Linux market share at 6.91% for the month of September.

BulletDust

BulletDust

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While this can be classed as a minimum figure, looks like that year of the Linux desktop could quite possibly be on the way?

https://www.netmarketshare.com/report.aspx?qprid=9&qpaf=&qpcustom=Linux&qpcustomb=0

Act like adults, respect the sub forum you're in, or it's thread closure!

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I'm stoked to see that, but that's a fairly extreme jump! Any guesses on the cause? That big of a climb (3.2% to 6.9%) would surely need a shove of some sort. Back to school chrome books are finally online?

This month report is full of interesting notes -
*Windows being sub 90s is also a huge.
*Both Mac & Linux saw a bump.. AND linux has overtaken Apple!
Trend graph with table

I guess to temper the excitement - they do note that the data has not been QA'd for data collection errors or statistical variations. I hope the trend is reflected by other stats sites.
 
I have no bone to pick, but that can't be right. You don't double marketshare in one month without something fishy going on. I would argue that the 3.37% from August is suspect also.
 
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." ;)
 
I would love this to be true but that seems like a really big jump for one month.

Something does seem off... unless they are counting Chrome as Linux. I believe that is the proper way to count it but I know most of the counter sites don't count Chrome as a Linux distro. Considering how dominate Google now is in education it seems logical... and more likely then millions of people firing up Linux for the first time this month.

If next month we once again are saying this doesn't seem right.... perhaps there really is something going on. I have noticed a good number of reviews of Dell and system76 Linux laptops the last 5-6 months... I know its a long shot but it would be pretty fantastic if they are moving a ton of them. If a lot of university/collage students have decided to go Dell Linux that could explain a bit. Of course if that was the case I would have expected the gain to come at the cost of Apple not MS. Anyway lets see what it says next month. lol

Again I know long shot that this is legit... but;
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...-can-out-muscle-a-growing-linux-laptop-field/
There is a possibility at least that these types of machines are ending up on campuses. Given the choice students prefer *nix, windows boosters like to think kids running macbooks on campuses are just being turtle necky annoying Jobs wanna bees but they where always popular for the *nix tools. Again apple should have went down then right ?
 
ChadD said:
Anyway lets see what it says next month. lol
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At the going rate, next month they'll be hitting 15% which as already noted is highly suspect to begin with. I think that particular ratings agency or firm or whatever changed their foundation for what's considered to be "Linux" more than anything else - I said recently that most of these ratings things are way off-base more often than not and I stand by that. Hell, I've been working with computers pretty much every day of my life since the 1970s and to this day, at this moment in time, I still don't know of more than a handful of people I communicate with on a daily basis that use Linux (any distro) as their desktop or laptop OS, and only a handful of others that use macOS for the same roles.

If I went around to 100 houses at random here in my new "home town" since I've moved recently I seriously doubt I'd find Linux in use on personal computers at all, maybe 1 at most, with Macs in maybe 3-4. I've visited all the local "Mom & Pop" PC shops in the past few weeks that I could find and in casual conversation with the people working there I still haven't noticed anyone that uses Linux as their own personal desktop/laptop OSes.

Either the numbers in that rating above are absolute bullshit or Linux users are using some kind of phase-shifting technology to not be visible or something, I don't know, but I just don't see that kind of market share happening in the real world that I live and move around in. :D

And for the record, I do NOT count Chromebooks as part of that even in spite of the fact that ChromeOS is Linux-based. I'm talking about people running a proper Linux distro that we all know and understand is a Linux distro like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora, etc. The numbers are being skewed by Chromebook usage pretty drastically and while Linux fans will say "But it's Linux..." that is true, yes, but it's not the same thing in my opinion.
 
I know quite a few people running Linux... its always about who you know. I joke. I get your point I agree average mom and pops have no idea what Linux is for the most part. I am not disagreeing 6+% seems off. However if they are counting ChromeOS it doesn't sound off at all to me honestly. If they are counting ChromeOS I do fully expect the number to continue to grow. Google has been doing a good job pushing their Distro. And yes it is just another Linux distro... it runs the kernel. Its package manager is a fork of Gentoos Portage. It doesn't have a full GNU package install.... so not GNU/Linux no but that is getting pretty picky isn't it every disto picks and chooses what from the GNU they ship. (no major Linux distro is "GNU" approved.) Google has provided exactly what everyone who has ever dismissed Linux as a consumer OS has claimed Linux needs to win the masses. "it needs to be easier" "it needs to be less geeky" "It needs to be easy to install" ect ect.... Well chrome is Linux for the masses the GNU bulk removed to make things simple and stupid proof, so I have no problems with it being counted as just another distro.

If Chrome drives Linux adoption to 20+% over the next year or so... that would be great. People that need more from their chromebooks find Gallium or other options. I would still love to see Google release a more fully featured Distro if not a full GNU version of ChromeOS. However without it a future computing world where 90% of the average plebs are on chromeos and developers / power users are on a GNU version distro would be a huge improvement. :)

I think we agree though this 6%+ number is likely not GNU/Linux its a Linux number. The next year should be fun watching the stat companies... the numbers are going to be vastly different depending how they count ChromeOS.
 
