheSecondPower said:
Why the sudden rise? Does the Steam Deck make up like 90% of Linux devices?
Click to expand...
I not sure if sudden rise is the term. I would use. It has been gaining about 1% every year since the steam deck came out. I was one of the people who switched. I had always avoided switching because of lack of gaming support. Steam the app now runs very well on Linux desktop and Linux has gotten easier to use. I use my computer to game, 3d print, and surf the web and it does these things very well for me. Obviously 4.5% is still a tiny market share. Look forward to when Cosmic Desktop becomes stable.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Grobe, TheSecondPower and slightnitpick
  • Like
Reactions: chaz_music
If most of that growth is the Steam Deck, then about half of the Linux market is for gamers. And probably half of the Windows market isn't. And developers that don't want to support 2 platforms are avoiding the 15% of the market that has MacOS, so that 4.5% is more like 6% of the available make market. Most games just work on the Steam Deck. For the rest, it's likely that a small change could translate into around 6% more revenue. That's potentially a big deal.

I suspect most of that market is controller-friendly games. So if you're making a controller game, then targetting Linux will be more lucrative, whereas mouse and keyboard games will be less.
 
  • Like
Reactions: slightnitpick
Between Pop using Steam, Gog and Heroic I have yet to find a game that wont run. Just don't use flatpack steam install.
 
From my experience, this is both Windows 11 messing around too much and Linux desktop has reached minimal viability for new hardware in the recent years. I used to have 4 Windows PCs and now I only have just one for VR and gaming. All others are converted to Ubuntu or Fedora.

Most of people are probably familiar with all the negative issues on Windows 11, so I will just provide some context on Linux desktop improvement over the years.

One major trend is that a lot of apps used to be native to OS have now moved to Web. This removed a lot of obstacles to switching the OS. The more time one spends in the browser, the easier it is to get over with the other changes when switching OS. Even for native apps, a lot of framework is now cross-platform, making it easy to port if necessary. Smartphone apps actually helped too to provide an alternative when one occasionally uses a non-web service that doesn't support Linux.

Then the hardware support has dramatically improved, to the point that when I upgraded to Zen 4, only Linux worked out of box. I needed to manually install the NIC driver for Windows 11's latest ISO. This is unthinkable years ago. With the OSS Nvidia kernel driver becoming the default, the last major obstacle of good out-of-box graphics and UI experience will soon be removed too.

Valve/AMD's work to bring Linux graphics and gaming into decent shape is paying off a lot. I still occasionally play games on Linux outside the main Windows gaming rig, and a lot of games just work even though they don't advertise Linux compatibility. This is what enabled me to convert most PCs to Linux. I still can't play specific games, and thus I need to leave one PC on Windows.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: ezst036, TheSecondPower, stonecarver and 1 other person
wujj123456 said:
One major trend is that a lot of apps used to be native to OS have now moved to Web. This removed a lot of obstacles to switching the OS. The more time one spends in the browser, the easier it is to get over with the other changes when switching OS.
Click to expand...
Is it inertia that has people sticking with Windows? That "one app"? The fact that you still have to go a bit out of your way to get a pre-built PC or laptop without Windows? The fact that when a person buys a new computer it comes with Windows pre-installed, while switching to Linux would require installing the OS yourself?

Has anyone looked into this?
 
  • Like
Reactions: wujj123456
slightnitpick said:
Is it inertia that has people sticking with Windows? That "one app"? The fact that you still have to go a bit out of your way to get a pre-built PC or laptop without Windows? The fact that when a person buys a new computer it comes with Windows pre-installed, while switching to Linux would require installing the OS yourself?

Has anyone looked into this?
Click to expand...
The "one app" situation is definitly true. These trends is helping to reduce such situation.

I doubt the pre-install is a meaningful factor though. If one hasn't used Linux before and doesn't know how to install it to try, they likely won't risk buying something may not satisify their need. OEMs won't risk a high return rate to push it either.

Linux pre-builts are probably bought like Chromebooks. The major customers are corporations or organization that can test their workload first before buying in volume. My company deploys a different image right away but need the OEM guarantee that their hardware is compatible and supported. I haven't heard anyone buying a Chromebook or Linux pre-installation for personal use without having experience with it somewhere else first. However, once you know what you want, a pre-installed Windows isn't going to stop you at all.

