Linux could be 3% of global desktops. What happened to Windows?

In response to one measurement by one agency, Linux reached 3.07 percent market share of worldwide desktop working programs in June 2023. It is a notable first for the greater than 30-year-old working system, although different numbers in Statcounter’s chart open it as much as many extra interpretations. It is both the 12 months of the Linux desktop or a notable asterisk—your name.

As Statcounter explains, its numbers come from monitoring code put in on greater than 1.5 million web sites throughout the globe, capturing roughly 5 billion web page views monthly. Statcounter says it doesn’t collate, weigh, or in any other case alter its knowledge other than correcting for bots and Google Chrome’s prerendering. Laptops are included in “desktop” as a result of there isn’t any simple option to separate them. They usually’re topic to revision for as much as 45 days after publication.

Five years ago, Linux made up 1.69 p.c of Statcounter’s June numbers. Within the 12 months between June 2022 and 2023, Linux unsteadily crept up from 2.42 to three.07 p.c, leaping previous 3 p.c for the primary time between Could and June. For those who regard Chrome OS as a Linux system, you might add that 4.13 p.c and get to 7.2 p.c.

Trying on the different numbers and areas from the 12 months main as much as June 2023, nonetheless, and there is a lot happening. Home windows drops from 76.33 p.c to 68.23 p.c one 12 months later, recovering a bit from a heavy winter/spring stoop that took it all the way down to 62.06 p.c. Is Microsoft’s suspension of sales in Russia, beginning March 2022, an element? What else would clarify a greater than 14 p.c drop in a single 12 months?

That one thing else could possibly be “Unknown,” which ramps up progressively, then jumps and stays at 13 p.c, simply as Home windows sees its stoop. Tom’s {Hardware} suggests “Unknown” is probably going “very new or very outdated variations of widespread OSes,” which tracks. Linux is not gaining on the identical form of quirky curve, however extra progressively.

Additionally rising progressively, however confidently, was MacOS, which Statcounter sees as rising from 14.64 p.c in June 2022 to 21.32 p.c a 12 months later. Home windows and Mac’s numbers in June 2022 account for 89.5 p.c of desktops, leaving the rest for Chrome, Linux, and the inconsistent “Unknown” to vie for a a lot decrease third-place podium spot.

For those who swap to a US-only view, Linux didn’t hit 3 p.c, and in reality, misplaced just a little share, from 2.14 p.c to 1.96 p.c. MacOS is gaining extra persistently right here, from 24 to 34 p.c, and Home windows dropped about the identical quantity, however from a decrease stage, to 55 p.c. “Unknown” had a much less wild experience in a US-only view however nonetheless fluttered upward within the spring, seemingly taking away from Microsoft and Linux.

As a result of we could not assist ourselves, we requested GPT-4 to graph out when, assuming the same development sample from 1991 to 2023, Linux would attain 100% desktop market share. GPT-4 advised us that, assuming linear development, “which is a major simplification and not going correct for the actual world,” it may see the present 0.096 percent-per-year development charge common reaching 100% within the 12 months 3033.

It is value noting that two different prompts resulted in solutions of “January 2121” and “2002.” The Yr of the Linux Desktop is prior to now; it is sooner or later; it is at 3% or 7.2% or neither; it is world or native; it is not possible and inevitable. It by no means stops being fascinating.