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  • Hacker News
  • > However, the sharp monthly increase needs context. Statcounter’s June figures included an “Unknown” category that accounted for 9.24% of North American desktop usage. Its reduction seems to have coincided with Linux’s rise, possibly indicating better identification of previously unclassified traffic.

    Still good news for those wanting to see broader Linux adoption, but the news really is the usage was correctly recognized as Linux for the first time.

    by marklar423
  • For sure Linux ecosystem will dominate over Windows if things remain as now. The question is when: in 5 or 15 years. There are so many reasons:

    - high hardware prices push people to keep their 5-10 y-o PC that crawl under updated Windows versions

    - stupid Windows practices, like ads and updates, that make people feel, well, stupid

    - improvement of Linux distro support, mainly due to instant help by LLMs

    - a series of other goodies, like games on Steam, practically non-existent malware, strong security, lack of privacy invasion and the most important: legally FREE.

    At about 30-35% market share there will be a tipping that will accelerate the adoption through support by big corps, mild monetization and by being just a "sexy compute".

    by tsoukase
  • Why is all windows lumped into one but Mac OS's separated. As well as linuc and chrome os?
    by skeater15
  • Discussion from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49140696
    by wmf
  • Though that was flagged. Perhaps due to being hosted on Reddit and shenanigans there.
    by dredmorbius
  • Their source is StatCounter. I would trust the trends but not their absolute values. This month, Steam reported an increase to 4.01% while Cloudflare's human activity reports ~6%.
    by abhinavk
  • Even the trends should be taken with caution. By the very nature of their collection methodology and Firefox’s user base, they massively undercount Firefox (almost certainly by more than 30%, from the last estimates I remember; and possibly significantly more). I would expect them to heavily undercount Linux for similar reasons.
    by chrismorgan
  • A big shift I've noticed in the past few years is how much Windows is increasingly a second-class citizen for developer focused things.

    Increasingly you'll see a new tool or library or language, and there'll be installation instructions for everything except windows.

    Or Windows will be "supported" but when you go to run the tests they just don't work.

    Development has often been more Linux friendly, but it was rarely the case that Windows got completely ignored.

    by eterm
  • Rightfully so, I think. I’m on a mixed team - Mac, Windows, Linux targeting web; the issues the Windows users have just getting the computer to work are astonishing. I don’t think it is the corporate spyware because my Mac also has corporate spyware.

    Windows is just a profoundly awful development environment. So bad they think “run everything in a Linux VM” is a good answer, despite all the performance footguns and complexities it raises.

    If you choose to run windows for development, it’s either because you were forced to (e.g. building WPF full time) or you are deliberately choosing a painful rake-filled path.

    Not to mention for ~5 of the past 6 years it has simply been impossible to get a good Windows laptop given where Mac set the bar for good.

    by nxc18
  • I've been using Linux on/off since the late 90s. And now, both my mini-PC and my laptop are running Fedora, and I swear by them.

    So as much as I want to believe that others share my taste, I'm not sure how to interpret the two statistics in this article.

    Sadly, I'd lean towards this article's attribution:

    "Cloudflare’s unfiltered figures may include automated requests unless human traffic is classified. This is especially relevant to Linux, widely used for servers, automation, development environments, and headless browser workloads"

    I suspect many people are running AI agents on cloud servers, which are most likely running Linux, and many of those agents are browsing the web. That's more likely what is driving this adoption. That, and as the article points out, more accurate OS classification on the part of StatCounter (from unknown to "Linux"), especially if its over the span of 1 month.

    by mikebelanger
  • This article is just a rehash of the following source.

    https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/north-ame...

    I don't know what their methodology is but it's hard to take their findings seriously when it shows windows dropping over five percentage points between may and June, or when Linux almost doubled during the same time period, or when it shows an "OS X" spike in October 2025, or when it has OS X and macOS on the same graph…

    by pibaker
  • Great move by Microsoft to spur Linux adoption by making Windows 11 installable only on the “latest and greatest” hardware. I have a T460p which is still perfectly fine for most office use and gaming and has 32 GB of RAM, a TPM 2.0 and a quad core CPU but because that CPU is not on Microsoft’s list I can only install Windows 11 through some shady hacks.

