Linux Crosses 4% Market Share Worldwide
Linux has surpassed a 4% share in the desktop operating system market as of the end of February 2024. According to the latest data from StatCounter, a leading web traffic analysis tool, Linux’s market share has reached 4.03%.
At first glance, the number might seem modest, but it represents a significant leap. Let’s break it down. It took Linux 30 years to secure a 3% share of desktop operating systems, a milestone reached last June.
Impressively, the open-source operating system has surged by an additional 1% in the last eight months.
Update
Liam Dawe:
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Linux on the desktop breaks 4% for the first time on Statcounter
Another month down according to Statcounter at least, Linux on the desktop is doing better than ever. Take it with your usual little pinch of salt like any survey sampling though.
One More:
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Wowie Zowie! Desktop Linux Use Worldwide Goes Above 4% Says Statcounter
Ireland-based Statcounter says that in February desktop use of Linux, compared to other operating systems, rose to more than 4%, which is a milestone for the operating system that dominates all aspects of computing except the desktop. Statcounter is a web traffic analysis website that’s free to use, but which also offers advanced paid services to websites.
Four percent (actually 4.03%) means that we penguinistas are still vastly outnumbered by Windows and MacOS users of course, which hold 42.13% and 15.46% of user share respectively. We’re even a couple of points below the 6.1% showing by “other,” which I’m guessing are some secret operating system concoctions being used by the Chinese, our NSA, the Russians, or any of the other usual suspects. To offset that, we’re ahead of ChromeOS (wait, isn’t ChromeOS Linux?) by almost a couple of percent, so I guess that’s something.
More Coverage:
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Linux Passes 4% Desktop Market Share
"Linux gained from 3% to 4% in 8 months," writes longtime Slashdot reader bobdevine. Linuxiac reports: According to the latest data from StatCounter, a leading web traffic analysis tool, Linux's market share has reached 4.03%. At first glance, the number might seem modest, but it represents a significant leap. Let's break it down. It took Linux 30 years to secure a 3% share of desktop operating systems, a milestone reached last June. Impressively, the open-source operating system has surged by an additional 1% in the last eight months.
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Linux for desktop market share surpasses 4% for the first time, says Statcounter
Statcounter, a website that tracks the market share of web browsers, operating systems, and search engines, is reporting that Linux on the desktop has over 4% market share for the very first time (Statcounter records ChromeOS as a separate operating system despite being based on Linux). Statcounter doesn’t provide any explanation about why the market share has increased but we can speculate what’s going on.
Linux’s march to its 4.03% market share has been a steady process ever since the final months of 2020 when Linux held just 1.53% of desktop market share. One of the biggest contributors to the growth of Linux is likely the stringent hardware requirements of Windows 11.
Fudzilla:
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Linux crosses four per cent market share
According to new figures from StatCounter, a top web tracker, Linux has seen a “huge boost” in popularity.
Linux's market share has hit 4.03 per cent, which may not sound like much, but it's a big deal, apparently. It took Linux 30 years to get a three per cent share of desktop operating systems, which it reached last June. But in just eight months, it has added another blistering per cent, which is so amazing, we have not been this amazed for ages. At this rate, Linux will have total world control of desktops in just 100 years.
While Linux fanboys are breaking open the champers, it is a little unclear why their favourite operating system has had such a good eight months – and certainly none of the Linux fanzines we have read has provided an answer.
SJVN:
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5 reasons why desktop Linux is finally growing in popularity
For years now, the most popular end-user operating worldwide has been Linux. Or, to be more precise, it's Android. According to the Irish analysis site Statcounter's most recent numbers, Android had 43.74% of the market in February 2024, followed by Windows with 27.39%. On the desktop, as it's been for decades, Windows is still the champ. Recently, though, desktop Linux has crawled up to 4.03%.
If you count ChromeOS as Linux, which I do, with its 2.26% market share, Linux is even more popular. Mind you, modern Chromebooks's ChromeOS owes more to the open-source, real-time operating system Zephyr than it does Linux.
