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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I think the proposition of avoiding American tech in general will become more and more attractive in the coming years. Governments are already trying to move away from Microsoft for national security reasons. That'll have the knock-on effect of putting Linux and Libra Office in front of more people at work and school.
In combination with the advances in Linux gaming, This may be the first time since the 80s where the OS you're first exposed to will be anything other than Windows or Mac.
This may be the first time since the 80s where the OS you're first exposed to will be anything other than Windows or Mac.
We're already well past that point, honestly. Kids graduating high school this year grew up on iPadOS and ChromeOS. Last year I taught someone who is going to college this fall how a directory structure works.
As for me, our household is a Windows-free environment (except for a VM on my personal laptop that I use for DRM'd ebooks). We're Mac-free except for my work computer. My kids are learning Linux as their first real desktop OS (previously they had only used school Chromebooks), and it's been pretty smooth sailing.
Even pre-covid I was running into kids at the college I worked at at the time who didn’t know how to use a mouse or a flash drive.
It's also possible we'll see something like a EU law forcing PC manufacturers to offer a choice for the pre-installed OS on devices they sell.
Whilst that would be a great idea, top EU politicians tend to be in the pockets of Big Tech and the EU Parliament is currently majority Rightwing, so it's doubtful such a thing will happen.
I think Microsoft will Do something anticompetitive which will stop the Linux growth.
It sure is a good thing that we don't have "age verification" laws that require devices to self-report the users age, because when those checks get inevitably bypassed the solution would be upgrading to vendor-attested tokens that are tied to Google/Apple/Microsoft accounts.
Oh, wait...
Linux is the most deployed OS on the planet, and the comparisons are not even close.
If you mean just for Desktop, it depends on what's happening with the MacBook Neo, and if Microsoft gets their shit together and reverses course I suppose.
I predict it will be reminiscent to the migration to the threadiverse. Every now and then, we have seen Reddit make some stupid decision, and then we subsequently see a wave of new users migrate to Lemmy. Eventually, one day, I expect Reddit will make such a monumentally stupid decision that nearly everybody bails at once.
That is like what I expect Linux growth to look like. A few waves now and then with each major release of Windows, with each major Microsoft data leak, with each pricing restructuring, etc. Then eventually, Microsoft makes a single fatal decision that causes nearly all remaining Windows users to finally give up hope and migrate.
You can also take a look at twitter where only a negligible amount of people migrated to free alternatives, most of the people who wanted to migrate did so to another mainstream platform owned by a for-profit company, and most people didn't actually care to migrate no matter what the platform owners did.
I believe a lot of them went to reddit, and that explains how it has been growing since the latest changes
Reddit is now popping up banners that take up literally half the page if you're browsing a thread. Half of the value of Reddit is that you can find answers to a lot of questions on there via Googling, and they're now killing that
Then eventually, Microsoft makes a single fatal decision
When they suddenly decide that OneDrive is mandatory and not available for free.
Assuming you mean desktop Linux, probably slowly. While Linux on desktop is growing, Desktops PC use in general is trending downwards and Linux on mobile is far behind the other players.
My gut says that long before Linux overtakes Windows/Macintosh most people who want a mouse/keyboard/monitor experience will just plug their phone into a simple dock, like we're seeing with Android's "Desktop mode".
Assuming you mean desktop Linux, probably slowly. While Linux on desktop is growing, Desktops PC use in general is trending downwards and Linux on mobile is far behind the other players.
That trend probably already stabilized
like we’re seeing with Android’s “Desktop mode”.
apple is already in on this game, as well.
Unnecessarily late because they want users at least triple dipping with macbooks, ipads, and iphones, google too because they were pushing chromebooks for so long
Honestly, I hope that doesn't happen. I think if everyone started using Linux it would end up being diluted with commercial entities. You'd have Linux companies like Canonical scooping up more and more market share until they are essentially just the Linux Microsoft corporation. At that point, any decision they make becomes the defacto law of the land despite smaller independent distros/groups trying to do things differently. Other choices would exist, but basically it would be like how most linux users have to live with systemd changes because it's a nightmare to replace that without distro hopping.
