this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2024
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Sidenote: I met a couple folks from india in my last IT job and recently started work on a mineclone texture pack with a guy from - you guessed it - india. Its a lot of fun and I‘m sad we dont have more cultural exchange on lemmy. Like, what are the things we dont know as westerners, both good and bad? I feel like there’s a lot to learn here.

Thanks for reading me going off on a tangent. Have a nice day.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

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!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

To your first point, I don't know about other people but I generally assumed the numbers were mostly due to office deployments, whether government or private.

Your statements about most people not having a computer are also true in the United States. When I worked support for a smartphone manufacturer I encountered so many people who not only did not have a computer, they didn't have any internet service at all. They just use their phone for everything and rely heavily on the unlimited dataplans that are so ubiquitous nowadays. It didn't even seem to be an age-related decision as I spoke to both young folks and folks approaching retirement age who had made this decision. As an IT worker who grew up with techy parents, the concept is wild and outlandish to me, but it's the reality of how many people compute is they have no laptop or desktop, and may not even have Internet service

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Thank you. The mystery is now solved for me.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

As someone from India, I agree with you.

I guess people just want to use what everyone else uses. Using something different than windows is instantly assumed to be very difficult.

I even showed my friends how they can play games on linux instead of having their laptops get stuck while using windows 11 , but they still won't even consider trying it.

Btw if you don't mind - do you play apex legends ? (Judging by your username)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Do these private computers run a properly licensed version of Windows? What's the cost for a license? Same as in other countries?

And another thing I wodered: Is there more Linux expertise available than in other countries? I guess the average person from India isn't in IT. But there's lots of IT, lots of companies from my country have outsourced parts of their IT. I occasionally watch tutorial videos or university lectures on Youtube either in english with a heavy accent or for domestic use and not in english. Some of them discuss some crazy niche Linux topics or software development, which is also oftentimes deployed on Linux infrastructure. Or is it just because India is a big country and it's just a matter of scale that I get to see some videos from over there?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Do these private computers run a properly licensed version of Windows? What's the cost for a license? Same as in other countries?

Only the big ones. Pirated Windows is extremely cheap, and Microsoft doesn't care too much as they want people using Windows. A new proper licence would be Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000. This is a considerable sum for the average Indian.

Is there more Linux expertise available than in other countries?

I don't know that much about other countries. I do know that we are probably the most Linux-friendly country in the world. But most of the senior people in the FOSS community are from Europe / US / East Asia.

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