Linux Desktop reaches New All time high. 4.45%(+0.4) 📈🐧

submitted a month ago by Magnolia_

gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worl


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Technus a month ago

My Windows 10 install shat the bed so I'm trying Linux Mint again.

It's crazy how a computer can feel brand new again when 50 different pieces of bloatware aren't trying to all start on boot.

The gaming situation is so much different now with Steam Play and Proton. Although I've found that just because a game is Steam Deck Verified, it doesn't necessarily mean it'll work the first try.

TheLightItBurns a month ago

I installed PopOS last year after I got fed up with bloatware, adds, and just outright annoying “notifications” in windows 10 and 11, and I haven’t looked back.

I found a great resource in the ProtonDB website for configuring proton settings as I have also occasionally had games not work properly that are steam deck verified. There are typically enough people posting how they overcame issues and their build components so you can try to match up their fixes with your computer parts. It helps a ton most of the time.

Technus a month ago

Yeah ProtonDB is great but it doesn't always have a fix.

For example, Powerwash Simulator is Steam Deck Verified and has a Platinum rating and most people are like "runs great out of the box, no problems".

However, when I tried it, the screen would blank every second until I managed to put the game into windowed mode, and then the lower portion of it was concealed behind the app panel.

This was on a fresh Linux Mint 22 install with the latest proprietary Nvidia drivers.

Also, you can't install most games until you enable "Steam Play on all titles" which I had to figure out myself.

Blubber28 a month ago

Installed Bazzite myself yesterday and yeah it feels like I bought a new PC without having actually spent the money XD

AutoPastry a month ago

Didn't realize how big it was in India, 16.21%!

rorschah a month ago

Kerala have a big contribution to this since all the school IT labs + government offices here use ubuntu or its slightly modified versions. Wish if every state did so.

Deceptichum a month ago

Everything I hear from India is generally pretty negative news with the exception of basically anytime Kerala is mentioned.

Aatube a month ago

Technological sovereignty

Beaver [she/her] a month ago

Yup, we don’t need big corporations for nada.

Trollpakk a month ago

In Norway it's 29.1%

BlanK0 a month ago

We making to the 5% with this one!!! đŸ—ŁïžđŸ’ŻđŸ™đŸ”„đŸ”„đŸ”„đŸ”„

skulblaka a month ago

I'm doing my part!

No really, I installed Mint on my home machine less than a week ago. Trying to get my buddy to switch too before Win11 comes knocking.

Blisterexe a month ago

Tell him a stranger from the web says he should switch

hddsx a month ago

What is unknown? Various Unix variants? Custom embedded operating systems ( does that count as desktop?)?

joewilliams007 a month ago

maybe browsers that obfuscate that information

Tenkard a month ago

Me, changing my user agent to "Browser McBrowserFace"

nebulaone a month ago

I know this is probably a joke, but don't do that. It gives you a unique fingerprint.

miss phant a month ago

So I've looked into the yearly stats and macOS stats and the fact that they call it OS X and the macOS version stats only go up to Catalina (the last 10.x, released in 2019) makes me believe most of these are macOS 11+ users.

FireWire400 a month ago, edited a month ago

Things like Haiku (or BeOS), ReactOS, ArcaOS, AmigaOS etc.

I don't think they do but maybe they're also counting type 1 hypervisors.

Edit: Nevermind, I thought they bundled in "Other" into that category; they didn't, as evident by the chart below the stats which includes "Other".

It's probably just the case of they couldn't determine the OS being used.

gedaliyah a month ago

Look out, "Unknown" we're coming for you!

LainTrain a month ago

Only 3.42% in Europe RIP

themurphy a month ago

Yeah, hopefully government and EU interest in open source will change this on a large scale.

Both Germany and Switzerland both made progress in the last months.

Trollpakk a month ago

Except Norway with 29.1%. What gives?

LainTrain a month ago

Server nation rise up

Trollpakk a month ago

Ahh.. That's it! Of course it is. Thanks!

vsis a month ago

Everywhere, except India, it's about 3%.

With India the average is a bit more than 4%.

LainTrain a month ago

Does java even run on linux

Trollpakk a month ago

I was checking out regional market shares and it seems Linux has a 29.1% market share in Norway. Anybody knows why? Linux is almost twice as big as OSX there.

needanke a month ago

Penguins are comfy in the cold climate

Techognito a month ago

So in theory, one third of everyone I meet should be a linux user. Yet everyone uses windows. đŸ€” Am I the 30%?? /sw

Trollpakk a month ago

Right? It seems fishy to me, that's why I asked. Would love to know the reason for this.

