I'll go on the record and say above 5% by December 31st 2022.

Depending on who you ask, its at ~2% today. If that feels high to you, remember: it includes Chromebooks.

As it grows, you'll absolutely hear people say "Chromebooks" or "Steam Decks should be their own category, they don't count". These arguments effectively reduce to "Linux cannot be popular, so I'll move the goalposts so it never is." Ignore them, and pour cement around the goalposts: running a distribution of gnu/linux.

Of course, if all we cared about was the "linux" part of gnu/linux, then its already the most popular operating system kernel in use by mankind. Its already won.

>Of course, if all we cared about was the "linux" part of gnu/linux, then its already the most popular operating system kernel in use by mankind. Its already won.

Except the "linux" part matters to the actual user not one bit.

Android is a fairly walled garden no matter what kernel it uses. It's an implementation detail.

I'm curious as to why should the Steam Deck be in its own category. To me, it runs a mainstream, open and not-locked-down Linux distro. I could see an argument for Chromebooks being in their own category, but the Steam Deck, in my eyes, is a legitimate "full" Linux device.

Branding is important and an ordinary person (I think) will hear more about Steam Deck than Linux. And it makes sense that it's in its own category (or rather, game console category) because it's made for that purpose. The fact that you can do whatever you want with the HW is just a bonus.

PS. Nice user name. But why pair those two? :D

> Branding is important and an ordinary person (I think) will hear more about Steam Deck than Linux

Fair point, I say. But people will know that KDE and Linux exist a bit more now, since they're kinda intertwined.

> PS. Nice user name. But why pair those two? :D

You're the first one to notice! And I paired them since if they married at the end of arc 1, it'd be the the most satisfying ending for me. And also, their mental states and stuff seem to be weirdly aligned, so I feel like they'd be the best fit for each other. It's also what I feel that pairing is the one that the least number of people would expect (:

Least expected indeed. To me those two only come together if opposites attract. Although a queen marrying an (originally) dark eye? Definitely counted as an upside in Jasnah's eyes.

If they do marry I hope Brandon makes a sequel like Mistborn 2 and we'll see what a descendant of Jasnah/Kaladin could do.

Woah, I'm a linux gamer but %5 by 23 is crazy. Steam Deck is going to be super niche, and a lot of people over on reddit are already planning how they will install Windows on it.

It's not going to explode. It will creep up very slowly.

And lets not forget that Microsoft will combat it if it starts to take off. Game pass is already and incredible deal. We have it in our house for the xbox.

> people over on reddit are already planning how they will install Windows on it

Wait until hands on videos show the battery and performance difference between Linux and Windows and see how many Deck purchasers don’t go ahead with their installation.

I really hope lots of people see how great KDE is these days as well.

2022, year of linux on the desktop!

For once it might be!

Not if Epic keeps buying independent video games that support linux, saying they won't change anything, then 6 months later removing linux as a playable platform (rocket league). That they're trying to develop a linux anti-cheat does not indicate they will actually support linux. It doesn't even indicate they won't actively kill linux games as their long history proves.

I've been using it at work the last 6 months.

Only issue I've hit was Tableau Desktop has no Linux support (but hopefully we can migrate to Looker, as Tableau sucks anyway).

I think at this point I just need a Google Drive client. 1Password is already there, Obsidian is there, I'm ready to go

InSync? Not first party, but I heard everywhere it's really good.

I used InSync with a mounted drive. I rebooted and it ran before the drive mounted and deleted my entire online google drive contents and then deleted the local files when the drive mounted.

The google UI is such garbage that you can't undelete 1000s of files so I had to write a script against it's API that ran for a few days restoring everything. Sucked.

I've been using it for the past year. Works perfectly find, no complaints. Definitely worth the $40CAD I paid,even if I plan to move away from Google Drive in the near future

Ubuntu supports Google Drive out of the box, it appears in the file manager. Probably it's Gnome doing the actual work, I haven't really bothered to learn it well.

Was not aware of this, interesting

If you want client, not necessarily sync, GNOME has it built-in. It'll mount your Drive using FUSE.

Why would you run Linux and use Google Drive? If you don't care about FAAN(M)G reading your data and activity, Windows is simpler and has better compatibility.

Consider that I may use a tool like Google Drive for a subset of data that I don't feel is particularly sensitive or identifying in nature

You can't use Google Drive without providing identifying information (a phone number or a payment card) to Google.

EncFS over GDrive/Dropbox is great!

why would anyone other than programmers/devops/IT pros have anything to do with Linux?

I could see it becoming big with pc gamers for how much you can tweak the OS itself to eek out as much performance as you can get. They also tend to want to personalize their PCs a lot and with linux they'd have a whole new level to that with the customizability of the desktop experience itself.

It doesn't spy on you. It gives you freedom of choice when it comes to desktop environment, and what software you run. It's not developed by anti-competitive tech giants.

why would anyone other than programmers/devops/IT pros have anything to do with Linux?

I doubt it.

Desktop computers haven’t been relevant since 2008ish, and were struggling to maintain relevance after the 4th gen Intel GPU/Power-consumption changes.

Headless servers and consumer electronics are, already, largely using Linux.

If anything, this is the reason Linux could hit that point. Desktops are increasingly for specialized applications: gaming, development, content production, etc. If you just need general consumption, you probably have a tablet or phone. I could absolutely see Linux hitting 5% just because people who would never use Linux have stopped using a computer at all.

And yet we just went through a massive GPU shortage suggesting Desktop is alive and well. Do we have any recent industry stats on this?

Have you not heard of the crypto miners buying up all GPUs

It is a factor. It is hard for me to argue that it did not have significant impact and I don't really have hard data.

That said, all the people in my circle with remote jobs upgraded their desktops or lappies. It cannot be an insignificant number given initial pandemic panic and current delta resurgence. And between China cracking down on bitcoin ( check 3060s prices there and you will be left wondering why the prices did not drop significantly here ), Treasury issuing crypto guidance on ransomware payments, and eth moving to POS, it is harder and harder to blame crypto miners.

Frankly, they sound like convenient scapegoat.

I won't go into details, but I had the option of buying 3070 yesterday and 3090 2 weeks ago. I passed on both precisely due to recent uncertainty.

desktops are effectively the only thing people play PC games on.

This is a startlingly out of touch comment. Desktop PC gaming, along with self builds are one of lockdowns hottest trends.

Go to Twitch.tv, everyone there will be on gaming PCs.