The games I play work just fine under Linux. I’m EXTREMELY thankful for every single person that has contributed to Linux or the apps they can use.
If I wasn’t such a monkey I’d help any way I could.
I feel the same way. I’m not a pro programmer or anything, but we can still be positive members of the community and help out users and share why Linux is a better alternative, and that’s gotta count for something! :)
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Sorry Americans…
Once I got the steam deck and saw basically all my games could run in linux, I made the change fully on my laptops and desktop computers.
There’s not a single windows left in my house.
I’m a former IT Manager and system admin. And I am so fucking frustrated and pissed at Microsoft’s bullshit that I want nothing to do with them, and nothing of theirs in my house.
I cannot believe I’m going to say this: But from and enterprise point of view, I Miss Balmer. Nadella is a fucking useless wannabe Steve Jobs tool who has zero concept of what made Microsoft what it is. There’s horror stories of dealing with Microsoft on a corporate level that attributed to me having a mental breakdown.
I’m not such a monkey, and I could probably contribute if I put my mind to it, but I just don’t have the time… Instead I try to contribute documentation and money when I can. Everything helps!
Writing a good bug report is oftentimes all the help that’s needed.
Top ten comments do not mention typo. What a hell is going on. It’s Lenuks, not Linux
This is the best summary I could come up with:
First hitting over 4% in February, their March data is now in showing not just staying above 4% but rising a little once again showing the trend is clear that Linux use is rising.
A number that is getting steadily harder for developers of all kinds to ignore.
It terms of overall percentage, it’s still relatively small but when you think about how many people that actually is, it’s a lot.
For those thinking it may be due to Steam Deck with SteamOS, it’s unlikely, at least not directly.
StatCounter gather their info from web traffic across over 1.5 million sites globally.
There’s going to be various other bigger factors at play here though, like Linux nowadays actually being properly good on the desktop.
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At this point I use Linux for everything except my music production hobby (Mac for that) and even then I use Renoise and BitWig on Linux. I’ve been on Linux since 1996 but I haven’t been 100% Linux until the past two years.
Fuck yeah Bitwig. I mainly chose it so I’d have the flexibility to move to Linux in the future. That and the unmatched sounds design and modulation abilities.
100% agree, bitwig also supports Pipewire! I have multiple USB audio interfaces having access to all of them in bitwig is awesome.
I bought Abelton Live 12 before I tried Bitwig and now I have a bit of buyer’s remorse. Bitwig and Renoise are so good. Bitwig is also far more inspiring IMHO. I couldn’t get into Reaper though.
Yeah inspiring is a great word for it. I managed to get Bitwig via rent-to-own.
I have, over the years, spent quite some money on (windows) VSTs. I’ve tried in the past to get them running on Linux, but with no success : even when the installer worked fine in wine, the tools used to get the VSTs to run using bitwig either introduced too much lag, or the sound was stuttering. Have you had some more success and if so, can you give me some pointers?
On Linux I use Bitwig for live guitar play and the Renoise music tracker for sample chop based beat making. Eventually everything I make on Linux goes to the Mac for the bulk of the finish work. I stuck with Mac for most music for the same reasons as you but also because I could not find anything that comes close to my M2 Max based system in a compact laptop format. Those Apple chips are crazy.
Was LinVST among the tools you tried? It works really well for my purchased VSTs.
I did try LinVST, but at the time I couldn’t get the converted VSTs to run in anything I tried. Maybe I was being stupid at the time, or maybe it wasn’t as stable at the time compared to now, but thanks for reminding me, as now I will try to use it again the next time I try to make the switch, together with yabridge.
Using yabridge?
I’ll try that as soon as I can.
I don’t know the reason why I didn’t use it the last time I tried ( about 2 years ago?), maybe I didn’t find anyone mentioning yabridge at the time (I never asked, I just searched), maybe another reason.
But now I remember I ended up using Carla with an extension that let it use Windows plugins, which I would advise against.
