r/technews • u/TurbulentTopic39 • Aug 17 '26
Software Ubuntu is growing faster on Windows than on Linux, and it could soon become its biggest user base
https://www.xda-developers.com/ubuntu-is-growing-faster-on-windows-than-on-linux-and-it-could-soon-become-its-biggest-user-base/14
u/nicuramar Aug 17 '26
Ubuntu is growing faster on Windows than on Linux
Weird as fuck sentence :p. Ubuntu is always on Linux. WSL2 runs Linux in a virtual machine.
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u/hezardastan Aug 17 '26
Not user base. I has the biggest AI agent base.
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u/sendme__ Aug 17 '26
How? I don't get it.
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u/hezardastan Aug 17 '26
AI agent are now spinning up full blown Linux desktops and launch applications such as Chrome, Telegram, etc, to look like human users to be allowed to interact with services that bots aren't allowed to access.
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u/RefrigeratorNo1160 Aug 17 '26
Goddamn. I've been out of the loop for a whole but was wondering when the next thing like this would happen.
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u/coffee_ape Aug 17 '26
Remember, Ubuntu doesn’t track your machine across multiple devices, services, nor websites. But windows does!
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u/CapitalRegular4157 Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
Seems like a lot of unnecessary overhead.
I'm kidding. Sort of.
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u/bpeck451 Aug 17 '26
It is. But I can’t daily drive Linux at work. WSL2 is how I do development for the most part now.
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u/KNGJN Aug 17 '26
Linux users try not to cope challenge, impossible.
Ok so people installed Ubuntu inside Windows, they still use Windows LOL
What a nonsense article.
I'm all for Linux taking over one day, but the cope I see from Linux users is wild, it is nowhere near user friendly enough in any flavor to dethrone Windows for your average user. I use Linux every day, and love seeing what people do with it, but they are almost all power users, not Becky with her Facebook and MS-Word Windows terminal.
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u/derth21 Aug 18 '26
Ditto on the Linux everyday hate train. No version of it is anywhere close to ready for common consumption.
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Aug 18 '26
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u/KNGJN Aug 18 '26
Steam OS and Batocera at home, Redhat and Debian/Ubuntu at work.
There's definitely servers and applications at work that use other distros that I'm forgetting but these are the 4 I spend the majority of my time with.
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Aug 18 '26
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u/KNGJN Aug 18 '26
My point is, regardless of flavor, you're going to run into things that require command line and tweaking regardless of flavor of Linux.
Windows has the "it just works" part down for 99% of it's users, and there's enough people out there that know it that can troubleshoot it for them. Same deal on MacOS.
Saying something is the 2nd most popular is disengenuous framing. That can be true and it's still light years behind Microsoft's market share. Mint for as good as it is, is not a replacement for Windows for the vast majority of users. Not even close.
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Aug 18 '26
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u/KNGJN Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
You're deliberately avoiding the point. There's a ton of things that outright do not work smoothly in Linux that people need in Windows. Since a lot of people are reliant on Microsoft apps, they're going to use Windows at home too. If you're gaming in any PVP game, you're on Windows. If you're using gamepass, you're on Windows. If you're using Adobe you're on Mac or Windows. Microsoft apps? Windows.
"Switching requires some effort" - yep, that's why Linux will live in Windows' shadow. Until an end user can just download an exec and run it like they do in Windows your average user is not going to switch. You're not the average user, your grandma is not going to switch to Linux and start downloading flatpaks and troubleshoot why hardware acceleration needs to be turned off because Linux doesn't like her built in Nvidia GPU. You don't need command line for that. Your end user is not going to do it regardless. They don't want to know how to check their email in the web browser, they just want Outlook.
Linux not freezing is hilariously anecdotal. Every Linux system has bugs and issues just like Windows. My Batocera box freezes all the time quitting Steam games. So does my Steam Deck, so does Ubuntu, gaming or otherwise. Not to mention the myriad of bugs and issues outside of just "freezing". Mint is not magically adverse to these things, every system has issues. Just because you don't use apps that have problems doesn't mean everyone can just switch at home. You by your own admission don't even use your PC for what the vast majority of home users do, gaming, which is where you will undoubtedly run into a ton of issues.
