Statcounter, a website that tracks the market share of web browsers, operating systems, and search engines, is reporting that Linux on the desktop has over 4% market share for the very first time (Statcounter records ChromeOS as a separate operating system despite being based on Linux). Statcounter doesn’t provide any explanation about why the market share has increased but we can speculate what’s going on.
Linux’s march to its 4.03% market share has been a steady process ever since the final months of 2020 when Linux held just 1.53% of desktop market share. One of the biggest contributors to the growth of Linux is likely the stringent hardware requirements of Windows 11.
People often forget that they also often have to tinker with making games work in Windows, because they are more familiar with the OS and get it done faster. Also I think you’d be surprised how many games just run without any tinkering at all nowadays. But then there are some that don’t run at all, mostly due to invasive rootkit ‘anti-cheats’. That’s no real loss for me, I wouldn’t install something like that on a Windows machine either.
I think the largest extent I went with messing around was using a Locale Emulator for a Japanese game, never had to do more than run the exe.
On Linux it’s a bit of a “will it run under proton?” type game, but I’m not really thaaaaaaat bothered by it. Also fuck invasive anticheats, only shit games use it anyway.
Also the steam deck helped massively with game compatibility. The only game I had to tinker with (and didn’t get to work) so far is a closed alpha. I still run a dual boot setup, but only use the Windows partition for work (office suite needed). Fmstrat/Winapps (found on GitHub) is a good enough way to use Office for smaller tasks so I don’t always have to boot up the Windows partition.