Linux 桌面拥有近一半的 Linux 桌面市场！
Linux 桌面

> 
> 如果人们能停止争论谁算谁不算，那就会加倍了。
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![](/data/attachment/album/202307/20/115246hzczzqpvxbvmxlyb.jpg)


Linux 现在占据全球桌面操作系统市场略超过 3%，不包括 4% 多的 ChromeOS（虽然 ChromeOS 实际上 *也是* Linux，但是它是“错误类型”的 Linux）。


Web 服务器统计聚合网站 Statcounter 上周宣布，截至 2023 年 6 月，Linux [占据](https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide) 全球桌面操作系统使用量的 3%。然而，ChromeOS 的使用量仍然超过 Linux，这意味着 Linux 桌面占不到一半的 Linux 桌面市场的份额。如果你感到这话有点奇怪，那你是对的。


显然，Linux 桌面的使用量为 3.08%，落后于 ChromeOS 的 4.15%。问题在于，ChromeOS 实际上 *也是* 一种 Linux 发行版。它是一种奇怪的发行版，在几个方面不符合标准，它目前的版本基于 Gentoo Linux [构建](https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/14/chromeos_opinion_column/)，是几年前从基于 Ubuntu 转换而来的。


我们认为更准确的计算结果应该是，Linux 现在占据了 Statcounter 统计的使用数据的 7.23%，而 ChromeOS 占据了一半以上：总计 57.4%。这似乎是一个更积极的解释，Linux 粉丝应该会乐于接受，但显然事实并非如此。例如，Linux 布道网站 Linuxiac 在其报道中甚至没有 [提到](https://linuxiac.com/linux-hits-3-percent-market-share/) ChromeOS。


（顺便说一下，我们怀疑 “未知” 类别下的 3.23% 操作系统很可能也是 Linux 用户，只是他们的极度谨慎遮掩了他们的用户代理或其他信息。）


为什么 ChromeOS *不* 算进去呢？它是一个在标准 glibc C 库之上构建的 Linux 内核和 Linux 用户空间。你可以打开 Shell。如果你愿意，你还可以运行一个 [Debian 容器](https://www.theregister.com/2018/04/27/linux_vms_on_chrome_os/)，并在其中安装和运行任何 Debian 应用；我们的实验性 ChromeOS Flex 机器运行着 Firefox 和 DOSemu。


如果有人说 “安卓不是 Linux”，这还是有一定的道理的。你不能轻松免费地下载它，也不能在自己的通用个人电脑上运行它。尽管有一些实验性的基于安卓的桌面操作系统，但迄今为止它们都失败了。在其原生平台的智能手机和平板电脑上，你无法在安卓上运行普通的 Linux 应用程序。它是一种不同类型的系统，尽管*从技术上*讲，它是一个带有 Linux 内核的系统。但仅此而已。它甚至使用了奇怪的、非标准的、非 GPL 许可的 libc，名为 "Bionic"。默认情况下，除了内核之外，它没有任何其他类似 Linux 的东西。没有 Shell，没有桌面，没有 X11 或 Wayland，什么都没有。


但 ChromeOS 不是如此。在其独特的 GUI 层下（与 macOS 不同，它是 [开源](https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/lkgr/ash/) 的），它是一个相对标准的 Linux，可以直接在 x86 和 ARM 平台上运行标准的 Linux 应用程序。因此，它是目前最成功的桌面 Linux。


它不是*典型的* Linux，因为典型的 Linux 是给怀有技术痴迷的黑客人群使用的工具，这种操作系统永远不会成为主流，除非有人强迫人们使用它。


ChromeOS 是一个去除了 Linux 特性的 Linux 桌面。没有关于分区的选择。没有奇怪的双启动机制。不用选择桌面环境或软件包管理器。甚至没有软件包管理器！