Lunduke from Microsoft:
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No. GNU/Linux does not have 4% marketshare. Hate to break it to ya.
Lunduke Journal Podcast - Mar 4, 2024
The Register:
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Year of Linux on the desktop creeps closer as market share rises a little
Statcounter says Linux's share of the desktop moved up from three percent last July to four percent in February, which on the face of it is pretty good.
The desktop OS market share data is pointing in the right direction for Linux: for February 2024, Statcounter recorded Linux at 4.03 percent, up from 3.08 percent last July. All right, true, it's not a big number, but the rate of change is impressive. After so many years of numbers being little more than a rounding error, adding a quarter more users in just over half a year is pretty good.
We wrote about these figures in July last year, pointing out that for Linux they didn't include ChromeOS. At that time, Statcounter's estimates for the Google distro were 4.15 percent. In other words, it was doing rather better than Linux itself, and factoring in Google's share nearly doubled the market share.
Gizchina:
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Linux Surpasses 4% Market Share: A New Milestone in Tech History
Despite enduring jokes about its perennial “year of the Linux desktop,” the open-source operating system holds a unique position in the tech world. While struggling to gain widespread traction among everyday users, Linux remains highly favored by developers (surpassing macOS in this respect) and reigns supreme in servers, IoT devices, and supercomputers. Interestingly, recent data suggests a possible shift in Linux’s desktop market share.
According to Statcounter GlobalStats, February 2024 saw Linux reach a global market share of 4.03%. Marking its highest point since data collection began in 2009. This data, gathered from over 1.5 million websites generating 5 billion user visits, offers a reliable snapshot of operating system usage worldwide. Though historically low, Linux’s market share has exhibited steady growth in recent months, recording a 31.3% increase since June 2023. Compared to five years ago, the progress is even more significant – in February 2019, the share stood at a mere 1.58%.
Linux Magazine:
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Linux Market Share Surpasses 4% for the First Time
Linux market share has always been in a "Why is this not rising?" situation for decades. Those of us who know how powerful, reliable, and secure the open source OS is, have never been able to understand why it has always hovered near 1%.
But recently, Linuxiac noticed a change and that, by the end of February 2024, the Linux market share had achieved a 4.03% share. That change was discovered via Statcounter.
Ars (Conde Nast):
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Linux market share passes 4% for first time; macOS dominance declines
Linux reached 4.03 percent of global market share in February, according to data from research firm Statcounter. That takes Linux past the 3 percent milestone it reached in June 2023. While we’re still far from the Year of the Linux Desktop, interest in Linux has somewhat grown lately.
Statcounter says it gets its desktop operating system (OS) usage stats from tracking code installed on over 1.5 million global websites generating over 5 billion monthly page views. The only adjustments the firm says it makes to this data are around removing bot activity and adjusting for Google Chrome prerendering. Note that when Statcounter analyzes desktop OSes, it also includes laptop computers, and Statcounter says it may revise its data within 45 days of publication.
ITPro
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Linux just hit an all-time high share of the global desktop market — and surging popularity in India is driving uptake of the open source operating system | ITPro
Linux is still dwarfed by operating systems such as Windows, but it’s making modest gains off the back of growing popularity in emerging markets
ITProNews:
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Linux Desktop Adoption Accelerates, Tops 4%
According to the latest data, Linux officially has more than 4% desktop market share, a marked acceleration of its adoption.
StatCounter reports that Linux now has 4.03% of the desktop market, as of February 2024, up from 3.77% in January.
Linux made headlines in mid-2023 when it crossed the 3% mark for desktop market share for the first time in its history. The Linux kernel was originally released in 1991, meaning the operating system took just under 32 years to reach 3% desktop share.
Obscure site:
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Linux desktop OS share exceeds 4%, achieved in just 8 months from over 3% share, which took over 30 years
According to statistics site StatCounter, Linux has exceeded 4% share of desktop OS.
