According to Statcounter, Windows 11 held a 55.18% market share in October 2025. That share dropped to 53.7% in November and dropped again in December. Now, Windows 11 holds a 50.73% market share.
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/windows/desktop/worldwide
Many are rollback to Windows 10, but Linux is increasing as well.
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide
Just switched to Linux. Convinced sis in law to try linux as she was having driver issues. Wife is about to try it on our laptop. Linux has reached a point of, it just works. It can play windows games better than windows, so no reason not to.
How hard is it for laymen people to install and use it? Are there step by step instruction available?
Are there step by step instruction available?
You may very well need specific instructions to convince your motherboard to boot to the Linux live USB media.
(Edit: As suggested below: You may need to find and toggle “secure boot” to “off” in BIOS. The point of “secure boot” is to prevent exactly the kind of change you are about to make. You can turn it back on later, if you have a use for it.)
Although, if you replace the Windows harddrive with a blank harddrive, many motherboards will then do the right thing and boot to the Linux live USB key.
(Warning: Get your files off the Windows drive first. The windows drive is probably encrypted, and so won’t be useful for recovering files later.)
Getting booted into the Linux live media is by far the hardest part.
Once you’re booted into the Linux Mint Live USB key, make sure Linux Mint detected and is able to get on the Internet. You’ll need your wifi password.
Once you’re happy with that, click “Install Linux Mint” and just follow the prompts. The hardest question for me was remembering what my time zone is.
Linux Mint will tell you when to reboot, and will even remind you to remove the Live Media USB key.
Reboot and enjoy Linux.
Yep most BIOSes will have a toggle for Secure Boot. Make off.
This is the official Linux Mint installation guide: https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/
I’ve had a techy mate have issues installing mint, but I had no issues and have dailied it as an OS only reverting to windows in extreme cases.
If you’re not dual booting it’s simple as. My friend has had issues dual booting on the same drive, whereas I went one drive per OS and butter smooth. Nice to be able to recover one drive from another without external tools.
Ironically, I think it is harder for tech savy people. I have three hard drives and Mint struggled to put ext4 on my m.2, solution was use bftrs as a file system. Other than that googling and copy pasting the solution into terminal.
Getting a modern motherboard to boot to a USB key is still a royal pain in the ass.
(Edit: I forget that windows ships full disk encrypted now. Be sure to get your backups off of the Windows drive first!)
Pro tip: if you have the luxury of a spare hard drive, use it. Pull the old windows drive out entirely and set it aside to reuse later. Various “security features” that work to “protect” your Windows install behave better once the Windows drive is completely removed.
Once the Linux live USB is up, just click install and then “next” a bunch of times.
Pretty straightforward actually, plenty of distros even ship their own USB flasher tool so that you don’t have to use rufus.
Definitely step by step instructions available and even official videos now.
Which distro would you recommend for gaming? I usually hear people like Mint for that.
Mint is good for gaming and simple for most people but there are other distros which run newer versions of software or/and has more access to software. I generally use distros based on arch, such as EndeavourOS with the caveat that they sometimes break.
I play old games and interestingly had better FPS with default Mint than default Bazzite. Old like the last golden age 90s 2000s.
Bazzite or CachyOS (Bazzite for ease, CachyOS for performance).
Bazzite has been excellent on my older AM4 desktop with mid range AMD card. Steam came ready to roll and performance was so close to Win 10 LTSC, that I have yet to try a different distro.
I can’t recommend Bazzite. You can’t install new drivers if something doesn’t work right out of the box and that is just a complete no go for many people.
I hear ya. Its definitely not for everyone. If you are into tweaking your system, Bazzite isn’t for you. But I took the plunge, installed the apps and games I need, and its been running great the last few months. Just my 2 cents. YMMV.
Right but it literally doesn’t work on my system and I literally can’t make it work by design. It’s not a matter of liking “tweaking my system” it literally doesn’t work at all.
Yes, Bazzite adds complexity due to its immutable nature.
But then again, if you have driver issues on Linux (which has become reasonably rare these days), they’re hard to resolve either way, particularly as a beginner.
Nah it was pretty easy to update the drivers. I had to look up a guide but compared to updating windows it was nothing.
Love to see it
Make Microslop and Aividia the new Ubisoft
I miss the Nvidia that just made video game hardware :(
Swapped to Linux Mint over the weekend. No major issues. Steam works, LLMs work, web browser stuff all transferred over…it wasn’t perfect but pretty easy to figure it out with a few online searches. The best part - it actually runs better. No more f*cked up bluetooth and audio as well.
