this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2024
183 points (78.2% liked)
Linux
46751 readers
1967 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.
Most people on MacOS only use a web browser. Most people on Windows only use a web browser. Its nothing to be ashamed of.
No one said it was shameful?
He is trying to discredit the stat just because most of the use is opening a web browser. That's a fine use for an operating system and just as valid.