Techognito a month ago

I do actually know a fair share of people using Linux in my social circle, but a lot of them uses both windows and Linux. My family uses Linux for their private devices, as that was a requirement to get my technical support. And an increasing number of my friends are moving over to Linux.

What I find weird is the sudden increase of 10% (from 18.16% to 29.04%). Like, did everyone get back from vacation after a Linux conversion camp or something?

Trollpakk a month ago

Good on you for converting even more normies to Linux.

What I find weird is the sudden increase of 10% (from 18.16% to 29.04%).

There have to be a reason for this. Maybe people finally got fed up with MS & Apple.

Well, lately Microsoft has hitting big on enshittification. More than usual.

residentmarchant a month ago

*insert Simpsons meme"

Say it again!

*sigh* 2024 is the year of the Linux desktop

Jeffool a month ago, edited a month ago

I love the idea of using Linux. But then I end up playing Warzone every weekend with my family. Can't give that up. The best part is that they want kernel access, and still have cheating problems, apparently. (Must be higher than my level!) But it still inherently affects me, as they won't port to Linux.

coldy a month ago

Kernel level anticheat still can't stop cheaters? Time for boot partition anticheat, let it run before the kernel ;)

Hell, layer the whole OS on top of anticheat software just to play one game.

bitwaba a month ago

Warzone Entertainment System, running the latest WarOS!

ghurab a month ago

Naah, obviously the solution unrestricted mic and camera access with AI analyzing the stream to detect cheating.

Jeffool a month ago

Funny, with a harsh ring of truth. I actually would be interested if they could dual boot with the game on a partition. That would make the transition to Linux easy too. But ultimately as it is, it's "use Windows, or say to hell with playing games with your family". I'm lucky that I still enjoy playing games with them, and them with me, so I gotta stick with that.

Acidbath a month ago

Im at a similar place as you where I do as much gaming on linux as possible but then there are some games that just do not work :(. At this point Im really thinking about playing warzone on a console since there is support for keyboard and mouse (last time I checked).

QuarterSwede a month ago

Sigh. macOS nowadays.

paraphrand a month ago

They label it as OS X and macOS on different parts of the page.

Thirsty Hyena a month ago

What is the difference between these two terms?

paraphrand a month ago

Oh, it use to be Mac OS. Then it was Mac OS X (Mac OS Ten). Now it’s macOS.

FireWire400 a month ago

I honestly don't know how to think about this. On one hand, it's pretty cool that more and more users are giving the finger to Microsoft and switch to Linux.

On the other hand, Linux systems are gonna become a bigger target for cyberattacks or malware. I realise that I, as a regular person who isn't on dodgy porn sites all day, probably have nothing to fear but still, I like my Linux lightweight and if they have to slap some antivirus on there.... eh idk

massacre a month ago

Don't fret! 95+% all servers on the internet run Linux so the attack vector has been there for ages. Follow best practices and your risk will remain low!

TheGrandNagus a month ago, edited a month ago

Unfortunately there's a lot more to it than that.

You're right that the "back end" of Linux systems tend to be quite hardened.

It's the desktop environments that are a concern when it comes to security hardening, IMO. Almost all servers have no DE installed so it's not something enterprise has cared about.

How much effort has been put into security on DEs? I honestly have no idea, but so far there hasn't been an enormous pressure to security harden them.

Shit, look at:

  • X11. It's insecure by design, yet most distros still ship with it (understandably, since Wayland isn't 100% yet).

  • packaged software runs as root during the whole installation period - this means that anything slipped into the install script will have full root privileges to do anything to your system. Flatpak does fix this, but normally-packaged software is still abundant.

  • any non-root program can change aliases in your bashrc or bash_aliases file. I.e. they can change "apt install" to some other nefarious command, or to point to a dodgy software repository, so that next time the user types "sudo apt install [XYZ]", it downloads malware or does other nasty things.

I'm absolutely *clueless* about this stuff and I can come up with those potential attack vectors in seconds. Imagine what a proficient hacker could do, or a hostile nation-state.

I definitely think improvements will have to be made in terms of security, and we're no doubt going to hear more about malware in the coming years. But it's not an insurmountable problem, IMO. Distros and DEs will just take time to adapt.

rottingleaf a month ago, edited a month ago

X11. It’s insecure by design, yet most distros still ship with it (understandably, since Wayland isn’t 100% yet).