A lot of customization can be done on it, but I think for most people, Linux is fine for the vast majority of users already out of the box. Some criticism is that I think the UX can be improved and a more layman-friendly streamlined partition mounting + file security management.
Same for my partner’s old gaming PC: she used Windows 10 until recently, and Bluetooth as well as the steam overlay didn’t work properly.
Now on Bazzite they do.
It sounds like Bazzite is the most “plug and play” version at the moment, is that right?
I’ve heard lovely things about Bazzite with Steam.
However I have only run Steam on Ubuntu and Linux Mint, where it ran flawlessly.
I think the Linux Mint workflow of “click on software center”, “search for steam”, “click install” - is hard to beat.
Well, Bazzite has it pre-installed, but that’s the experience for other stuff lol.
I don’t recommend mint for newbies because it comes with X11 even still.
Bazzite has closed source software preinstalled? Yikes
Probably more like it automatically installs is when you install the system but yeah.
This isn’t Debian. It has a live image that comes with Nvidia drivers so you can have these from the start too.
Bazzite has closed source software preinstalled? Yikes
I get the sentiment. That said, if you want to do “gaming”, there’s no way around proprietary software for the time being, since both titles and some drivers are and will continue to be proprietary.
Regardless, running some FOSS is already better than none. So if Bazzite helps wean people off proprietary Windows, why not?
For most things, I’d agree.
Yet, I found it tricky to get Optifine working on Minecraft (Vanilla, i.e. no Forge and such) since there seems to be no way to install JRE on the system. Had to work with a distrobox container, install JRE there and run the .jar file through it. I’ve managed, but beginners won’t find this very “plug and play”.
So YMMV.
Honestly, I don’t know which distro is not plug and play with steam nowadays. I’ve tried Garuda, Manjaro and Linux Mint so far, no notable issue.
I need to try mint
Ehh, I’ve had a few problems with it, from the installation wizard crashing, to my wifi drivers disabling on system resume, to it completely freezing when I switch language input, to sometimes crashing when I load a web page. I’d try a different distro than risk the instability.
E: And before someone chimes in saying it’s my laptop, I will say I had none of these problems using Windows, other than it was very slow.
I think sometimes there are hits and misses when installing a distro. Could not get Mint to boot after installing it so I ended up installing Debian - where Mint should be easier to get going, Debian installed perfectly fine for me.
Oh, definitely! I got my eyes on PopOS but I have a feeling I’ll need an afternoon to do it
Sometimes the pain is worth the gain :D Just not so many free afternoons for me in the next while, otherwise I would be trying Arch … but for now I will be using set it and forget it Debian.
It’s your laptop.
Hah, but no seriously. It’s just always kind of a shot in the dark which distro is the best for your computer. Mint has been best for my laptop, but really did not get it even installing on the desktop. Manjaro or Tumbleweed worked on it.
People upgrading to Windows 11 be like:
This was me. Hit the update to 11 button because I have always liked new things. About a week later went back to 10, then about a year ago saw the writing on the wall and jumped ship to Mint. Shoulda done it earlier!
I won’t update my perfectly usable computer just because microslop refuses to support it.
Please be careful when using Windows 10, because any security vulnerabilities envolving Windows itself will not be fixed, and your computer will be more vulnerable to attacks. I’m not saying this to scare you off, but to advise you to take extra precaution and to remind you that most computer security experts do not recommend using and connecting to the Internet systems that will get no further security updates. I’m no expert myself, but I’m pretty sure that things like making sure you web browser is always updated, being careful with the programs you choose to download, and using updated antivirus software are the most common tips for this kind of situation. You might want to do more your research on this topic yourself if you haven’t yet. Stay safe!
The thing is, (as you already know but this is for people that have not yet taking the plunge), Linux today is so unbelievable good. It’s both snappy and good looking. A 5 year old computer feels like new. There might be a little tinkering, but you know that might be a quite fun experience and your computer feels like new again.
I run Debian for my tv PC, steam link with bt controller - shit just works and it’s so fast.
I still can’t convince my dad to just switch, but at this point running Windows is in nearly every single way worse than just running a popular Linux distro.
I’ve been dailying linux since 2010 and it’s gotten way easier. stuff that didn’t work just does now. remember printer and wi-fi driver hell? now it works worse on windows if anything. games and some proprietary software are the only anchors, and that’s kinda going away slowly
Been using Linux for a while. The only thing I miss is League of Legends, but other than that we’re chilling.
I view that as a pro. Switching to Linux made it easy to quit that addiction lol.
