Comment by Fade_Dance
2 months ago
I have literally never seen a Linux desktop in the wild. Speaking as a "normal" person who occasionally builds PCs for friends, fixes family computers, etc.
I have an old ThinkPad with Linux, but agreed, no way this can be true.
I installed Linux for my non-technial relatives and they happily browse the web and use LibreOffice.
I installed Ubuntu on my parents' PC back in 2014. Never had to reinstall, only had to upgrade to LTS every few years. The only problems I encountered were with nvidia drivers on update that had to be dealt with but nothing too insane. It's been used almost daily, only migrated to SSD at one point to speed it up. 18~ years old machine.
I'm not particularly surprised anymore to see Linux on people's laptops in public, usually while travelling (you don't usually see people using laptops in public much otherwise). That is mostly in Germany where I live. Linux is, of course, also very common in universities.
The article is on the US statistic though. If it was a global statistic it wouldn't surprise me at all.
When it comes to laptops, we have a lot of MacBooks out there, and an endless Sea of $400 low quality Lenovos and HPs eternally marching to the garbage bins.
Ultimately my observation is just anecdotal, but I have built a lot of computers for people worked on a lot of family PCS, etc, and have never once worked with a Linux system in that context in 25 years of doing that stuff. I'm not interacting with a tech oriented crowd though (obviously those people would be chatting about tech instead and I would never be touching their system). Perhaps the tech oriented crowd is big enough to hit 5%, or perhaps Linux gaming is moving the needle, but I can't imagine 1 in 20 system is Linux in the US. I just can't.
FWIW, statcounter is showing 5.49% for Germany - which seems more plausible to me than 5% for the US, but whatever.
20 years ago my kids were getting hand-me-down work laptops with Linux installed on them. Apart from their peers thinking that they must be in some kind of cult, it did the job of keeping them much safer from malware.
Linux has been very usable for a long time. Windows 11, being deliberately unusable on older hardware that works perfectly well is enough incentive for more people to try an alternative. That's not going to move the needle in corporate IT but it's enough for a couple percentage points of the installed base.
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My wife works at a Dutch company where they all run Ubuntu (mostly because they’re frugal)