If I get the VSTs that mean the most to me running well enough on Linux, then there’s nothing keeping me on Windows
Yabridge is the way to go. I used to use LinVST in the past but with very mixed results. With yabridge, ~90% of my plugins work perfectly, including Native Instruments plugins which have always been my favourites.
Just know that Wine >9.4 is currently bugged and will not work with yabridge. There is a discussion on Github about installing 9.4 and holding it from updating.
I’m wondering this too. There’s only a couple windows VSTs in my work flow but I’d hate to lose them. Someday if I can ever get my PoS laptop to boot from a live USB I’ll try.
With The Finals finally enabling linux support in their anticheat, I not longer use windows for anything. It’s going fantastic.
Sorry for hijacking this beautiful conversation you talented gentlemen are having, but can help me out?
I wanted to learn electronic music creation. I learnt very briefly how fl studio works, and then got busy due to my workload. Now I want to give it a go again. I heard llms is good for Linux, but I don’t understand how to get various instrument samples like fl studio. How do I set it all up? Can you point me to any good resources. I am also not committed to lmms and am open to suggestions.
I cannot comment on LLMs for music generation but, if you are starting from scratch, there are a few methods that I think are interesting.
- Sequencer/Groovebox: Hardware like the Elektron Digitakt and Polyend Play+ use the “piano roll” style generation that you find in most DAWs. How you import and edit samples, then sequence them in the piano roll, varies from one to the other. Fortunately, you can find a lot of video tutorials for most DAWs and hardware based sequencers on YouTube.
- Music Trackers: Whether it is a hardware tracker like the Polyend Tracker or the M8, or a software tracker like Renoise, this type of sample edit and sequencing really lends itself to electronic music. Plenty of tutorials on YouTube.
- Samplers: Here you have hardware like the Roland SP404 MKii, the MPC One, and the Teenage Engineering EP133 KO II and DAWs like Native Instruments Maschine (also requires Maschine hardware). If you have a tablet, check out Koala Sampler. It might be the best $5 you’ll spend this year.
In my opinion, trackers are an extremely fast and powerful way to create electronic music. The main complaint people have is the learning curve since almost everything else uses the “piano roll” method. Since you are starting from scratch, that complaint doesn’t really apply because no matter what you select, you’ll have to learn from zero.
…I think the previous comment is mistyping LMMS software to LLM.
Ah.
Thank you kind sir. I meant the LMMS DAW. Can you recommend me a good DAW to start?
Depends on budget. Obviously you are familiar with FOSS offerings. Outside of FOSS, if you want a paid products for not too much money, then Reaper is a favorite and Renoise is VERY interesting. If money is no object but Linux compatibility is still a main concern, then Bitwig, 1000%. The top Bitwig package costs $399 but they also have more limited versions for $199 and $99.
PS: No matter what, Koala Sampler is worth the buy.
I’m a newbie bedroom music producer but I’ve actually had more luck with my audio setup on Linux than I did on Windows 10.
I’m using an older Scarlet 2i2 to record guitar and back on Windows I was always having driver issues or Windows randomly resetting the sample rate making my DAW freak out at me.
On Linux it just works right away without me needing to download or tweak anything. Only part of my setup that needed tweaking was using yabridge for a few Windows VSTs.
If you are mostly recording your guitar play and aren’t using a lot of plugins, then Linux is a great solution. I highly recommend Bitwig as a DAW on Linux. If you’re on a tight budget, Reaper is also a great solution on Linux. It didn’t vibe with me (Bitwig is my favorite DAW), but a lot of people love it. I hear that the Reaper community is very active and inviting and the DAW is very customizable.
I used Reaper back on Windows but switched to Ardour for Linux, it’s abit weird to get used to but I’m getting the hang of it.
DAW?
Digital Audio Workstation
Ty
Music production software, e.g. FL Studio (Fruity Loops), Ableton Live, Logic Pro, Garage band (I guess?), Bitwig Studio, Pro Tools, Studio One, Reaper, Reason, etc.
We need a bedroom music producer community.
