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Linux Marketshare is Above 2-Percent For Third Month in a Row (omgubuntu.co.uk)
For the third month in a row the share of worldwide desktop computer users running Linux has been above two percent -- up from one percent -- according to data from web analytics company Net Market Share. From a OMGUbuntu report: We reported back in July that Linux marketshare had passed two percent for the first time, and that figure remains the highest they've ever reported for Linux, at 2.33 percent. But the share for September 2016 was almost as good at 2.23 percent. It's the third consecutive month that Linux marketshare has been above 2 percent. Those of us who use Linux as our primary desktop computing platform can take a degree of pride in these figures. They do show a clear trend towards Linux, rather than away from it. But we should also remember that statistics, numbers and reporting methods vary between analytics companies and that all figures, however positive, remain open to interpretation and debate.
The only thing holding me back from a Linux desktop at home is gaming. Too many games just don't run well enough - even with a beast of a system, can't get 144hz reliably without any glitches. :(
I run it in a VM 24/7 though, and do all of my internet browsing and most of my work in it. But Windows has to be on the hardware for me.
Diversity also greatly helped Linux. You have to be very, very careful with the "diversity is bad--we must reduce choices so people aren't overwhelmed!" argument... that's what got us GNOME 3.
(And I personally believe that GNOME 3 and Unity, which would've never come about if not for GNOME 3, together constitute the worst thing that's ever happened to the desktop Linux ecosystem.)
Because you don't have to run all of your applications in Windows? You can do the absolute minimum amount of work in Windows, only the stuff that you need Windows for, and then right-click to instantly send those files over to a Linux VM. The extra work involved is trivial. If you're apathetic about the differences between Windows and Linux desktops then that might not be much of a win[1] , but tnok85 (the person I was replying to) said that he preferred Linux desktops.
Also, even if you only ran Windows 7 in Qubes (not using any Linux VMs other than the built in connectivity ones that are already configured for you), it's still actually a "Linux Desktop". You never have to look at the start button if you don't want to--all of your Windows 7 applications can appear seamlessly in KDE or XFCE.
Also, Qubes' template system can be applied to Windows 7 in addition to Linux VMs. You can[2] very easily create multiple Windows VMs based on the same base image. There are a lot of ways you could use this functionality, but one possibility is one Windows VM could be strictly offline for security, one could be a regular online Win7 VM, and a third one could exclusively use a VPN or Tor ProxyVM for internet connectivity. And any application you install in the Win7 template would automatically propagate to all VMs based on that template (multiple templates are possible, either from-scratch or by cloning.)
Almost all of this is doable using GUI tools (I think you might need a tiny amount of CLI usage for setting up a Win7 template but there are guides available.
1. Except to the extent that using a hypervisor like Qubes is *great* for easy portability and security. System==>BackupVMs==>[just a few clicks later]==> done. Your entire environment is now be copied over and transferable to any other physical machine running Qubes. No CLI fiddling required (unless you want to), and you can even encrypt the backup without jumping through any extra hoops.
2. Well, the precise legality of this is... a gray area, but certainly you could do this legally if you had the right license from MS, or multiple licenses.
85% of devices sold last year ran Linux. The desktop is now in your lap and in your pocket, running Linux. Windows is more popular on systems with IDE drives, PalmOS is most popular on Treo systems, Linux is most popular on supercomputers, Windows is most popular on systems that weigh between 8 and 20 pounds. Linux is most popular.
Next story / complaint: Linux isn't popular on systems installed by major corporations headquartered in Redmond. Um, okay, but anyway 85% of all new devices run Linux, period.
Linux is the peasant behind the scene on everything, including "Desktop Linux"!
Linux has always been a basic OS. While bootable without any additional applications or libraries it is not very functional. At the very least you will add a libc implementation and from there many other libraries, applications and possibly window managers to have a usable user interface. I agree that Android is not GNU/Linux (probably the most common form of CLI/GUI "Desktop Linux"), but in GNU/Linux, Linux is still the peasant behind the scene.
Linux is not *BSD/Windows/etc where the development team creates a whole package from the kernel up to the user interface, it is just the core, the "peasant" doing the hard work of managing system memory, networking and disc io, etc. Unless you are doing system development, or very low level application development, as a programmer you probably would almost never interact directly with Linux.
Yes, the media has turned Linux into a complete OS, but that has nothing to do with the actual Linux software and what it does. The media just did not like saying GNU/Linux which is generally what they were referring with when they would say Linux...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...