Why Linux is Becoming Impossible for Audio Developers to Ignore

[ghettosynth]

Also don't forget that there are other negligible niche OS down there contributing to that bucket as well, plus (as you note) bots.

Nothing wrong with niche OS - I am actually a huge fan of NetBSD and I have used linux as my sole desktop a few times in the past, including a two year stint on gentoo.

But arguing that you are an unignorable market force is pretty funny and not the way you will gain developers.

To be clear, I'm not arguing that. I don't care what devs do or don't do. I have never supported casual users on Linux or promoted the idea that people should switch. If you have to ask, then no, you shouldn't switch, it's still not for you. It's for us, and we don't want you peeing in the pool.

What I did say is that there are aspects that are driving greater acceptance. That doesn't necessarily convert to audio users. However, gaming on Linux is become a thing, in part, because people want set-top box style control and Linux+Steam provides that. Valve's devices are going that direction and have been for a while. Microsoft's AI and crash nonsense this year is fostering a lot of conversation that is angry. Whether that is just threats, I don't know. However, it was my impetus to switch my main desktop back this year. Eurocentric digital sovereignty is also having some impact. None of these are smoking guns, in fact, the second point is as likely to drive Mac sales.

But, you can't say "other negligible niche OS" without a reasonable discussion of what they are. I have a FreeBSD system across the room. It's not a dekstop OS though. NetBSD/FreeBSD, Amiga whatever, are tiny tiny niches as compared to even weird Linux OS systems. Which niche OS's exactly do you think are driving those numbers? All of them taken together that aren't Linux won't move a needle.

The probe that I gave you the link for is a data point. You can use it, or not use it, I don't care. Of the probed 15M desktops about 6% were Linux. Not NetBSD, not AmigaOS, but Linux. Of course there's an error rate associated with that, as there is with any number.

[stoopicus]

Probably yep. But it's still not a significant desktop market, which is my whole point in this thread. There's lots of ways for linux to attract developers, but claiming unignorable market share is not one of them.

Sell it instead on the merits of the development environment, or even just that it sucks less than Windows for some things. As a software developer I love linux for day to day development - but have also been doing development on unix based operating systems for decades. You need to sell the merits because to many developers they are not obvious at all.

I'll go with that. The title of the thread was my doing, so I'll take full responsibility. However, did you notice that MacOS adoption has been dropping over the last several years? It's currently less than 9% total. Windows has been dropping adoption like crazy too. So, for the last several years, while Windows and MacOS, has been dropping in adoption, Linux has been growing in adoption. You don't find that an interesting trend?

They are doing a weird thing where they split MacOS and OSX.

[stoopicus]

The probe that I gave you the link for is a data point. You can use it, or not use it, I don't care. Of the probed 15M desktops about 6% were Linux. Not NetBSD, not AmigaOS, but Linux. Of course there's an error rate associated with that, as there is with any number.

Can't look right now but one thing I am curious about is differentiation of desktop vs non-desktop usage there. I can look later but any quick breakdown on how that worked? Like my lan at home has multiple non-desktop linux devices, etc

[Tiles]

Well if we are going to lean in to the "Unknown" then maybe linux users can use The Force to mind trick some developer adoption. I'm not the one that brought up StatCounter but if it is going to be used as the data source (like those quoted articles above did) then it is fair game to go take a look at.

Mh maybe a little thought here. Statcounter uses the same method since years. Be it right or wrong. And if the values remains nearly unchanged, then that's a clear sign.

Either way, percentages can be misleading. A rise from 2% to 4% can be presented as "Linux gained 100% market share" and is growing like crazy. But going from 2% to 4% does not necessarily matter if a software vendor needs 10% reachable market share just to break even.

A 100% increase sounds impressive until you look at the actual numbers.

[ghettosynth]

The probe that I gave you the link for is a data point. You can use it, or not use it, I don't care. Of the probed 15M desktops about 6% were Linux. Not NetBSD, not AmigaOS, but Linux. Of course there's an error rate associated with that, as there is with any number.

Can't look right now but one thing I am curious about is differentiation of desktop vs non-desktop usage there. I can look later but any quick breakdown on how that worked? Like my lan at home has multiple non-desktop linux devices, etc

From this article.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/think-lin ... otherwise/

Lansweeper's data, according to CTO Guido Patanella, comes from its agents and scanning of 15 million consumer systems and 3.5 million corporate systems. Much of the consumer data comes from Fing, a home and small office network monitoring and device inventory company that Lansweeper acquired in 2020. The company defines consumer PCs as computers that are workgroup-based, standalone, or bring-your-own-device.

The following is almost certainly true. It's been true for me for a number of years. I should say that even when Windows was on my desktop, there was always WSL instances installed. Windows without WSL is an intolerable OS situation for me.

There are several reasons why Linux is finally gaining popularity. One I haven't looked at recently but deserves mention is the rise of AI programming. Linux has become the default operating system for AI and machine learning workloads due to the prevalence of leading AI open-source frameworks, such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, and Hugging Face Transformers, and OpenAI's new open-weight models.

