Windows 10 bleeds users as Ubuntu Linux experiences astonishing increase – Forbes

One can only hope that this is a real trend and not simply a statistical fluke.

This is the most likely cause. As much as I'd like to see more Linux acceptance and usage in the desktop world they have a long long way to go if ever getting there. 599% growth in a short time span sounds good but when it factors around 1% of actual across the spectrum it is nearly insignificant.

To be fair though, it could likely continue. People around the world are so ready to "get back to normal". I may be an extreme pessimist but this is the new normal. Old ways are gone for good in my mind. That will be proved in about a month or so when it blows up because they removed their stay at home stuff. At least in the US anyway. I may need a dose of optimism, but I don't see it coming soon.

It really bothers me to always see the general masses and "non-tech" people willing to learn and get into something as abstract and distinct as MacOS/Apple but won't bother with Linux.

Granted Linux isn't always 100% for everyone and their hardware but that is also it's strength in that it can be used for a lot of unique cases and then some. Also the desktop landscape has progressed to a very good point up to now.

I wish more "non-tech" people would at least give Ubuntu a try. It can even be Ubuntu and I feel like they'd be OK with it. I've seen posts on here even with people saying they've set up their family with Linux and the person's haven't given it another thought. As long as the experience is familiar enough, they'll roll with it.

With more manufacturers selling laptops with Linux preinstalled, people should be more willing to use Linux just as they do with MacOS.

TL;DR:
I don't like Apple. Use Linux.

Statistical fluke I'm afraid... look at how NetMarketShare measures data and you'll see that it's simply because a lot of Ubuntu clients were connecting during that period - which equates to a lot of people being at home - i.e. the same number of users using their home computers instead of their (windows based) office workstations. So no more users, just the same users using their home computers a lot more.

As this pandemic drags on, I'm getting somewhat more optimistic about the gain in Linux mindshare.

My new employer isn't the world's most picky about security, but is pretty close to the top of that list. While I'm not in the highest-security-demand area of the organization, I've been impressed to the degree that people (including many leaders) in an all-Microsoft[*], all-locked-down environment have been willing to use outside-world software. Combine that with a sense of continuing in this mode ("new normal") for much longer and people paying out of pocket for the resources to do their jobs, and I see substantial straining against the traditional restrictions on what employees can use.

And then of course there are all the students who don't have such restrictions, but their families may be hard pressed to provide the video-chat-capable equipment for them to use for remote schooling.

[*]: Wow, from what I'd heard I thought Windows would have been better than this a decade ago. But I still get crashing and bad behavior within a week of booting. That says something about the public's low expectations, I suppose. And the UX decisions (for MS Windows + MS Office, not even considering 3rd-party software) surprise me and make me wonder about the corporate culture that produced them. Oh, and this site isn't all_ Microsoft -- many of the servers run Linux (but were provided by integrators providing a contractual service, rather than set up by the people in my organization).

PS, in reply to That Random Guy's comment: As I'm sure you've often heard, people buy a Mac to be able to do their work without having to worry about managing their new computer. While Apple doesn't quite meet those expectations, it does so quite a bit better than install-your-own Linux does (and also better than preinstalled MS Windows). I don't have experience with (non-ChomeOS) commercially-preinstalled-Linux systems, but expect they'd work about as well as preinstalled MS Windows until you start going beyond your browser - at which point a non-techie would find more hassle and perhaps regret the switch. Laptops are particularly finicky (regardless of OS) with sleep/wake requirements low-battery behavior, etc.

I was an engineer at Google when it started work on Chrome OS. I seemed to be the one optimist about Chrome OS, surrounded by skeptics. But it has surpassed even my expectations. I suspect that Chrome OS is going to play a big part in moving the public from proprietary OSes to Linux (at least if we don't get cut off first by something like a boardroom VR deal that creates a new Must Have on MacOS and MS Windows that we lack in the FLOSS world). To drive that, we really should find some iPhone/Mac like integration between non-ChromeOS Linux and regular desktop Linux to give people more incentive.

