No, the Linux Desktop Hasn't Jumped in Popularity (zdnet.com)

An anonymous reader quotes ZDNet: Stories have been circulating that the Linux desktop had jumped in popularity and was used more than macOS. Alas, it's not so... These reports have been based on NetMarketShare's desktop operating system analysis, which showed Linux leaping from 2.5 percent in July, to almost 5 percent in September. But unfortunately for Linux fans, it's not true... It seems to be merely a mistake. Vince Vizzaccaro, NetMarketShare's executive marketing share of marketing told me, "The Linux share being reported is not correct. We are aware of the issue and are currently looking into it"...

For the most accurate, albeit US-centric operating system and browser numbers, I prefer to use data from the federal government's Digital Analytics Program (DAP). Unlike the others, DAP's numbers come from billions of visits over the past 90 days to over 400 US executive branch government domains... DAP gets its raw data from a Google Analytics account. DAP has open-sourced the code, which displays the data on the web and its data-collection code... In the US Analytics site, which summarizes DAP's data, you will find desktop Linux, as usual, hanging out in "other" at 1.5 percent. Windows, as always, is on top with 45.9 percent, followed by Apple iOS, at 25.5 percent, Android at 18.6 percent, and macOS at 8.5 percent.
The article does, however, acknowledge that Linux's real market share is probably a little higher simply because "no one, not even DAP, seems to do a good job of pulling out the Linux-based Chrome OS data."

Comments

Old compatability workaround

[JustNiz]

It's been a VERY long time since I last checked, but I once found that multiple of the most popular browsers were incorrectly reporting themselves as running on Windows even when they were actually running on Linux. This was apparently being done on purpose for some compatibility/bug workaround or something, but was obviously significantly screwing with the numbers towards favouring Microsoft.

Does anyone know if this is still the case at all?

Interesting surfing == desktop

[stabiesoft]

I've got probably 8 machines, all running Linux. This box is the only one that ever surfs. The others are used for real work. Kind of sad that correct method to determine desktop share is surfing.

Re:Chrome and Android are Linux hosted ...

[The123king]

It's not the case, and never really has been. GNU/Linux is so called, because it's the GNU userland running on top of the Linux kernel. As such, GNU/Linux is itself a distribution of Linux. Just like GNU/HURD is a distribution of HURD, and PC/BSD is a distribution of FreeBSD. You can take a kernel (and potentially a userland) and bolt stuff onto it, and call it a distribution.

Would you call Debian/kFreeBSD a GNU/Linux distribution? No, because it's a GNU/FreeBSD distribution. It uses the Debian/GNU userland, but bolts it on top of a FreeBSD kernel.

Is Windows 3.1 a distribution of DOS? Yes. It uses DOS as a kernel, and bolts the Win16 userland on top. So technically you could call a Win3.1 install a Windows/DOS distribution, much like DR-DOS and GEM could be called GEM/DOS

Is Android a GNU/Linux distribution? No, because it doesn't have the GNU userland, it has the Android userland. That makes it it's own Linux distribution separate from GNU/Linux, that we could theoretically call Android/Linux.

So yes, Android is a Linux distribution, but it's not a GNU/Linux distribution.