Linux Now Has 10% Marketshare!?!

...Not exactly. As always, it's mostly hype based on flawed and cherry-picked statistics. Despite that, it doesn't mean adoption isn't up... Tech media is reporting that Linux's marketshare has officially grown higher than its ever been, finally reaching double-digits: 10%! This is based on figures from Statcounter stating Linux has 10.65% of the desktop operating system marketshare in North America as of July 2026, and 7.61% worldwide. You more than likely see the first problem: the "10%" is based off of North American marketshare, where anywhere else, it's much lower. On top of that, the statistics are intrinsically flawed given where these numbers come from. Let's break down what's actually going on here, and figure out if 2026 is truly The Year of the Linux Desktop™ (it probably isn't). // Bad Numbers, Worse Methodology If you dig into the marketshare stats in other countries, you'll notice that they hang between 3%-7%, which averages out to 5%: the 2025 Linux marketshare in the…