I don't think chromeos based computers are so different to locked down Apple appliances. Same with Android - there is no freedom in any of those devices - but there is plenty of surveillance, data collection, telemetry, fingerprinting and profiling. When you consider that a) most chomebook and android based phone users have no idea they're running Linux and that b) those products are proprietary in all but licence - and only partially FOSS anyway - I don't see the huge advance / gains for FOSS and freedom or "GNU/Linux"? It boils down to the different between FOSS and "Open Source" again.

By contrast an x86 PC from a Windows OEM can have the preinstalled OS wiped and an alternative Linux, 'BSD or other installed in its place - despite the introduction of UEFI and Secureboot it's still possible - a huge difference between an HP/Lenovo/Acer/Asus x86 and those aforementioned platforms. It's not "open hardware" by any definition however and the presence of proprietary firmware and the management engine, still means that the user will not have a "free" system when all is said and done. But at least the owner of the computer, can install a different OS (for now...).

My experiences with Windows don't really match others' here either. My Windows 8 and now 10 at work, which I've been running collectively for years without any need to reinstall, are stable and trouble free. In my opinion Vista/7 were far from perfect, but Vista was mainly much aligned because the hardware at the time simply wasn't up to the job (particularly related to the swarm of cheap and nasty "netbooks" which were abundant during that time). 7 was only perceived to be "better" because hardware had caught up by then, but was really just a "Vista service pack" - but 8.1/10 is where stability and reliability of the system as a whole has increased significantly. The worst things about 10 is/was the forced updates and built in telemetry, but both can now be disabled, so it's easier to live with.

But Windows is Windows and I still can't make myself like it or use it unless it's absolutely necessary (work) or where something just won't run on anything else (certain games).

Well, this is odd coming from me because I have been a long time open source user and supporter on the desktop. I recently (few months) gave up on Linux on the desktop because of a complete lack of integration with, well, anything. I still use Linux in my virtual lab as my attack platform of choice but no longer use it as a desktop. I like Linux on the desktop in terms of look and usability, but getting data to multiple, disparate systems (phones included) not running Linux is too much work for me.

Windows 10 has left a sour taste in many people's mouth but the only other commercial alternative is MacOS. Many people have no idea what Linux even is. I use Windows 10 for gaming only, because it just works, no fuss. I grew tired of configuring wine or having to jump through burning hoops to get things to work, if at all. For everything else where I have personal data, I use Macs because frankly, the level of application integration is unprecedented. Google may be close but I hate google products, Android included.

Windows 10 Home for me works very well, but it does one thing and one thing only: "host" by World of Warcraft icon. I never rely on Windows for anything. I use it at work because that's what we have and it is slow, has an inconsistent UI and apps frequently crash, namely Office apps. My work computer is in a large AD domain and is Windows 10 Enterprise so probably quite different than my home system.

I do like that I see success stories about people using Linux on the desktop. For me, it just became to cumbersome and I find now I have more time to do other things than muck with my desktop. I will caveat this by saying I do have OS "OCD" and could never settle on a distro: 20 years of hopping. I solved this by taking the choice away. A bit extreme but I am happy.

I gave up on wine years ago. I only play, or wanted to play, a few older games and none of those would run successfully on wine anyway. Even some (proprietary) games with Linux ports are a pain to get working and installation can be extremely over-complicated and bothersome - i.e. running multiple patches, symlinking to system libraries, after first having to find older versions, etc...

Some games required laborious extraction of windows cabinet files and messy workaround that make you wonder if the developers release them for Linux solely with the purpose of putting people off...

Of cource nowadays it's all platforms such as steam, but I draw the line there.
I don't find it slow, nor have the frequent crashes - but fully agree on the inconsistent UI. The new "metro" UI is a horrible mess and was tacked on, along with the obnoxious "Windows Store" on top of everything else. They should have ripped out metro with 10. Saying that, if you uninstall all the crap and change to the Windows 8 style "start screen", you can put all of your commonly used stuff on it and it is usable to a degree. To get anything done at all I have my launchers in the taskbar or on the desktop and make a lot of use of "<Windows key> + R".

More UI inconsistency: If you install a device driver and click on "have disk" you will still see an ancient dialogue box pointing to A:\ drive and with a small icon with a floppy disk drive...