Now, from the same article, this article which references a study is more interesting.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-has ... heres-how/

This is access logs to government websites. This is better data than stats counter as it's more likely to be representative. Even here though, it likely undercounts. Many people who use Linux have a Mac or a Windows machine around that is only used for this kind of access. Edge has two good uses, an extension free browser when nothing else works, and to read and mark pdf files.

At any rate, you can play with the views on the data in real time, have fun.

https://analytics.usa.gov/

Now the AI desktops could be overcounting Linux "users", but that doesn't change the percentage of desktops, so that may not mean that the number of customers follows directly.

[camsr]

There is probably more statistics from the user-agent string the browser broadcasts. I woe the day that user-agent string becomes a "second-class citizen" for retaining it's freedoms.

[mystran]

You've got the ability to search just like the rest of us. I found some quick stats. I'm not a statistician, but the stats seem easy enough. Look at my post above.

Sure, I'm game. The sites you posted mostly quoted StatCounter, so here you go:

Screenshot 2026-06-24 at 7.36.22.png

It's sitting stable at 3-4% and has been for some time.

Well, this graph also lists "OS X" and "macOS" separately, which makes it kinda suspect.

ps. Replied before I read to the end of the thread... apparently you noticed that too. The point still stands though that when you have statistic with this kinda of stuff, it's difficult to really trust the rest of the data either.

[mystran]

Something that REALLY needs to be understood here though is that overall OS market shares have traditionally not been very relevant for audio. The specific case that demonstrated this is macOS which traditionally has much more sales volume in the audio market (and other creative markets) than it's overall market share on the desktop would suggest.

Is there an actual profitable Linux audio market for smaller vendors? I have no idea. Yet, the fact that I'm running a "desktop" Linux system on an N100 that's dedicated to browsing datasheets when I'm breadboarding electronics is probably going to show up in Linux "market share" statistics, but it's not going to change that fact that I do audio on my Windows and my macOS systems and the N100 doesn't even have any audio connected.

[stoopicus]

You've got the ability to search just like the rest of us. I found some quick stats. I'm not a statistician, but the stats seem easy enough. Look at my post above.

Sure, I'm game. The sites you posted mostly quoted StatCounter, so here you go:

Screenshot 2026-06-24 at 7.36.22.png

It's sitting stable at 3-4% and has been for some time.

Well, this graph also lists "OS X" and "macOS" separately, which makes it kinda suspect.

ps. Replied before I read to the end of the thread... apparently you noticed that too. The point still stands though that when you have statistic with this kinda of stuff, it's difficult to really trust the rest of the data either.

Yeah agreed - the only reason I went there was it was the site all of the linux articles were referencing as proof of adoption. I'd never heard of it before.

Something that REALLY needs to be understood here though is that overall OS market shares have traditionally not been very relevant for audio.

This is a really good point too and something that occurred to me yesterday. I did some digging using a couple different AI agents to try and collect an overall music software sales revenue breakdown by OS. I used AI simply because this is understandably very time consuming data to try and dig up a statistical slice via search due to the low exposure of companies publishing anything, and I didn't have the time for any real rigor here, just wanted a rough landscape.

Gemini correlated "between 1% and 5%," ChatGPT said "under 2%," and Claude "a small single digit slice".

Obviously take that with a grain of salt but that seems easy enough to believe.

[stoopicus]

(Not implying that use of AI there was good methodology or had any kind of rigor - more that I was just satisfying curiosity and wanted to be totally transparent about where the numbers came from)

[TechHaus]

I linked a developer (and plugin framework creator/maintainer)'s estimation of 5-10% sales through Linux earlier.

ALSO, just because someone makes audio on Windows doesn't mean they pay for their software. Users of that OS notoriously sail the 7 seas.

[ghettosynth]

Agreed with the observation, but, your numbers are also meaningless. 1% of what doesn't mean anything. What the desktop adoption increase tells you is whether people are becoming more comfortable with Linux as a desktop to some extent. The causes I linked have nothing to do with nerds running side desktops. I have had at least one functioning Linux machine continuously for decades.

You can say that it doesn't matter, but it matters some, whether a dev wants to support that is their choice, of course. Bitwig, Cockos, Uhe, among some others have made that choice. I will keep Reaper updated until I can't use a computer.

[stoopicus]

You can say that it doesn't matter, but it matters some, whether a dev wants to support that is their choice, of course. Bitwig, Cockos, Uhe, among some others have made that choice. I will keep Reaper updated until I can't use a computer.

This is actually a really good approach, much more so than trying to argue market adoption. Celebrate the developers that support the platform and support them by actually buying their software. You want *them* to be the ones saying linux is important to them.

For developers to target the platform it needs to make financial sense for them to do so. Once it does more will.

This will require a mental shift for the FOSS purists.

[BertKoor]

This will require a mental shift for the FOSS purists.

I don't think so. This type of user will keep on using Audacity & Ardour, and will infinitely click away the nag-screen of Reaper.

[stoopicus]

This will require a mental shift for the FOSS purists.

I don't think so. This type of user will keep on using Audacity & Ardour, and will infinitely click away the nag-screen of Reaper.

I guess it depends on what percentage of the market they make up. The Stallmans aren't doing linux users any favors in termsof developer adoption.