Are There More Linux Users Than We Think? (zdnet.com)
- Reference: 0180240147
- News link: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/11/30/008213/are-there-more-linux-users-than-we-think
- Source link: https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-people-keep-flocking-to-linux-in-2025-and-its-not-just-to-escape-windows/
> In [2]StatCounter's latest US numbers , which cover through October, Linux shows up as only 3.49%. But if you look closer, "unknown" accounts for 4.21%. Allow me to make an educated guess here: I suspect those unknown desktops are actually running Linux. What else could it be? FreeBSD? Unix? OS/2? Unlikely. In addition, ChromeOS comes in at 3.67%, which strikes me as much too low. Leaving that aside, ChromeOS is a Linux variant. It just uses the Chrome web browser for its interface rather than KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, or another Linux desktop environment. Put all these together, and you get a Linux desktop market share of 11.37%...
>
> If you want to look at the broader world of end-user operating systems, including phones and tablets, Linux comes out even better. In the US, where we love our Apple iPhones, Android — yes, another Linux distro — boasts 41.71% of the market share, according to StatCounter's latest numbers. Globally, however, Android rules with 72.55% of the market. Yes, that's right, if you widen the Linux end-user operating system metric to include PC, tablets, and smartphones, you can make a reasonable argument that Linux, and not Windows, is already the top dog operating system...
>
> If you add Chrome OS (1.7%) and Android (15.8%), 23.3% of all [3]people accessing the U.S. government's websites are Linux users. The Linux kernel's user-facing footprint is much larger than the "desktop Linux" label suggests.
The article lists reasons more people might be switching to Linux, including broader hardware support and "the increased viability of gaming via Steam and Proton" — but also the rise of Digital Sovereignty initiatives. (One EU group has even [4]created EU OS .")
And finally, "not everyone is thrilled with Windows 11 being [5]turned into an AI-agentic operating system ."
[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-people-keep-flocking-to-linux-in-2025-and-its-not-just-to-escape-windows/
[2] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/united-states-of-america
[3] https://analytics.usa.gov/
[4] https://www.zdnet.com/article/eu-os-takes-a-layered-approach-to-its-new-linux-distro-for-the-public-sector/
[5] https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-is-packing-more-ai-into-windows-ready-or-not-heres-whats-new/
Why assume "unknown" is Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not "others platforms we have identified", it is "unknown". It can be BSD, but it can also be a bot, someone running anti-fingerprinting extensions, a mobile browser in desktop mode, some embedded system, etc... Anything that doesn't match their rules. There is probably a higher proportion of Linux users than Windows or Apple users in there because Linux users are more likely to have a weird setup, but I wouldn't count on it.
Re: (Score:2)
I've been using Unknown on my main rig since 2.0
bots seems low for 4% (Score:4, Interesting)
Bots and crawlers are often going to list a "clever" identity. I'll bet a lot of them have Brian Krebs' name in the string.
Re: (Score:2)
I know we're a smaller chunk of the pie, but I do actively run FreeBSD on a number of desktops, workstations, and laptops here at home, of both the x86/AMD64 and ARM/Aarch64 variety. Because FreeBSD lives in the world that Linux did a while back, a fuckton of us fake our user agents because shit ass web devs STILL put hard checks into their code that says "your OS isn't supported on our site, therefor you cannot browse it" even though the OS makes fuck all difference inside of a web browser.
More the merrier (Score:3)
If we are adding in FreeBSD, Android etc, might as well also add in MacOS.
They are all quite similar from a user point of view and all based off one or the other NIXes
Re: (Score:2)
> "If we are adding in FreeBSD, Android etc, might as well also add in MacOS. They are all quite similar from a user point of view and all based off one or the other NIXes"
Not really. It isn't free, much of it isn't open, doesn't use X11 or Wayland, doesn't use any of the Linux desktop environments, and it really only runs on Apple hardware. Very different in many ways from Linux or BSD.
Although I think that throwing "unknown" and "BSD" into the Linux count is not valid.
Do humans hallucinate less than AI? (Score:2)
Would Betteridge say no?
since when are tablets and phones considered (Score:2, Informative)
desktop devices?
There's always been a clear distinction between mobile and desktop computing.
Just counting all mobile Linux usage as desktop all of a sudden to make you feel better about it doesn't actually change the real numbers.
The fact remains that on /desktop/ devices--that is computers that sit on a /desk/ using a mouse and keyboard as input Linux still lags very far behind Windows and even Apple. Counting laptops among that probably lowers the Linux number even more.
Mobile devices can arguably be cou
Phones as desktop devices (Score:1)
Hand-held phones you put in your pocket typically aren't desktop devices, but many VoIP desk phones used in businesses are. Some may even run Linux (I haven't checked).
Not all desktop devices use a mouse or keyboard.
That said, the total number of desktop phones running Linux is probably small enough to be considered noise, at least for now. But in a few years, who knows?
Tablet as a substitute for a netbook (Score:2)
I distinctly remember people recommending use of a tablet with external keyboard as a substitute for entry-level subnotebook computers when the latter were [1]discontinued in fourth quarter 2012 [slashdot.org]. This despite that major tablets ship with operating systems locked down not to run the sort of lightweight software development environments that could run on the desktop operating system of a netbook.
[1] https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/12/31/1829212/does-2012-mark-the-end-of-the-netbook
Of course there are... (Score:2)
These stats are collected by checking the OS through the browser.
Quite a few browsers out there spoof the OS to Windows for compatibility reasons.
That alone is causing the Linux numbers to be massively under represented.
Betteridge says... (Score:3)
... no.
Re: (Score:1)
Maybe, but these figures already basically match my evaluation of the situation.