According to the StatCounter, Linux on the desktop has continued to rise and remains above 4%, with this being the healthiest it's ever looked on the desktop.
That is irrelevant. We are more concerned with relative market share than raw numbers. For example, many devs will not develop towards a browser or OS that has less than 5% market share. If/when Linux market share hits 5% and even 10%, we expect marked increases in developer interest to support our OS of choice. As far as I’m aware, nobody really sets such metrics based on raw user counts, so that is a less important number for us. Your Statistics 101 course should have taught you to make sure the statistics you are measuring are relevant.
If the amount of windows users decreases and linux stays the same, linux market share increases. Meaning, linux use is not rising, just windows is falling. Slight but important difference.
5 linux and 5 windows users. 50% market share. If one windows user drops, linux has 56% market share although the amount of users didn’t change.
But yes, desktop per capita is probably decreasing as well.
Android uses the Linux kernel, so it is Linux (but not GNU/Linux). This isn’t just semantics - Android has a UNIX-style filesystem, shell scripts, etc.
It’s not semantics. People refer to GNU/Linux as Linux. Anything that isn’t GNU isn’t meant by the people. It’s not my fault this is fucked up. We both know that it is linux and that it isn’t what people understand if someone talks about linux.
But I’m that case if Linux gets 1 new user and windows gets 10 then proportionally Linux usage would decrease despite the absolute number increasing.
I would argue the absolute number is meaningless because without context that number has no value. If I tell you there are 3.4 million Linux desktop users does that number actually tell you anything? Not really. You don’t even know if it’s a lot or not because you have no frame of reference. 4% already has that frame built in and gives you an indication how Linux stacks up to other desktop OSs.
Yes. Generation Z rarely uses computers and knows nothing about them, compared to other generations. Many don’t even know what a file hirarchy is because their device doesn’t have a proper file system for users.
The old users die and no new user is replacing them.
Generation Z rarely uses computers and knows nothing about them, compared to other generations
I disagree. In Gen Z, there are those that use computers regularly and those that don’t. There is a larger gap between clueless and tech-savvy. But the one’s that do use a computer are genrally more tech-savvy than other generations, while the majority of other generations’ computer users are just getting by with minimal knowledge (how files are organized, some specific software like office and not much more).
Start asking people about PC components or programming (don’t count those that learned it university or at their jobs) and you will quickly realize that your best bet is gen Z.
Go back to statistics 101.
Following doesnot show that it is rising. That it is rising you have to show rising absolut not relative numbers.
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That is irrelevant. We are more concerned with relative market share than raw numbers. For example, many devs will not develop towards a browser or OS that has less than 5% market share. If/when Linux market share hits 5% and even 10%, we expect marked increases in developer interest to support our OS of choice. As far as I’m aware, nobody really sets such metrics based on raw user counts, so that is a less important number for us. Your Statistics 101 course should have taught you to make sure the statistics you are measuring are relevant.
To be clear, you’re arguing that (considering the increase in population) desktop computer ownership per capita may be falling?
If the amount of windows users decreases and linux stays the same, linux market share increases. Meaning, linux use is not rising, just windows is falling. Slight but important difference.
5 linux and 5 windows users. 50% market share. If one windows user drops, linux has 56% market share although the amount of users didn’t change.
But yes, desktop per capita is probably decreasing as well.
If they’re moving to smartphones, that’s still (mostly) Linux.
But it doesn’t count as linux. Usually you mean GNU/Linux if you talk about linux. Chromeos may be considered linux for the sake but android?
Android uses the Linux kernel, so it is Linux (but not GNU/Linux). This isn’t just semantics - Android has a UNIX-style filesystem, shell scripts, etc.
It’s not semantics. People refer to GNU/Linux as Linux. Anything that isn’t GNU isn’t meant by the people. It’s not my fault this is fucked up. We both know that it is linux and that it isn’t what people understand if someone talks about linux.
But I’m that case if Linux gets 1 new user and windows gets 10 then proportionally Linux usage would decrease despite the absolute number increasing.
I would argue the absolute number is meaningless because without context that number has no value. If I tell you there are 3.4 million Linux desktop users does that number actually tell you anything? Not really. You don’t even know if it’s a lot or not because you have no frame of reference. 4% already has that frame built in and gives you an indication how Linux stacks up to other desktop OSs.
Yeah but do you think people just drop windows and don’t move to any OS afterwards?
Yes. Generation Z rarely uses computers and knows nothing about them, compared to other generations. Many don’t even know what a file hirarchy is because their device doesn’t have a proper file system for users.
The old users die and no new user is replacing them.
I disagree. In Gen Z, there are those that use computers regularly and those that don’t. There is a larger gap between clueless and tech-savvy. But the one’s that do use a computer are genrally more tech-savvy than other generations, while the majority of other generations’ computer users are just getting by with minimal knowledge (how files are organized, some specific software like office and not much more).
Start asking people about PC components or programming (don’t count those that learned it university or at their jobs) and you will quickly realize that your best bet is gen Z.
Wrong, Linux is the best