Interestingly, the percent of Windows goes down if you look at just the United States, where it’s only 63% of OSes. And it also goes down similarly when you set it to the UK, or North America, or almost any other region. But it goes up to around 73% when you limit it to Europe or Asia. Weird, why is it higher in those areas?
What’s easier in Windows compared to Linux? Except the fact that you have to install it, since it doesn’t come preinstalled on as many PCs. But many people who think Windows is easy would probably still consider installing it difficult.
Graphics drivers. I can’t say I ever had a graphics driver update in Windows that rendered my system borderline unusable, but I 100% blame Nvidia for me running windows until recently. I tried a dozen times over a decade and ended up back on windows when the Nvidia update trashed my system and I got sick of dealing with it.
Application support; some popular software is built with Windows in mind.
One-click installers; Software usually comes with user-friendly installation wizards. No command lines or dependency juggling. Also better compatibility woth past versions
Driver availability; Linux is getting better, but Windows is superior
Better peripheral support like for printers, webcams, game controllers.
Gaming performance; although Linux is gaining ground, Windows is just better in this regard
Media codecs and formats; again, Linux is getting better, but this isn’t always an out-of-the-box experience
Business integration; Windows plays nicely with enterprise tools like Active Directory, Microsoft 365, and legacy business apps.
Don’t get me wrong. I use Linux as my daily driver. That also means I get frustrated on occasion when again I must consult man pages instead of just running a troubleshooter or fiddling with Nvidia drivers instead of just running the game.
Doing anything requires the memorization of thousands of commands that must be formatted perfectly and are specific to your distribution, into a black box that rarely provides any feedback at all, and when it does it’s extremely generic.
I’m sure my inbox will be blown up by delusional people claiming you don’t need it but it’s just not true.
The simple act of installing software is crazy complicated and different on every distro.
My current distro has 2 separate system update apps and I don’t really know how to use either of them, nor do I understand why I need to use them at all. Why does the system need me to click buttons to make it go? Just do it in the background. Then as soon as it’s done I get another popup 3 minutes later saying another package needs to be updated.
Hardware compatibility is a huge problem, fingerprint readers, WiFi, facial recognition, Bluetooth, etc. etc. Very few companies make computers with Linux compatibility being considered at all. Everything will have drivers day 1 on Windows and then they’ll trickle down to Linux a year or two later.
Nvidia GPUs are by far and away the most popular and they’re still very painful to use. And even though that’s entirely Nvidia’s fault, the problem remains.
I dislike Linux the least but there’s no way I could recommend it to anyone who isn’t a giant nerd who likes fixing computers.
installation of software on Linux is very bad. Literally everything else on Linux is very ready for the mass market, but installing apps is horrible to the point of making the whole OS not ready for the general public
Apple’s entire software design philosophy is god-awful. There’s only one way to do things and if you don’t like “The Apple Way”, fuck you. “It just works” only works for very basic normie stuff. If you try to do anything advanced, it most likely won’t work and it’ll give zero feedback as to why.
Hmm, I have kinda opposite opinion, hardware is pretty good, build quality is great, but the OS itself is meh. File manager is bad and clunky, desktop customization is very limited, network manager is buggy, especially with VPNs, no built-in functionality to import VPN config files like in Linux. Also, I used it for years and still couldn’t get used to all the shortcuts and "Mac-way"s of doing things. Just not for me perhaps. Not bad, but in terms of UX worse than both Windows and Linux for me.
Modern Mac hardware is excellent. The software is good too, but’s more a matter of taste. Not everybody likes how macOS works but Asahi Linux has made incredible progress so it’s a daily driver option for some already.
Mac hardware is a fucking atrocity. $2k for a “pro” laptop with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage and no i/o except 4 USBC ports, that’s completely and intentionally irreparable and unupgradeable? SSDs and RAM that are marked up 3000%? That’s what you call “excellent”? If they were cheap I might not completely object to them being disposable but it’s the opposite. It’s fucking gaslighting. You’ll never convince me it’s anything other than a cult.
People are still using Windows!?
People are still using the os that has like 95% market penetration? Yeah man pretty sure
70% but yeh.
