Every two years, people get excited that maybe this will be the year of Linux! But when it comes to a traditional PC with a desktop Linux system such as Linux Mint, MX Linux or Ubuntu, the numbers remain tiny. According to StatCounter’s latest desktop market share figures, Linux reached 3.08%.
According to StatCounter, the Linux desktop has exceeded 3% market share. sjvn/StatCounter
It’s not bad, but it’s not good either. In comparison, StatCounter places Windows at 68.15%, MacOS in second place with 21.38%, and Chrome OS in third place with 4.15%. But at least Linux isn’t in last place. That honor goes to FreeBSD, with 0.01%.
It is true that Linux is widely used in certain groups, such as developers. For example, market research firm Statista finds that 45% of programmers use Linux.
Seems there are way more Chromebook users than “Linux” users
Still, I doubt even more than 3% of average users use a conventional Linux desktop.
StatCounter uses its own method to count desktop computers, web browsers, etc. The site calculates its “global stats based on over 5 billion page views per month, by people around the world on our over 1.5 million member sites.” That’s impressive, but while the company claims its numbers are “independent, unbiased statistics on internet usage trends,” we’re not sure exactly how it calculates its numbers.
Above all, I feel like there are a lot more Chromebook users than “Linux” users. For some reason, ChromeOS doesn’t show up very well in scans of desktop operating systems.
This 3% market share does not say everything about the importance that Linux
Chromebook sales figures tell a different story. In its analysis of the personal computing device market for 2020, research firm Canalys reported that the overall market for Chromebook sellers nearly quadrupled in size in 2020. Canalys Research Director Rushabh Doshi said: ” Demand for Chromebooks is exploding.” The Covid is at the origin of this leap.
Since then, according to research firm IDC, sales of Chromebooks have declined. Gartner also pointed out that PC sales are expected to decline in 2023. Despite this, according to Gartner’s calculations, ChromeOS’ market share still accounts for 6.8% of the global PC market in 2022.
So why aren’t they showing up in user stats? I do not know. In my opinion, many Chromebooks are billed as other operating systems using the Chrome web browser.
And then this 3% market share does not say everything about the importance that Linux has in the world of computers and servers.
96.3% of millions of top web servers run on Linux
First, 96.3% of the millions of top web servers run on Linux. Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc. work under Linux. The same goes for the cloud: Linux runs 90% of the cloud. Even Microsoft Azure users use Linux more than Windows Server. In other words, if you spend your day using web apps and services, congratulations, you are, like most people, a Linux user.
Another way to approach the question is: “Are you a Linux end user?”. In this case, ChromeOS, which is nothing but Linux with a Chrome browser interface, is one of them. This brings Linux usage on desktop computers to 7.23% according to StatCounter.
But, wait, I said “end user”, right? So Android, which is a mobile Linux distribution, matters too. According to this calculation, StatCounter now places the Linux family in the lead, far ahead of Windows, with a total of 44.98%! This is a significant number.
What is the difference ? We are no longer a PC-focused company. Two out of three people use smartphones today. It is therefore not surprising that StatCounter presents Android as the most popular operating system with 40.16%.
Source: “ZDNet.com”