This is a bit overhyped.

packaged software runs as root during the whole installation period - this means that anything slipped into the install script will have full root privileges to do anything to your system. Flatpak does fix this, but normally-packaged software is still abundant.

WTF? Things that run as root, do. Things that don't, don't. Obviously most things don't.

any non-root program can change aliases in your bashrc or bash_aliases file. I.e. they can change “apt install” to some other nefarious command, or to point to a dodgy software repository, so that next time the user types “sudo apt install [XYZ]”, it downloads malware or does other nasty things.

For your own user, so what?

EDIT:

But it’s not an insurmountable problem, IMO. Distros and DEs will just take time to adapt.

Actually it is. One can make levels over levels of isolation, sandboxes and more sandboxes, but in the end conscious hygiene matters most.

TheGrandNagus a month ago, edited a month ago

This is a bit overhyped.

No, it isn't. If anything it's the opposite.

Under X11, any program of any kind can see the contents of another program.

Under X11, any program of any kind can see all your keypresses, whether the app is focussed, unfocused, minimised, on another virtual desktop. Anything.

Under X11, any program can inject keypresses into any other program.

Under X11, any program of any kind can access your clipboard.

And it doesn't even take root privileges. That's just the default.

The X11 system itself runs as root, though. And this opens the door for privilege escalation exploits.

That's before we even consider the devs themselves saying that the complexity, decades of spaghetti code, and unfixable bugs make it virtually impossible to patch.

X11 is a security *nightmare* of epic proportions. An absolutely cataclysmically insecure system. And it's one of the main reasons that X11 devs abandoned it for Wayland.

WTF? Things that run as root, do. Things that don't, don't. Obviously most things don't.

I never said that things that don't run as root run as root. That doesn't make sense, it's self contradictory.

What I said was that install scripts for repo packages *always* run as root. And therefore anything that makes its way into the script *will* be executed with root privileges. That is a risk.

For your own user, so what?

What do you mean, "so what"?! A non-root program being able to highjack system commands and even gain root access isn't "so what", it's a glaring security hole.

Actually it is. One can make levels over levels of isolation, sandboxes and more sandboxes, but in the end conscious hygiene matters most.

You're right, but you're taking my words there a little too literally there.

When I say the problems aren't insurmountable I mean *"with effort, a lot of these will be fixed and your system will be pretty secure"*, not *"one day Linux systems will literally be unhackable, and no exploit or security issue will ever be found again. Security problems will be a thing of the past."*

rottingleaf a month ago

Under X11, any program ...

This would be the same as under Windows, no?

The X11 system itself runs as root, though. And this opens the door for privilege escalation exploits.

It usually does, but it doesn't have to.

That’s before we even consider the devs themselves saying that the complexity, decades of spaghetti code, and unfixable bugs make it virtually impossible to patch.

And the new thing to replace that is still not good enough after 10 years or so.

I said that install scripts for repo packages always run as root. And therefore anything that makes its way into the script will be executed with root privileges. That is a risk.

Let's please not extrapolate the problems of your distribution to all of them.

What do you mean, “so what”?! A non-root program being able to highjack system commands and even gain root access isn’t “so what”, it’s a glaring security hole.

Your user may set aliases for the shell of your user, and the program\script ran by your user can do that.

It's not a security hole at all. It's something you should be able to do for any normal use.

TheGrandNagus a month ago

100% there will be more malware and scams as Linux grows. In fact, it's happening already.

Just look at there being multiple instances of cryptowallet theft on Ubuntu's app store by devs uploading fake copies of crypto wallet managers.

And that's before we even get onto DEs – and much of the desktop Linux stack in general – generally not being designed with security in mind, as it's not been something they've had to worry about.

We *will* see more malware, more scams. We *will* see glaring security problems that were allowed to stay in place for years be exploited. We *will* see infighting in the Linux community over all of this stuff.

It is the price we must pay for being an increasingly relevant platform.

With any luck, more users will mean more contributors, more financial support for devs, and of course better security as a result of that - you only need to look at how much KDE Plasma has improved with support from Valve, and how much work Gnome has been getting done after Germany's "Sovereign Tech Fund" contribution to see that even a little bit of support can go a long way.

rottingleaf a month ago

And that’s before we even get onto DEs – and much of the desktop Linux stack in general – generally not being designed with security in mind, as it’s not been something they’ve had to worry about.