从重要的方面来看，ChromeOS 是一个主流、商业成功、精心设计的面向最终用户的桌面操作系统，而且它确实是一个 Linux 系统。


因此，自由开源软件（FOSS）阵营的力量自然对它充满敌意。当然他们愿意这么做。他们是如何表达这种蔑视呢？他们声称它不是一个“真正的 Linux”。


Unix 就像一种宗教：不知何故，它鼓励分裂和分散的派别，每个派别都否认其他派别的合法性。这几乎成了 Unix 的定义特征之一。


如果我们忽略所有商业版的 Unix，因为它们实际上都已经 [不复存在](https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/17/unix_is_dead/)，只关注 FOSS 阵营，有大约十几个竞争派别：NetBSD、FreeBSD、OpenBSD、DragonflyBSD、Minix、HURD 和 L4 及其 [各种分派](https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/24/neptune_os_sel4_windows/)、Plan 9（[9front](https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/02/plan_9_fork_9front/)、HarveyOS、Jeanne 等）、Inferno、[xv6](https://github.com/mit-pdos/xv6-public)、[v7/86](https://www.nordier.com/)，当然还有 Linux 和数千个不同的发行版。


确切地说，只有 **两个** 基于 Linux 的操作系统在面向非技术用户的 GUI 系统中取得了大规模的商业成功。一个拥有 [数十亿用户](https://www.theregister.com/2012/06/11/android_activation_nears_one_million_daily/)，另一个则有 [数亿用户](https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/05/chromebook_shipments_canalys_figures/)。它们都来自谷歌，并且都具有一个定义性的特征：自由开源软件（FOSS）世界拒绝接受它们。


ChromeOS 有两个版本：普通的 ChromeOS 只能通过购买专门为其设计的硬件来获得（就像苹果的 macOS 一样），而另一个是 ChromeOS Flex。Flex 过去被称为 Neverware Cloudready。Neverware 起源于 Hexxeh 对普通个人电脑 [重新混编和重构](https://www.theregister.com/2010/11/08/google_chrome_os_is_not_android/) 的 ChromiumOS。Hexxeh 开发了 ChromeOS Flow，它是 ChromeOS Flex 的直接前身：两者都是可以用在通用个人电脑硬件上的 ChromeOS。这是其中一个重要的方面，它表明 ChromeOS 就是又一个 Linux 发行版。


ChromeOS Flex 不像安卓。从重要的方面来看，它就是一个 Linux。它既是自由 [开源](https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/) 的，也有多个混编和重构版本。它可以在通用的具有普通 BIOS 或 UEFI（包括安全启动）的设备上运行。它有自己独特的桌面环境。你可以打开一个 Shell，并安装和运行任何任意的 Linux 应用程序。


外观上它看起来像一个 Linux，行为也像一个 Linux，并且像任何其他桌面 Linux 一样运行。它基于通用的 Linux 内核，使用与其他桌面 Linux 相同的 Linux 二进制文件执行 Linux 相关的操作。


它没有 systemd，但感谢伟大的 Torvalds 大神以及他的使徒圣·Cox，它还不是 Linux 发行版的要求。它使用的是 upstart，这是一种最广泛使用的初始化系统之一。


当某种特定形式的基于 Linux 的操作系统开始变得主流，并被 [大约一半](https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-many-android-users-are-there) 的人使用时，Linux 世界的真正信徒们会放弃它，这完全符合 Linux 世界的特点。安卓不是 Linux。好吧，他们某种程度上是对的。


但是对于 ChromeOS，尤其是 ChromeOS Flex 来说呢？当然，所有的倡导者都会声称它不是真正的 Linux，但随之而来的很快就变成了一个“[没有真正的苏格兰人](https://www.scribbr.com/fallacies/no-true-scotsman-fallacy/)”的争论。红帽族认为 Ubuntu 是垃圾，Debian 迷们认为其他一切都是垃圾，Arch 族认为自己是真正的前沿，Slackware 爱好者认为其他人都是新手，而 NixOS 的那些人则认为其他所有人仍然停留在某个石器时代……