You can install League of Legends on Linux using Wine and Lutris: link
Unless they’ve completely changed the way Vanguard anti-cheat works, it’s impossible to play even if you do manage to install it
Didn’t know this. Hate that anti-cheat breaks games. It should break cheating, not the game 😉
Thanks for that! I wonder if that still works because ever since they implemented the kernel-level anti-cheat, I’ve heard it’s become virtually impossible to install it on Linux.
Clickbait bullshit.
The source shows that Windows 11 usage has been steadily climbing for a long time, including in January - the latest data available - but presumably that didn’t fit their narrative so they ignored all the data except the data single point that they liked which corresponds to the month where every business shuts down for a week.
Statcounter shows that not only is Windows use increasing, but also that Windows 11’s share is too.
I don’t expect anyone here to be happy about these things - I certainly can’t say I am - but pretending the Windows is in the middle of an epic downfall when it actually appears to be doing fine won’t help anyone except Microsoft.
How do they measure these stats?
They aren’t reaching into my PC so they’re only checking when I [X].
So it isn’t it always just measuring “Os percent from user who [X]”
E.g. Steam only check people with Steam. Slash Dot can only going to measure PCs who go to Slashdot. AOL.com is only checking Boomers.
Agreed, there is no objectively perfect way of measuring this stuff. My point mainly is that the author of the article picked one data point, took it out for context and built an entire lie on that. It’s very much a “look at this snow - so much for global warming” argument. But also, we keep hearing how much Windows is tanking and yet all the metrics we have show it’s actually doing well. Do people like it? No, I don’t think they do. Do I personally want to see Windows crash and burn? Yes, at least in it’s current form. But for all the frustration and anecdotes it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere, and I don’t think any decision-makers will be convinced that Windows is failing when all the available stats suggest otherwise.
Statcounter is running on more than a million websites. They track user metadata across these websites.
While this doesn’t give you absolute numbers for everything, it should be enough to notice trends.
Their methodology is on their website.
With Window 11, Microsoft AND America being horribly at the same time, whole countries are looking to replace their OS.
It’s finally the year of Desktop Linux, about fifteen (or more) years after people thought it would happen. I’m happy for all the nerds who are finally vindicated. (I like Linux, but I’m an Apple guy.)
Apple’s media support is incredible.
I have one platform where HDR photos/video playback and editing, JpegXL, HEIFs from my camera and such all just work. And it’s definitely not my KDE desktop, nor Windows 11.
Apple’s media formats are horrible though
Its the first time my peers are actually asking me about switching to linux. Sweden is an extremely techbro country, which i say because they have all the newest gadgets and then cant open a file for fucks sake.
glad I switched to Linux, Microslop’s current state is a disaster. yes it randomly implodes sometimes, mainly by my fault, but at least I can rollback! no more headache of forced updates.
I switched to linux at the end of last year too! I am part of that increase and i like it.
I switched to Linux when Windows 7 became EoL.
Anyone paying attention to what they were doing with 10, knew what would be coming with 11… and somehow its even worse than expected… thanks to the sudden appearance of the greatest environmental disaster of our time… AI.
I was too scared to move to linux at the time. It was always something i had many misconceptions about, that only people with specialist knowledge could use and that if i wanted anything to work i would need to know how to code at an advanced level.
I cant speak for then but now at least i have found that the communities are incredible, loads of work is being done to get everything to work and easy to set up. Github is amazing and i am learning slowly to use and love linux.
So far i have only worked with raspberry pis so raspiOS and linux Mint cinnamon. But i am going to be getting a small PC to test different linux distros on until i find the best one for me. Although Mint has been great so far.
Count me in too
Switched to Linux recently, so good to see that I do my part on this statistic. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work.
Did my part. I’ve made it known amongst friends, family and colleagues that
- support for 10 is ending
- some machines won’t support Win 11 for no apparent technical reason (just to make them obsolete and boost sales of new tech)
- I’m willing to set up and support Linux systems for anyone willing to make the switch, thus possibly even prolonging the life of perfectly adequate hardware. (Only constraint: I declined switching people with strong software constraints that will not work or not work well on Linux and make them unhappy in the long run).
There were plenty of requests, including a small business, some absolute power users and even somebody on the other side of the globe. Everyone got a transition period, and since that is done, all machines have been chugging along without much issue. Support requests are near zero (and I do keep asking).
This may be my little bubble, anecdotal evidence and all that jazz. But from where I’m standing, this train has left the station, and it ain’t comin’ back.
What distro did you pick that is that bulletproof?
I went with Lnux Mint Cinnamon for the most part and Ubuntu GNOME in some instances. Either way, Debian-based systems.
Come on gang! Lets keep chugging - we can do this!