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/
Interestingly, the percent of Windows goes down if you look at just the United States, where it’s only 63% of OSes. And it also goes down similarly when you set it to the UK, or North America, or almost any other region. But it goes up to around 73% when you limit it to Europe or Asia. Weird, why is it higher in those areas?
(Click “edit chart” to pick a different region)
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/united-states-of-america/#monthly-202406-202506
Plenty of people still use it for work
Any workplace with halfway decent IT will disable it by default.
Which may be about 50% of workplaces, but still.
As much as I wish your estimates were true, you have no numbers to back you up. They seem wildly optimistic.
Until Macs become cheaper or Linux becomes easier, Windows will remain the largest OS.
What’s easier in Windows compared to Linux? Except the fact that you have to install it, since it doesn’t come preinstalled on as many PCs. But many people who think Windows is easy would probably still consider installing it difficult.
Graphics drivers. I can’t say I ever had a graphics driver update in Windows that rendered my system borderline unusable, but I 100% blame Nvidia for me running windows until recently. I tried a dozen times over a decade and ended up back on windows when the Nvidia update trashed my system and I got sick of dealing with it.
On team green and running Bazzite with no issues
Sadly, quite a few things. Here’s a few:
Don’t get me wrong. I use Linux as my daily driver. That also means I get frustrated on occasion when again I must consult man pages instead of just running a troubleshooter or fiddling with Nvidia drivers instead of just running the game.
I mostly agree with you but this contradicts everything I’ve seen. Presumably you have evidence of this?
Doing anything requires the memorization of thousands of commands that must be formatted perfectly and are specific to your distribution, into a black box that rarely provides any feedback at all, and when it does it’s extremely generic.
I’m sure my inbox will be blown up by delusional people claiming you don’t need it but it’s just not true.
The simple act of installing software is crazy complicated and different on every distro.
My current distro has 2 separate system update apps and I don’t really know how to use either of them, nor do I understand why I need to use them at all. Why does the system need me to click buttons to make it go? Just do it in the background. Then as soon as it’s done I get another popup 3 minutes later saying another package needs to be updated.
Hardware compatibility is a huge problem, fingerprint readers, WiFi, facial recognition, Bluetooth, etc. etc. Very few companies make computers with Linux compatibility being considered at all. Everything will have drivers day 1 on Windows and then they’ll trickle down to Linux a year or two later.
Nvidia GPUs are by far and away the most popular and they’re still very painful to use. And even though that’s entirely Nvidia’s fault, the problem remains.
I dislike Linux the least but there’s no way I could recommend it to anyone who isn’t a giant nerd who likes fixing computers.
installation of software on Linux is very bad. Literally everything else on Linux is very ready for the mass market, but installing apps is horrible to the point of making the whole OS not ready for the general public
I would rather be set on fire and have it put out with shovel than use a mac.
MacOS isn’t terrible, only the hardware is.
Apple’s entire software design philosophy is god-awful. There’s only one way to do things and if you don’t like “The Apple Way”, fuck you. “It just works” only works for very basic normie stuff. If you try to do anything advanced, it most likely won’t work and it’ll give zero feedback as to why.
Hmm, I have kinda opposite opinion, hardware is pretty good, build quality is great, but the OS itself is meh. File manager is bad and clunky, desktop customization is very limited, network manager is buggy, especially with VPNs, no built-in functionality to import VPN config files like in Linux. Also, I used it for years and still couldn’t get used to all the shortcuts and "Mac-way"s of doing things. Just not for me perhaps. Not bad, but in terms of UX worse than both Windows and Linux for me.
Modern Mac hardware is excellent. The software is good too, but’s more a matter of taste. Not everybody likes how macOS works but Asahi Linux has made incredible progress so it’s a daily driver option for some already.
Mac hardware is a fucking atrocity. $2k for a “pro” laptop with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage and no i/o except 4 USBC ports, that’s completely and intentionally irreparable and unupgradeable? SSDs and RAM that are marked up 3000%? That’s what you call “excellent”? If they were cheap I might not completely object to them being disposable but it’s the opposite. It’s fucking gaslighting. You’ll never convince me it’s anything other than a cult.