I'm not sure this is entirely correct. But there's truth here in the sense that things have been becoming more complex over time, so now an average desktop system has much more packages than 10 years ago, and supply chain vulnerabilities are a thing.

Now, using snap store, flathub and all that is just unhygienic.

We will see more malware, more scams. We will see glaring security problems that were allowed to stay in place for years be exploited. We will see infighting in the Linux community over all of this stuff.

I'm certain most of the failures will be in the new shiny stuff, and thus most of the losses in that infighting too.

TheGrandNagus a month ago

I'm not sure this is entirely correct

Why is that?

Now, using snap store, flathub and all that is just unhygienic.

What is this based on? What do you mean by "unhygienic" anyway?

Flatpaks are more secure than system packages. They're not installed with installation scripts that run as root (and can therefore do *anything* to your system if malicious code is slipped in.

Flatpaks also have sandboxing. It's not a perfect implementation mind you, but it's better than zero sandboxing.

Snaps is a bit more complicated, but sandboxing works *if* you have a fistro that uses AppArmour, so basically Ubuntu and some derivatives. Although who else would use snaps anyway lol. Flatpak won that fight.

I'm certain most of the failures will be in the new shiny stuff

I don't know why you'd be certain of that. New stuff is generally designed from the ground up to be more secure.

Look at Flatpaks Vs repo packages.

Look at xdg-portals Vs 500 different implementations to do the same thing.

Look at the absolutely cataclysmic security catastrophe that is X11 compared to Wayland.

rottingleaf a month ago

Why is that?

Because a vulnerability in one DE's file manager, for example, will have smaller impact because many people don't use that DE.

Same with other things.

Also because that's something we still had to worry about.

Flatpaks are more secure than system packages. They’re not installed with installation scripts that run as root (and can therefore do anything to your system if malicious code is slipped in.

Not all package managers even run install scripts (from packages) at all.

Flatpaks may contain vulnerable versions of libraries bundles, IIRC. While the one from the normal package manager has been updated.

Flatpaks also have sandboxing. It’s not a perfect implementation mind you, but it’s better than zero sandboxing.

I just don't like the general direction of this. Running more and more complex and untrusted crap and solving that with more complexity.

I don’t know why you’d be certain of that. New stuff is generally designed from the ground up to be more secure.

More complexity - bigger probability of mistakes. Sometimes fundamental laws are enough.

Look at the absolutely cataclysmic security catastrophe that is X11 compared to Wayland.

I'm afraid of the day that may come where people will say that Emacs is a security catastrophe due to lack of isolation.

TheGrandNagus a month ago

This essentially all boils down to "I don't like new things, and despite it being made more secure, I don't trust it"

How are sandboxes "untrusted crap"?

You talk about complexity being bad, yet you seem to prefer X11 over Wayland, and 500 different implementations of the same thing, implemented separately by every app developer, rather than using a standardised xdg-portal. Surely you see the contradiction there?

DarkThoughts a month ago

The best protection against malware is closing the security flaws they typically abuse to make them work in the first place.

gandalf_der_12te a month ago, edited a month ago

The biggest security flaw though is typically the human itself.

... how do you close that hole?

dubyakay a month ago

Deleted by moderator

DarkThoughts a month ago

Not that easy if you want it to be safe, quick and painless - and ideally without traumatizing someone else.

gandalf_der_12te a month ago

wtf

CriticalMiss a month ago

Go BSD.

GamingChairModel a month ago

I wonder how much of it is that casual users are less likely to even own/use a laptop/desktop for personal use anymore. Mobile devices, and maybe tablets, have been the most popular way of connecting to the internet for a while.

desktop_user a month ago

Can you describe firewire in great detail?

FireWire400 a month ago, edited a month ago

It's an outdated interface connection standard commonly used by camcorders in the 1990's (mostly MiniDV camcorders I think); its technical name (or name of its specification rather) is IEEE1394, 'FireWire' is just the marketing term Apple used for it. I think Sony called it 'i.Link'.

FireWire400 is really called IEEE1934a and has a theoretical transfer rate of 400 Mb/s, it can deliver 7 watts of power and carry ethernet packets.

The standard pretty much died off as soon as USB 3.0 came out AFAIK, since they couldn't get higher transfer speeds than a theoretical 800 Mb/s (whereas USB3 supports up to 5 Gb/s).

My profile picture shows a FireWire400 port on the front panel of a PowerMac G5.

deathbysnusnu a month ago

How much of the unknown portion is linux?

299792458ms a month ago

stonks