*（题图：MJ/3dcb3470-0b08-41bf-b826-be5afac57775）*




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via: <https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/18/linux_desktop_debate/> 


作者：[Liam Proven](https://www.theregister.com/Author/Liam-Proven) 译者：ChatGPT 校对：[wxy](https://github.com/wxy)


本文由 [LCTT](https://github.com/LCTT/TranslateProject) 原创编译，[Linux中国](/article-16013-1.html) 荣誉推出


OK
This article is more than **1 year old**

# Linux has nearly half of the desktop OS Linux market

## It would be twice as much if people could stop arguing about who counts and who doesn't

Opinion Linux is now a little more than three percent of global desktop OS market, excluding the just-over *four* percent that is ChromeOS. Which is *also* Linux, but the *wrong kind* of Linux.

Web server statistics aggregator Statcounter announced last week that as of June 2023, Linux [accounts](https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide) for three percent of worldwide desktop operating system use. However, this is still surpassed by ChromeOS, which means that desktop Linux has less than half of the desktop Linux market. If you feel that this is a bit weird, we agree with you.

Apparently, desktop Linux use measures 3.08 percent, lagging about a quarter behind the usage of ChromeOS at 4.15 percent. The problem with this is that ChromeOS is *also* a Linux distribution. It's a strange distro, non-standard in several ways, but current versions are [built on](https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/14/chromeos_opinion_column/) the basis of Gentoo Linux, switching from an Ubuntu basis some years earlier.

We feel that a more accurate reckoning would be that Linux has now reached 7.23 percent of Statcounter's usage figures, with ChromeOS at just over half: 57.4 percent of the total. That seems like a more positive interpretation, one that Linux fans would be keen to make, but apparently not. By example, Linux advocacy site Linuxiac doesn't even [mention](https://linuxiac.com/linux-hits-3-percent-market-share/) ChromeOS in its write-up.

(As an aside, we suspect that quite a lot of the 3.23 percent of OSes grouped under "Unknown" are probably *also* Linux users, just extra-paranoid ones who are obscuring their user-agent or something.)

Why *shouldn't* ChromeOS count? It's a Linux kernel and a Linux userland on top of the standard `glibc`

C library. You can open a shell. If you want, you can [run a Debian container](https://www.theregister.com/2018/04/27/linux_vms_on_chrome_os/) and once you're in there install and run any Debian app; *The Reg* FOSS desk's experimental ChromeOS Flex machine runs Firefox and DOSemu.

If someone said "Android is not a Linux," that is defensible. You can't easily download it for free, and you can't run it on your own generic off-the-shelf computer. There have been a few experimental Android-based desktop OSes, but so far they've all flopped. On its native platform of smartphones and tablets, you can't run ordinary Linux apps on Android. It's a different sort of beast, even though *technically* it is a Linux inasmuch as it has a Linux kernel. But that's about it. It even has a weird, non-standard, non-GPL `libc`

, "Bionic". By default and unless cracked, aside from the kernel, it has nothing else Linux-like about it. No shell, no desktop, no X11 or Wayland, nothing.

But that's not the case for ChromeOS. Underneath its unique GUI layer – which, unlike the one in macOS, is [open source](https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/lkgr/ash/) – it's a relatively standard Linux which can run standard Linux apps, out of the box, on both x86 and Arm. As such, it's the most successful desktop Linux there is.

It's not a *typical* Linux, because typical Linuxes are tools for nerdy hacker types, and that kind of OS will never, ever go mainstream unless someone forces people to use it. (As the [government of the People's Republic of China is currently doing](https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/03/china_openkylin/), but that is irrelevant to this. No Google inside the Great Firewall means no ChromeOS.)

ChromeOS is a desktop Linux with the Linuxiness stripped out. No choice about partitioning. No weird dual-boot mechanisms. No choice of desktops or package managers. No package manager!

But in every way that matters, it is mainstream, it is commercially successful, it's a polished end-user desktop OS, and it's a Linux.