But yes the annoying full screen metro UI components with their massive icons and over simplistic approach, with the omnipresent on/off slider switches that seem to pollute everything nowadays, often laughably give way to an old style dialogue and it just gives the impression that someone couldn't be bothered to build new UI elements for that...

I remember reading that a team designed the whole thing using Powerpoint and that's why it looks like it does (bland and featureless).

Well, my Windows 10 install at home is crazy fast because it's running on SSD and isn't on AD. My work laptop is running Windows 10 Enterprise and is on spinning rust so it is painfully slow. It takes 15 minutes, roughly, for the drive light to go out after power on and if I try to do anything during that time, it takes a few seconds to even recognize a mouse click. This is an i7 quad with 16gb ram so no slouch.

I don't mind the general "start menu" idea but they ruined the Windows 7 start menu by adding tiles and other meaningless garbage that has no business on a menu. I rip all that out and just have the basic Windows 10 menu with no tiles. Actually, I never even use the menu except to power off because the only thing I ever access is the WoW icon on my desktop

The new Edge browser proxy menu, which I am in and out of constantly on my work laptop, only enables and uses the "save" button when you enable the proxy. When you disable the proxy, the button stays disabled. Inconsistent.

I think Most mainstream Linux desktops do a pretty good job of consistency and usability. KDE, Xfce4, Mate` and even Ubuntu's Gnome Frankenstein, are all easy to use. I think it is these days, easy for people to give up Windows and move to Linux, if they have no hard software requirements that can't be changed to a FOSS version.

Sounds like Windows update is busy... it is a hog and I thought the BITS service was supposed to ensure that it didn't eat all the system resources.

Not come across that one as I never use the Edge browser.

I find all the desktops I encounter, regardless of OS frustrating to deal with, but that's just me. I find most websites unusable as well and usually have to enlist help just to understand them... particularly the websites with massive images, photos and buttons which deliberately try to steer you away from what you're trying to find. For example I discovered that one printer manufacturer I deal with has an anonymous FTP for their Windows drivers and that was a massive bonus for me.

It's not Windows update - we get those pushed out Tuesday/Wednesday every week. The laptop does this every single day. I could leave it on I suppose but I always shut it off. I can only surmise it's the system trying to sync with the AD mothership or some security software. I do work for the government so the laptop has extra security goodies I am sure. Have not really looked...

I use Edge to do some application pen testing. It is essentially Chrome with Microsoft's bad UI spin put on it, lol. Normally I use Chrome but want to get familiar with Edge and our admins push it to our test boxes so it's there.

I get very frustrated with the Windows UI on a regular basis. It is so poorly designed. Amazes me that a company with that much money and resources and has usage on millions of desktops, cannot even put together a cohesive, consistent UI. The MacOS UI is brilliant in comparison, albeit has its issues as well.

I don't really have too many complaints about desktops or even windows managers in Linux. I have used nearly all of them at one point or another. Some are great and work very well, some are kludgy. I do have the same complaints you do on web sites though: some are horrible, some are good and useable.

A lot of services run by default at start up and many simply aren't needed. The difficulty is in actually sitting down and going through them to find the unneeded resource hogs, partially hindered of course by MS' tendency to keep renaming them... I've always found AV software to be a performance killer as well.

The last time I really had Windows only running essential services, was back in the days of Windows XP - nowadays I have little interest in optimising it as I barely use it at home except for some old games and performance is ok.

Yeah, I think I narrowed it to a McAfee process but since a "corporate" asset, I have no control over it. I just make sure I sign on 15-20 minutes early so I am ready when my work day starts. My personal system is lightening fast in comparison.

Yes McAfee is terrible... it's likely that it's either running a full scan in the background - or your initialisation is going through the full "on access" scan, and in terms of the latter, that's the most costly in terms of performance. An SSD would obviously mask the problem somewhat.

Agree - the drive light stays pegged (on) for over 15 minutes every morning. I live with it but it is less than desirable obviously...it eventually settles down and then have only the "normal" lag in Outlook and OneNote. You know, takes 15 seconds to render an email after clicking, OneNote turns white and goes "not responding" when you sync, normal stuff for Microsoft Office...