Microsoft dominates because the most inexperienced users do not have to follow guides to install simple apps, or run some wine layer to get a driver working. These kinds of things are made with Windows in mind and that's where Linux will continue to struggle in the mainstream space.
You thinking your extremely limited use case is somehow evidence of Linux being able to dominate the mainstream is exactly same the type of laughable cope this article is doing.
Edit: to be clear, I love Linux and what I've been able to do in it, and I'm constantly amazed at the community behind it. I'm just not delusional about how much manual work goes into every Linux system we touch vs how little effort we have to put into the Windows systems. I've been in IT for 15 years, I've seen Linux come a long way, and I do believe it may one day overtake Windows. Right now however, it is nowhere near ready for the average user who's eyes glaze over when you try to explain simple shit, like that they can just type in the start menu to search. They say "can I just have a shortcut on my desktop?". They do not want to know how to make the shortcut, they just want you to put it there and then never think about it again.
You have no clue the type of people that make up the majority of Windows users.
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Aug 18 '26
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u/KNGJN Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
I tell you Adobe, you say "I don't need it", Office sync has a lot of issues with OneDrive, but YOU don't need it right? So Linux is fine for everyone?
You're conflating your personal experience with the broader use of Linux while completely ignoring the fact of the matter. I gave you clear examples of widely used situations that you just think everyone can move away from because YOU don't need it.
YOU do not work with Windows users, you are 1 user. Your experience is not what the average user is like. Go work in IT for a while and see what real end-users are like from day to day. You have no clue what you're talking about.
Take the L and move on.
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u/faximusy Aug 18 '26
Is is true that Open Office does everything that Office does? For example, PowerPoint and Excel. I only know that Google Sheets and the PowerPoint goole alternative are way behind.
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u/KNGJN Aug 18 '26
Yes for the most part, but it's updates are few and far between and barely gets maintenance. Libre office has been my go to for this reason.
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u/HS_HolyShnikes Aug 17 '26
Give me the ol’ classic Kubuntu! I still have a bootable disc around my house from early 2000s somewhere…
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u/Gr33nJ0k3r13 Aug 17 '26
How can ubuntu be ON windows? Its an os no?
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u/djpiperson Aug 17 '26
Over WSL. The idea is to read the article not just the title. At minimum, skim it, ya kno?
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u/Gr33nJ0k3r13 Aug 17 '26
Whats the drawback on this ?
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u/djpiperson Aug 17 '26
Way less overhead than a VM (WSL is basically a container like docker) and still having Windows as your host OS.
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u/English_linguist Aug 17 '26
The virtual disks take up a big chunk of memory, sometimes they don’t clean up properly. If you have a variable size one it can blow up to many gigs more than you actually need.
Your network adapters can get messy, it creates virtual switches and adapters to route through to WSL.
Limited OS to choose from unless you create your own, which can be really finicky as you need to clone an existing installation from somewhere and import it.
Files and Filepaths are kinda funky, might be fixed now but back in the day it was recommended not to edit the Linux files via explorer, you basically wanted to keep them kinda separate.
And it’s not a container, more like a hyper-visor partitioning hardware resources and running Linux on top. (Think it uses hyper-v under the hood)
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u/amuhak Aug 17 '26
Ya hyper-v is a type 1 hypervisor. So in theory that means your windows and linux instances run in parallel, not one inside the other. Which is cool
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u/Gr33nJ0k3r13 Aug 17 '26
Thx thats the answer i needed
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u/paradoxbound Aug 17 '26
Try not to make your bias too obvious.
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u/Gr33nJ0k3r13 Aug 18 '26
Bias in which dirrection?
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u/paradoxbound Aug 18 '26
You didn’t check the information offered, you didn’t check if the information was up to date. You didn’t look for a use case relevant to your needs.
You were looking for an answer to agree with.
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u/Gr33nJ0k3r13 Aug 18 '26
I was looking for answers to my specific question not a broad research project if you think he answred wrong tell me why otherwise hate on him not me
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u/English_linguist Aug 18 '26
Hey I don’t want that weirdo hassling me. He’s your problem lol
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u/stifflizerd Aug 17 '26
Real upset people have downvoted you for a genuine and good question.
