I like that the line appears to take an exponential growth curve. Hopefully it will keep going. Microslop sure is helping right now.
I don't think it can keep going at an exponential pace, but I think we can pass 5% in Q2 maybe Q3, especially with Steam Machine
It must level off at some point, if anything for purely mathematical reasons. But the higher it gets before that happens the better.
Wrong, we're gonna blow right past the 100% marker and keep it going!! WOOOOO
🚀 800% here we goooo
To infinity and beyond!
The big players are driving this trend. Nvidia, Microsoft, Intel, etc are making the old status quo too expensive and obnoxious.
Adoption typically takes an s-shaped or sigmoid curve. A slow start, rapid growth, and then stagnation.
I'm curious whether gamers are going to pull Linux desktop into the mainstream. Discord is a good example. For many years only gamers knew what it was, now most of the users on aren't using it for gaming, and it has fundamentally changed the platform.
Yeah the unthinkable happened. One of my friends switched to Linux and I feel confident this is only the beginning. Microslop finally pushed one of my semi-normie friends to switch. 🎉
Seems kinda crazy to me that Windows is still so dominant after all the shitty stuff MS has done.
Up until more recently, all the shitty shit they did only affected people with more computer knowledge than how to open the browser and use google.
I think it affected more people than that, but the level of annoyance is way higher than ever with the average user these days for sure.
As someone who semi-recently made the jump (june) to linux, you need a lot of time to do it, even for something that would seem trivial to an experienced user like going to mint. Most people don't have the time to do something like that. New systems built by curious nerds will probably be where linux gets most of its new users. (so it's a shame no one can afford to build one)
I installed Mint on my 72 year old fathers new Thinkpad. He loves it and has had relatively few complaints.
I've installed Windows on thousands of machines and IMO, major Linux distros are usually easier to set up for home use but I say that having used both for a good amount of time, so my opinion is definitely biased compared to someone who doesn't really use computers.
I would argue though, where Linux really shines is old systems, much like the many that MS chose to drop support for in Windows 11. There's a pretty decent chance that the bullshit going on with RAM and drives might actually further drive Linux adoption as people try to get more out of their existing machines or old used\refurbished machines that they can actually afford (which Linux runs great on, unlike Windows).
Time will tell though...
It doesn't really matter which is easier to install because only a very small percentage of people are comfortable with installing an OS of any kind. The vast majority of people just keep whatever OS was pre-installed. 99% of the time that's Windows or MacOS.
Hopefully 2026 brings some more mainstream options to buy computers with Linux pre-installed. I think that's unlikely though, other than Steam OS for some handhelds and Valve's new hardware.
It would be great if Lenovo or Dell or others prominently featured Linux options to try to capitalize on all the Microsoft hate. I know they already sell some Ubuntu options but they aren't featured or advertised. I suspect they are afraid of pissing off Microsoft.
Dell definitely has an option for Ubuntu as a default install, but it's definitely not the norm. Not sure about Lenovo, but I can tell you Linux runs great on Thinkpads (my daily driver is a T14 with Cinnamon Mint).
Lenovo (as far as I'm aware) still has the Ubuntu deal going where you can order a new ThinkPad with Ubuntu pre installed
Only with certain models, sadly. Mine was not available with anything but W10 Pro, 3y ago. Zero support for Linux.
Also linux support for cellular models is atrocious, so I had to go with (k)ubuntu, even though I didn't want to. Even then, it was more difficult than it should have been (didn't work out of the box). Everything else worked fine on all distros and flavors I checked, but none else got the modem working (eventually).
But also, after that TP and then buying and returning two more (known cooling issues that Lenovo denies, and a custom build that they didn't activate or provide a key for W10 Pro!), they will have to give me a free, top-tier machine to potentially get me as a customer again. Cs was nice but everything else is a dumpster fire.
The TP is on its second battery too - the first was replaced after 6 weeks. I never left the house with it, and yet it went from 3h to 20m capacity in that amount of time. The replacement did the same thing...
Most users don't know how to enter a url any other way than to search for the site name and click on the most likely result.
I don't see those people installing Linux (or anything else, for that matter) any time soon.
If we all got together as a team and each put Linux and Steam on 5 old/cheap/e-waste/whatever PCs for the next survey we'd pump those numbers up to ~20% and freak Microsoft out.
Does Microsoft care about steam numbers?
The way they're going I don't think they even care about windows numbers
Windows won't turn around and go back to a simpler advertisement-free offline account model this decade. Core Windows developers may know that they're making things worse. Leadership won't care as long as they get temporary boosts in numbers for office, copilot, and OneDrive subscriptions
Amazing thing for open platform operating systems when Windows Phone failed (MS managed that like trash. It didn't have a chance)
The other thing too are the shareholders. It’s not enough to just make a profit, there has to be quarterly growth or it’s seen like a failure. Because the PC market is saturated, they have to switch from expanding user base to extracting more value from each user. This is where you get things like upsells for subscription-based services which continuously generate revenue from each user instead of just once (no more one-time license purchase), data harvesting, and ads that are carefully tuned for each user to maximize engagement and conversion rate.
I also suspect this is part of why Microsoft lets you use Windows without activating, even though they want you to (and will nag you to do so). Even if you never buy a license, there’s still ecosystem lock-in, data collection, ads, and future upsell potential. That’s just my thinking though. I haven’t personally used modern Windows (10/11) in over five years so I don’t know if it’s changed since.
They go for quarterly growth regardless of the, uh… tradeoffs it actually creates. There is no way Microsoft isn’t aware of the growing irritation from users, the backlash, and resistance to frivolous and aggressively added AI features, which makes the fact that they keep doubling down all the more baffling to us. While I know this is a broad oversimplification and I’m not hitting every point involved, I’m fairly sure the user base is not who they’re serving, they’re more interested in meeting market and shareholder expectations.
Keep in mind that I’m not an expert on the matter (not even close), I’ve just watched a few videos and articles to give me some sense of this sort of thing, so I am just speculating and thinking out loud. I am in no way defending what Microsoft is doing, and I’m glad I did that little lockdown-based experiment in 2020 to see if Linux really could replace Windows for me (it was a resounding success!!).
The primary customer that Microsoft serves now is the stockholder, not the individual user. They don't even have decent support for IT staff - which is bizarre because it'd be a great revenue source if it weren't such a joke.
This great and I hope to make it as a statistic in the round 😉
A friend I didn't expect said he was interested, but idk how willing he is to break free of Windows-brain. I am most certainly am willing to learn (just check out my comments history).
Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) 64 bit 1.72% +0.14%
🫡 Whoever caused this stat - I salute them!
These are people who do not tolerate any nonsense from their computer, but also aren't going to let anything get in the way of playing their games.
I did my part, at a gentle age of 48 i installed linux Mint.
You kids and your new fangled computers.
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