this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2025
394 points (98.8% liked)

Linux

8923 readers
473 users here now

A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system (except the memes!)

Also, check out:

Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3907142

In all other countries worldwide, Linux market shares are well below 10%.

Linux market shares in July 2025:

  • Africa: 3.1%
  • Europe: 4.6%
  • Asia: 2.4
  • North America: 4.9%
  • South America: 3.6%
  • Oceania: 2.3%
  • Worldwide: 3.9%

What happens in Finland?

UPDATE: There was apparently a similar development in 2022 according to the stats when Linux market share in Finland went up to +18 by July and then dropped sharply to 4% by the end of the year. I don't understand that, but maybe the data is flawed? (My apologies for any confusion this may cause.)

all 41 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] m4xie@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 days ago

Do Fins use Linux in the summer and Windows in the autumn?

[–] krimson@lemmy.world 77 points 1 week ago (3 children)

What happens in Finland?

I can imagine Linus being from Finland is probably having some influence.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 66 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Did that only kick in in March 2025? That seems like a rather sudden onset of Finnishness for a 55 year old guy.

[–] Tja@programming.dev 15 points 1 week ago

Suddenly perkele.

[–] krimson@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Lol fair point.

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 week ago

He finnished up

[–] everett@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 week ago

Seems plausible, but why now?

[–] cyborganism@piefed.ca 4 points 1 week ago

That and European countries wanting digital sovereignty.

[–] gigachad@piefed.social 58 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think schools and universities in Finland are giving out free computers with Linux installed for a few years now.

[–] jouhija@sopuli.xyz 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Not mine, they're entrenched with M$. Everything is done with M$ Office, even programming exercises and projects are uploaded to OneDrive for the teacher to examine

Oh what's that, you need me to authenticate again even though I did that just this morning? .......

[–] gigachad@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I searched the internet an found and alternative platform to the Threadiverse where this was discussed (something starting with R, I don't remember).

So actually I don't know shit about Finland, but it seemed like the only explanation yet that makes sense. But if you're Finnish I guess you know a lot more about how it works up there!

[–] jouhija@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 week ago

Some schools or universities might be starting to embrace Linux, but at least in North Karelia all the universities (applied science or not) & high- and vocational schools use MS products

[–] Flatfire@lemmy.ca 34 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Am I misremembering or did Finland begin migrating a large number of their government systems to linux/FOSS software?

[–] tasankovasara@sopuli.xyz 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Not us, but some other European countries are doing it. I feel Finland is going to be the last in line to give up Microsofts and Facebooks despite Linus and Jolla / Sailfish 🙄

[–] AlpacaChariot@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Are you still using Sailfish? I used it for about 5 years but eventually caved in and switched to GrapheneOS.

I wish the tablet had made it, I feel like it would be an easier market to break into as the app gap matters less.

[–] tasankovasara@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 week ago

Same same, on Graphene now. There is a new Jolla phone in the works now (you can vote for features such as screen size on the forums at jolla.com right now!), that might spark a mini-renaissance when it comes out and gets it's 15 min media fame :)

[–] NostraDavid@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago

I think it was Denmark and/or a province (?) of Germany

[–] troed@fedia.io 26 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Santa switched OS for all the elf slave laborers

[–] Evkob@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 week ago

Pfft, everyone knows Santa lives in Canada. His postal code is H0H 0H0!

[–] Vincent@feddit.nl 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)

As usual with StatCounter: crappy data.

[–] yes_this_time@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah this is very likely bad data. This whole post should be deleted.

[–] passenger@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Can you explain a bit why you think it is so?

[–] yes_this_time@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Sure. Statscounter has a history of questionable data. They don't have a representative sample of websites, and there are technical challenges.

Finland is a small population so would suffer from sample size issues.

What catalyst is there to drive an almost 4x market share growth? And the collapse of Mac?

Flip through a few countries, you can tell they are having issues with OS classification.

[–] passenger@sopuli.xyz 1 points 6 days ago

Thank you, it seems to be a consensus that this is fluke.

[–] Beacon@fedia.io 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Holy cow!!

IS IT HAPPENING?!?!

Is it finally actually happening?!?!?!

[–] MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown@fedia.io 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It is truly the yea- !

*falls down seven flights of stairs*

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 5 points 1 week ago

You better watch out for those windows on your way down

[–] solariplex@slrpnk.net 17 points 1 week ago

This increase is too abrupt, I don't trust its accuracy

[–] herseycokguzelolacak@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 week ago

Statcounter data gets noisy for small countries. This is probably just a fluctuation.

However, Linux usage is up in Statcounter and also in Steam data. The overall trend is very positive.

[–] mintiefresh@piefed.ca 13 points 1 week ago

Wow. Is this real? Kind of amazing if it is.

[–] practisevoodoo@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

I was going to suggest tech literacy levels as Finland is basically joint top in Europe joint with Netherlands. But while the Netherlands has above average Linux usage it's not close to Finland.

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/netherlands/zawwjy8.tokyo

[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 9 points 1 week ago

Note the UPDATE on that thread. Apparently this same spike happened in 2022 and then dropped back to 4%. So this could be a problem with the data.

[–] blackstrat@lemmy.fwgx.uk 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 week ago

Agreed. I don't believe it.

[–] VitoRobles@lemmy.today 7 points 1 week ago

I have to admit. This is incredible.

Amazing, I hope this continues

[–] Ptsf@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Can we get it to 99?!

[–] 17lifers@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 week ago

the perfect society