I can list the biggest one without having to look: Because the most popular alternative has progressively gotten worse for the past 12 years, and what was once a quality OS (sure,it had its faults and flaws, but I’ll concede that Win7 was objectively a good OS) has now morphed into a combination of spyware and adware.
Microsoft being uninterested in Windows Desktop and focusing on Saas and the cloud is indeed the first bullet point.
- Microsoft isn’t that interested in Windows
- Linux gaming, thanks to Steam, is also growing
- Users are finally figuring out that some Linux distros are easy to use
- Finding and installing Linux desktop software is easier than ever
- The Linux desktop is growing in popularity in India
Users aren’t finding it out. The distros just actually got usable and stopped being super elitists.
what was once a quality OS (sure,it had its faults and flaws, but I’ll concede that Win7 was objectively a good OS) has now morphed into a combination of spyware and adware.
The last objectively good Microsoft OS that didn’t have any significant user-hostile features was Windows 2000, IMO. Windows 7 – specifically, before invasive “telemetry[sic]” started getting backported to it from 10 – was just the last version before the hostility got bad enough to get me to switch.
objectively good Microsoft OS
ROFL
Windows 2000 was a good operating system by any measure. It was rock solid, capable, well-supported, could scale from desktop to large enterprise deployments and everything in between, reasonably secure compared to their previous operating systems, etc. I never did like Microsoft operating systems, but Windows 2000 was actually good. It was a breath of fresh air at the time. We had NT 4, which was stable and reliable, but was limited by a lack of DirectX and became cumbersome in large deployments. Then we had Windows 95/98/ME, which was the garbage that crashed all the time.
Windows 2000 was a good operating system by any measure
ROFL
Okay, let me rephrase: to the extent that any Microsoft OS could be described as “objectively good,” Windows 2000 was the last one of them.
Okay, let me rephrase for you: in choosing which of Microsoft’s stinking piles of shit was the least stinky, some people chose Windows 2000. However, most people just left the stinky area and didn’t look back.
A major reason that Windows is “popular” is because it’s pre-installed on desktops and laptops. Users don’t have a choice when they go to the store to buy a laptop for doing banking stuff or save pictures from their old camcorder.
It’s the same way with browsers. IE was “popular”, but only because that was the browser that was pre-installed on Windows. The IE browser was complete shit.
In theory, in the EU, as well as some other places, you have the right to get refunded for Windows if you don’t want it. In practice that’s often hard to pull off in most shops.
Imagine a “Choose your Browser”-style pop-up, but for your OS on first boot. I’d really love to see it, partially mostly for the amount of pure chaos it would cause.
When people build new gaming pc they still choose to install windows, because everything just works.
Gaming PC means video games, video games have historically been Windows or maybe Mac compatible. Only in the past couple years have game makers started making Linux compatibility a priority, and even then its a small percentage.
Until all systems align, Windows will continue to dominate. But things like HTML5 over Flash are helping those efforts!
because everything just works
No, it’s because they believe everything will just work.
You can hate microsoft telemetry and bloatware all you want but Hardware and software compatibility is better on windows. It is a fact.
That’s an extremely debatable statement.
Hardware
Linux actually tends to support more hardware do to ridiculously long term support, stable systems requirements and high flexibility.
Windows on the other hand, tends to support newer hardware very well while forcing millions of older hardware to the junkyard because of EOL and ever increasing system requirements. However it’s also to be noted that Linux support for newer hardware has been getting much much better in recent years thanks to increased interest from Intel, AMD, Nvdia, etc.software
Depends by what way you mean, but in general sure, Windows can have more “software compatibility”, but it’s also to be noted that it’s a monopoly forcing Linux and other OSs into a chicken egg scenario. Linux software compatibility has been increasing exponentially over last few years, and increasing market share helps massively; that’s why Linux going from 3% to 4% in just 8 months is such a big deal.
Anyone building a new pc, is going to use modern hardware not EOL hardware. Yes it is great that linux can revive old laptops making it perfectly capable for browsing and word processing, but for a new gaming pc with modern hardware that i build to play modern games i will choose windows over linux anyday.