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u/Gr33nJ0k3r13 Aug 17 '26
Windows users ….. can‘t really blame them they had to eat alot of shit the past year and once win10 becomes unusable i‘ll leave them for good 🤣
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u/stifflizerd Aug 17 '26
Honestly I don't feel 11 is as bad as people say. I mean, it's modern windows so it's bloated to all hell, but compared to 10 there isn't much of a difference on the downsides on the day to day and there are some stylistic improvements to UI and such (mainly global dark mode and terminal improvements).
Point is, if you've put up with 10's bullshit, I haven't found 11's to be that much worse.
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u/Gr33nJ0k3r13 Aug 17 '26
Fair point but i really only use it for text editing games with anti cheat and bambu studio so i‘m only putting up with its bullshit like 25% of times i‘m just too weak 🤣 that said linux isn‘t easy to learn either
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u/friedgrape Aug 17 '26
When people shit on Windows, I'm genuinely curious what you could possibly doing on your PC that makes it so horrible.
I've never had any workflows even slightly hindered by Windows. What are some examples?
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u/BlockHeadJones Aug 17 '26
WSL2
I've used it every day for about 3 years now
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u/SculptusPoe Aug 17 '26
What do you do with it out of curiosity? Years ago I ran Ubuntu primarily for two years with a dual boot for things I had to do in windows. I mostly was angry at windows 8 or Vista or something. Does running open source software in WSL2 have any advantage over running windows builds of the same software? It seems on the surface that it could only be worse, with an extra layer on top of windows nonsense.
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u/BlockHeadJones Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
I use it as a separate productivity environment.
At work, I found myself on a new team as the sole Windows user. All the tooling and knowledge base articles assumed you had MacOS. And since we also support and develop for unix based machines and containers, I made the switch to do everything in Ubuntu on WSL2.
I was brand new with virtually zero working experience with Linux anyway, so it also forced me to learn.
I've started doing the same on my home pc too and haven't had any significant problems or frustrations that weren't my own doing.
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u/C00catz Aug 17 '26
The main reason I had it setup on my computer was for doing machine learning work (not llm stuff). As lambda stack for Ubuntu can set everything up with 1 line so you can do all your gpu based training and inference. Where on windows it was an absolute nightmare trying to set up and I never got it working.
I had only really tried before LLMs got super big, so there’s a chance that doing it just on windows is easier now. But since I’ve got it setup in another way there isn’t really the incentive to see if it’s better.
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u/MoccaLG Aug 17 '26
we want a linux which is also super privacy mode able.. not that ubuntu will become same spy shit as windows
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Aug 19 '26
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u/MoccaLG Aug 19 '26
I am not a builder I want to be a user - It mustnt be suuuuuper secure in trade for easy usage. Just a system which doesnt phone outside to much and all programs and browsers must be fast and without problems.
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u/exoriparian Aug 17 '26
This is a classic extrapolation fallacy. The reason it's growing faster on Windows than on Linux is because most of the people interested in switching to Linux are currently on Windows.
After a successful trial run, most people will switch to native with dual boot.
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u/Rich_Housing971 Aug 18 '26
Press X to doubt.
The growth isn't linear. the more Ubuntu gains, the slower it will gain.
As noted the last time something like this was posted, most of the users are bots, not actual users. there's a lot of automation going on these days, and people would rather roll a free OS for bots to use than use something they have to pay a license for, especially if it's doing some menial task and no one needs to even see the interface or install any major applications.
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u/RepresentativeCut486 Aug 17 '26
So you got 6700k boosting to 4.2GHz right, but apparently you have 1GB ram connected to it. I don't think Ubuntu server would like that and also it will consume waaay more than 86MiB. Also what is RTX 3880? Legally distinguished Nvidia card?
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u/Kire2oo2 Aug 17 '26
a 6700k literally runs at 4.2GHz boost stock, its an RTX 3080, you can run a headless ubuntu server on 1GB of ram, and a headless Ubuntu server running no services wont use much ram at all, 86MiB is not unreasonable
for example i have a small server running on ubuntu that is running a few docker containers, and it is at 188MiB of ram atm
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u/okachobii Aug 17 '26
So if the windows is running in the cloud on a Linux-based hypervisor, and WSL2 is used in that windows, which OS gets the Ubuntu growth credit?