You know, I do wonder how many of these statistics are influenced by Linux users tendancy to use adblockers and block tracking. Linux could be more popular than it looks.
Also, they should tell us how much of that increase is due to the Steam Deck. :P
Unfortunately, due to the constant willful or untested shenanigans of various website I have set up all my system’s Firefox profiles to spoof by default its user agent (and other JavaScript properties) as Windows 11, x86_64, Firefox LTS (even if I use latest, Aurora or beta). Some blantant recent example: YouTube uses lower quality options on browsers running on Arm-based systems — misreporting as an x86 CPU appears to be a widespread browser fix
Doing so has helped me and many friends/family I switched to a flavor of Linux (mostly Mint, but sometimes LMDE or Ubuntu or specific requirements/demands) avoid numerous dumb problems.
Even on mobile sometimes UX breaking issues creep up.
True, btw I am on Windows 10 Chrome 😉
Found the closet Arch user
An adblocker does not hide the os
I missed the “PornHub” in the corner at first. Maybe I won’t share this with colleagues…
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Agreed. PornHub is probably a pretty solid representation of all web traffic. --Todo: insert obvious joke here–.
Porn sites have been at the forefront of nearly all online content innovation.
That is true.
So what we can see is that Linux user watch 31% more porn?
I hate when people say “oh we had 100% growth!” Ignoring the fact they went from 4 to 8 clients. Meanwhile the one that only shows 0.5% growth considers 8 people a rounding error.
There’s liars, damn liars and statisticians.
Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1102/
Okay, so here’s some more easily interpreted numbers. In addition to having the largest change in traffic share relative to its previous share, Linux actually had the largest change in actual traffic share. It was just BARELY above Mac OS. If more significant digits were allowed here, Linux rose 0.0085 while Mac OS rose 0.0082.
OS 2023 Share 2022 Share Share Change Windows 0.632 0.647 -0.015 Mac OS 0.292 0.284 0.008 Linux 0.036 0.027 0.009 Chrome Book 0.029 0.026 0.003 Other 0.011 Unknown* 0.005* 2022 percentages computed as:
share_2022 = share_2023 / ( 1 + relative_percent_change )and percent change computed as:
absolute_percent_change = share_2023 - share_2022* The relative percent change for “other” is not reported in the graphic. There is a remainder of 0.005 in the Share Change which is, presumably, attributable to change in the “other” category.
Last year’s results
I just found last year’s results. It looks like my math bears out, though it appears that they rounded differently.
Notably, last year’s changes were very different.
OS 2022 Share 2021 Share Share Change Windows 0.647 0.646 0.001 Mac OS 0.284 0.273 0.011 Linux 0.028 0.028 0.000** Chrome Book 0.025 0.025 0.000** Other 0.011 Unknown*** 0.015*** ** Linux and Chrome Book’s absolute change was less than 0.0005.
*** As with 2023, the percentage change for “other” is not reported in the graphic. There is a remainder of 0.012 in the Share Change which is, presumably, attributable to change in the “other” category. This seems large, though, given that the total traffic share for “other” is only 0.016. That would imply a change from 0.001 to 0.012. Looking at the 2021 numbers this doesn’t appear to be correct.
I hate when people respond to a post with a little anecdote that is completely irrelevant to the original post.
I’ll feed the troll… it’s very relevant with the bottom part of the graphic. It’s touting that it’s got the biggest increase of traffic change at ~32%, however overall it still only has a 3.2% share. That ties in exactly what what I’m stating and the xkcd that was posted too. There was nothing anecdotal or that was irrelevant in my post.
Ignoring the fact they went from 4 to 8 clients.
You think the 3.2% is on the order of single digits of machines? You think 3.2% market share is 8 people?
Obviously you don’t. It’s 10s of thousands of machines and you exaggerated the actual situation so far it no longer made any sense.
Is it that Linux is getting popular, or that most people don’t buy new computers anymore now that their phone does everything they used it for, so it’s only the enthusiasts still buying?
That’s an interesting thought. I’ve wondered this about Chrome’s market share in browsers too. How much of it is just that so much traffic is now from phones where, even if you have another browser installed, apps open links in embedded Chrome web views.
Do we really want to be bigger anyway? I kind of like where Linux as a desktop isn’t really big enough for all the scammers and malware makers to care.
(And I know it’s huge for servers and malware also targets that, but they are usually maintained by professionals, not your parents that would probably run every shell script they are offered as help)
If Linux would become the biggest desktop os you are going to find so much more bad advice whenever searching for help online. I wonder if the nice people we have now are really ready for when the terrible people invade the community.
Do we really want to be bigger anyway?
YES. It needs more market share to influence companies financially to make products for it.
It’s truly starting to make inroads recently, but it still has a ways to go.
I kind of like where Linux as a desktop isn’t really big enough for all the scammers and malware makers to care.
