[blitzar]

The cope in this article is strong ... the year of desktop linux indeed.

> Of course, StatCounter’s numbers should be read for what they are: web usage statistics, not a direct count of installed operating systems.

I am unclear how one writes that paragraph after saying the numbers are "global desktop OS usage" over and over again. Not to mention the android share of web usage is 0%.

[datadrivenangel]

I was a daily windows user for ~20+ years and haven't turned on my windows 10 desktop in months because the only thing I have it for now is anti-cheat games that are too time consuming to play...

Anecdotal for sure, but microsoft's blunders and erosion of trust are starting to hurt it.

[OhSoHumble]

Yeah, but you're also on Hacker News. You are an outlier. I recently wiped Windows off of my gaming PC and installed CachyOS and, honestly, Linux just isn't ready yet. I'm also an outlier because I'm an SRE whose first distro was Slackware and I'm returning to the fold because Linux gaming has gotten much, much better... but it is still pretty inferior to playing games on Windows.

[backpackviolet]

It depends on the game (which is one way in which it isn't ready yet, granted), but I've been amazed at how many games I can play without any issues. Maybe I'm just lucky that my taste aligns with what's playable but I've been fully on Linux for years now.

I'm glad you continue to try it, I encourage anyone looking to have not-Windows options to try it. You can check compatibility of various titles with protondb if you're curious.

[OhSoHumble]

It's not huge showstoppers. It's just a lot of little annoying things and last mile configurations. For example, I have to launch KCD2 with a Steam Deck related launch option for it to pick up my controller. It took a bunch of googling to figure that out.

I have an Audeze Maxwell headset whose dongle was left in Xbox mode (which Windows was happy with) and so I spent 30 minutes debugging why it wasn't working in Linux until I flipped it to PC mode - which crashed PulseAudio so I had to restart it.

Dota2 has a native Linux client... but it suffers from microstuttering and that's just killing me. FPS is high as I have a 4080 but, man, the stutters are killing me.

Battlebit initially launched in a resolution so low that I had to guess through game menus to get it to my monitors native resolutions. It's just... small and annoying things.

I don't really mind, personally. I grew up using Linux. I don't mind doing these configurations and it's worth it to have a dev environment on my desktop computer. It's just that Linux isn't really "Microsoft competitor" ready when it comes to gaming. Valve has put in a bunch of hard work though. Huge kudos to Valve for getting Linux as far as its come. I hope the Steam Machine takes off and we see more hardware and game developer support.

[jcsager]

My last desktop before Linux was SunOs4 on a Sun Pizza box. Before that I used Macs. I had to use Win3.1 as road warrior kit until I got a laptop that would run Linux. So I've been using a Linux desktop for at least 30 years both at work & at home. I still use Windows (not 11!) sometimes where I can't avoid it but that's in a VM under Linux.

[echoangle]

How many desktop Android users are there?

[blitzar]

My mistake I misread the "OS X at 11.89% and macOS at 4.48%" and thought one was iOS rather than 2 versions of the desktop os, and we were lumping in all the web users not just desktop.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

I would be willing to count those Android HTPC devices you plug into a TV. Those come with a web browser, so it would be greater than zero.

[echoangle]

I don’t think they should count as desktop.