This post does examplefy what we’re seeing, a general indication of some swelling of momentum but I bet it’s still going to be from 2% to maybe 3 or 5% at most until Linux can fix a few things about the community, issues with install difficulty such as dual booting and other issues, and the technical knowledge barrier to entry until more distribution with hardware comes along. Although of course system 76 and steam deck are great moves in this direction they’re still relatively niche for now.
There will never be a “year of the Linux desktop” the same way that there has never been a “year of the Mac desktop”, it’s just a slow building of users over time anyway.
I think it's also maybe worth pointing out that "non-enthusiast desktop OS user" is a segment that is shrinking. A lot of the people that aren't going to Linux are just going to smartphones only rather than buy a new laptop for Win11.
Steam users represent well the pc gaming crowd, but they don’t represent well the majority of the mac or Linux user crowd, of course.
But you raise a good point that some users will stop using windows without ever picking up another desktop os at all. Not many that don’t already not use desktops, but some for sure.
I can’t upgrade to Windows 11. I simply can’t justify a major purchase (now a major major purchase) for a new machine for a downgraded OS. My wife would never allow it and I would hate myself for asking. If Microsoft doesn’t relent, I’ll have no other choice. I have to believe there are a great many in my shoes.
Your describing the impact Steam Deck is having without SteamOS being available to easily install on a custom built machine. The tipping point is going to come this year when people who are building new machines have the option to install Windows or SteamOS. A lot of people are going to pick SteamOS.
Sure, they’ll gain more of the gaming enthusiast segment for sure this way, and it will be a tipping point for those users. I just hope that there are ways beyond the gaming sphere to create converts though, as enthusiast gaming is still a smaller segment than people realise, and it will take a long time if this is only something people really consider with new builds, especially with today’s hardware prices! I wish I could run steamos myself reliably, but I get issues with my old nvidia pascal card still and it causes crashes for me on many games, so I can’t commit until I buy new hardware I don’t think.
PSA: Statcounter data is garbage, please stop referring to them.
This data is based on their own tracking solution customers, which is only about 0.3-0.6% of all websites (none of the big ones) and therefore highly self-selected.
Note that "unknown" is basically the inverse curve to Windows and has risen from 6 to 16% within the last year. In India, "unknown" has 55% market share. They don't give any explanation for this absolute failure of analytics, which is telling me that they really don't care at all.
There's no way to know within this context what "unknown" really is, but what I can tell you for sure is that any statistic based on this kind of data is absolutely useless.
I don't really like linking to X, but there's also this "comprehensive" snapshot involving several more sources (which might be self-selecting in their own ways...):
https://x.com/LundukeJournal/status/1999524735424823413
There will never be a “year of the Linux desktop” the same way that there has never been a “year of the Mac desktop”, it’s just a slow building of users over time anyway.