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Linux marketshare measured by statcounter didn't sustain the >4% mark in January 2025
(gs.statcounter.com)
this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2025
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Obsessing about this increasingly irrelevant figure is pointless. Most people do not even have desktop computers outside work, and the number is going to keep dropping and dropping. The world has moved to mobile.
As Linux nerds who care about the future of free personal computing, we need to reboot our minds and focus on how to get free software onto mobile devices and into mobile applications.
The FOSS Linux stack is going nowhere on mobile (I have speaking rights here: I once bought an Ubuntu phone). Our last best hope is web apps that use web standards. I say we transfer our obsession to that project instead, rather than worry about this distraction of a statistic.
It's not like both worlds are antagonists. Free software is more of an ecosystem, and every part that grows helps each other. People who run foss on a device are more likely to run foss in others.
Linux on mobile struggles not because of a lack of interested developers, but because most phones are locked to prevent us from running modified oses, and the apps available for all the services needed require an android os.
Besides, to discredit the desktop platform as fi not important is an exaggeration.
I run graphene os with most of my apps from fdroid. It doable but it's an absolute pain in the ass.
Yes, this is the alternative. And it's a PITA as you say. And might not even be possible in the future, given the trend towards locking down Android and OSs in general.
Yeah we need to fight to ensure its possible going forward. Even now GrapheneOS doesn't have RCS or google pay cos google won't give GrapheneOS a certificate as a trusted os (despite googles own international android developer team requesting it as GrapheneOS makes a significant contribution to android security).
I don't want RCS on my phone. I would rather use an open standard like XMPP or Matrix. But Big G's behavior in this regard is very toxic and monopolistic. Also, I believe for a truly free mobile experience, we should support linux mobile, rather than android ROMs
You can pry my laptop and PC from my cold, dead hands. I've been seeing people lament the death of computers for years and I still see no change. Most of the people I know (not nerds or techy people at all) still have at least one PC or laptop at home.
That's exactly why statistics are needed, because our personal perception is flawed. People like to say sensationalist phrases like "the desktop platform is dying", but data from sites like statista shows the desktop marketshare around a bit more than 1/3, and that's a lot of devices, very far from being a dead or irrelevant platform. It's logical that smartphones, that are personal devices turned on all the time will have more traffic and marketshare, but that doesn't mean the desktop is dying. Actually, the pc sales keep growing, although at a slower rate (that can be due to several factors, like older pcs lasting longer), and that means that the mobile platform has grown in a faster rate, not necessarily that people are stopping using pcs, but that specific data we don't have available, unfortunately.
Another thing I keep seeing people say on the internet without any proof (that's one interesting thing abut those sensationalist statements: they never provide any proof, just a personal perception, but we need proof to counterargument) is that younger people are stopping using pcs and that desktops are becoming an "habit of older people". I don't know of any gobal research on that, but at least here in Brazil, we have an annual survey from cetic.br that shows that desktop usage doesn't have significant differences among age groups. I don't know if the same stands for the entire world, but I've seen a lot of people saying that phrase around here too. Also, that's not only a sensationalist thing people say, but seems to me to have some degree of ageism.
The people you know are not representative of the world population, and becoming even less so every day.
Of course. But, I've also traveled to and lived in multiple countries on multiple continents. While that still means nothing in the bigger picture, I'm still having trouble believing that computers are being completely replaced by phones.
Also, support free/libre Android ROMs!