I am from india. These numbers are inflated due to our population and government and health sector office pc using linux (ubuntu). These office pcs just require a chrome browser and all the work is done on the browser Nobody here cares what os they use in their office pc. I don’t see anyone here switching to linux on their personal pc other than the IT students who are forced to install kali linux. And most of them are running linux on virtualbox on windows.
Steam deck is not even officially sold here and imported ones that are sold cost 950$ for the 512 gb variant. So it is a ultra niche item here. .
People here buy desktops only for gaming/content creation, which means most households here doesn’t need/require a desktop. And these people always prefer mac or windows.
Also gaming scene here is dominated by mobile games (because gaming pcs and consoles are too expensive and we have the cheapest internet and phone prices) As for pc games it is dominated by valorant, Minecraft and gtav (fivem rp).
Edit - Many consider this a huge win. But getting market share in the office space for basic browsing and word processing inflates the numbers for actual game/app developers who wants to support linux and they will disappointed seeing the actual usage and they will abandon the linux support. Also the indian market isn’t buying laptop/desktops for browsing, they just use their phone because pc hardware is expensive and phones prices are cheap. And anyone who is buying desktops for serious tasks stick to windows and mac.
What do you want? A stat counter for everyone’s personal PC?
The government of India, the largest country by population, using Linux is… a huge win?
Indeed, sounds like a legitimate win to me.
It’s basically a FOSS Chromebook.
It’s a huge win, but not the kind of win people reading the statistic with no context (like me) probably thought.
I’m sure a lot of us looked at “15 percent of desktop PCs in India run Linux” and, regardless of whether it was hasty and irresponsible for us to do so, extrapolated that to, “15 percent of Indian PC users are personally selecting Linux and normalizing its paradigms”.
But in reality, it sounds more like “15 percent of Indian PC users use Linux to launch Google Chrome”. Which is impressive, but not the specific kind of impressive we wanted.
It feels a bit like how I imagine, say, a song artist feels when they pour their heart and soul into a piece of music, it gets modest to no traction for a while, and then years later a 20 second loop becomes the backing track for a massive Tiktok meme, and almost zero of that attention trickles back to their other work.
It’s a win, but not something that has any meaningful impact on normalizing Linux desktop usage.
It’s not going to help the network effects of convincing vendors or manufacturers provide better support for Linux.
The government is probably the biggest customer you can get as a vendor / manufacturer. You’d be insane to not give them whatever support they ask for.
All they need is a chrome browser, so why would the government waste money on windows licences? A huge win is when personal pcs switch to linux. Linux doing basic web browsing and word processing is not a huge win.
My sister only uses her MacBook to access Safari and watch YouTube videos. Should she be counted?
I understand what you mean, and these aren’t people intentionally installing Linux in their houses… And while that would be better, it’s not the only win. Government employees in India using Linux on Chrome means that Google has more incentive to make Chrome better on Linux. It means that people have less reason the arbitrarily block Linux users from their website. It means maybe in the future, Linux will be installed on school laptops as well.
Is it the Year of the Linux Desktop? No. Is 15% still misleading, hence your post is a good PSA? Yes. But is the 15% not a win? Nah, it’s still a win!
Most schools in India already use some distribution of Linux.
My point being web browsing and word processing was never a problem on linux or any other os. It is being used just because it is cheaper and people who buy personal pcs are still on windows or mac and they dont switch
Oh boy, I have had such a different experience… So many websites used to not working.
These numbers are inflated due to our population and government and health sector office pc using linux (ubuntu).
They are not inflated. Office use is the majority of desktop use elsewhere in the world too. It’s very much a apples to apples comparison.
These numbers are inflated due to our population and government and health sector office pc using linux
So just like Windows numbers being massively inflated because of corporate computer fleets?
These office pcs just require a chrome browser and all the work is done on the browser Nobody here cares what os they use in their office pc.
Right, so again, the mostly the same with Windows for both office and personal use.
I don’t see anyone here switching to linux on their personal pc other than the IT students who are forced to install kali linux.
What are you expecting exactly? Is the choice of each person supposed to be formally announced? Are we supposed to real into a populated areas and declare like Micheal Scott “I declare: I’M USING LINUUUUUX!”?
People here buy desktops only for gaming/content creation, which means most households here doesn’t need/require a desktop.
You just described the entire world. This is far from unique to India. Most people I know don’t have a desktop and maybe have a laptop, and I live in North America.
Not to be conceded, but I’m guessing this post is in response to my comments from a couple days ago?