Edit: Should clarify that I don't mean pre-installation is not helpful. I just don't think it's a conversion mechanism. However, more pre-installations are still good because that's effectively a compatibility certification. So long as organizations are buying them, it will make OEMs source more Linux-friendly parts because of economy of scale, and ultimately improve hardware compatibility for Linux on the market.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: slightnitpick
A lot of not-techy users still have some uncommon use case for Windows. Maybe an old printer, a favorite photo manager, or a favorite game. And anyone might run across a new application which the person would like to use which only works on Windows. And if a key application is missing on Windows or MacOS, Microsoft or Apple will make it. No one in Linux has the money and financial incentive to do the same. PopOS has limited resources and Canonical and Red Hat are focused on servers. Valve has actually done a lot of heavy lifting on that front, probably because the proliferation of app stores looked to Valve like writing on the wall.

But while I recommend Linux a lot I can't wholeheartedly recommend it because I don't know everything the person needs it for. And nearly every resource on computers just assumes that you have Windows or MacOS, which can make getting help harder.

Lastly, what is Linux? PopOS? Linux Mint? Ubuntu? Arch? Manjaro? The number of choices with Linux is itself a hindrance to adoption.
 
  • Like
Reactions: adamboy64
slightnitpick said:
Is it inertia that has people sticking with Windows? That "one app"? The fact that you still have to go a bit out of your way to get a pre-built PC or laptop without Windows? The fact that when a person buys a new computer it comes with Windows pre-installed, while switching to Linux would require installing the OS yourself?

Has anyone looked into this?
Click to expand...
For me it was Outlook - I've tried loads of linux apps for mail, but if you have at least one Exchange + multiple other accounts getting 300+ emails a day, Outlook (was) the best by a very long way. My newest work is O365 based, so being able to run Edge at least once to get my profile / shortcuts across would be useful, though my browser of choice on Windows and Android is Firefox, so no problems there.

Thanks to the 365 app version of Outlook now being extremely buggy (2019 was the last good version) and the web version being okayish, that key work obstacle is removed. I may try Debian (I've used Red Hat and Debian as servers for over 20 years) as a desktop again and look into gaming more. Steam is great, but if I can also run GoG, Epic, Battle.net etc, then it may well be time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: slightnitpick
TheSecondPower said:
A lot of not-techy users still have some uncommon use case for Windows. Maybe an old printer, a favorite photo manager, or a favorite game. And anyone might run across a new application which the person would like to use which only works on Windows. And if a key application is missing on Windows or MacOS, Microsoft or Apple will make it. No one in Linux has the money and financial incentive to do the same. PopOS has limited resources and Canonical and Red Hat are focused on servers. Valve has actually done a lot of heavy lifting on that front, probably because the proliferation of app stores looked to Valve like writing on the wall.

But while I recommend Linux a lot I can't wholeheartedly recommend it because I don't know everything the person needs it for. And nearly every resource on computers just assumes that you have Windows or MacOS, which can make getting help harder.

Lastly, what is Linux? PopOS? Linux Mint? Ubuntu? Arch? Manjaro? The number of choices with Linux is itself a hindrance to adoption.
Click to expand...
An old printer is more likely to work on Linux than on Windows, actually - I know my old Epson AL-M2000 is a pain to make work properly on Windows (10 or 11) while it's a breeze on Linux. The only problem I have is that its admin panel needs browser-supported Java to show all its functionalities, and there it was easier installing XP in a VM (for all the good it did).
As for who needs it : ask them what they use their PC for. The elderly ? Emails, chat with their grandkids, listen to the odd CD - Linux does it very well. In France the owner of a small company migrated to Ubuntu 15 years ago because he could use Grisbi (a French accounting software) for this accounting, and he was happy as a clam with it. Maintenance ? Once every 4 years I migrate him to the latest LTS.
And, frankly, for first use, you only have one question to ask yourself : do you want it very simple, or well documented ? The former means Mint, the latter means Ubuntu. The others ? Only if the user isn't 100% satisfied with the first two.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Grobe, slightnitpick and anon9361
kyzarvs said:
For me it was Outlook - I've tried loads of linux apps for mail, but if you have at least one Exchange + multiple other accounts getting 300+ emails a day, Outlook (was) the best by a very long way. My newest work is O365 based, so being able to run Edge at least once to get my profile / shortcuts across would be useful, though my browser of choice on Windows and Android is Firefox, so no problems there.