Linux going 3 to 4 is because govt office pc. Also why linux have a 25 percent market share in india according to the same stats. Because all these pcs need is a chrome browser and word processing. If you look at recent steam hardware survey linux only have 2 percent market share in which half of them are steam deck users.
Why should i waste time troubleshooting on linux, when windows have 100 percent game compatibility and i don’t have to worry about any future games and proton incompatibility. Also popular games like valorant, league, eft, warzone and services like gamepass, netflix 4k doesnt outright work on linux.
modern hardware
Actually, modern hardware in general tends to work perfectly fine on Linux with the exception of a few (mostly Nvidia) problem cards, sure, sometimes support isn’t immediately there at launch, but that’s becoming less and less of an issue with growing market and company interest.
Linux going 3 to 4 is because govt office pc.
Nope, that may play a factor but that’s a significantly tiny factor. The stat is based on global desktop market share, there’s a fuck ton of other factors you’re not taking into account. Govt office PCs doesn’t account for the 12+ million increase in users.
Also why linux have a 25 percent market share in india according to the same stats.
Because it’s localized to the India desktop market in that particular stat, and Linux being extremely popular in India, more so than MacOS and increasingly growing in popularity… Literally just ask Muta(someordinarygamers), lol.
Because all these pcs need is a chrome browser and word processing.
Nope, if that was the case they’d just use a Chromebook.
If you look at recent steam hardware survey linux only have 2 percent market share in which half of them are steam deck users.
Ok and? That’s based on Steams users base and taken at random, I’ve been on steam + Linux for years and never once was I prompted to participate in the survey. And ofc the several million SteamDecks they sold globally would be a significant part of that.
Why should i waste time troubleshooting on linux, when windows have 100 percent game compatibility and i don’t have to worry about any future games and proton incompatibility.
You’re looking at it far too black and white, Linux has a number of pro-consumer advantages. Just because it’s not ready for you’re specific use case doesn’t mean it’s not ready for others.
Also popular games like valorant, league, eft, warzone
That’s on the game devs for not cooperating with Valve and the Linux community.
What’s important is that there are steps you can take to get them working if you happen to play them all thanks to community efforts.services like gamepass
Microsoft is in direct competition with Linux, common sense…
netflix 4k doesnt outright work on linux.
Netflix 4k does work on Linux out of the box, the hell you on about?
You seem to be experiencing a bug, have you tried reporting it?You are here agreeing with me on why linux is a inferior experience on software and hardware front. You are softening the blow by blaming developers and capitalism. You dont have to ask muta, I work in the govt health sector in india and here every pc runs ubuntu. This is same for other sectors. Everything is done on the browser. Also gaming here is dominated by Mobile so these numbers are surely overinflated.
It is a fact.
LOL
- Users are finally figuring out that some Linux distros are easy to use
so recommending arch linux to newbies was counter productive all along?
suprised_pikachu.bmp
There’s still some stuff I’m tied to Windows for, namely music players (MusicBee and Apple Music but they can be used in a VM) and VR. But it’s nice to see Linux growing.
Bruh, just use Spotify or VLC, XD. But VR, I think I can understand.
vlc sucks for music because it doesn’t have gapless playback, and not everyone wants to use a streaming service.
Not to mention, Apple Music is so much better than Spotify for my needs and Cider isn’t cutting it for me right now. Once they’re not as reliant on MusicKit, I might give it a go again.
What’s your issue with Cider, if you don’t mind me asking?
When I’ve used it, gapless playback being non-existent due to it basically being a frontend to the web client/MusicKit for web. I listen to a lot of albums in full nowadays, so that can really hurt the experience. It’s a shame because everything else about it is great. I am aware that the Cider devs are trying to find ways of handling that without reliance on the web client/API, which might enable gapless but also stuff like lossless if you got AM for that.
Edit: I should mention that Cider has a new client that’s paid but still supports Linux (specifically with AppImage, .deb and .rpm packages), and my experience was with Cider Classic.
Edit 2: I bought Cider 2 and so far it’s working well. You sacrifice lossless and maybe some gapless playback still, but it’s a mild loss vs. so far a huge gain in usability.