this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2025
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Linux

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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.

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Clickbaity title on the original article, but I think this is the most important point to consider from it:

After getting to 1% in approximately 2011, it took about a decade to double that to 2%. The jump from 2% to 3% took just over two years, and 3% to 4% took less than a year.

Get the picture? The Linux desktop is growing, and it's growing fast.

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[–] Sina@beehaw.org 14 points 2 days ago (9 children)

Statcounter considers me a Win user due to the Win user agent I'm using, this is not a rare behavior in the Linux space..

[–] Cricket@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 days ago (7 children)

Out of genuine curiosity, what is the reasoning for using the Win user agent?

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Some sites provide a different behaviour depending on the reported OS

[–] PhilMcGraw@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

The only thing I can think of is default download links based on your reported OS. What other functionality would be OS gated?

[–] Cricket@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I thought this may be a consideration too, but I would expect it to be a minority of websites that would do this, no?

[–] COASTER1921@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's definitely a minority, but easy to fix if you encounter such a site even a single time. There are also some sites which refuse to load on Firefox but work fine if you change the user-agent to Chrome.

[–] Cricket@lemmy.zip 1 points 23 hours ago
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