Wait, you do or do not just use Linux for music production?
What he said is that he does the majority of his hobby on a Mac, but also installed music apps on Linux.
Apple managed to grab a good chunk of the market by making some well-functioning creative apps early on, but I’m not sure if they really have any advantage over Windows anymore.
Music production on Linux is still somewhat behind, due to limited software. People get paid for making that stuff on other platforms, so Linux developers are scarce.
Some of it is also moving to tablets and phones these days, so the kind of person to buy a Mac only for easy music production will probably just get a dongle for their iPad.
You’ll still need a pc/mac for the full studio experience. Not because of software, but because its difficult to rig an entire music studio into a touchscreen with a single usb port. I mean, sure it’s possible, but you don’t want to. Latency, multiple monitors and a shit load of controllers make it physically
impossibleunreliable.On the bright side for Linux, music production is actually very low demanding, so it makes perfect sense to run an old laptop with a low spec distro and still have the same options as the state-of-the-art rig. Young starving artists will probably go that way instead of buying Mac.
Music production on Linux is still somewhat behind, due to limited software.
Audio support has historically been dogshit, and still to this day can be incredibly finicky. Audio latency has also typically been by far the best on Mac OS. But I think lately with Linux with the exact right combination of hardware and software it can be better. Can.
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F1c923fvcwyla1.jpg
Apple didn’t make Logic originally, they bought it. Same with Final Cut. This is also a pretty short-sighted take on the history of Macs and creative apps which actually stretches back to early 90s. Windows was originally pretty terrible with all kinds of multimedia and it wasn’t until XP that they finally really even started trying.
Of course it’s brief. Lots of stuff happened, but saying that XP was the first is also wrong. Adobe Audition used to be a freeware program for Win95 called CoolEdit… in the 30+years that Adobe has owned it, they have only added VST effects…
As of today, you can make music on any kind of hardware, even obscure handheld devices from before smartphones, and they’ll perform better than the original Logic. There’s nothing technical setting Apple’s “industry standard” apart from freeware these days.
Yes and no. I use Bitwig mostly for free play (guitar and keyboards) and Renoise for beat making. Everything else is on my Mac.
The attrition is slow, but every user lost to Linux is likely lost forever. After a year or so of totally free software, who is going to build a new windows compatible PC, buy a Windows 11 license, and pay for subscription service just to do word processing, or play a few incompatible games?
Windows completely overestimates people’s willingness to throw out their laptop or PC just to get a new OS paintjob. For every person who does it, another one will leave their ecosystem forever.
I’m never daily driving Windows again, but im not sure if I will ever be free of dual booting for some games.
I think I didn’t buy a Windows license ever. Got Win 7 free from my college and always could upgrade for free to the next version. I never used MS Office, mostly did use the Google suite. Games were the only thing that kept me, especially since I got more privacy continuous over the past few years.
I’m currently dual booting Win 11 and Linux mint as a test phase. Actually just running windows for the proprietary phone client I need for work. Otherwise I’m newly exclusively using LM right now. Though I might make the switch to EndeavourOS for it’s rolling release approach and AUR.
Only thing I really hate is that there are some proprietary software like ICUE, L-Connect a proper scanning software for my printer including OCR (there is a version for Linux but it doesn’t include OCR) or shitty driver support for my graphics card. But none of those are issues coming from Linux itself but rather from the lack of support from the developers. Also, I love DLSS and Ray tracing but seriously… fuck Nvidia.
I have a Corsair keyboard and on Linux I use ckb-next to control rgb and stuff
RGB isn’t really the issue for me. At least not when using icue. I need it to control my AIO / fans / temps
Ah gotcha. I just set a custom fan curve in the BIOS which has been working well for me in Linux (I also use a Corsair AIO + Commander Pro).
I just learned of the liquidctl application which supposedly works for this. I’ll check it out later this afternoon and see how it works!
Nice. I’d appreciate some feedback, if you like. Currently in the middle of switching to EndeavourOS as a Arch noob. Am I allowed so say “I use arch btw” now?