I really don’t understand your point. It’s like you’re saying “the users in India don’t count because they’re not using Linux the way I do”.
Does that mean that all the workstations at CERN don’t count? Or that the systems up on the ISS don’t count?
To me (and I’m certain most people in general would agree) the ISS story is very important, because they were originally running Windows on those systems, but it kept crashing. They switched to Linux to get more stability out of those systems and have been using Linux ever since.
Also, does the story of the City of Munich switching to Linux not count either? It’s supposed to be a major win, btw. A city government switching away from Windows and choosing to go with Linux is huge. I see it the same way with India. The more often people are Linux in the wild, the more normalized it is and the more mind share it generates. And mind share is huge in getting people to make a certain choice. It’s the reason why product ads are everywhere. The more often you see a product/brand, the more likely you are to say to yourself “that’s the thing I’ll buy”.
Before anyone says Munich switched back to Windows, they didn’t. Microsoft made an under-table deal with some officials with the at-the-time in power government to switch back to Windows if they set up a Microsoft office in Munich. Then a new government was voted in a few months later and said “hell no, we’re continuing with the Linux rollout” and that’s where we are today. The City of Munich is a Linux success story.
Ultimately your post was just stating some facts and then waffling on about how it doesn’t count.
You just described the entire world. This is far from unique to India. Most people I know don’t have a desktop and maybe have a laptop, and I live in North America.
I’m pretty sure in Europe, UK and Switzerland almost every household has at least one PC. A lot even one per person. Everyone I know from Europe has their own in their room and kids usually get their own in their teens. The difference between poorer households and rich are usually just how good/new those PCs are.
I’m in Canada and work in IT. Most of the people I know that have desktop systems are other IT people or PC gamers. Otherwise most of everyone else uses a laptop.
In india due to low cellular data prices and android phone prices (chinese brands are huge in india) situation is very different. Consoles and pc hardware are priced differently compared to other electronics.
So most of the entire world is using windows/mac if they want to do something serious other than web browsing. And most of the linux desktop usage is contributed by enterprise and office pcs using linux. People still use windows and mac on their personal pc. So it is not a huge win if you want developer support for games and apps. Even if developers follow these numbers and start supporting linux, they will soon realise it is not worth their time because linux usage is mostly due to enterprise running chrome.
So most of the entire world is using windows/mac if they want to do something serious other than web browsing.
Absolutely not. Depending on what you want to do, Linux enables you to do way more than Windows.
And most of the linux desktop usage is contributed by enterprise and office pcs using linux.
Do you have actual numbers for this, or is it just entirely your own anecdotal observation?
Even if developers follow these numbers and start supporting linux, they will soon realise it is not worth their time because linux usage is mostly due to enterprise running chrome.
Garbage argument. It’s like the whole induced demand nonsense city project planners use. No one ever says “I’m only using Linux because I don’t need the extra stuff Windows can offer”, instead what you often hear is “I’d switch to Linux if this one specific application wasn’t Windows only”.
The largest thing that has held Linux adoption is application compatibility.
And one fact that I know that questions your “it’s only cheap enterprises” argument is that Linux is huge in the academic sector in India (and the world also). More than half of the AI and ML demo videos on YouTube are from Indian accounts.
Every single one of my friends are on Linux. Only one of them is in “IT”. Most of my family is on Linux, because they didn’t want to deal with viruses and ads. (I don’t even “IT” for any of them, so I wasn’t consulted. At best I introduced them to the fact that Linux is at least as usable as Windows many years ago). A lot of my colleagues are on Linux; now, most of them are devs, but some of them are on macs and until Apples’s Proton-clone becomes a viable option running Linux on them is just cleaner.
Obviously, we’re less than a rounding error all summed together. Obviously, most of that number is from government issue systems. But it’s not as bleak and impersonal as it seems.
But so what?
Why do these numbers matter at all? Is it inherently virtuous for a country to have a high number of willing Linux users? Or is it because at least these machines waste fewer resources, run cooler, and more secure? Then does it matter who and why installed Linux on them?
If their users are fine with using a browser for all their work, and the offices can buy these PCs for cheaper than Chromebooks after our infamous taxes, not to mention avoid being ewaste for much longer, this is a win-win situation whichever way we look at it.
P.S. that I also own a Steam Deck (and use as my only PC) probably doesn’t help my everyman-credibility much 😅
In my defence, I could afford/justify it only because a good friend volunteered to buy it for me and bring it over. I wish things were different. But I’m happy I have one, at least.
