Statcounter, a website that tracks the market share of web browsers, operating systems, and search engines, is reporting that Linux on the desktop has over 4% market share for the very first time (Statcounter records ChromeOS as a separate operating system despite being based on Linux). Statcounter doesn’t provide any explanation about why the market share has increased but we can speculate what’s going on.
Linux’s march to its 4.03% market share has been a steady process ever since the final months of 2020 when Linux held just 1.53% of desktop market share. One of the biggest contributors to the growth of Linux is likely the stringent hardware requirements of Windows 11.
I have a gsync monitor and that seems like it might be part of the problem. When Nvidia introduced vrr for Wayland to their driver, my gsync screen started to have screen tearing. Disabling vrr in kde didn’t fix it.
On Windows disabling vrr disables gsync on the monitor but not on Linux. It seems to work as intended on the cheap freesync (gsync compatible) monitor my mother uses but she was also on gnome but that’s xorg thanks to gnome not adopting vrr yet.