For the OCR, have you tried tesseract? For printed documents it can take image input and generate a pdf with selectable text. I don’t OCR much but it has been useful when I tried a few times.
You might be able to have a script that takes the scanner input into tesseract and output a pdf. It only works on a single image per run so I had to make script to run it on whole pdf by separating it and stitching it back together.
@Senseless I’d just like to add that there are GUI frontends to tesseract that make things a lot easier. I particularly like gImageReader, but there are plenty of different GUIs for people with different tastes!
I’ve made the switch over a decade ago. Ubuntu was the gateway drug. I have to use windows at work, but that’s it.
That’s how you know Linux made it. If people don’t switch back you are doing something right.
Windows licenses AFAIK are already rarely bought on their own. The vast majority of users get one by having it bundled to a new device they purchase.
Unless its corporate, because then you are paying for windows separate from the PC, and user based licensing for server access, and subscription fees for office. and EOS W10 fees coming
I know at least one person who switched back to Windows but claimed there was no choice. Maybe the people arround that person making the switch to Linux initially does matter. And if they are (still) Windows users, it can happen at the first sign of trouble; especially when they are stubborn Windows users.
Guys, there are people out there Windows is the only OS they want to use despite all the problems.
Yuuup, never going back to not being in charge of my computer, ever again.
Old Brazilian hack to use Windows: just don’t buy it.
Thanks for exporting this to the US, I made extensive use of it ~1999-2008
How does that help making using it less painful?
It’s more painful when you have to pay more that a month’s worth salary and it’s shit (Windows 11 Pro is R$1600, minimum monthly salary is R$1412, around $280)
Go back to statistics 101.
Following doesnot show that it is rising. That it is rising you have to show rising absolut not relative numbers.
not just staying above 4% but rising a little once again showing the trend is clear that Linux use is rising
To be clear, you’re arguing that (considering the increase in population) desktop computer ownership per capita may be falling?
If the amount of windows users decreases and linux stays the same, linux market share increases. Meaning, linux use is not rising, just windows is falling. Slight but important difference.
5 linux and 5 windows users. 50% market share. If one windows user drops, linux has 56% market share although the amount of users didn’t change.
But yes, desktop per capita is probably decreasing as well.
But yes, desktop per capita is probably decreasing as well.
If they’re moving to smartphones, that’s still (mostly) Linux.
But it doesn’t count as linux. Usually you mean GNU/Linux if you talk about linux. Chromeos may be considered linux for the sake but android?
Android uses the Linux kernel, so it is Linux (but not GNU/Linux). This isn’t just semantics - Android has a UNIX-style filesystem, shell scripts, etc.
It’s not semantics. People refer to GNU/Linux as Linux. Anything that isn’t GNU isn’t meant by the people. It’s not my fault this is fucked up. We both know that it is linux and that it isn’t what people understand if someone talks about linux.
Yeah but do you think people just drop windows and don’t move to any OS afterwards?
Yes. Generation Z rarely uses computers and knows nothing about them, compared to other generations. Many don’t even know what a file hirarchy is because their device doesn’t have a proper file system for users.
The old users die and no new user is replacing them.
Generation Z rarely uses computers and knows nothing about them, compared to other generations
I disagree. In Gen Z, there are those that use computers regularly and those that don’t. There is a larger gap between clueless and tech-savvy. But the one’s that do use a computer are genrally more tech-savvy than other generations, while the majority of other generations’ computer users are just getting by with minimal knowledge (how files are organized, some specific software like office and not much more).
Start asking people about PC components or programming (don’t count those that learned it university or at their jobs) and you will quickly realize that your best bet is gen Z.
But I’m that case if Linux gets 1 new user and windows gets 10 then proportionally Linux usage would decrease despite the absolute number increasing.
I would argue the absolute number is meaningless because without context that number has no value. If I tell you there are 3.4 million Linux desktop users does that number actually tell you anything? Not really. You don’t even know if it’s a lot or not because you have no frame of reference. 4% already has that frame built in and gives you an indication how Linux stacks up to other desktop OSs.
