• echo64@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      This thread is a good example of just how circlejerky and bubble like lemmy has become.

      You are correct. Outside of the hard-core users and tech nerds, Ubuntu is massively popular. But you listen to this community, and you’d think the opposite.

      • shirro
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        8 months ago

        Most of us do live in bubbles (not exclusive to lemmy or tech nerds). I first picked up Ubuntu in 2004. It was a massive leap forward at the time as Gnome was moving a lot faster than Debian stable and I was running Sid to keep up. I am genuinely surprised everytime I learn Ubuntu is still “popular” as they have made so many NIH misteps over the years (mir,upstart,unity,snap) and frustrated their users. I moved back to Debian years ago for server/dev as Ubuntu re-packaging wasn’t adding any value and once I was on another distro for desktop I lost all interest.

        Ubuntu started off with some amazing community building. It felt more like a peoples distro than Canonicals for a time. I felt more invested in it in those days so I can relate to Ubuntu users but I also understand some of the criticism aimed at Canonical and their choices.

      • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        You are correct. Outside of the hard-core users and tech nerds, Ubuntu is massively popular. But you listen to this community, and you’d think the opposite.

        So which part of the internet is Steam Hardware & Software Survey then?

        The most popular Ubuntu version is at a whopping 5% of all Linux users.

        Ubuntu went from the most popular desktop distribution to the most or at least one of the most popular container distributions, ie. for hard-core users and tech nerds. Meanwhile Steam Deck sold millions and I’m confident to say that a good chunk of the users have no idea what Steam Deck runs, let alone SteamOS being an Arch Linux derivative.

        • meleethecat@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Very few linux installs include steam and this survey only represents a few thousand gamers. The only thing it shows is that steam users like steam os.

          • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Very few linux installs include steam

            Millions of sold Steam Deck units run Linux and default to Steam. It’s easily the most popular personal computing device running GNU/Linux out there.

            steam users

            So regular users, “outside of the hard-core users and tech nerds”.

            • billgamesh@lemmy.ml
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              8 months ago

              i wonder how many old thinkpads are still running linux… Honestly, it’s possible some arbitrary single model may still outnumber steam decks.

              • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                I think you’re forgetting about AWS, GCP, Azure.

                No, I’m not. Had you read my comments correctly, you’d know that I was stating repeatedly that Ubuntu is popular for containers but that’s is a completely different topic.

        • SheeEttin@programming.dev
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          8 months ago

          That’s not a meaningful comparison because it splits Ubuntu by version but all of Arch is a single category. We’d need to roll up the Ubuntu users for it to be apples to apples.