So naturally the Forces of FOSS hate it. Of *course* they do. And how do they express that contempt? By saying it's not a True Linux.

Unix is like a religion: somehow, it encourages schisms and splinter sects, all of whom deny that the others are legitimate. It's almost a defining characteristic.

Ignoring all the commercial Unixes as [they are effectively all dead now](https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/17/unix_is_dead/), and just looking at the FOSS ones, there are about a dozen rival sects: NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, DragonflyBSD, Minix, HURD and L4 and its [various splinter groups](https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/24/neptune_os_sel4_windows/), Plan 9 ([9front](https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/02/plan_9_fork_9front/), HarveyOS, Jeanne etc.), Inferno, [xv6](https://github.com/mit-pdos/xv6-public), [v7/86](https://www.nordier.com/), and of course, Linux and its thousand distributions.

[AlmaLinux project climbs down from being a one-to-one RHEL clone](https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/17/almalinux_project_switches_focus/)[Three signs that Wayland is becoming the favored way to get a GUI on Linux](https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/13/wayland_is_coming/)[SUSE announces its own RHEL-compatible distro... again](https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/12/suse_announces_rhel_fork/)[Oracle pours fuel all over Red Hat source code drama](https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/10/oracle_ibm_rhel_code/)

Precisely two (2) Linux-based OSes have enjoyed large-scale commercial success as user-facing GUI systems for non-technical users. One has [billions of users](https://www.theregister.com/2012/06/11/android_activation_nears_one_million_daily/), the other a [significant fraction of a billion](https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/05/chromebook_shipments_canalys_figures/). Both are from Google, and both share a defining attribute: the FOSS world rejects them.

ChromeOS comes in two flavors: there's ordinary ChromeOS, which you can only get by buying hardware built to run it (just like Apple's macOS), and there's [ChromeOS Flex](https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/16/google_chrome_os/). Flex [used to be called Neverware Cloudready](https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/16/google_chrome_os/). Neverware grew from [Hexxeh's remixed and rebuilt ChromiumOS](https://www.theregister.com/2010/11/08/google_chrome_os_is_not_android/) for ordinary PCs. Hexxeh made ChromeOS Flow, and that is the direct grandparent of ChromeOS Flex: both are ChromeOS for generic PC hardware. That is the significant angle. It shows that ChromeOS is just another Linux distro.

ChromeOS Flex is not like Android. It is a Linux in every way that matters. It's both small-f free and it's [open source](https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/); there have been multiple remixes and rebuilds. It runs on generic kit with ordinary BIOS or UEFI, including with Secure Boot. It has a desktop, albeit its own unique one. You can pop a shell and install and run any arbitrary Linux app.

It looks like a Linux, it acts like a Linux, and it runs like a Linux. It is based on a generic Linux kernel, and it does Linuxy stuff with Linuxy binaries like any other desktop Linux.

It doesn't have systemd, but thank the great god Torvalds and his apostle St Cox that is not yet a requirement for a Linux distro. It has `upstart`

, which was one of the most widespread init systems.

It is 100 percent on-brand for the Linux world that when one specific form of Linux-based OS goes mainstream, and is used by [approximately half](https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-many-android-users-are-there) the human race, the True Believers of the Linux world disown it. Android is not a Linux. OK, they kind of have a point.

But ChromeOS, and especially ChromeOS Flex? Of course, all the advocates decry it as not being a True Linux, but then again, this just quickly descends into a ["no true Scotsman"](https://www.scribbr.com/fallacies/no-true-scotsman-fallacy/) argument. As it is, the Fedora lot think Ubuntu is junk, and the Debianisti think everything else is junk, and the Arch folk think they are the true cutting edge, [Slackware](http://www.slackware.com/changelog/current.php?cpu=x86_64) enthusiasts consider everyone else newbies, while the NixOS folk think all the rest are still in the stone age somewhere… ®

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