Up to 2.7% in May 2025 from 1.5% in May 2023. Almost x2 in 2 years is very impressive.
Some interesting distro choices to be found in there. I didn’t realize CachyOS was so popular
I have used CachyOS and I can confirm that it is decent. I might give Bazzite a try next though.
It just goes to show you. The only way to get the Linux desktop market share up is not building. Something better than Windows we have been there for a while. It’s make hardware, put Linux on that hardware and sell it in a store. Avg people don’t change operating systems. They change computers. Now if we could just get steam decks in retail stores. It would be a huge.
It was tried a little bit in 2008 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna23565020
Microsoft/Google would shit all over any retailer that dared to do that today.
That said, Bestbuy did have an OS2/Warp on the floor decades ago.
I think SteamOS will have a solid chance.
We need a distro that has a 0% chance to brick on a graphics driver update. That can flawlessly do a major release update without breaking things and can run GOG, Steam, Epic.
Yep i honestly think that’s why the steam deck is not available in retell in the US. MICROSOFT probably has a clause in place that would remove any license discounts from the big OEMs if their machines are stocked with Linux machines.
Exactly. Linux will never become the majority OS as long as it’s not the default OS on retail PCs.
my country has had a law forcing manufacturers to provide alternatives to windows. many computers come with linux here, and we have a weirdly high market share for linux because of it.
Which country is that it sounds amazing
brazil
Ah that makes sense i know Brazil has laws to keep imports low. That’s why Brazil kept the saga mega drive active for so long. So having Linux on machines makes sense. Since it’s both an import and not an import at the same time.
thats not really the reason brazil does this. our restrictions on imports come because our ruling class makes pretty much nothing and rely on having a cornered retail market they can profit off of. just capitalism things, kind of unique but nothing really new.
back then, the argument was about “venda casada” (no idea how to translate this). its when you buy something and you are forced to buy something else on their terms to make it work. they ruled that manufacturers can’t force you to buy a windows license from them when you are already paying for a computer from them.
instead of selling it without an os, many of them offered linux as an option and passed the savings on to the customer, not unlike some manufacturers are doing in the us nowadays. most people got it with the intention of reformatting the machines with pirated windows for free, but many tried it and stuck with linux. we got a lot of adoption for a while there.
Avg people don’t change operating systems
This is a huge argument, even Linus Torvalds said that many years ago. The average person just wants to buy a computer and use it normally for work, casual stuff or gaming. They won’t make the effort to change the operating system.
Now if we could just get steam decks in retail stores
We can also get the Steam OS on different hardwares, just like the Lenovo Legion Go S
There is a non-insignificant amount of people who just throw away their computer when something gets messed up because they don’t know how to reinstall windows. Not only do average people not know how to install an operating system, they don’t even know how to learn. Many people have help, techie friends and family, but many don’t, and they can sadly only be helped at scale.
Two of my friends switched recently.
They had none to very little experience with anything Linux before, their previous win11 installs just over bloated and the copilot bullshit pushed them over. Both (indie/non-pop shooters) gamers btw.This is the year of linux.
Do they choose distros made for gamers?
One is trying Bazzite the other one is just classic fedora
Do they make much difference? Genuine question
Sometimes.
They tend to make sure stuff that gamers care about are up to date and working.
You’ll likely need the newest kernels and software packages if you’re running the latest gen of GPU and/or CPU, to get the most out of them, or even get them to work at all.
Wouldn’t a rolling distro be enough forma that?
Some of it, yeah.
All a distro is, really, is a preset. It comes with some package manager or other, along with a collection of pre-installed packages.
The reason one chooses one distro over another, is because it’s closer to what you need. I could install arch, and spend a day setting it up exactly the way I like. Or, I could start with Endeavour, and get to essentially the same state in an hour.
I’m familiar enough with linux that I could strong-arm any install into doing whatever I need, but at times, to get from preset A to preset B, it’s faster to just start over from a known preset that’s closest to what I want.
Rolling releases typically mean the software available is recent, but that’s only one aspect of what your starting point could look like.
“Gaming” distros are going to be a preset that contains a bunch of configurations, defaults and software, that gamers typically care about. That steam is usually already installed, is an example of one such thing. The same way my mention of GPU and CPU support is only an example.
Maybe instead of “They tend to make sure stuff that gamers care about are up to date and working” I should have phrased it “They tend to make sure things that gamers care about are easy to set up and supported, if not even ready to go, out of the box”.
It’s a shame more developers don’t target Linux! Anyway I have been Steam gaming on Linux for about 10 years now and it’s amazing how good games targeted at Windows run through Proton. I have many games that are targeted for Windows and run BETTER on Fedora.
Elden Ring runs better on proton/wine/dxvk then it does on Windows.
As far as I can gather, Valve explicitly advises developers to avoid targeting Linux when building or optimizing for the Steam Deck, instead focusing on optimizing around Proton.
2.69% +0.42%Nice, the meaning of Life. This would be perfect, if it was 3.69 instead. But we can’t have it all, otherwise there would be no improvement possible and it gets stale.
Arch
Those are rookie numbers Debian GNU/Linux!
I wanted to switch but then saw nvidia’s drivers are even worse on linux than windows. Maybe once I’m ready for a gpu upgrade I’ll go AMD and make the switch because it feels like if theres little hope of nvidia fixing their drivers for PC there is zero hope for linux.
I’m using an Nvidia card on Debian with 0 issues myself and the driver installation was really easy. I’m curious what source you read stating that they are worse, by how much, and in what way. Do you have a link I can read? Thanks.
I’ve been using Linux with Nvidia for 10 years and it’s been a constant dumpster fire. The Nvidia driver constantly caused issues over these 10 years, especially during updates. Currently I’m having the issue that the entirety of Wayland, including all open programs, crash when I run out of VRAM because the Linux Nvidia drivers cannot fall back on RAM when running out of VRAM. It’s making my gaming experience very frustrating.
Wish I could explain you in detail how that’s not correct but I’m actually going to play Clair Obscur on my 2080ti on Debian, sorry!
PS: been playing for years with NVIDIA drivers, including VR games, and sure it’s not 100% perfect but neither Windows drivers are. It sure is enough for me to keep on playing (and working) without major issue though. Anyway, gotta play!
I’m quite impressed Arch comes out on top
I’m not honestly. As far as I know SteamOS is based on arch which should give it a massive boost in comparison to other linux distros just from the number of Steam Decks
I would expect Steam to report Steam OS as Steam OS.
They managed to differentiate Manjaro to it’s own entry after all. It’s Arch based too.
Manjaro is not Arch based. They use pacman, but they use their own repositories. They create a ton of issues that way.
https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Manjaro:A_Different_Kind_of_Beast
Although Manjaro is Arch-based and Arch compatible, it is not Arch.
Manjaro package repository
Stable branch - There is no solid rule indicating when Stable branch is snapped from testing. It can be anything from one to four weeks…
Testing branch - Testing branch is snapped from unstable at irregular intervals - …
Unstable branch - Unstable branch is synced several times daily from Arch stable
Manjaro Unstable is Arch Stable
SteamOS does not get reported as Arch.