    I guess especially now as new hardware skyrockets in price people think twice before buying a new rig just so they can update Windows, Linux starts to look really good for these folks.

    by throwaway63467
  • We developed Linux with 1st class support for our desktop app. It was extremely painful due to missing some Webview functionality that is available for both MacOS and Windows, so we're maintaining an entire 2nd branch of UI code to run CEF instead. One of our developers is 24/7 on Linux and basically just fixes Linux bugs, and even they need a couple VMs to try out random (especially old) distros and DEs to make sure it all works.

    Anyways, I'm saying this because we expected ~1% Linux users, but we needed something to stand out against our competitors. I just pulled our latest data, and 7.5% of our paying users are on Linux.

    by OsrsNeedsf2P
  • What business domain is the software?
    by 0cf8612b2e1e
  • I think a lot of companies dont realize how little support linux users get from corporations. If a company chooses to support linux they are likely the only one in whatever space they operate in, and while the linux user share is small being the only one means you can capture that entire share and your only real competition is open source volunteers if such a solution even exists.

    I understand that linux is a pain when it comes to packaging and platform targeting but if a company is willing to work with the community then a whole lot of that work can actually be handled by volunteers who just want to get the thing working on their own system.

    Not to mention that linux users tend to be technical users who share good software with each other when they find it so you can release something and get volunteer help to support niche edge cases and you can get free marketing and you can get an untapped user base all to yourself. While the big tech startups are willing to burn billions to gain users/market share, any company can gain the majority of linux users just with a small amount of support.

    Im just surprised more companies dont want to get in right now while they can dominate the space. If they wait until everyone is on linux and every company supports it then they dont get any of the above benefits and it will be the same amount if not even more work to support linux since the volunteers will be spread out across multiple companies instead of the first/only one willing to support linux.

    by imthatsteve
  • As the article points out, we’re not sure about the validity of these numbers.

    Anecdotally though, the idea of major creators like Linus Tech Tips and Marques Brownlee putting out Linux content was unheard of a few short years ago.

    I have been seeing a wide trend among the Windows tech-savvy universe of frustrated users who have social media platforms suggesting strongly that people give it a try.

    Plus, you’ve got Steam, which has made Linux an excellent game platform for the very large percentage of Windows desktop users who play games.

    I also find that the availability of AI makes troubleshooting for newbies way easier. Dump your error message in or describe what’s not working and you’re on your way.

    It is truly the year of the Linux desktop. I switched away from Windows thinking I’d still need a dual boot partition but so far I really don’t.

    by Grombobulous
  • Well, it was always a safe guess that their "Unknown" numbers were almost all Linux.
    by marcosdumay
  • In my experience, LLMs are not great at resolving linux issues, but they are better than what we've had in the past. Trying to use forums and web searches was exhausting, and you'd often deal with people who were trying to show how smart they are and rather than answering your questions they demand to know "what are you really trying to do?"
    by SoftTalker
  • Don't forget PewDiePie, the last person I expected to do a video about migrating to Linux.
    by yomismoaqui
  • (insert Ron Paul It's Happening meme here)

    I work in the refurb department of an ewaste recycling company. Because we don't have a Windows OEM license, we officially can't install Windows on any of the PCs we sell. (I'll direct people to download the Windows install media if asked.[0]) On the systems I sell[1], Linux Mint has a nice OEM install option that after installation, there's a 'ship to customer' script[2] that starts an OOBE after the next boot, so I don't have to make up a login, and hope it doesn't get lost anywhere.

    I'm not sure how many people keep the Linux install after they buy it, but it's cool to think we're helping move the needle on this! FWIW, I've had several people directed to me specifically for Linux systems, so I know it's more than 3.

    Yes, I run Linux everywhere at work (it's the wild west without a Windows domain), and at home.

    [0] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11 (ewww)

    [1] https://www.ebay.com/str/evolutionecycling

    [2] https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/lates...

    by theandrewbailey
  • A local thrift store has been slapping Ubuntu on every computer for over a decade. The easiest part is you can just clone it from one computer to the next and it'll Just Work™.
    by tosti
  • From one recycler to another, thanks for the work you do!

    Personally, I typically use gray market Windows keys. I have a hard time moving machines with Linux on them.

    But I think you are doing a really good thing!

    by ivraatiems