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Linux use overtakes macOS on the Stack Overflow Survey

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Well this is a fun statistic, it seems Linux has become a fair bit more popular than macOS on the Stack Overflow Developer Survey for 2022.

Firstly for the 2021 data, professional Linux use was at 25.17% and overall Linux use was 25.32%. At the time macOS was at 30.04% for professionals and 25.19% overall. This was from over 80,000 responses.

This year's survey had over 70,000 responses, and the results for 2022 show that 40.23% use Linux for personal use while 39.89% use it as a professional. Personal use for macOS was at 31.07% and professional use at 32.97%.

So it's worth pointing out that while yes Linux use has risen quite a bit above macOS, they also had seemingly less responses on the latest survey. Still interesting enough to highlight though especially with the total responses being a pretty great sample size overall. A fun point here as well though is that the survey also noted that 15% of the respondents use Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) personally and 14.34% professionally.

Naturally Windows was on top both years but the gap is getting smaller overall for developers, meanwhile poor old BSD was noted to only have 1.47% personal use and 1.03% professional use.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Eike Jan 3, 2023
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As it's a developer site, I'm quite surprised this hasn't been the case years ago already. I'm at a big conservative company, and even we started to use Linux. (After 25 years of Linux usage at home and Windows usage at work, I finally get some bits of Linux at the company! )
TheSHEEEP Jan 3, 2023
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Quoting: EikeAs it's a developer site, I'm quite surprised this hasn't been the case years ago already. I'm at a big conservative company, and even we started to use Linux. (After 25 years of Linux usage at home and Windows usage at work, I finally get some bits of Linux at the company! )
So what you're saying is that it took you 25 years of nagging? :P


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 3 January 2023 at 1:24 pm UTC
ExpandingMan Jan 3, 2023
This is very surprising to me, even though of course I personally really can't understand why anyone would choose mac over linux these days. It also seems pretty ridiculous that corporate IT departments which are probably constantly being asked not to waste money waste tons of money on macs which are both much more expensive and a lot harder to maintain (at least for the IT department itself, I'm sure apple makes all sorts of promises to counteract this).

Where I work I'm seemingly the only one who uses linux, and frankly if they told me I couldn't anymore I'd probably immediately quit. Life is too short to spend 8 hours a day dealing with apple's shit.
serge Jan 3, 2023
Quoting: ExpandingManThis is very surprising to me, even though of course I personally really can't understand why anyone would choose mac over linux these days. It also seems pretty ridiculous that corporate IT departments which are probably constantly being asked not to waste money waste tons of money on macs which are both much more expensive and a lot harder to maintain (at least for the IT department itself, I'm sure apple makes all sorts of promises to counteract this).

Where I work I'm seemingly the only one who uses linux, and frankly if they told me I couldn't anymore I'd probably immediately quit. Life is too short to spend 8 hours a day dealing with apple's shit.

If you need to develop and compile applications for iOS, you can only do it with Xcode which is Mac only, by doing this they force peoples to buy Mac :(
Arehandoro Jan 3, 2023
Quoting: ExpandingManThis is very surprising to me, even though of course I personally really can't understand why anyone would choose mac over linux these days. It also seems pretty ridiculous that corporate IT departments which are probably constantly being asked not to waste money waste tons of money on macs which are both much more expensive and a lot harder to maintain (at least for the IT department itself, I'm sure apple makes all sorts of promises to counteract this).

Where I work I'm seemingly the only one who uses linux, and frankly if they told me I couldn't anymore I'd probably immediately quit. Life is too short to spend 8 hours a day dealing with apple's shit.

Aside of what @serge has said, there are other things that are also important as to why choosing macOS over Linux. Integration with Microsoft 365 products, from Teams to Outlook, integration with company's directory, including the ability to wipe the device if lost/stolen, deployment of GPO's via Endpoint, integration of SSO... Granted, all this might be different if the company I'm at didn't use M365 or Azure AD.

However, not related to the above, for me there is also another point to not allow people to use Windows, mac AND Linux... and it's basically because IT would need to support them all. Reducing differences in hardware and software makes IT departments run smoother.
Vardamir Jan 3, 2023
Quoting: ExpandingManWhere I work I'm seemingly the only one who uses linux, and frankly if they told me I couldn't anymore I'd probably immediately quit. Life is too short to spend 8 hours a day dealing with apple's shit.
I my corporation it is the same. A few of us used Linux for years, but were forced to use Windows since 2019 (at least we got VMs with Linux locally or on Citrix, otherwise I would have quit back then)
Now IT was forced to also support macOS (because the younglings seem to like that crap), and me and another colleague were to test, if macbooks could replace our Windows boxes with Linux VMs. I gave it a fair shot. I didn't know how good or bad it was, and I thought it couldn't be that bad. The hardware at least is fantastic (M1).
But boy was I surprised, when I got my finger on that machine. It drove me insane. The hardware support is abyssal (the macBook is the only machine, that wont work on my HP docking station at home). 2K monitors look like shit, because scaling does only work on 4K monitors. And lets not talk about macOS, its ridiculously bad, when you come from a KDE background
Now I am at the point to quit my job, because I have doubts, that policies will change any time soon. Luckily, there are plenty of companies out there, that are not so stupid.

But to counter your point: I'm actually surprised, that so many are using Linux professionally, considering, that most corporate IT departments are Microsoft sycophants
Vardamir Jan 3, 2023
Quoting: sergeIf you need to develop and compile applications for iOS, you can only do it with Xcode which is Mac only, by doing this they force peoples to buy Mac :(

That is true, but for the most part, you can develop on Linux and test on a mac sitting somewhere, connecting with some remote desktop. For mobile, I highly recommend Flutter ;-)
Then you only need a mac for iOS specific issues.


Last edited by Vardamir on 3 January 2023 at 3:38 pm UTC
PublicNuisance Jan 3, 2023
Mac OS still gets more native ports for games. I'll take more native games over winning a survey on a site I don't even frequent.
Purple Library Guy Jan 3, 2023
Quoting: PublicNuisanceMac OS still gets more native ports for games. I'll take more native games over winning a survey on a site I don't even frequent.
Mm. Native, sure. But does Proton work on Mac OS?
CatKiller Jan 3, 2023
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Quoting: PublicNuisanceMac OS still gets more native ports for games. I'll take more native games over winning a survey on a site I don't even frequent.
Not by much. In 2022 there were 1,791 native Mac games released on Steam compared to 1,411 native Linux (and 12,706 native Windows).


Last edited by CatKiller on 3 January 2023 at 6:26 pm UTC
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