You'd still see off-shoots for the desktop space, but if you want to use <INSERT_X> then you have go through this company.
At least in Linux you remain in control of the OS. If commercial players want to enter that arena, I welcome them, not as new Overlords, but as players on a level playing field.
I'll also throw in: the more commercial Canonical takes Ubuntu, the fewer machines I have with it installed. Ubuntu's value-add over Debian has been dwindling through the years - coupled with Canonical's rent seeking behavior, I'll rate Ubuntu 26.04 as a net-value subtract as compared with "rolling your own" Debian solution.
It's been gaining a pretty linear 0.5% market share per year for a while. Which is up a lot from the historic pattern of always being about 1%. Unfortunately I think the bigger trend is people giving up on personal computers and using a phone or tablet.
I think it'll be interesting to see what happens when the AI bubble pops. A lot of people want to hold off on switching OS until they get a new computer, but the absurd prices of RAM and GPUs are stopping people from doing that.
IMO, the only way the switch will actually happen is not the RAM or GPU, but if more manufacturers will start selling new/refurbished devices with Linux on it. Reason being: most people treat computers exactly the same way as I treat my car. I won't bother replacing firmware, engine, transmission, or even tires on my car if there is no good reason for it. Same goes for people: they won't be replacing OS, CPU, RAM, disk, etc, except there will be a really good reason for it.
Though, one thing to be mentioned: I generally see the trend that Linux is becoming more popular as more and more popular people adopt it (and are vocal that they have better time with it than with the alternative): PewDiePie, Linus Sebastian, etc. I think the trend might potentially accelerate, as more and more people are really unhappy with how well Windows works these days, and not everyone is ready to buy Mac (though the most recent Neo release success is a great indicator of how bad situation on the market is overall)
I think you hit it: market share is going up as the market shrinks. Same (or even lower) number of Linux desktop users, but desktop users themselves are dwindling - migrating away. I know a scary number of people who use their phone for everything and are basically clueless at a desktop with a mouse and keyboard.
If I'm being 100% real, it will not happen without some kind of MAJOR societal shift relating to how technology and law enforcement is managed. If Linux ever becomes the default option, you'll have bigger things on your mind.
Best guess is slow growth that eventually plateaus around maybe the 10% mark if we're lucky.
People are slaves to comfort, and ultimately that is what Microsoft and Apple are trying to sell. They want something that idiots can't break, and they know the best way to do that is lock down the OS so much that you're hardly able to interact with it at all. Unfortunately, there's a lot of people fundamentally unwilling to expend the very, very small modicum of brainpower necessary to use Linux these days, and I just don't think there's any chance of reaching them.
Things will mostly plod along slowly but then there will be some big event that causes usage to jump in a huge way, but not in the way that nerds like us want to see.
Actually, that has already happened. Linux is the most used OS in the world. But that's because it underlies Android, and that's not what most of us mean when we are talk about average people using Linux. We want to see people embracing open technologies and while Android might be open compared to Windows, it's not open in the way that we want to see.
If Linux on the desktop ever takes off in a big way, I bet it will also be in a way that makes me say "that's not what I meant..."
Slow and steady, with occasional spikes when a government or mega-corp does something particularly terrible.
You never know ... maybe THIS year!
The way windoze 11 is going - people really hating it - you never know, but I'm not holding my breath. Linux is still very niche, and people are wary of "strange" "new" things, especially FREE ones - where's the catch? I've seen it surge and blossom over the years, but it's still got a really tiny install base (as long as you don't count Android and embedded tech, where the OS and kernel are largely irrelevant to the user). But I don't see people moving over to Linux in droves any time soon, really: I've seen too much.