I actually want a steam deck, just to show my friends linux can do most gaming. But it is so expensive here in india.
I thought maybe now that the OLED is out the OG would be cheaper, but nope.
If you have friends or family in the US or UK though, perfect favor to call in :)
I work in the health sector. All PCs in my hospital (Quite a big one, 90K+ Admissions last year) are Dell Pre Built with a dual core Pentium and 4GB RAM, all running Ubuntu. Everything from Discharge Summaries to Medical Advices are made using Google Chrome in the Hospital Management System.
Does Epic also run on this? I have only seen it running on Windows
Considering the health sector is very huge in india because of the population. These health sector pcs contribute a lot to the overall market share in india.
I will say that your statement that no one cares about what their OS is. it kind of makes the point. If no one cares. Why would you use a nonfree OS? Other than the FUD and that it’s just what was used before.
That’s the only reason why the Government chooses Ubuntu. Even in School IT Classes, they use Ubuntu. Children are trained in OpenOffice, GIMP etc in Government Schools, but MS Office in Private Schools.
I was specifically taking about office pcs. People sitting in front of those office pcs have better things to worry about. Their interaction with the linux os is clicking that giant chrome icon and they do whatever the IT guy taught them.
I don’t see anyone here switching to linux on their personal pc other than the IT students who are forced to install kali linux.
I think someone is pulling your leg. All the IT / engineering students I know use either a normal Linux distribution like Ubuntu, or Windows. Kali is for cybersecurity people and wannabe h4X0rs.
I get what you’re trying to say but I work in a large healthcare organisation in the UK and our PCs run Windows. Most of the work across our organisation is done within a virtual machine window for our Electronic Patient Record; the local OS on the PC is largely irrelevant. The exception is that office is used for email and that causes a drag on moving away from Windows - people are used to using Outlook rather than just using a webmail or other tool.
Windows has that market share currently largely through inertia rather than going for the most cost effective option. The 15% in India with government and health sector use does count, it’s quite an achievement to have successfully deployed a vendor neutral operating system for other tools to be deployed on to. Shame it’s using Chrome though. In the UK Healthcare we’re wasting huge sums licensing and maintaining Windows when we really shouldn’t be.
The workflow actually works on any browser. Chrome is used because that icon is recognisable and IT guy can just say click on the chrome icon and people understand that.
Nobody here cares what os they use in their office pc.
Yup, that’s how it’s supposed to be. You turn on your PC to get your office work done, not to reinstall display drivers each day.
Gone are the days when you needed to compile your own modem drivers to access Internet from your Linux PC.
The Linux experts here are using their technical knowledge to perform advanced tasks like setting up server clusters for AI-generated furry porn, they are definitely not the ‘average’ Linux user.
OP, you say those folks only launch a chrome browser and so aren’t choosing Linux themselves. Fine. But looking at it from the system perspective, they’re inadvertently learning how to use Linux. How to make WiFi selection in that interface. How to deal with patches and upgrades and vulnerabilities and hacks. Sure, they’re basically only using the browser. But do they never download a file? Open it in the system file browser? Attach it back in the browser?
All of these user interactions are what define a person’s experience on a system. If you think of one of the main differences between iOS and Android, you’ll see how in iOS files are a second class citizen and apps are first class citizens. That means iOS defers to the app first and then considers a file as an independent entity. That’s a strategic decision that defines how generations of iOS users perceive the world around them. It’s what helped companies like Notion become the behemoths they are because everyone accepted that if you want to build a knowledge base, you can just start writing text in an app or browser and not consider files as the first point of contact for the knowledge base user.
By using Linux on a day to day basis, those users are slowly unlearning what they’ve come to understand is the default behavior of a system - most likely whatever Windows does.
Somewhere down the line they’ll crib and hate on windows enough to what something different. That might end up being Mac, but for a large swathe of people, it might end up being some Linux variant too.
Aren’t files second-class citizens of Android too?
The analogy broke down somewhere as I wrote it. Perhaps I should have said “mobile” instead. 😃
They don’t interact with the file system or ui. They call the IT guy if they cant login or connect to the network.
Sounds exactly the same for a regular IT help desk job in a company that runs all windows or Mac.
thats very fair and doesnt take away from that 15% at all
a browser is all most people use their computer for anyway
The same in Greece, where it has 11%, it’s because some government agencies use it, and the whole of the Greek military is on Linux Mint!
80% of computer usage is just a browser. you can swap in any OS, it does not matter for the end user.
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