That is irrelevant. We are more concerned with relative market share than raw numbers. For example, many devs will not develop towards a browser or OS that has less than 5% market share. If/when Linux market share hits 5% and even 10%, we expect marked increases in developer interest to support our OS of choice. As far as I’m aware, nobody really sets such metrics based on raw user counts, so that is a less important number for us. Your Statistics 101 course should have taught you to make sure the statistics you are measuring are relevant.
Wrong, Linux is the best
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There are dozens of us! Dozens!
Anti Commercial AI thingy
I bought Windows 11 early on so I’m still using it to justify the purchase on my desktop, but I moved my OEM licensed laptop over to Debian a few months ago.
Can confirm that as soon as Windows 11 is no longer supported or it gets slightly more ass, I’ll be moving my desktop over to Debian or Arch or something as well.
With the advent of gaming becoming so much more accessible on linux either through native support or through something like proton, I am very hard pressed to find any reason to stay.
I bought two Windows 8 Pro key for $20 each at the peak of it’s hate. I’m reusing those bad boys until they stop being accepted, and when that happens i’ll just ignore the water mark.
Massgrave msft activation script
it’s not gonna decrease from there. linux only needs some product to push usage percentage, like steam deck. it’s key to the mass adoption but i also don’t care that much about percentage
Don’t forget some of the Linux prebuilt manufacturers
yeah but these manufacturers are few. imagine the percentage if lenovo sold every think device with linux pre installed on it to corporations. microsoft has 70 something percent just because of the ease of use
Now that gaming is effectively a solved problem thanks to Proton, Adobe Lightroom is just about the only thing keeping my desktop PC on Windows. My laptop is already running Linux. I’ve tried the FOSS alternatives but none of them fits my workflow like Lightroom. This is a me problem more so than a problem with any of these pieces of software.
Try running those adobe apps on a windows virtual machine. Use KVM with virt-managet instead of virtualbox. If the performance is acceptable for you, now you can use Linux as the primary os and only use the VM for adobe apps. VM boots faster too because you can just hit suspend and resume it again later.
Curious as to why someone would downvote this?
Probably because the average user is not going to figure out how to spin a VM to run Lightroom lol. It’s also a bit clunky compared to just opening it.
I kinda assumed anyone who know how to install Linux on their laptop wouldn’t have too much problem figuring out how VM works
And that is one of the reasons Linux isn’t at a higher market share. Linux is actually incredibly easy to install. Even back in 2008 or so, it was easier to install than windows. The live CD would give you a full OS with an install button. If you could install windows 7 you could install Linux.
Asking a user to then install something like virtual box and understand virtual hardware and disk images is a step up from that. Not to mention the clunkiness of it all.
Adobe Lightroom is just about the only thing keeping my desktop PC on Windows
Have you tried any of these?
https://itsfoss.com/raw-image-tools-linux/
what happened in 2021 that started this trend?
Pandemic lockdown maybe? Everyone got bored a few months into 2020. By 2021 they finally figured out their wifi drivers 🤷
(I’m joking, I haven’t seriously struggled with wifi for a long time. I use Debian btw.)
I started using Linux in 2021 never had any problems with drivers for anything. Debian also. It was just a pain in the ass to install until I figured out I had to download the iso with non free drivers or whatever. Glad they made this easier for Debian 12.
Now that I think about it, I actually first used Linux in 2021 too. For me it was because the laptop I had shipped with a HDD that was known for being prone to vibration failure, so while waiting for the warranty request to be approved I was running a persistent Ubuntu live USB
I started with void cuz it sounded cool and it just shipped with the wifi drivers i needed. I got real lucky.
Proton making Linux better for gaming, which was the biggest excuse for holdouts. Steam deck showing you could not only game on Linux, but do so while sitting in a tree, with long term support implied by show of confidence from a large corporation.
Windows steepened its enshittification spiral.
