Desktop Linux now has over 4% of the OS market; how?

Despite years of playing second fiddle to Windows, Linux is quietly making its presence felt on desktops, with its market share reaching a new milestone of 4.03%. What could be the reason for this growth?

Microsoft’s shift towards cloud services like Azure and subscription-based offerings like Microsoft 365 has decreased emphasis on the traditional Windows desktop experience. This opens the door for alternative operating systems like Linux to grow and capture a larger user base.

Thanks to platforms like Steam offering wider game compatibility for Linux, the gaming scene on the open-source platform is experiencing a steady rise, as reported by ZDNet. This attracts new users who are comfortable with the Linux environment.

To be honest, the days when Linux was solely for tech-savvy users are gone. Distributions like Linux Mint have made changes to offer user-friendly interfaces and experiences, making the transition from other operating systems smoother for beginners, but still not for me.

And interestingly, countries like India, with a growing tech sector and a large pool of programmers, are witnessing a significant rise in Linux adoption on desktops. In India, for example, Linux holds a market share of 15.23%.

While challenges like fragmentation and lack of industry-wide prioritization for the desktop experience remain, Linux is demonstrating its potential to carve out a larger space in the personal computing landscape. It will be interesting to see how these trends evolve and if Linux can continue to chip away at Windows’ dominance in the years to come.

Here are the stats.