and what is the fundamental difference in which system to work? after all, we work in programs. And if for windows it is 10 engineering programs or hundreds, then for Linux it is one or nothing. I assume that for Linux it is necessary to make commercial software, then its popularity will rise. It exists, but there is very little of it… IMHO
yeah, no doubt – when will Wayland work properly 
As for the age poll, I would posit that experience is relevant because you need to “come to” KiCad because it’s not a “default” or “entry point”. You need a reason to be using KiCad, and that requires a certain level of technical sophistication. It also helps if you know a couple of PCB programs and can contrast with KiCad and say with confidence “KiCad really is good enough.” A random young engineer just isn’t going to be able to go toe to toe with other engineers and recommend KiCad.
In addition, KiCad in version 5 was … really rough. You had to be pretty stubborn to use it instead of something like Altium–especially since Altium was doing a really good job of being the “lingua franca” of library exchange.
And then Altium decided to blow its feet off by allowing people to close their library formats. And KiCad made quantum jumps in quality through version 6 and then version 7.
And then Autodesk decided to blow Eagle’s feet off. And KiCad continued to make great strides with Version 8.
At this point, a bunch of folks are moving from both Altium and Eagle to KiCad. That’s going to bring the average age down a lot. And once people start seeing other people using KiCad, that will accelerate.
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The age demographic can be a real effect of what has happened to the electronics industry in the West. Universities switched hard from electronics to software in the 80s as it was the fashion (and much cheaper to teach)
At my old university, the several large engineering faculties have all been pulled down and merged into one, while the rest of the university is x2 the size.
Hi @buzmeg
I agree with both you and @davidsrsb .
My comment on the age post was really about forum participation. Many regular forum participators have spare time. Maybe some of the spare time also involves messing with OS software because that is electronics also.
This could have a bearing on the current poll.
According to my observations, out of 10 companies, approximately 2-3 constantly use Kiсad, the rest are Altium and similar. Undoubtedly, this is more than during the times of version 5. But this is not even close to 50 percent. It is similar for operating systems. And even programmers who can work in Linux use it together with Windows for various reasons.
I’m running Nobara at home and Win11 at work.
Same here. Linux at home, Windows at work. I could only select one option in the poll though.
Nooo , I have been a true Gentoo user since 2001, but had to have windows on one of my work computers until 2008.
Plasma 6.3.5 on Wayland without any issues what so ever (since many months).
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That’s the crux of the matter… I can’t imagine how you can work in Altium at work and in Linux or SolidWorks at home. Probably you can use Wine or another hack.And if you think like this, maybe it can be done on Android too? Why not?
What I find interesting is that there is a total of 122% for the OS type! 53% Linux, 49% Win, and 20% Mac.
Because multiple answers can be selected.
Then the question arises why are windows so popular?) The answer is obvious… It is not windows that are popular or Linux as a system, but the programs that are in windows and work there)
You misread my post. I didn’t say I use Altium or Solidworks. I said I use Linux and windows. I use KiCad on both OS’es. However at work we are migrating to Altium at some point in a near future 
(don’t ask me why).
I didn’t even think to ask) Those who work with engineering programs already understand everything. You need to look a little wider. You come to work or to a company with Linux, you are fine and that’s it. As soon as you receive a document or a drawing or a 3D model or any other engineering material, problems begin. In the office, these are fonts, format frames, format conversion, etc. For this reason, they use Windows and not because it is ad-free or paid or good
It is necessary to understand that the basis of Linux is the server part and not a home computer. And apparently it will not become one in the near future. My experience of using both Windows and Linux is 20 years.
Several observations over the past 5 years:
- most business apps are moving to the web, so it does not matter what OS you use for many of these apps
- many engineers at startups, consultants, and small companies do use MacOS or Linux
- engineers at Facebook, Amazon, and Google often use MacOS and Linux. I get the impression that windows is the minority there.
- I ran this same survey on an electronics forum (focus is hardware) and 64% (out of 25 people who responded) said they use Linux. (some also use other platforms as well, just like here)
- chip design started on Apollo/Unix and has likely moved to Linux, as that is what these people are used to.
- most of the MCU development tools are now available on all three platforms. (this has changed drastically in the past 5 years).
- FreeCAD has reached 1.0.
It is generally the mid-sized and older non-tech companies that still force everyone to use Windows – where IT tail wags the dog. Mechanical CAD software is the other area where the mainstream options are only on Windows.
Frankly, as time goes on, the OS becomes less and less of an issue (even Windows is pretty decent these days). My point here is not to insist that one OS is better than another, or prove which has the most users, but rather challenging the mindset that insists the Windows is the “only” practical option for eCad when many people are doing something different. And encourage companies building commercial tools to think multi-platform if they want to reach the most users. There is a huge opportunity for commercial tools to work with or on top of KiCad.
Onshape is getting quite popular, and being browser-based it runs on other platforms.
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excuse me what business tools? We are on the forum of engineering software. Under Linux it is absent as a class. freecad replacement or alternative to soludu inverter or similar are you serious? or kikad replacement altium cadence mentor? If we do not take games into account then on Linux there will be 1 program left or nothing against 10-20 on windows
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Looks interesting, thanks!
Actually I use Linux because it saves me time not messing around with OS software. When I want to do a software or admin task, with Linux one is spoilt for choice how to do it. Although with environments like WSL, it’s getting easier on Windows too. But still too many gotchas.
A new one to me, I had to look this up. Wow, at the rate Linux distros are proliferating there’ll be more distros than users. 
I gave up reading Distrowatch for this reason. I just want to get tasks done, not install OSes all the time.
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