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Even if you credit ChromeOS for the bump (which I personally lean toward being most plausible outside of a datacollection error), it's still a HUGE uptick and something that should make tech companies flinch.

If it's all ChromeOS, it's a big sign that users are adopting the Google ecosystem in a more committed way. You can make more assumptions that 3-4% of that Linux number are users who will be making use of Google cloud services and likely valuing it enough to buy expanded services like storage and such.
That's where you start to see the lock-in as a service start happening. It should really light a fire under Microsoft and Amazon as these users will start to have more friction in migrating to other services. Before, all potential customers for cloud services were Windows users. Now you're seeing a number that can start to translate into less available potential customers. 2018 will be the year of brutal walled garden competition.


The alternative reality I'd like to see is that Dell & System 76 are printing craptons of cash and I'm about to see an influx of linux laptops at work. :D

In honest reality, I'm expecting that number to be revised after QA. It's just too much growth, too quickly. Would be extremely interesting if it holds up though.
 
Frobozz said:
In honest reality, I'm expecting that number to be revised after QA. It's just too much growth, too quickly. Would be extremely interesting if it holds up though.
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I'm not sure it is to quick when you consider it spiked in September. If ChromeOS is really the hero in that number it could simply be millions of school kids coming online come the first day of school. Could be anyway. We know Google dominates education and according to the omgubuntu guys netmarketshare includes chromeos in their Linux number.
 
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ChadD said:
If ChromeOS is really the hero in that number it could simply be millions of school kids coming online come the first day of school.
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DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER. ;)
 
ChadD said:
I'm not sure it is to quick when you consider it spiked in September. If ChromeOS is really the hero in that number it could simply be millions of school kids coming online come the first day of school. Could be anyway. We know Google dominates education and according to the omgubuntu guys netmarketshare includes chromeos in their Linux number.
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Anyone have a crapshoot guess as to how many devices that means? I wish they stated it, because I think that'd be a mind boggling amount of ChromeOS devices to come online at once by either school funding, students, or parents for students. I mean.. It's saying that in a month 4% of the entire desktop/laptop market flipped to $not_windows, right?
 
kirbyrj said:
I have no bone to pick, but that can't be right. You don't double marketshare in one month without something fishy going on. I would argue that the 3.37% from August is suspect also.
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I agree. ;) A fluke, an error, it's fishy, maybe even a conspiracy. And therefore Microsoft can safely ignore it, just like they ignored iPhone and Android in the late-2000's.

Cuz Windows isn't going anywhere, rite u gais?
 
Frobozz said:
Anyone have a crapshoot guess as to how many devices that means? I wish they stated it, because I think that'd be a mind boggling amount of ChromeOS devices to come online at once by either school funding, students, or parents for students. I mean.. It's saying that in a month 4% of the entire desktop/laptop market flipped to $not_windows, right?
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That sounds about right... ChomeOS now has over 60% of the education market locked down in the US. (for sure cause those are last years numbers) Now Google is starting to convert the education systems outside the US as well. I wouldn't be shocked when this years education numbers start trickling out to hear 80+% in the US and start seeing 50%+ numbers coming from places like the UK/AUS ect. So I would expect that to be a pretty good number of devices.
 
ChadD said:
That sounds about right... ChomeOS now has over 60% of the education market locked down in the US. So I would expect that to be a pretty good number of devices.
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Chromebooks really have reached a crazy tipping point in K-12 and colleges where they're exploding faster than Windows did in the late-90's/early-2000's. I know for a fact many community colleges are buying thousands at a time; my friend does the IT management at one, and he jokes they'll be the death of him and will put IT workers out of jobs because they're designed not to require dedicated IT to deploy.

So now you've got Android and iOS eroding Windows-focused computing at one end, Chromebooks eating share from the other end, and god help MS if Google releases a ChromeOS for x86 PC's that plays Vulkan games and runs Android apps.
 
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DPI said:
Chromebooks really have reached a crazy tipping point in K-12 and colleges where they're exploding faster than Windows did in the late-90's/early-2000's
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Googles bet on the whole cloud os thing may turn out to be pretty much spot on. I know a lot of people still don't want to believe that corporate clients would ditch windows workstations for Chrome but its already starting to happen. No one loves having to tend to buildings full of windows machines when a dumb terminal does the same job at a fraction of the support costs. Not to mention all the security advantages ect. Windows -S isn't real competition... the next year with the stat counters should be fun.
 
ChromeOS usage has declined according to Statcounter, furthermore ChromeOS only measures as a blip on the radar when considering the US alone - Globally it's usage hasn't increased enough to even register a 'blip' and Windows market share has declined considerably and we have the comments from Microsoft's CEO to back that up.

