As I see it, if there’s a fast pivot point to Linux it will be when the larger PC makers offer, side by side with a Windows option, a “with Linux pre-installed” option, especially if the final price reflects the cost of the OS license.
Even then, the shift would take years as people slowly replace old machines, a process which itself takes significativelly longer nowadays due to the current insane prices for some PC parts.
Sure, there is a drip-drip effect from people getting things like the Steam Deck and Steam Machine as well as tech types replacing whatever is in the machines of their family members with Linux as a way to avoid having to replace that hardware with newer (and at the moment far more expensive) machines, but I don’t think that adds up to much more that 1-2 per year.
Mind you, this is a point of view based on how things work in Europe and the US - it’s quite possible that things are very different in places like China and developing nations and there are very different pathways and reasons for Linux adoption.
Lenovo is the largest laptop manufacturer in the world by market share, and they’ve offered Linux preinstalled on many laptops and desktops for at least a decade
The manufacturer matters for the option to be at all available, but it’s the seller that matters when it comes to how many people go for it if there is one.
Non-experts tend to chose from what’s right there in front of them in the store front they’re buying from, not a manufacturer option that they’ll only hear about if they care enough and understand enough to actually go look for it.
In my experience most PC sellers don’t put their Linux options right there in front of you side by side with the Windows options and with equal proeminence, and this is as much true for online stores as it is for physical stores.
Lenovo offering it as an option is a pre-condition for people to actually get it but non-techies are still not going to get it if sellers don’t make it as visible and available as the Windows option, which personally I almost never see happen outside smaller techie-friendly PC stores.
As I see it, if there’s a fast pivot point to Linux it will be when the larger PC makers offer, side by side with a Windows option, a “with Linux pre-installed” option, especially if the final price reflects the cost of the OS license.
Even then, the shift would take years as people slowly replace old machines, a process which itself takes significativelly longer nowadays due to the current insane prices for some PC parts.
Sure, there is a drip-drip effect from people getting things like the Steam Deck and Steam Machine as well as tech types replacing whatever is in the machines of their family members with Linux as a way to avoid having to replace that hardware with newer (and at the moment far more expensive) machines, but I don’t think that adds up to much more that 1-2 per year.
Mind you, this is a point of view based on how things work in Europe and the US - it’s quite possible that things are very different in places like China and developing nations and there are very different pathways and reasons for Linux adoption.
Lenovo is the largest laptop manufacturer in the world by market share, and they’ve offered Linux preinstalled on many laptops and desktops for at least a decade
On select machines.
The manufacturer matters for the option to be at all available, but it’s the seller that matters when it comes to how many people go for it if there is one.
Non-experts tend to chose from what’s right there in front of them in the store front they’re buying from, not a manufacturer option that they’ll only hear about if they care enough and understand enough to actually go look for it.
In my experience most PC sellers don’t put their Linux options right there in front of you side by side with the Windows options and with equal proeminence, and this is as much true for online stores as it is for physical stores.
Lenovo offering it as an option is a pre-condition for people to actually get it but non-techies are still not going to get it if sellers don’t make it as visible and available as the Windows option, which personally I almost never see happen outside smaller techie-friendly PC stores.