It’s also not big enough for gaming companies to truly care, unfortunately.
Thankfully valve does, linux gaming’s gotten to a really great state in the last few years.
Perhaps a little lesd nice for those of us already using linux, but definitely better for the majority of people for getting less scammed by big corps. But one plus for us would be better support for apps and games that are still mostly or exclusively on other OSes.
Yeah kind of partially agree but not entirely sure what to say man. I’ve had my windows machine and my Linux box hacked in the past, didn’t do much besides ruin my ability to do my homework and general productivity, so I can’t say much.
I would prefer there to be more actual meaningful stuff out there for there to be hacked and or made different but a lot of the time almost all complex systems compound into or towards static failure, just look at the USA with being a military hegemony like Sparta or China slowly running out of people to sell junk to, the big oil companies slowly trying to micromanage the shift to renewables, people that believe in conformity, confucianism and “the myth of stability” ironically usually slow down all of societies progress rather than supporting an actual stable diffusion of change
So many distros, getting bigger overall with maybe one popular linux distro doesnt have the issue when there are so alternatives.
.2 to 3.6%
itshappening.gif
Literally all Steam Decks
Praise Gaben
That is what we like to call a “gateway drug”, first they try out an Android, then “just a taste” of Steam Deck, and next thing you know they’re installing arch btw on their grandparents’ computers
Next thing you know they are looking at packages compile in Gentoo on a Friday night.
Next thing Gentoo is too easy so they spend a week setting up Linux From Scratch
Year of the Steamdeck. Praise Gaben!
Nah, it was all me. All of it.
Just found another PC in the dump and installed Linux on it. That makes 1,984
Dozens of us! Dozens!
Unless the number of GNU/Linux maintainers also matches the growing userbase, we’re heading towards a world of pain.
Devs overrun by unhelpful bug reports, scammers and malware abound, forums stretched beyond capacity by the exact same queries.
If PC Linux can be monetized, it will be.
Linux is cumming my friends. 🥳
I’m actually looking into buying a new laptop and seriously considering choosing some Linux distro as my new OS (I’ve always used Windows before, and Mac once for work)
How do y’all recommend which laptop I should choose?
Whatever you do, pick one that ships with Linux or is at least explicitly marked as compatible.
You do not want the headache of having a laptop with this one component that genuinely doesn’t work properly. Most will work, but for example fingerprint scanners are a very touchy subject. My freakin battery is not properly recognized by anything that isn’t Windows. It’s stupid, some just don’t care about existing, well defined, open standards.
Personally I’d go with a Framework laptop. Otherwise Tuxedo or System76 might have something you like.
Tuxedo is great. Beautiful devices. I’ve been asked about this ramdomly 2-3 times by people along the lines of “wow, that’s a nice laptop, where did you get that?”. Component upgrades also at decent prices.
Linux compatibility though… Good, if you use one of their preinstalled/supported options, but can be a pain otherwise. I installed debian and still haven’t figured out all problems with sleep/hibernation mode. The tool they offer is some bloaty node js crap that doesn’t work well.
Other than that, I think if you buy any laptop that is maybe 2 years old you should be good. Best way to check is maybe to Google the model + Linux and see how others experienced it.
I just preordered a Framework 16 inch because their concept is amazing and early reviews are pretty good. It’s a laptop where every part is replaceable and upgradable. You can replace/upgrade the motherboard/CPU, RAM, NVMe storage, keyboard, display, etc. all yourself, and they sell the parts separately. Even the ports on the sides are swappable - you can choose to make them all USB-C ports, or make any of them USB-A, 3.5mm audio, 2.5Gbps Ethernet, DisplayPort, HDMI, MicroSD reader, etc.
They have a 13 inch version that’s already shipping today… The 16 inch is a preorder to ship Q2 2024. Their newer ones use an AMD CPU and AMD graphics which should work better on Linux than Nvidia graphics.
More expensive than a regular laptop company though… They don’t have the scale that Dell, Lenovo, etc have so parts are more expensive for them (plus large R&D costs).
I’ve been happy with every thinkpad I’ve put Mint on.
Look at the refurbished ones on ebay
Get a Slimbook. They’re good laptops, and they let you choose which Linux distro is installed out the box.
There’s even a KDE version if their Plasma desktop environment is your cup of tea.
Or get the kde version and install another kde distribution, just to show them.
I’ve been using MainGear laptops for about 15 years now. It’ll come with Windows and I’ve either dual booted or just wiped it to install Linux everytime. Great prices for what you get hardware wise. My first laptop I bought from them is still running and in use. Never had an issue with Linux running the hardware. But prior to them almost every laptop I had I had issues all from the bigger makers.
2024 will be the year of the GNU/Linux desktop!
As will be every year after that
If you combined the ages of my children it still wouldn’t be enough time to the first time I heard this.
Because of your newborn twins, right?