Personally, I don't see any evidence that ChromeOS usage alone is resulting in an over 3% increase in Linux usage since last month - There isn't even any concrete evidence that Netcounter bundle ChromeOS usage with Linux usage.

Americans seem to think in relation to usage in the US, globally things are vastly different.

http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/all/united-states-of-america

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i know that our local school district(mom is tech for them) has gone back to windows after a failed try at chromebooks and ipads. they just cant do what they need them to do software wise and she tried to warn them.
 
It could be a result of WannaCry scaring enterprise and business away from typical Windows installs and shifting more to Linux, it could be Windows 7 users beginning to jump ship? The odd thing is Netcounters statistics don't support such a theory.
 
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics..." (repeated for emphasis) :D
 
ok, wtf happened..

Either some intern miscalculated something OR its been under-reporting for a long time. Jumps like this do not happen
 
Well there appears to have been an update.
The OP is stating 6.91% & this is in line with other headlines. The link now shows 4.56% Still an increase and this one probably has been through a bit more review
 
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naib said:
ok, wtf happened..

Either some intern miscalculated something OR its been under-reporting for a long time. Jumps like this do not happen
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Or the % of University / Collage students + k-12 students that are on ChromeOS(Linux) is a lot higher then then average. Which sort of makes sense as Chromebooks are pretty popular options on campuses and google has been making serious pushes into education.
 
naib said:
Well there appears to have been an update.
The OP is stating 6.91% & this is in line with other headlines. The link now shows 4.56% Still an increase and this one probably has been through a bit more review
Click to expand...

Indeed still a 1.46% jump in one month... but considering its back to school time that makes plenty of sense.
 
Well now, this is interesting, and no I haven't fudged anything, that's what I'm seeing at the OP link right this moment, I think the sheer traffic they're getting because of them posting these results is really starting to fuck things up. Talk about falling off a cliff, geez. Who wants to take bets they're not using Linux as their server OS? :D

Screen Shot 2017-10-01 at 18.24.36-fullpage.png
 
And now it's reading the 4.9% again, good lord. And less than a minute later it's borked all to hell and back. I tried to look at other countries and nothing seems to be working now at all. The "boost" appears to be strictly in the U.S. which again lends credence to the Chromebook thing being the most likely cause for the increase of any degrees.
 
4.9% on another browser, incognito window just so I know cache isn't playing funny buggers. Sounds more realistic and yet another increase for the month of September.

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OK,

Last night the results for September were there, now they're gone?

Has MS complained to Netmarketshare that they pay good money to keep such statistics low so better just to remove the results altogether? This is very odd, I've never seen Netmarketshare dick around so much with one month's results.
 
With all this discrepancy, it must be some sort of logging bug. Or maybe hackers juicing the score.
 
BulletDust said:
Who know's what's going on.

Netcounters eh? ;)
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No doubt reason to never trust netcounters... they are all in business to sell data to companies that wanna hear what they want to hear. They all manipulate their data shave this off that off, count this stop counting this... look here no look there. Whatever they need to tell the story their clients want to here. These specific guys take money from both MS and Apple... perhaps they would count their numbers different if red hat threw them a few bones. I joke... but ya all the web counter companies are shady.

My bet is still that a crap ton of Chromebooks came online last month with education techs and university students buying early testing and getting ready back to school. September came and even more of them lit up. After seeing that spike the netcounters guys took a good look at their numbers and started removing groups of machines from education ips from their numbers.
 
BulletDust said:
Who know's what's going on.

Netcounters eh? ;)
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You can't be all smug and say "lol, netcounters amirite?!" when you made this thread based solely off of them. If the net counter works in your favour its jubilant excitement and if they don't its back to "Well, can't trust them counters". They are only trustworthy when they work for your agenda. Pretty hypocritical.
 
auntjemima said:
You can't be all smug and say "lol, netcounters amirite?!" when you made this thread based solely off of them. If the net counter works in your favour its jubilant excitement and if they don't its back to "Well, can't trust them counters". They are only trustworthy when they work for your agenda. Pretty hypocritical.
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I'm posting news regarding Linux, my opinion as a whole is irrelevant, everyone posting here has an opinion of their own.

Your replies are as predictable as my own, are you aware of that? Should I claim Windows is good, in your own biased opinion would that indicate some lack of bias?
 
BulletDust said:
I'm posting news regarding Linux, my opinion as a whole is irrelevant, everyone posting here has an opinion of their own.

Your replies are as predictable as my own, are you aware of that? Should I claim Windows is good, in your own biased opinion would that indicate some lack of bias?
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This has nothing to do with an opinion OR Windows. Every time we have a discussion and it doesn't go your way you bring Windows into it. Why?

You use web counters every month to further your agenda with regards to Linux. You act like these webcounters are gospel, until they are proven otherwise and then you head right for the "Well, they are just webcounters lolololololol". It is ridiculous.

Quick, someone disagreed with you, better threaten to lock the thread.
 
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