Soylent News:
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Desktop GNU/Linux Surpasses 4% Market Share
Linuxiac has noticed that desktop GNU/Linux has surpassed 4% global market share. This is notable for two reasons. First, it is notable because the move from 3% to 4% took months and not years. Second, there are so many barriers to getting Linux on the desktop that this is a substantial change.
[...]
Linux (and sometimes GNU/Linux) dominates fully in all other areas: servers, routers, various embedded devices (cars, televisions, lawn mowers, etc), mobile phones, interplanetary satellites, and supercomputers. The desktop is the last remaining market, albeit a highly symbolic one. As usual, it is way too early to speculate about "year of the Linux desktop". However, when one can (once again) walk into a big box store and buy a GNU/Linux system off the shelf, that market can be considered won over.
TechRadar:
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Forget Windows and macOS — Linux market share reaches a new high as users search for an alternative
New data suggests that Linux now has a 4.03% share in the operating system market, marking a new milestone for the developer-friendly software.
As ever, it’s StatCounter bringing the data to the table via its February 2024 figures, marking a leap of the leap from 3% in just eight months when, previously, that 3% milestone took thirty years to reach.
Elsewhere, the rest of it holds no surprises, as Windows continues to dominate, with MacOS a distant second, and 6% of all operating systems ‘unknown’.
In forums:
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Linux market share passes 4% for first time
I'm sure this is news that'll make a lot of people here happy. Anyone? No one? Anyway, Linux has for the first time hit 4% market share world wide. We're not including ChromeOS which is at 2.26%, and Unknown which is at 6.11%, cause we don't count those as Linux.
TechSpot:
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Linux market share on desktop computers reaches an all-time high
This new milestone comes almost a year after desktop Linux surpassed 3% market share in June 2023 amid fierce competition from other operating systems. At the time, Linux enthusiasts welcomed the news with gusto, and many even went so far as to claim that the so-called "Year of the Desktop Linux" was finally upon us.
While that turned out not to be entirely the case, the gain in market share still shows that the FOSS movement is heading in the right direction.
While Linux has been performing well, it is still only the third-largest OS on client computers. According to StatCounter, Windows leads the overall market with a 72.1% market share at the end of February 2024, while macOS was used by 15.46% of all computers. With the growing popularity of Chromebooks in the education sector, ChromeOS was the fourth most popular client computing platform with a 2.2% market share.
Slashdot again:
One later article:
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Linux on the desktop is gaining ground
Linux on the desktop is enjoying something of a resurgence in popularity as the age-old battle between the underdog open-source operating system and market leader Microsoft Windows hots up again.
So, is this the year that Linux, in its many variants, becomes the mainstream desktop operating system? That’s unlikely. But the reasons why Linux is growing its market share on the desktop are nonetheless interesting.
On an expanded definition – counting all computing form factors, including mobile devices and the computer servers that populate vast data centres – Linux is the most widely used operating system in the world, and has been for years.
Network World:
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Linux hits 4% desktop user share
While the desktop is not Linux's claim to fame, Linux still offers a huge number of distributions that can make your desktop computer work just like you'd want.
Windows clearly dominates our desktops, but Linux just managed to cross a milestone of its own. According to StatCounter, Linux has a little over 4% (actually 4.03%) of the desktop OS market. Check out StatCounter’s graph, and you’ll notice a slowly rising line near the bottom of the graph that represents Linux.
Microsoft spin:
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Has Windows Subsystem for Linux Helped Linux Gain Desktop Market Share? [Ed: Complete nonsense. This is Windows, not Linux, so if anything it would lower the measures of Linux and WSL users would be seen as Windows. Aside from that, very few people bother with WSL. It failed.]
Since desktop Linux has existed, fans and detractors alike have either hoped for or laughed about the "year of the Linux desktop." Now it seems that desktop Linux is starting to slowly gain market share, but why? [Microsoft spin alert!!]