The pandemic put a lot of people in a more experimental space, and they tried a lot of shit. And a lot of people picked up new skills. Including Linux 101.
And people saw authority in general start failing in a big ways. A lot of people started questioning shit. Including corporate hegemonies.
Windows 11 got quite a few people to look into trying Linux
I personally didn’t think Win11 was that big of a downgrade over Win10, But I also didn’t like 10 to begin with so I didn’t need much convincing.
W10 release is what moved me to linux. My worstation got noticeably slower for CAD and my wife’s laptop became a brick
Windows 11 is what finally got me to permanently switch over to Linux too lol
I’m guessing there’s a reduced pool of desktop pc users, thus Linux users are now slightly bigger in proportion? There has been big advances regarding Linux adoption, too.
Probably a number of factors. Some I can think of that may have contributed:
- Steam Deck showing that gaming is possible on Linux.
- Windows 11’s hardware requirements pushing people to try Linux on older hardware.
- Microsoft’s recent enshittification of Windows by pushing Edge and AI so hard.
- KDE has been pushing to fix bugs and has gotten really good lately.
- Electron has made a lot of apps people really need super easy to build for Linux, so companies have started releasing apps for Linux.
- Flatpak has done the same, for distribution.
Did you dare to say something positive about Electron? Blasphemy!
Windows 11 was officially released. That giant spike in late 2021 almost perfectly matched when Windows 11 was released. The Steam Deck was released in early 2022. So, from the graph, I would say the two main contributing factors are Windows 11 sucking to no one’s surprise and the Steam Deck exposing people to Linux gaming.
I would say steam deck, both in actual installs and in raising awareness, but that wasn’t until 2022
Just wait for Windows 10’s service life to run out. That’s when I’m switching full time
Oh god, it’s happening. Everybody stay calm
In Russian it’s called Вендекапец and is a bit like second coming.
Maybe it’s not happening yet, but the bigger share it has, the faster it’ll grow.
And MS and Apple have only themselves to blame.
20 years ago, when the first Linux offensive happened, so to say, with Mandrake and a wave of Linux-native games and proprietary products, and IBM support, people would criticize Linux for having inconsistent chaotic UIs and experience. I was a Windows-only kid, so this is retrospective and people can correct me.
Not sure if anybody remembers, but then you could find most of Windows’ important settings in one place, and it looked so polished and patient and relaxing, both 2000 and XP.
Mac OS X was all about toys and shiny colors, but there was also the spirit of it being very polished and consistent and light and fresh.
So - Linux can still be very usable. While both MacOS and Windows even look cheap, I wonder how they managed to achieve that. Even Gnome doesn’t look cheap despite desperately trying to imitate MacOS. Not even speaking about ergonomics.
YEAR OF THE LINUX DESKTOP!!1!11
Not until Netcraft confirms that Windows is dead
I have been slowly switching to Linux for the last year. I have 2 Lenovo ThinkPad’s and an HP EliteDesk running Ubuntu. I have my gaming PC dual booted but, for the moment, mainly using Linux Mint.
It has been an easy transition and I am not some Linux whiz.
Keep running it for a while and after some time 5 or 10 years you will struggle when people ask you about (basic) Windows stuff.
Unfortunately, since I refuse to use any iShit products, I can troubleshoot Windows or Linux just fine. Don’t ask me about iOS. It’s nothing but a PITA
“Oh to change that basic thing? Control panel…wait…no…the other control panel, the real one…no …(searches it despite MS hiding it more than ever) ok now it’s in one of these obscure hyperlinks half-assedly tossed to the side…which opens a dialogue…with 4 tabs…after you click “advanced”…THERE I turned off Fastboot for you.”
I can’t believe that’s how I used to have to do things lmao.
The scariest thing they can do to Linux now market-wise is to bring back Windows 2000’s UI and paradigm and cleanliness, but with modern kernel and drivers and functionality.
Thankfully they are too dumb for that.
You’re a whiz now Harry!
I am in the top 4%
Haha! Team 4% FTW
