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Linux desktop use spikes to over 10% in North America for the first time. There is also a corresponding drop in Windows and OSX use. (thelemmy.club)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/north-america/#monthly-200901-202607

https://radar.cloudflare.com/explorer?dataSet=http&groupBy=os&dt=28d&loc=north-america&filters=deviceType%253DDESKTOP

Cloudflare stats also seem to support peaks of 15% usage but around 9-10% on average. In the United States alone, the market share for Linux is nearly 12% now for the whole month and Cloudflare stats suggest peaks of up to 25% (!) Linux desktop usage on certain days and times.

The trendline suggests this is just the start. When will companies realize they cannot ignore Linux anymore?

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[–] 43 points 2 months ago (14 children)

Honestly, at this point I don't think Microsoft cares about Windows all that much. They make their money elsewhere, and even the control offered by owning the OS can't be counted on, as the Internet Explorer wars showed.

At the same time, think about the weird coincidence that Windows 11 requires so much extra hardware firepower at the same time as said hardware firepower has become stupid expensive thanks to the same AI the company is pushing.

They made it unaffordable to run Windows 11, and that's how we get the Year of Linux on the Desktop?

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  • [–] 34 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    I've been saying this since the release of WSL, but Microsoft has everything to gain from switching to the Linux kernel. Even back then senior devs were being laid off, and quality kept backsliding.

    Fiscally, why would they want to maintain a whole ass kernel and OS layer when they could probably get away with some sort of custom Atomic Fedora distro?

    It's only exacerbated by AI slop now. Their NT team will continue to shrink, and they'll be left with no other options.

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  • [–] 21 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    They also gave up really quick on mandating Windows Server on Azure and are now mightily happy to offer the latest and greatest Linux versions. I think you are onto something there: if it weren't for compatibility, it would be so much cheaper for Microsoft to just use the Linux kernel.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago

    I seriously predict them contributing to wine, or at least making their own fork. Because their strategy is almost completely OS agnostic at this point. Even offering Dot Net Core on Linux natively.

    How easy would it be for them? "Hey Copilot, convert these NT calls to Linux Calls" and your done.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    I've said before, I expect we'll see a future Windows release that's just a Linux distro with a heavily proprietary userland. The more they can foist off to other projects and foundations for free volunteer labor the less they have to do in-house which is of course expensive

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    "The last capitalist will sell us the rope with which we hang him" ass energy

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    Right? Windows gives MS enormous market power beyond the desktop license revenue. At the same time there's obvious cost savings to be had by outsourcing the OS. What is the capitalist to do facing this conradiction... 🤭

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  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    They make their money elsewhere

    They make a lot of money on Office365, which doesn't work on Linux without WINE. With people switching to Linux, they're going to start switching to LibreOffice and OpenOffice, killing one of MS's cash cows.

    Of course, I don't expect C-suite execs to be capable of thinking that far ahead

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Doesn't the office suite still have web versions available? I had to use Windows & Office a few years back. I strongly disliked the weird animated cursor and didn't bother to dive into the settings, so I switched to the web version. It should apparently have been "worse than the app", but it didn't have the horrible cursor and it worked on Linux with Firefox as well.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    To be fair they released 11 before the latest price surges, might have been during the graphics cards price hikes though, can't remember when that happened.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Very true, but they also caused some of the price hikes with their Copilot push, no?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    Also true, yes. I guess we can agree that Microsoft sucks lol. But seriously, what Microsoft division is actually doing good things? Windows is bad, xbox is horrible, corporate tools like teams are widely hated... What, their azure thing is doing okay I guess?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago*

    They made it unaffordable to run Windows 11, and that’s how we get the Year of Linux on the Desktop?

    Of course. No matter how good not-windows-operating-system is, only people interested, capable and willing to make the switch will migrate on their own. Others will wait until it becomes unbearable to stay or for someone to do it for them (pre-installs when a new computer is bought)

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