My attention was caught by the claim that Linux desktop use “surged to 22% on one workday.”
Unfortunately the claim does not stand up to scrutiny. The figures are drawn from Cloudflare data and based on North America only. The 22% is there but only at 9:00 UTC, which is 4:00am on the east coast and 1:00am on the west coast, or in other words, when most of the USA is asleep. At 15:00 UTC on the same day, Linux share was down to 6%.
If you set Cloudflare to show global figures, they are more even, with Linux desktop usage tending to peak at around 7%. Windows remains dominant.
I agree though with reporter Steven Vaughan-Nichols that Microsoft has damaged Windows with intrusive advertising and other user-hostile moves, such as the wrecking of the Start menu, the central position for the taskbar, and the confusing repositioning of key options like Copy on the right-click menu in File Explorer.
Almost whenever I touch a Windows 11 machine on behalf of another person, I offer to move the taskbar back to left alignment, and so far every single person has preferred it that way. There’s a good reason: the left corner is easier to hit with the mouse pointer. The central position was a victory for cosmetics over usablity.
I digress though. Today it looks unlikely that Windows on the desktop will be displaced by Linux; however what is more important is the desktop computing continues to be displaced by mobile and web. The notion of a home PC died long ago, other than for gaming.
My bank is “improving” its web site for online banking, in fact making it worse for desktop users. It justifies this by saying it will be better on mobiles. It is annoying but may be the right thing from the bank’s perspective.
In my own area, software development, desktop PCs remain more suitable than any other form factor, though I confess to using a Mac most of the time now (Windows 11 was my break point). On Windows, WSL (Windows subsystem for Linux) has become near-essential.
I also still use Word, Excel and Outlook so Microsoft continues to get money from me.