Linux is really so hot? macOS lagging gap difference of 9%
“2022 is the year of the Linux desktop version.” A programmer from Amazon’s K8s team wrote this on his latest blog.
What makes this statement?
It turns out to be based on the Stack Overflow 2022 developer survey results.
The report shows that the percentage of people using Linux as their primary operating system in 2022 has reached 40.23%, not only surpassing macOS, but also bringing the gap to 9%.
You know, last year these two are still basically the same, the gap is only 0.13%. And that’s not counting the 15% of users who chose WSL, which runs a Linux subsystem on Windows.
For the first time, it’s overpowering macOS
Stack Overflow has more than 70,000 participants in this year’s survey.
In terms of operating systems, the main categories were “personal use” and “work use”, and the survey looked at which operating system people used most often in both cases.
The result is that in either case, the Linux system exceeds macOS, especially for personal use.
Specifically, of the 71503 results received, 28765 respondents chose Linux for personal use, or 40.23%.
22,217 chose macOS, accounting for 31.07%. The difference between the two is nearly 10%.
In terms of work use, 28,523 people chose Linux, accounting for 39.89%, which is basically the same as personal use, while 23,578 people chose macOS, accounting for 32.97%, which is more than personal use (this is the most special place of macOS). But the gap between it and Linux still reaches nearly 7%.
In addition to this, there are about 15% of people who choose Microsoft’s WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) for both personal use and work scenarios, further proving the popularity of Linux.
And from the data of previous years, the popularity of Linux has been climbing in small steps, this year is the first time with macOS gap so much.
Therefore, it is no wonder that the beginning of the programmers called this year “the year of Linux desktop version”.
Specifically, between 2018 and 2020, Linux figures were 23.2%, 25.6%, 26.6%, has been in third place.
2021 is the watershed year, Linux for the first time with a subtle difference of 0.13% over macOS, to become the second place.
Still, in work scenarios, macOS is better (30.04% vs. 25.17%).
This year, Linux has overtaken macOS by a wide margin, both personally and professionally, proving the appeal of open source software, as Stack Overflow officially put it.
Of course, there is still a lot of difference between it and Windows, which is still the king of the three major operating systems.
And in addition to the operating system itself, data from other surveys also show that Linux’s market share on the Steam platform has been rising recently.
In January this year, the platform accounted for 1.06% of Linux players, while in November, the figure rose to 1.44%, and this is mainly thanks to the Steam Deck, a handheld launch (Windows is still dominant at 96.11%).
Just this October at the Akademy 2022 conference, the people involved revealed that the Steam Deck had shipped over 1 million units, with a large backlog of orders still being processed.
Is Linux really that hot?
Still, some users have questioned the data as above.
This is mainly because Stack Overflow this year in this survey, the sum of the data of several major operating systems no longer equals 100%.
TA said the results show that when choosing “your primary operating system,” many people chose more than one.
“This figure is incredibly high for people who use it primarily for work/professional scenarios only, and incredibly low for developers who often use Linux on a daily basis as well.”
Many people are still uncomfortable with Linux, citing reasons such as a less user-friendly UI (even Ubuntu is too much for them), installation hassles, complex package management, and more.
Still, there are many people who think Linux is really getting hotter.
One user said that Linux’s numbers might be even higher – after all, there are users who may use Windows or Mac desktops themselves, but work on Linux systems primarily through remote terminals or virtual machines.
Another said he had experienced firsthand how Linux had gone from “weird” and “uncommon” to “normal” in their work environment in the past five years .
Even a few of my non-technical friends are considering whether to run Linux on Thinkpad.
In TA’s opinion, there are many factors contributing to the rise of Linux, including the rise of the cloud, the maturity of Linux desktop distributions, the fact that Linux is the default/only option for products like the Raspberry Pi, the increasing support for multiple platforms in developer software, and the increasing hardware compatibility of Linux in particular (especially with the Manjaro version).
And of course, there are people who just love the lack of ads, and the ability to customize Linux.
It’s also interesting to note that some people can’t resist the appeal of Linux and can’t let go of macOS, so “Linux for private use and macOS for work is a good compromise”.
A few interesting points
Finally, let’s see what other highlights of this year’s Stack Overflow developer survey report.
1, programming language, Rust has become the most favorite language for the seventh consecutive year, about 87% of developers said they want to continue to use it.
At the same time, it is one of the top three most wanted new languages to learn along with Python and TypeScript.
2, last year, Git is still the most commonly used basic tools, completely crushing the next Docker, Yarn and so on. This year, Docker has replaced Git to take the first place, the usage rate increased from 55% to 69%.
In addition, this survey also shows that people who are learning to code are more likely to use 3D tools to teach themselves 3D VR and AR technologies than professional developers: Unity 3D (23% vs. 8%) and Unreal Engine (9% vs. 3%).
- Docker and Kubernetes ranked as the #1 and #2 most loved and wanted-to-learn tools, respectively. With Docker’s numbers increasing from 30% last year to 37% this year, you can see that people’s desire to use Docker is not slowing down.
4, Phoenix replaced Svelte as the most popular Web framework. Angular.js became the most annoying framework for developers for three consecutive years, and React.js became the most wanted framework for developers for five consecutive years.
The highest-earning language continues to be Clojure.
