Something strange has happened lately. Linux has just seen its market share double. In accordance with NetMarketShare, the operating system's share of desktops, rose from an 2,5% in July to an 5% in September.
I do not say a significant increase, as Linux is reported to reach the MacOS range of 6,29% of the market.
Before we see the data, it's worth talking a little about NetMarketShare. It is one of the services because it has several opponents, such as StatCounter, Clicky and W3Counter, who are trying to understand the fragmented computing landscape.
His methodology is quite simple. He examines them archives των επισκεπτών από κυριολεκτικά δεκάδες χιλιάδες ιστότοπους, καταγράφοντας εκατοντάδες εκατομμύρια (αν όχι δισεκατομμύρια) επισκέψεις σελίδων, προκειμένου να καθορίσει ποιο λειτουργικό σύστημα και ποιο πρόγραμμα περιήγησης χρησιμοποιούν οι χρήστες.
While sure about that data that the service has are many, but I cannot know if the results are 100 percent accurate and reflect reality. As with any poll, it looks at a sample and draws broader trends from it.
So let's keep this, the trend and let's see what has happened lately.
Here we will talk about the Chromebook. The operating system that works on all Chromebooks is Linux-based ChromeOS.
So September is the month when schools start, and as we know Google promotes Chromebooks in education. They are very helpful for beginners, and a complete system costs around $200.
ChromeOS is also easy to manage from a technical point of view. It's locked down like Fort Knox, and thanks to its design, it removes many of the technical headaches that come with Windows. Technicians don't need to worry about it installation of major school-wide updates or that a teenager accidentally downloaded ransomware.
Can we explain the increase of Linux users with a big increase in the use of ChromeOS, which coincides with the beginning of the school year? It can.
But again it may or may not. Last year's statistics from the same period as 2015 and 2016 did not show a similar rise.
Going forward, I'd like to think that Linux has doubled organically in the last month, but that doesn't seem to be all that realistic since big distributions of Linux targeting Windows audience, after so long they have not achieved impressive results.
Friends of Linux to date have fought huge battles for the "year of the Linux desktop" but so far it seems to have become a very tedious cliché. Of course I would love for it to happen, but I can not imagine it happening now, in 2017.
So ChromeOS users, seems to be the most prevalent theory about the rise of Linux.
Of course there is always the theory of data mistakes from NetMarketShare. Who knows; What do you say?
