I feel like im never early to things, so I’ve been using linux for 2 years it’s probably pretty popular and has been for a while now
I have a better metric, Linus tech tips and other PC channels are all talking about linux this year, many even for gaming, the general PC nerd is hearing and learning about linux and considering it as a real choice, so many are absolutelly fed up with windows BS and are swaping to linux. The supposed big problems of linux about having to tinker it all the time, they are just as likely to happen on windows now, except that on linux is something technichal to fix, on windows its the new update fucking everything up, and you know it will keep happening, because they are continually pushing updates, and you did not choose any or use any of those updates. My PC has been crashing about once a day for the past year for some updates that gave me nothing except more settings to turn off every time. Every PC nerd that was not already on linux has been waiting for an alternative for a long time, maybe work requires windows, maybe gaming requiered windows, maybe other people sharing the PC, but all those things are going away, there is no real reason to keep windows, its becoming a walled garden like apple, except apple has better quality i guess(never had a mac, and hated the iphone), windows is a barbed wire garden, easier to get out but if you are used to it you dont want to touch the spikes. Now a part of the fence is broken and people see that the grass is just as green or greener outside.
What I read is a whole lot of vagueness and assumptions and so n so…
Anecdotal evidence doesn’t count but Ima use this one today: I know a guy.
Not a super tech wizard in the slightest but works with pc’s, recently told me he joined the linux camp with bazzite. I think we here on the fediverse all probably know someone who recently switched through proton/bazzite or mint/ubuntu …
And those might not all stick around, but some will.
As long as MS keeps shooting themselves in the foot and showing their allegiance to drumpelstilskin and company I’d like to think people are going to take notice.
It’s not gonna be that old lady next door but her grandson at some point probably will be coming across linux at some point.
Yeah I’m having conversations with the most broie business school types and finding out they’re running mint. I grew up not knowing anyone who used Linux except maybe at school.
Just shutdown my PS5 for good until it will be moddable, and upgraded my mid-tier PC and switched to Bazzite to use it as a game console. After getting used to the new OS, everythings been flawless so far, I’m happy I’ve made the switch.
Why not try promoting the Linux desktop as a platform that makes it easy to use AI bots?
That sounds like Ubuntu in the future to me.
Why Ubuntu?
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/the-future-of-ai-in-ubuntu/81130
Obviously it will be opt in I think, but there is definetly a concern of a slippery slope.
Aww :(
So is it still 4%?
Sounds like they’re in denial.
Jokes on them. I’m running WSL.
it’s weird (perhaps convenient) that their explanation is “bots” but they don’t mention bot metrics from StatCounter themselves: according to StatCounter numbers, bot traffic share increased 0.37% in July 2026, while Linux Desktop grew 1.92% in the same month.
Ignoring that the default browsers on many distros are seen as bot traffic, filtering the alleged bot traffic on Linux still results in around 7% of overall traffic, up from 4ish a year ago. It also doesn’t explain the giant leaps in downloads on many distros that correlate with the spike. It’s possible some organization set up a ton of computers with openclaw and a wide variety of distros on it I guess to influence opinion 🤷♀️
Also extremely biased source
Various governments in Europe are switching to Linux too. Libraries in Copenhagen now use Linux.
I’m on pro Linux side and still think that trend was pushed by AI scrappers.
Man I’ve seen it used in doctors offices. I think it’s picking up a lot.
Okay, so did they account for the bots that claim to be Windows PCs? (I’ll bet there are still some running around that identify themselves as IE 6, although those may finally no longer be the majority of all bots.)
Humans are why we cannot have nice things. The internet was always going to get ridiculous, just like the usa was always going to prove back to the future right in the stupidest possible way.
pcmasterchef
Who cares, just fake it till you make it.
Yes there are zero bots running windows and nothing would ever inflate those numbers pleased clap.
Overall probably closer to the truth.
I wish people didn’t obsess over these large numbers as much. Like when Linux suddenly hit 5% on Steam when that was clearly just an outlier and was destined to fall right back down.
How would that clearly be an outlier? Hindsight is 20/20, right?
Because these numbers experience wild fluctuations on a regular basis. Does it make sense to you that people are just joining and quitting Windows by the masses simultaneously?
Something strange with the March 2026 results was that it had two new distro entries, “0 64 bit” at 17.60% and “64 bit” at 8%. In April, one of those entries disappeared and the other’s share dropped significantly. In May, both were gone entirely and Linux was back to a more reasonable marketshare of 4%.
I’ll admit that weird and unexplained data is a hint to something going wrong. Shame on steam.
There was nothing that would have explained a more than doubling of Linux desktop market share.
It was not that difficult to come up with a more likely explanations and some people where quick to mention AI crawlers/agents, which did actually explode in numbers.
But why would those crawlers participate in the steam survey?
The latest results I saw from steam actually showed an increase in Windows 11 market share.
The 10% was based on browser user agents.
The only interesting thing about the numbers is that eventually, people outside the tech bubble will pick up on it and think about seeing what the fuss is about and if it’s a solution for them and then maybe also switching.
In that sense: I “heard” that the number is 20% actually. Windows is so over. It’s true. Pass it on.