For context, I've been using it since [dredges up old memories] slackware was new, so about 1994, when a work colleague and I installed it (off about 20 floppies) onto an old 386sx PC with probably 4MB of RAM. Been using it ever since - and from Red Hat 4 onwards (about 1999) it's been my only OS on my own computers. I've always preferred it, and I've seen it grow in so many ways - I'd still use it if it was illegal. I haven't tried EVERY distro, but I have tried most. These days I mostly stick with Debian or Debian-based distro's (I'm currently on Mint LMDE).
People will use “shitty corporate Linux” because no corporation is going to pre-install an OS that isn’t shitty spyware because spying on you is worth money and why on earth would a corporation leave money on the table?
As I see it, if there's a fast pivot point to Linux it will be when the larger PC makers offer, side by side with a Windows option, a "with Linux pre-installed" option, especially if the final price reflects the cost of the OS license.
Even then, the shift would take years as people slowly replace old machines, a process which itself takes significativelly longer nowadays due to the current insane prices for some PC parts.
Sure, there is a drip-drip effect from people getting things like the Steam Deck and Steam Machine as well as tech types replacing whatever is in the machines of their family members with Linux as a way to avoid having to replace that hardware with newer (and at the moment far more expensive) machines, but I don't think that adds up to much more that 1-2 per year.
Mind you, this is a point of view based on how things work in Europe and the US - it's quite possible that things are very different in places like China and developing nations and there are very different pathways and reasons for Linux adoption.
Lenovo is the largest laptop manufacturer in the world by market share, and they've offered Linux preinstalled on many laptops and desktops for at least a decade
On select machines.
And even then, mainly aimed and enterprise customers, right?
The manufacturer matters for the option to be at all available, but it's the seller that matters when it comes to how many people go for it if there is one.
Non-experts tend to chose from what's right there in front of them in the store front they're buying from, not a manufacturer option that they'll only hear about if they care enough and understand enough to actually go look for it.
In my experience most PC sellers don't put their Linux options right there in front of you side by side with the Windows options and with equal proeminence, and this is as much true for online stores as it is for physical stores.
Lenovo offering it as an option is a pre-condition for people to actually get it but non-techies are still not going to get it if sellers don't make it as visible and available as the Windows option, which personally I almost never see happen outside smaller techie-friendly PC stores.
Mostly stagnation
I agree with this. There's no predicting when it will stop. I think it will grow significantly from where its at, but then using Linux will be like using Firefox vs. Chrome. No longer weird/niche, but never the standard or the thing most companies develop for first.
Well Firefox used to be very popular at some point.
Depends on your country of origin. Some governments are actively moving to Linux (China) some (US) never will.
Big jump. To call it slow and steady now is nearly a lie.
A government will send out an RFP to Lenovo, HP, Dell to provide end-user workstations running their government standard distribution. It will be a 10-15 year commitment. This establishes hardware support.
They also establish a support agreement with an office suite.
This combo effectively sets up hardware and software support that becomes available to home users.
It’s almost the same idea as setting minimum wage or travel reimbursements for government workers and private sector follows.
I believe Linux will experience a slow, steady growth because the technical alternatives for most Windows features and softwares already exist, making it pretty much a matter of time until people realize it. But the friction, like IT retraining, vendor certified vendor support from Adobe and other shit, and general user habits, are still too high.
Edit: Although, on a second thought, maybe not even that slow given Microsoft incompetence at managing Windows.
Valve's Proton support bringing gaming to Linux effectively, Windows 10 reaching its EoL deeming millions of perfectly functional PCs as e-waste by requiring TPM 2.0 and a short list of CPUs, and Microsoft’s aggressive and incessant push of invasive telemetry and AI features (like that shit Recall stuff), are certainly driving a lot of users toward Linux. If Microsoft keep making decisions like this, I'm not sure how long they will be able retain their user base.
i think that linux usage will stagnate around 10% of people using it, with 90% instead choosing not to operate any computer at all ...