Skip Navigation
64 comments

  • Ubuntu for sure, about every companies I worked at were using Ubuntu as main dev. And now in the new company I work for, it's WSL2 in Windows, using Ubuntu too.

    Only non-Ubuntu I used in companies was CentOS.

    So pretty sure Ubuntu is the most popular/used.

    • It's the only version I've come across as a pre-installed option for bought systems, particularly from Dell. A big thing going for it is if you search 'how to do X in Linux' you can pretty safely bet some or even most top hits are Ubuntu related.

  • Hannah Montana Linux is probably the most popular Linux distro.

    In all seriousness, popularity isn't necessarily the best metric for what you should run on your computer. Ubuntu might be fairly popular, but it also isn't particularly good.

  • Thst depends in a lot of things.

    What do you mean with "PC"? Is a smartphone a PC? Is a steamdeck a PC? The Laptop of a government employee? A Raspberry Pi? What about a TV-box or an e-reader?

    Because if you mean in general on non-server hardware it's probably some weird Chinese/indian fork for their government PCs.

    Otherwise it could be Arch due to the steam decks, but then again it depends on how tightly you define "distribution". As others have mentioned, is Xubuntu their own distribution or does it count as Ubuntu? What is Mint/Pop!_OS?

    But no matter what, it's not MX Linux.

    • A smartphone is not a PC I’d wager. People can treat them like ones but then we’d have to be annoying and broaden it beyond what anyone could possibly mean.

      Most people mean a non-apple laptop or desktop when they say a PC. It’s widely enough accepted that it shouldn’t be too ambiguous when used.

    • PC is a computer based on IBM PC compatible standard, so usually x86 processor architecture with compatible with it components.

      The term is so common that in practical language people started to use it as a replacement of the "desktop PC" or overall anything that is not pocketable or Apple.

      But I guess with such question from OP it does not matter, as computers at the edge of the definition (like x86 Android tablets) are in a fraction of percent and won't matter in "what's the most popular".

      • I would say we're beyond the era of PC referencing the classic "x86 IBM Personal Computer compatible" definition. PC could reasonably be considered to include many ARM systems, considering there are now Windows laptops shipping with ARM processors that can run "PC" software. Besides, most new x86 PCs aren't IBM PC compatible anyways as legacy BIOS support has been dropped by a lot of UEFI implementations. I would consider any device that runs a desktop style OS (be it Windows, Linux, or even MacOS) a PC. The distinction in my mind is specifically mobile vs. desktop. Android and iOS are not PC. They're primarily touch driven and apps are restricted to a certain format with a centralized app store where you are expected to get all of your apps. Windows/Linux/MacOS are primarily keyboard and mouse driven and you have a lot more flexibility on acquiring new apps, with their forms of "sideloading" and "rooting/jailbreaking" being things that are just normal and accepted rather than workarounds/hacks to break out of the walled garden. I would also go as far as saying a smartphone can be a PC if you have a PC like OS on it, such as mobile Linux OSes that let you run desktop applications.

  • Amongst Steam users, the most popular desktop distros are:

    • Arch Linux 64 bit 7.66% -0.49%
    • Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS 64 bit 5.54% +5.54%
    • Linux Mint 21.3 64 bit 3.77% +0.21%
    • Manjaro Linux 64 bit 3.42% +0.07%
    • Other 29.41% -1.37%

    According to a recent survey.

64 comments