Thanks to the 365 app version of Outlook now being extremely buggy (2019 was the last good version) and the web version being okayish, that key work obstacle is removed. I may try Debian (I've used Red Hat and Debian as servers for over 20 years) as a desktop again and look into gaming more. Steam is great, but if I can also run GoG, Epic, Battle.net etc, then it may well be time.
Click to expand...
Don't go the Debian road for a first daily desktop - use Ubuntu. Debian is GREAT once you've gotten used to using a Linux distro as a daily, but it's really REALLY bare... Once you've determined what are the apps you use most and what are their best settings, THEN you can take your /home/<user> directory, and copy it wholesome to your Debian desktop that you'll tailor exactly the way you want it. And then, it's TERRIFIC.
You can use other user-friendly distros, but if you want to ultimately go Debian, I really recommend you try one that's "Debian with training wheels" first.
This is also better if you run Lutris, as it's really efficient at supporting often-used platforms like GOG etc. you don't have to tinker much to install and run your games, as all the tinkering has been scripted by others - choose your game, choose your script, run it, done. It's not 100% fool-proof (Blizzard client can be annoying), but it does work better than installing Wine (or standalone Proton) by yourself and setting it up for each game.
 
Last edited:
coolitic said:
Why do you find them to be suspicious?
Click to expand...
Why did Windows go up several percentage points between November and December 2023? Why are there so many "unknown" OS devices (more than Linux)?

These are a couple of main questions, which alongside with the usual problems with these kinds of stats make this suspect for me. With the Steam survey I at least know that it's a biased sample, and I know that the language statistics for the month can shed some light on the changes. Here I have no idea what the methodology is at all, which makes it generally suspect.
 
I made the switch to Linux two weeks ago with zero prior Linux experience (used Windows for my entire life). I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything, and the most common complaints I see online (like bad compatibility with games and the need to learn terminal commands) aren't true.

I feel like now is the time where more privacy or performance minded individuals will consider switching, but widespread consumer adoption won't happen until more large OEM's are willing to preinstall Linux on their machines.
 
  • Like
Reactions: coolitic, slightnitpick and ezst036
anon9361 said:
I made the switch to Linux two weeks ago with zero prior Linux experience (used Windows for my entire life). I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything, and the most common complaints I see online (like bad compatibility with games and the need to learn terminal commands) aren't true.

I feel like now is the time where more privacy or performance minded individuals will consider switching, but widespread consumer adoption won't happen until more large OEM's are willing to preinstall Linux on their machines.
Click to expand...
Small note : bad [Linux] compatibility with games isn't true ANYMORE. And that's while it's getting harder to run your old games on Windows 11.
However, 7 years ago it sure as heck was a PITA.
 
  • Like
Reactions: coolitic, anon9361 and slightnitpick
slightnitpick said:
Yes. I "need" to know as many terminal commands as I "need" to know command.com commands. Which is basically none, though ls and cd can be useful.
Click to expand...
A command line is a tool. It's merely potentially more powerful on Linux than on Windows, but if you only use it for basic files-related tasks, that's good for you too.
Personally I like having htop and radeontop running in terminals, as they're far lighter resource-wise than many GUI softwares that do the same thing.
 
mitch074 said:
Small note : bad [Linux] compatibility with games isn't true ANYMORE. And that's while it's getting harder to run your old games on Windows 11.
However, 7 years ago it sure as heck was a PITA.
Click to expand...
Reputations tend to stick for a long time; it'll be interesting to see if it changes in the near future or not. Especially since in some benchmarks it looks like Proton is basically on par with or outperforming Windows 11....

This one is in German, but it's been quoted in other articles and Google Translate is a friend.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mitch074 and slightnitpick
mitch074 said:
A command line is a tool. It's merely potentially more powerful on Linux than on Windows, but if you only use it for basic files-related tasks, that's good for you too.
Personally I like having htop and radeontop running in terminals, as they're far lighter resource-wise than many GUI softwares that do the same thing.
Click to expand...
I was saying "need", not know. I like some other terminal features as well, but the point I and anon9361 are both agreeing on is that it had been a while since any terminal commands were required to use the more user friendly Linux distros as Windows substitutes.
 
  • Like
Reactions: anon9361 and mitch074
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom