Linux Outpacing Macintosh On Desktops

An anonymous reader points out this article in the International Herald Tribune about corporate acceptance of computers running GNU/Linux, which includes this snippet: "Linux is already outpacing Macintosh on desktops: "Dan Kusnetzky, an analyst for International Data Corp., said Linux had a 3.9 percent share of desktops worldwide, outpacing Macintosh's 3.1 percent." The article does not specify from where Kuznetsky draws either figure, but can it be true that Linux systems currently outnumber Macintoshes?

Comments

Just what I wanna see....

[Lagrange5]

....Tux eating an Apple.

Re:Just what I wanna see....

[Enahs]

Well, I just replaced MacOS 9 Server + ASIP with Debian. The corporate monkeys are gonna freak. I feel I stand a good chance of losing my job this week, 'coz the corp monkeys are going to have a freakin' fit. Whatever; mail's flowing smoothly, file services seem to be going great (once I replaced the braindead Debian netatalk package with a hand-built netatalk) and it hasn't crashed (yet.)

Of course, OS X Server would have been a nice choice, but I didn't feel like warezing it or talking my boss into plunking down money on the darn thing.

Re:Just what I wanna see....

[jbolden]

That's interesting I used Mandrake's netatalk for a while and it worked perfectly. I'm kind of suprised Mandrake got a weird server right that Debian messed up.

Re:Just what I wanna see....

[leviramsey]

That's interesting I used Mandrake's netatalk for a while and it worked perfectly. I'm kind of suprised Mandrake got a weird server right that Debian messed up.

And how old would the debian package in question be? For some things, a newer version of software will be better.

<RANT>

I'm getting sick of seeing Mandrake written off as a desktop distribution. When I think desktop distro, I think Lycoris, Lindows, or even SuSE (SuSE doesn't seem to really emphasize server use). Mandrake aims to be a sort of Win2k for Linux: graphical (though all the GUI config tools can be run in ncurses) and adept at both server and desktop roles. For evidence of this, consider that Mandrake's build of Apache (AdvancedExtranetServer) is the fastest growing webserver brand on the Internet.

Re:Just what I wanna see....

[proj_2501]

If he's eating this apple that would much more interesting.

Re:Just what I wanna see....

[jbolden]

I like your description of Mandrake. Anyway I wasn't using Mandrake because I hate them; I actually think they do a pretty good job. OTOH Q&A isn't their strong suit and it is Debian's especially for server apps.

Re:Just what I wanna see....

[jbolden]

That gui is years ahead of anything else on the market and with 10.2 its moving fast to getting about a decade ahead. For the time Linux being passing Windows seems like a more reasonable goal.

Odd

[GoatPigSheep]

I find it odd that mac hasn't had more acceptance in business as OS X is now well supported and apple seems to have shifted from it's 'colourful' looking green and pink computers to more conservative silver colors more appropriate for a corporate environment. Then again the cost of a good linux based system could easily be 1/3 of that of a good mac system that can run OS X.

Re:Odd

[EvilAlien]

Its not odd at all, really.

For one thing, Apple just isn't taken seriously by most IT departments I've had experience with. The graphics or desktop publishing people might "demand" an Apple in some cases, but the geek population (which outnumbers the graphics/publishing people) will usually have better luck getting a Linux workstation. I would also suggest that most geeks will PREFER a Linux workstation. OS X has a high cool factor, but it still doesn't have anywhere near the acceptance level among the hardcore users that it needs to displace Linux.

What surprises me is that this figure didn't come out last year.

Re:Odd

[edrugtrader]

VERY easily 1/3. more like 1/5 to be realistic.

Re:Odd

[medcalf]

Decent Mac systems are available for $800 or so new. I do not believe that corporate Linux boxes would be available for 1/3 (particularly not 1/5) of that. Maybe a Frankenstein's box put together at your kitchen table out of old parts, but not a corporate Linux box.

Re:Odd

[medcalf]

I spent $2000 for my system, which at the time (2000) was the best laptop I could find, bar none. I did this because I needed to be able to run Windows and Linux, I prefer Macs for my personal use and sometimes have Mac clients, and I was anticipating OS X.

I paid $600 for my wife's laptop (used, same processor but slightly slower) last year.

I am also running a PowerComputing box from many years ago (MacOS 9 for the kids' use, soon to be Darwin and a server) and a Linux box (email server and such).

None of that is relevant. The company where I now work buys laptops from IBM for $1400 each, and desktops from Sun for $1000 or so or from Dell for $1000 or so. These boxes are typically underconfigured, and about comparable to the $800 iMacs (which are not "stripped" or "feature-poor" in any reasonable sense) in features. The only difference is the OS. If the company I work for now bought Macs, given its purchasing methods and preferences, it would probably be getting the $1200 iMacs and the $1000? iBooks. In all, they'd break about even.

I certainly spent more for Macs, and it has been very, very worth it. I didn't have to spend more for Macs, though, which is my point.

Re:Odd

[ealar dlanvuli]

I got my iBook, first day I got it to work, 5 people literally exclaimed "WHY?".

I calmly explained that it does more than what I need, right out of the box. Is more stable, and easier to use. All of them got glazed over looks in ther eyes.

I'm starting to convert people, it's been almost a year and I've yet to have a single problem with anything or one configuration nightmare, and have several times had multi-day uptimes due to the instant suspend-resume features. But there are certain people that actually lost respect for me, all because I examined all posibilities and chose the best one.

This isn't a case like linux, where windows is still more "dumb user friendly", OS X is superior to windows, end of story. The only valid reason to us windows anymore is to plain certain games, and thats really not enough to draw me.

Re:Odd

[msobkow]

I recently put together a system based on an ASUS P4 mobo (533), boxed CPU, DVD reader, 256MB DDR, Natural Pro keyboard, Intellimouse Explorer, and floppy for about $700 USD. The board includes 100MB ethernet, excellant sound, and "good enough" video for any corporate desktop. A monitor comparable to what I'm forced to use at most client sites (17") would have brought the price to around $850.

Corporate buyers would be more likely to go with a $1000-1200 system from Dell, Gateway, etc. because they don't want to assemble their own hardware, but you're still talking about 40-50% of the price of a comparably powered Mac.

Go with a board based on the NVidia chipset with AMD, and you might cut the price even further. (I like AMD and have a couple boxen built around their CPUs, but if you're after an integrated mobo solution with expansion options there are more choices with P4.)

So yes -- a third to half the price of a Mac. I really like OS/X, but there is absolutely no way I could justify paying that kind of money.

On a similar note, Apple has a beautiful widescreen LCD display, but I can buy 4.5 Sony G520 21" monitors for the price of that display (although I'd much rather have to move 5 Apple LCDs than one G520.)

Apple has good stuff, but people who buy them tend to do so because of vertical market needs or because they already love their systems, not because they're price-effective.

Re:Odd

[Sycraft-fu]

You missed it right off as is common. You work for a prepress house. Macs are popular in these, I know becuase I worked for a newspaper. News flash: Most of the world is NOT prepress. What holds true in your work environment is not equally true for other bussiness environments.

Re:Odd

[perfessor multigeek]

And this got modded to 2? Pathetic. Every low end Mac (iMac,eMac, low end laptop) comes with a monitor, a keyboard, and probably alot of other things you need. That's the point. Open box. Plug in. Turn on. Use. Including, BTW, applications that many home users stick with. (You have no idea how many former Performa buyers out there are *still* insisting on using Appleworks.)
And, BTW, those are premium monitors, keyboards, etc. The proof? Back when I did corporate IT (late eighties to two years ago, on and off) it was assumed that any user with pull got a replacement keyboard as an addtional line item when they got a Windoze box (MultiSync, Panasync, whatever for CRTs. Microsoft, Logitech, etc. for input devices) while the only Mac users who ever wanted different choices were either happy to get another Apple keyboard and just needed things like more/fewer keys or wanted some special thing that Apple didn't sell.
The final proof? Check out the thriving resale market in Apple peripherals, including keyboard, mice, monitors, and even cables on places like eBay. Even if they're over ten years old they're just assumed to work. If you were to ask an IT department how many ten year old Gateway or Dell keyboards they're still hanging on to they'ld just laugh at you.

Oh, as for RAM, if we're talking corporate buyers (which was, after all the point of the article) they buy their RAM from the same vendors (Ingram, xWarehouse, whatever) that they buy their PC RAM from for about the same prices. If we're talking (feh!) CompUSA, then we're mostly talking about adding an install fee but then decent RAM prices. Anyway, I've had to buy *waaaay* too many boxes from Toshiba, Compaq, etc., etc. to be surprised when a CPU vendor overcharges for something like that. Or to think that most people fall for it.
Get a clue, son. Until then, let the big folk speak.
Rustin

Re:Odd

[edrugtrader]

already been done.

Re:Odd

[BitGeek]

Please, stop spreading this kinds of bogus claims.
I've never seen an example of a Linux system from a tier one manufacturer for 1/3 the cost of a comperable Mac system.

In fact, every time I've done the comparison, the MACS ARE CHEAPER.

This kind of flamebait is not appropriate for slashdot.

Re:Odd

[BitGeek]

Yeah, but an $800 iMac would kick your $600 computers' butt -- AND Still be working two years later.

People who say stuff like this think that an XBOX is the same as a PowerMac.

Every time I do a comparison of quality machines, the Macs come out cheaper and faster.

Re:Odd

[BitGeek]

Nope. Consistently, and REPEATEDLY I have saved money using Macintosh machines.

My web server is a 9500 I bought for $75 running OS X... runs rather well (And faster than I'd expect for such an old machine.)

Truth is, every study ever done of the total cost of ownership shows Macs to be 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of a Windows Box. Probably more like 3/5 to 4/5 the cost when compared to Linux boxes.

The hardware is cheaper to begin with (Yes, you can buy lower end PC hardware, but when you compare low end and mid range machines, you get more for less with the macs.) ... the hardware lasts longer (usually much longer) and is usable longer (the 9500 is 7 years old now.)

Its interesting that comparisons on slashdot always compare the highest end mac to a low end fly by night crippled pc.

Its unfortunate that people cannot advocate your platform without basing it on lies about the Mac.

Re:Odd

[BitGeek]

decent doesn't include a monitor, a keyboard, and probably alot of other things you need.

You expect people to believe this crap? That's pretty stupid.

The iMach as the monitor built in, comes with a keyboard, comes with a mouse, comes with an office suite and lots of extra software.

Sheesh. Thinking you can just say stuff like that and have people believe you?

Hell the whole perception of PCs being cheaper than macs is based on flat out lies like this.

Re:Odd

[BitGeek]

but you're still talking about 40-50% of the price of a comparably powered Mac.


Bullshit. The eMac is $1,000. Not $2,000.

This "Third to half of the price" nonesense is absurd.

I'm sure you'll also tell us that an itanium is much slower than a pentium 4 because it only runs at 800MHz... and what an absurd price you have ot pay for itanium machines!

Re:Odd

[Tony-A]

He works for a prepress house where they *do* care about what their work looks like. Most business users want to be able to throw stuff in and have it coming out looking halfway decent. Whether that's good or not is a different matter.
For fun, watch someone with a bit of artistic sense try to get a Microsoft Word document to actually look decent.

Re:Odd

[Lussarn]

the hardware lasts longer (usually much longer) and is usable longer


No, the hardware doesn't last longer. I'm happily running Linux on a P75 as a router at home. I have a copule of P133 and P166 running not so complicated tasks at work. I don't know where you got that statement but it keeps comming up from the mac camp. Do you think X86 hardware magically dissapear one day or something?

Re:Odd

[BitGeek]

No, it just stops working after a year or two. I've managed dozens of x86 machines in my career... good ones from IBM and, er, well, Toshiba do tend to last. But crap from Gateway, Dell, and all those no-name fly-by-night people lasts, on average, about two years before it dies.

Sure you're going to go on and on about the little 486/33 you have thats still running.. I'm sitting not 8 feet from one, and, actually its not working now but up until this year it ran. But the average life of the average PC is rather short, compared to macintoshes...

Mostly its because quality manufacturers such as Apple and IBM and....er, Toshiba, do make good products. But most PCs are bought on price and they are DESIGNED TO FAIL.

And they do.

But most slashdotters keep their pc for such a short time they never see it, they replace the machine once a year (And think they're getting a great deal cause they only spend $700 twice a year to upgrade it, rather than the $1,200 for a Mac that would last 4 times as long. Apparently math is not their strong point, but I digress.)

Yes, they Macs do last much much longer. Remember all these bullshit comparisons are between no-name $400 piece of crap computers and Macs, not between quality computers. Hell, you go to IBM and the mac is clearly cheaper.

Re:Odd

[BitGeek]

Naw, I just ignore it when people like you make shit up. For instance, a Dell box or a whitebox -- really the same-- is not the same quality of a Mac. Tehy won't last two years, let alone 6.

Plus, it is convenient that you provided no citatiosn, no examples.... I'm certain that these boxes are lacking. Every time I do this comparison, the dell costs more, and has a poorer video card, or less memory or whatever.

Nevermind that Dell puts out crap.

You might as well be telling me that I should be buying a Yugo cause I'd save a lot of money compared to a Mercedes-- after all they both have four wheels and will go 60 MPH. They must be the same.

Re:Odd

[BitGeek]

In what way is this mythical Athlon you talk about "better"

Its certainly not faster, and at that price its going to be far less reliable, and come with less software, and lower quality software to boot.

When did "top of the line" start meaning "fly by night computer good for all of 14 months befoer the power supply fails, from some company without a name"?

Re:Odd

[dd301]

In what way is this mythical Athlon you talk about "better"

My 1 GHz Athlon system cost me exactly $410 and it had an uptime of 350 days before being rebooted due to a power failure. Not exactly flaky.

Re:Odd

[EvilAlien]

No, it just stops working after a year or two. I've managed dozens of x86 machines in my career... good ones from IBM and, er, well, Toshiba do tend to last. But crap from Gateway, Dell, and all those no-name fly-by-night people lasts, on average, about two years before it dies.

Bullshit.

The myth that Apple boxes are somehow magically going to last longer than Intel-compatible hardware may be a nice security blanket so you can sleep at night, but you have no facts to support your assertion.

Your points about regarding the upgrade costs for PCs that allegedly don't exist for Apples are a false comparison. Many of those crappy iMacs CAN'T be upgraded. Furthermore, most of the drive for upgrading in a 6 month cycle is related to gaming. Gamers overwhealmingly tend to be PC users because there are actually games to play. Good ol' Apple tends to get a small selection of games many months after the fact. They are completely different markets.

And what are those markets? Apples are good at what they do... unfortunately, that includes less and less as time goes on, especially as Linux applications advance to the point where they replace Apple's offerings. Linux is doing the same damage to SGI.

Even if we are to accept your assertion that "Macs are cheaper", I still would rather buy quality PC hardware with a future and a full ranges of choices. If PowerPC hardware wasn't so damn expensive (and yes, it is expensive) AND was readily available in components that I could put together myself and actually have choice, then I might buy some and run OS X. However, until Jobs and company stop thinking that only they are smart enough to design a computer, they can take their candy colored boxes and stuff them.

Re:Odd

[TheBracket]

As someone who maintains around 100 Dell workstations for a couple of my clients, I have to say that you are full of it. One client - a non-profit that doesn't have money to throw away on a regular upgrade cycle - has the old white-box Dell Optiplexes from 1997. The failure rate among them is very, very low. I don't have the exact figure handy, but we've had to replace a 5-10 drives in the last 2 years. There have also been a couple of 'normal attrition' incidents: boxes getting dropped by users, coffee damage, the usual sort of wastage that happens over time. (AFAIK, Macs aren't drop resistant either!)Also, their current firewall (FreeBSD) used to be a whitebox (no brand name) "server" they purchased in 1994. It still hasn't suffered a hardware failure. Neither has the Dell server they replaced it with in 1998.

Conversely, I've worked at two schools whose iMacs are disaster areas (so bad that they are migrating away from Apple). Several have developed heat problems (reliable air conditioning in rural schools is a problem), there have been multiple drive failures, video failures, some CD-ROM drives with busted eject systems. In every case, repair is tricky because the iMac isn't really designed to flip open and replace the innards with readily available commodity parts; Apple dealers charge more, Apple service/repair people charge more, and the iMacs' reliability is a joke. (That contrasts with the favourable experience I've had with Apple's workstation range, which is quite reliable if overpriced for what you get).

Re:Odd

[Macka]

But there are certain people that actually lost respect for me, all because I examined all posibilities and chose the best one.

More than likely these people find security in being one of the (mindless) crowd and feel threatened by others who dare to think for themselves. Don't judging your own worth based on their opinion of you. They would like you to, because it makes them feel important. But that would be a mistake.

I'm about to take the Mac OS X route and get an iBook myself in a few weeks. Purely because I can combine both my Linux and Windows computing needs onto one OS platform and go mobile with it. Suits me perfectly.

Re:Odd

[BitGeek]

No, they don't corner the market. Sun and Toshiba and IBM all make quality hardware. When it comes to hardware, Microsoft makes good stuff too, but they don't make PCs. Intel makes quality motherboards. I'm sure there are others, though they slip my mind right now.

But machines built by throwing parts together from random manufacturers are generally of low quality. Dell, Gateway, and all the no-name, and white box makers do this. Bought a gateway once, as part of a company buy. We bought four machines, and no two of them had the same motherboard, hard drives, power supply-- they were all different brands. The only thing the same was the case. I called for support once to find out what serial chip they had and the guy couldnt' tell me, to quote "We used so many different motherboards in that model there's no way I could tell you."

This is why PCs don't last... as one person pointed out in this thread they apparently have an intitial failure rate of 7-15 percent. Amazing! and people buy this crap?

So, yes, comparing a dell to an apple is like comparing a yugo to a mercedes. At least compare IBM or another quality manufacturer.

Re:Odd

[BitGeek]

So, I assume you drive a Yugo, right? You want the cheap "quality" hardware-- and Yugo's got it!

Interesting that you talk about Linux eroding Apples market-- funny also given that Apple is pretty clearly the largest volume seller of Unix boxes.

Just keep wishful thinking. A yugo's just like a mercedes! Yeah!

Re:Odd

[BitGeek]

Aw, got a bad case of Jaguar envy, do you? I understand.

Hey, but guess what-- you can have a Mac too. Just buy one. all the leading geeks are doing it, and its become the clear Unix desktop leader... so you'll be ahead of the masses rather than lagging behind them.

Don't worry, we won't hold your past transgressions against you.

And you'll save money to boot! Jaguar was free, iMovie, iCal, iTunes, 2 years of iTools, iPhoto, AppleWorks and the other software cost $129.

Actually, I got Jaguar for free. Many apple users do.

If you're just upgrading ,yeah, you have to pay. but you always do with quality software. At least its not like Windows, where they auto-deduct $50 form your account every month in rental fees.

Re:Odd

[rseuhs]

You really expect me to accept a toy where you can't even replace the monitor as a computer?

You really expect me to think that a 15-inch CRT cuts it today?

Apple purposely cripples their low-end models. If they would invest 1$ for DVI-connectors and make the damn thing replaceable, the new iMac would be an OK-machine (still expensive, but OK), but as it is, it's just crap. I don't want to buy a monitor everytime I buy a new computer or vice versa.

Re:Odd

[jonadab]

You're both exaggerating. A decent PC is more than 1/3 the price
of a decent Mac, but it _is_ cheaper, and any Mac you get for $800
is going to be low-end. (And if you want to talk low-end, PCs
go for cheaper and you know it.)

Part of the problem is that Apple doesn't really have a flexible
midrange. If you don't need a ton of power but would like to use
a fairly high resolution without needing a magnifying glass to see
the screen, you've got to go to one of the PowerMac towers, which
start at $1700 (without monitor) partly because they're souped up
with stuff you may not need, and high-end processing power. If you
go with anything less from Apple, you're stuck with a dinky little
screen that's _built in_ so you can't even replace it if you want
to write off its cost. Bleh. So you go with the PowerMac even
though it has things you don't need... and you pay for those
things anyway, and yes, it costs more.

The commodity nature of the PC hardware market encourages vendors
to offer a more flexible product line, so that you can buy a system
that has everything you need, without buying a system that has
_everything_. It is not entirely fair to take a random PC system
and say, "look, a Mac that has everything this has would be twice
as much", but by the same token it's not entirely fair to take a
Mac system and say, "look, a PC that has all this would cost just
as much", because some of that stuff you are buying even though
you don't really need it, just because it's part of the package.

And yes, there are people who shop for PCs that same way, so for
them it doesn't really matter. But for people who have specific
ideas about what features they want and what features they aren't
willing to pay for, Apple may not fit like a glove.

Then you have the cost of software upgrades...

Re:Odd

[medcalf]

The $1000 SUNs are actual 64 bit machines running the same software as you enterprise systems. I am sure they are not being used to render PhotoShop images.

They are being used for Perl script development and LDAP configuration testing, mostly.

Re:Odd

[BitGeek]

Just keep telling yourself that.

Re:Odd

[BitGeek]

Yeah, your company bought decent quality hardware.

That's not what people are talking about when they say "althon $600". They never give a brand, never a citation for a source.

I pointed out that IBM makes great hardware. Others do as well. But gateway is crap. The no-name crap is crap.

Comparing prices between a quality manufacturer such as IBM or Apple and a no-name crap producer is an unreasonable comparison.

But near as I can tell, PC people care more about initial purchase price than the actual cost of the system (ie: including price for replacement power supplies, the monitor, etc.)

Certainly all these "comparisons" which are made up on the spot never mention a manufacturer.

Well... maybe

[Squareball]

I used windows since back in the Win 3.1 days. I finally had had it when Windows deleted a TON of my files for no reason. I looked into getting a MAC but it was just too much money... and I had JUST built a new Athlon 1500+ system. So I switched to Linux and haven't had any problems since. Linux is great because you can run it on just about ANY THING.. and you have CHOICE.. something you don't have much of in Windows or Mac.

Re:Well... maybe

[Tablizer]

(* I finally had had it when Windows deleted a TON of my files for no reason. I looked into getting a MAC but it was just too much money *)

Perhaps you should invest in a data backup drive instead.

Bleep happens regardless of the OS, sometimes due to hardware failure, user error, application bugs, cosmic rays, spilled Mtn.Dew, etc.

Re:Well... maybe

[shepd]

Hmmm... interesting advice.

I think I'll tell Ford Pinto owners that they should just invest in some automatic fire extinguishers.

Re:Well... maybe

[NumberSyx]

I hate to admit it, but I am looking forward to the first major Linux trojan that comes along and is tuned to delete home directories.

I have to ask, why would you be looking forward to such a thing ? Do you really hate Linux users that much ? I have never had a Trojan or a virus of any kind, but I know people who have, I also worked Phone Tech Support during the height of the Chernobyl virus and I can honestly say, I wouldn't wish it off on anyone.

Re:Well... maybe

[Fat Casper]

Linux is great because you can run it on just about ANY THING.. and you have CHOICE.. something you don't have much of in Windows or Mac.

Even my wife forgets the reason we laughed at Mac people from time immemorial: the monopoly. MS is evil because of theirs, but Apple is somehow kinder? Okay, their upgrade schedule isn't as fast as MS' but you also have to buy all their hardware. I resent the idea of Winmodems, but at least the money doesn't stay with MS. Open hardware is important for consumers, too.

Re:Well... maybe

[Tony-A]

Bleep happens regardless of the OS, sometimes due to hardware failure, user error, application bugs, cosmic rays, spilled Mtn.Dew, etc.
What happens next is where it gets interesting. Microsoft Windows has one small glitch in reading a directory and helpfully makes the disk consistent by destroying all the contents of the directory it can't read. This is Microsoft's definition of "User Friendly".

Re:Well... maybe

[Squareball]

Exactly what happened to me! I did have a backup though.. but that isn't the point. I booted up and it told me that my profile was corrupt and that it was making me a new one. I said "ok fine" so it made me a new profile. I moved all my desktop things (including a projects folder with 6 gigs of info) onto my new desktop. after a while I had to reboot... when I booted back up.. Windows told me that my old profile was FIXED.. it then DELETED the profile it had JUST made for me on the last boot.. so it deleted EVERY THING that was in that profile.. including the 6 gigs of project files!!!

Re:Well... maybe

[Squareball]

But you lose the choice to run the OS on the hardware you want. You want the Mac OS.. buy a MAC computer. If you want linux.. but any thing. Buy a dreamcast.. or an XBOX.. or a cheap 233mhz PC

Re:Well... maybe

[Tony-A]

But is this more likely to happen than say a harddrive crash?
I'd guess about 10 to 100 times more likely. A harddrive going out tends to have momentary glitches, unreadable areas, erratic behavior before it's completely unusable. The thing is that with a failing drive, you wnat to move all the information you can rescue to some other place. A difference in temperature or physical orientation may make the difference whether portions of the drive are readable or not.

Logical...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems logical to me, x86 hardware is so much more common than the mac stuff. You can make your windows box into linux, but not mac.

Re:Logical...

[timdorr]

uh..not to be the bearer of bad news or anything:

YDL

oh, and that's not the only distro...

Re:Logical...

[P!erCer]

Umm yeah, so mac users can switch to linux. What I meant (when I posted as anonymous coward because I was too lazy to login) was that the majority of people who are switching operating systems are going to be Windows-to-linux users, because the majority of people right now are running Windows. You can't go Windows-to-Mac using the same hardware like you can with Linux. (As of right now...anyone remember that story on here a few days ago about the x86 port of OSX? Linux is a lot easier to switch to. You can go back to windows if you think it sucks, with no hardware changing involved.

Re:Logical...

[jpt.d]

he meant that you couldn't turn awindows box into a mac box

Re:Logical...

[packeteer]

ok jsut stop there... im tired of hearing the same old rhetoric of "hey i know a little about psycology so im going to say all comptuer enthuesiests have small penis's look at me"... its just pointless and does nothing but make yourself look like an elitest asshole... i mean this as no flame... if anything is a flame at you its your own statement... i am jsut tired of people using the same excuse... get over it...

In all honesty...

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

...does it matter? Linux, Max OS X, Solaris, any of it?

I'm running whatever Ellen Feiss tells me to.

Re:In all honesty...

[Anonymous Coward]

she is cute and doesnt sound like she has much in the brains dept, both hot qualities in a woman

Re:In all honesty...

[nEoN nOoDlE]

I'm surprised the parent got modded up so far... I didn't know who the hell Ellen Feiss was so I looked her up on google expecting her to be some kind of open source guru, but lo and behold google just took me to a mac switch ad. Am I just out of the loop since I don't watch any tv and has Ellen Feiss became some kind of new geek sex symbol ala Natalie Portman or did everyone else have to look this up to? I'm not saying the post isn't +5 funny... I'm just wondering how much out of the loop I am.

Re:In all honesty...

[great throwdini]

[H]as Ellen Feiss became some kind of new geek sex symbol[?] [...] I'm just wondering how much out of the loop I am.

Very.

Re:In all honesty...

[Da Schmiz]

nEoN nOoDle wrote:

I'm just wondering how much out of the loop I am.

[sig:] I don't want FOP, Goddamnit! I'm a Dapper Dan man!

If you've seen O Brother Where Art Thou?, you can't be that far out of the loop....

(IMHO)

Re:In all honesty...

[daeley]

They'd be amazed that real girls exist.

Yes, and her name is Liza Richardson. ;)

Probably

[ABetterRoss]

I'm fairly certain that pound-for-pound, there are more computers running Linux than MacOS (Servers & Desktops), but... the numbers seem a bit fishy if they are saying that Linux outnumbers MacOS on the desktop...

Re:Probably

[thesadmac]

I don't think it's fair to compare home-built systems with Mac systems now really, is it? What would be a fair comparison would be to look at an equivalently specced Dell machine or some such and compare with the Mac; granted it may still be cheaper but at least it'll be a fair test.

Lets look at some real data...

[jpt.d]

http://www.google.ca/press/zeitgeist.html :

"Operating Systems Used to Access Google - July 2002"

Mac 4%
Linux 1%
Other 4%
the rest being windows.

Of course this data is rounded, google is probably the best place to get this sort of data anyways - as google is the best search engine around right now.

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[rmohr02]

Ok, did they know about the Yahoo, AOL, Netscape or CompuServe searches? If they used those, then they used Google, and it was duly recorded on Google's servers.

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[Jucius Maximus]

"Mac 4%
Linux 1%
Other 4%
the rest being windows."

Yeah but how many of those 'other windows machines' are actually linux users using opera faking itself as MSIE or, perhaps some other user agent morphing tool?

Why, just recently, according to my useragent, I was using the miniature-giant-spacehamster-browser-v0.26 on on WheatonixOS.

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[m0nkyman]

"Operating Systems Used to Access Google - July 2002"
Mac 4%
Linux 1%
Other 4%
the rest being windows.

This gives the totals, but I suspect that once you remove the school and home users, and are left with corporate users, then the figures in the article are probably correct.

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[Eloquence]

Desktop usage != web usage. US web usage makes up the largest share by far of international web usage: 42.65%, followed with considerable distance by China (6.63%). Since Microsoft is ultra-dominant in the US, this skews the data. A lot of threshold nations have a large amount of PCs but relatively little Internet use, mostly for cost reasons. And let's not forget censorship -- China recently censored Google, for example.

One great advantage of Linux, besides being free, is that when correctly tuned it works on very cheap hardware. Even if you just have a 386 or 486, you can still use thousands of decent console applications (including stuff like MP3 players and web browsers -- heck, you can even use mplayer with an EGA graphics card) and get drivers for modern hardware. An old Pentium is fast enough for a simple X11 setup with small desktop aps like WindowMaker, LyX etc.

That being said, I don't buy the 3.9% number without some supporting evidence. Even in developing nations Windows is only slowly being replaced by Linux desktops, with relatively few major rollouts in recent months, and while Linux can run on low cost computers, the problem is that it's not exactly easy as pie to tune and configure properly. Internationalization is another issue ..

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[InodoroPereyra]

You wrote:

http://www.google.ca/press/zeitgeist.html :

"Operating Systems Used to Access Google - July 2002"

Mac 4%
Linux 1%
Other 4%
the rest being windows.

I see at least 3 reasons why this figure is an underestimate:

1. Many people change their browser identification as IE in Win* to be able to read moronic web pages (they shouldn't do this BTW)
2. It is likely that given the variety of browsers and Linux flavors, many Linux visitors to Google are not counted properly
3. People using computers in wealthy countries have both the money to pay M$ licenses and surf the web more frequently. Google's stats give a higher statistical weight to these users.

I still think giving a figure for Linux' market share with no data to back it up is vapor. But I am pretty sure Google's figure is an underestimate.

And by the way, the article gives a very nice overview of Linux on the desktop today, success stories included, from a mainstream media point of view. By far, the less interesting bit of the article is this 3.9 Market share figure for Linux ...

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[mattdm]

Yeah, but you think that accounts for more than 0.01%? Even on Linux?

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[pantropik]

You seem to be forgetting that, for whatever reason, many people using Linux (or even alternative browsers for Windows) have their browsers set to "spoof" as Internet Explorer. For instance, my roommate can't access online banking unless he has Mozilla report itself as IE. Last time I installed Opera, it *defaulted* to spoofing as IE. In Konqueror there's a pulldown menu right on the menubar that lets you spoof as pretty much any browser (even Lynx, wcm, and WGet).

The point being, your "reliable" data is nothing of the sort. I'm suspicious of pretty much ANY data that tries to quantify things like this -- it just doesn't work. Assemble ten legitimately unbiased researchers, turn them loose on the web to gather this same data, and I bet you end up with 10 hugely varied answers. Assemble 10 *biased* researchers and the "data" can be manipulated to represent the "facts" in whatever light the reasearcher desires.

In other words, the Google data is only reliable if every browser in that sample was truthfully reporting itself to the server. Not to mention the fact that there is such a thing as dual booting, after all.

My roommate is just as likely to boot Windows as Linux (depends on his mood, so he claims). So which is he? Does his computer add to the 90%+ Microsoft tally? Does it get added to the Linux tally? It is certainly not *likely*, but suppose 40% of those "Windows" users were dual booters who just HAPPENED to have booted into Windows that day. Like I said, that's *highly* unlikely, but who's to say? Who has the REAL numbers? No one. So MY number (40%) probably strikes everyone as incredibly unrealistic -- but only by virtue of being so *obviously* wrong. But in the end, that doesn't mean I'm any more wrong than anyone else since the data itself isn't reliable ... seems to me, the whole thing is a waste of time.

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[GigsVT]

Linux can run on low cost computers, the problem is that it's not exactly easy as pie to tune and configure properly. Internationalization is another issue ..

The other part to that is that IT labor is often very cheap in other countries. While computer hardware prices are (I assume) approximately equal worldwide, IT labor for the same skill set can vary widely in price.

In countries like the US, especially in the last few years, labor is a dominating factor in the price of corporate computing. In some other countries, this is definitely not the case, IT workers may get paid a tiny fraction of the cost of hardware in a company IT budget.

So to the people who argue "Linux is only free if your time is free", now that statement gets turned around on you, because in a lot of countries, the labor is very cheap compared to license costs or Mac hardware costs.

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[MisterBlister]

So Linux supports sweatshop conditions in the third world and that's a GOOD thing? Fuck LINUX, and FUCK YOU!

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[dieMSdie]

I wonder how many of those Windows browsers were really Opera or Mozilla running in Linux and masquerading as IE 5 on Windows?

I've done it, for sites that only accept IE or Netscape....

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[aaarrrgggh]

What's really interesting is if you go back through the historical data. Linux has had 1% since Jan 01, and Mac has had its 4%.

Not to troll, but the only real shifts have been which version of windows people are using. The increase in W2K also suggests that this is representative of corporate desktops as well...

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[Squarewav]

well thats what I use them for and it works rather well, I know a few other who do the same, and from what I read online many many people also use it this way

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[iabervon]

In developing nations there aren't going to be the same sorts of major rollouts you see in the US. Hardware doesn't come in as a big purchase; it trickles in piece by piece, depending on what's available and affordable, so you'll just have many instances of "We got another computer, and we put Linux on it."

Linux isn't actually that hard to tune for the low-end, because the core system (kernel, libraries, and such) are actually generally more efficient than they were 8 years ago, not less. Since they ran fine then, they'll run fine now. There are a lot of programs which are just too big and complicated for old hardware, but the old programs run better than they ever did.

Internationalization isn't actually as big an issue as you might think, because people tend to understand a bit of English, and it's mostly jargon anyway (knowing the English words "shell", "prompt", or "window" won't help you understand the computer terms, and having these terms translated into your native language doesn't help either). The issue is really documentation, but if you have an active local user's group, that's better than most of the documentation in any language (for most software, really).

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[Eloquence]

1) You may not have noticed it, but not all computers come with Windows licenses, although Microsoft does everything they can to make sure that this changes. Buying a new machine without Windows can easily save you $100, and used machines are often blanked before they are sold.

2) What applications are you going to run if you get a cheap machine with a Windows license? Microsoft Paint and WordPad? Linux comes with thousands of free, powerful apps, many of which run on low cost hardware. Besides the fact that you will have to pay for them, apps that can be bought today will typically not run on low cost hardware, and older apps are often deliberately taken off the market. (Piracy is obviously an option, but in the long term only increases the dependence on a software oligarchy.)

3) If you decide to use a cheap Windows (95/98) license anyway, you're stuck with an unsupported operating system that's still based on DOS, horribly unstable, wide open security-wise, and that will neither work with future hardware nor future software (regular forced upgrade cycles are necessary to keep the OS market running, you know).

Aside from that, even the claim that Win98 will run faster than a light X configuration is debatable (I actually compared both when a P166 was damn fast -- applications under X would typically take longer to load, but work faster and multitask better once loaded). Certainly, recent scaled down versions of Linux for embedded devices will give Win98 a run for its money.

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[ceejayoz]

Probably something like 0.1% of them. Don't overestimate the size of the Linux community... might be vocal, but it's still tiny compared to AOL etc.

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[Paul Komarek]

Google is almost certainly *not* the best place to get this sort of data. The population that uses google is almost certainly not representative of the large population of computer users. And how do they count the accesses? Per access or per "machine"?

I suspect these numbers indicate that Windows users are generally complete nincompoops that require 91 times as many google searches to get the same data as a GNU/Linux user gets in 1 search. Mac users, bless their souls, rate much higher at 1/4 the intelligence of a GNU/Linux user.

-Paul Komarek

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[BitGeek]

Also, nevermind that most Mac browsers report themselves to be PCs so that web sites will actually WORK with them.

I don't know how well google is at determining the OS of the browser, but it could well be that they are undercounting most mac clients.

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[BitGeek]

Cause everyone knows its better to have no job and no food than work in conditions some yuppie scum calls "Sweatshop".

Why is it americans think the rest of the world should be forced to live the way they do?

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[JabberWokky]

Yes, but when Konqueror spoofs IE, it does so with a perfect IE string (or a composite one with Konuqeror tossed in there, but the "prefect spoof" stings are available. I've had to use them a couple times now to get on a site, usually snooty flash sites that worked just fine in Konqueror despite them warning me off.

--
Evan (no reference)

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[Citizen of Earth]

Mac 4%
Linux 1%
Other 4%

Maybe there is a higher proportion of Linux boxen at work than at home, but people are discouraged from surfing the Web while at work.

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[Elwood P Dowd]

Um. Don't jump to that conclusion. It could also be mostly just buggy software. Linux certainly doesn't have a monopoly on that...

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[Kynde]

Lets look at some real data...

Geez, and that's a score 5 ?!

Don't people know that those browser statistics are flawed, for example, a lot of Mozilla (on top of Linux) users have their browsers claim to be IE for web sites.

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[Kynde]

Desktop usage != web usage. US web usage makes up the largest share by far [statmarket.com] of international web usage: 42.65%,

And again, bollocksed statistics. I bet starmarket only dns queries web traffic as most of the web traffic sites I've seen, and quite falsly claims that all .com, .org and .net sites would be US.

Let's laugh at that together, shall we?

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[krokodil]

Desktop usage != web usage.

Do you want to say that this 4% "other" users are running Lynx from VT220 to access google?

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[Macka]

1. Many people change their browser identification as IE in Win* to be able to read moronic web pages

I think you're quite wrong to say that, and don't think it's many people at all. For one, you rarely need to. There aren't that many sites that Mozilla or Konqueror can't get at (I use both).

Secondly, Konqueror supports and encourages you to set alternate ID's on a per-site basis, not a generic change for all your browsing. And Mozilla doesn't appear to have that functionality yet .. or if it does, it's not easy to get at. By easy I mean a dynamic change from a menu option that doesn't force me to close all tabs and exit Mozilla

Lastly, there is no need to change the ID for Google. Google is very browser friendly, so their stats are strongly likely to be right on the money.

2. It is likely that given the variety of browsers and Linux flavors, many Linux visitors to Google are not counted properly

They are still going to contain Linux somewhere in the ID string, so I don't see how can miss this.

3. People using computers in wealthy countries have both the money to pay M$ licenses and surf the web more frequently. Google's stats give a higher statistical weight to these users.

Which if you think about it, makes their stats more valuable to software houses who want to develop for where the money is. Maybe that's why there are so many more commercial apps for Mac than there are for Linux.

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[g4dget]

Well, first note that the article talks about corporate usage, not general usage. Also, it's hard to compare the Google statistics to other statistics around the web. Are those unique clients? By cookies? Do they count hits from Sherlock and similar tools? In terms of number of raw hits, looking around web server statistics around the web, the numbers seem more even.

At the very least, even the Google statistics suggest that the figures for Linux and OS X (which is a fraction of Macintosh usage) are in the same ballpark. Linux isn't the obscure cousin of Macintosh OS X even on Google.

Don't get me wrong: I think Macintosh OS X is great, and the more successful it is, the better (well, up to around 25% market share--beyond that, anything goes bad). But Macintosh users would do well to start respecting Linux as a viable desktop choice as well rather than badmouthing it (as many are wont to do).

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[Macka]

To spoof in Mozilla, you need to download something like uabar (which didn't work for me), or the Evangelism sidebar (which does)

Thanks for the tip

I agree that it's not easy or convenient... but then again, those who go the trouble of using Linux in the first place are more likely to take the trouble to spoof, IMHO.

Why? If I'm taking the trouble to browse with Linux, then it's in my interests to let the sites I hit, know that I'm using a Linux browser. The more Linux hits they get, the more likely they are to take me into consideration in future development. Only in very dire need would it be in my interests to spoof a Windows presence .. like I wanted to book and airline ticket or something and the site wouldn't let me in. I've not actually hit a problem like that, I'm just speculating.

I see no reason to spoof my browser ID just for the sake of it. And I challenge the assumption touted many times in this thread that it's a wide spread practice, because it is counter productive to do so.

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[SubtleNuance]

Yahoo, AOL, Netscape or CompuServe searches? If they used those, then they used Google, and it was duly recorded on Google's servers.

how do you know that - maybe zeitgeist only shows searches from google.com - you have no idea at all.

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[BitGeek]

Yeah, you'd rather they starved. That's always the case.

The liberals who want to help the poor-- what do they do? They spend three trillion dollars in the "war on poverty" in the US and produce a much larger percentage in poverty than before they started.

The idiocy is that there are actually people who aren't on the take who think these stupid on the face of them schemes will help people. You're just a sucker rooting for the mugger who's taking all our money and getting fat on it... meanwhile, eliminating opportunity for the people who are poor to get jobs.

Great example: minimum wage. Yeah, lets get rid of jobs.... sheesh. Not to mention that all of this violates fundamental human rights.

I have the right to earn $2 an hour if I want to. Who are you to insist that I must be out of a job instead?

Re:Lets look at some real data...

[BitGeek]

That's really ironic... especially since liberalism is based on a fundamental failure to understand economics.

Yes, lets get rid of corporate welfare. Lets get rid of all welfare. There's no reason to be financing the government's defense budget beyond what is needed for actual defense. (One of the few legitimate uses for government.)

And, as usual, you demand numbers, tell me in advance that you will choose to ignore numbers I provide from people you don't like (namely the cato institute) but provide no numbers, logic, or reason to back your assertions.

Your hatred of corporations is silly-- its a form of self hatred. All corporate transactions are voluntary-- while government's immposition of its will is never voluntary-- its done by force.

ITs ironic how many of the parts of the "universal declaration of human rights" advocate the violation of human rights.

An example: Everyone has the right to two weeks vacation. Bullshit-- that is a violation of human rights-- everyone has the right to agree to what ever employment terms are mutually agreeable to BOTH of them.

I really think Liberals don't even understand what human rights are. Its perplexing the amount of oppression they advocate in the guise of "human rights"... but here's a easy way to tell the difference-- if you're compelling someone to do something that is not in their best interest, you are violating their human rights.

And if the war on poverty is over, then why do we keep welfare around?

Sheesh. Denial aint just a river in egypt.

Re:Possible.

[mattdm]

There's far more PCs in university labs here; the Mac labs are far and few between outside of Comm, from what I see. And most of those are ancient machines -- not up to snuff for OS X. Most of the PCs are running MS Windows, but we're making a bit of an inroad; I wouldn't be surprised if we've got twice as many Linux systems in labs as Macs.

In dorm rooms is another story. What that story is, I have no idea, since I'm not involved there. I'll ask some of the resnet folks, but I bet Apple has a much better share there (and much better than the general market).

Re:Or specifically

[sasha328]

If you want to nitpick, then you should've mentioned the where!

Probably Not

[paladin_tom]

Since if a program is available only for Windows, a Mac user would need to buy another computer to run it (costs around $1000-$2000 for a mid-range system), while a GNU/Linux user using a PC only can make his/her machine dual-boot (cost of Windows $329 (?), less if you're a pirate... arr, mateys! ). Since the GNU/Linux users have a feasible way to run the program, companies won't consider a port necessary.

Re:Probably Not

[boaworm]

Mac users have. Connectix Virtual PC works fine. I can run both windows and linux, boot from cd's or virtual floppys directly through MacOS X layers. It does take a lot of ram though.. 512MB was not sufficient to run OSX and Win2k at the same time, so I had to order another 512MB module.

Still, emulation is never the same, and i really miss the great multitasking in Linux. Darwin/MacOS X is not even close. Same with the rest of *BSD imho.

My dream machine would be a 2.4-kernel running on my PowerMac G4/800 with AQUA GUI and config tools.

Re:Probably Not

[paladin_tom]

Open the Aqua sources, and Apple has no way to make you buy their hardware.

Apples and oranges

[einhverfr]

IDC only looks at corporate desktops, and I think that it is safe to say there are more of these running Linux than Mac. But look at the consumers. Most /.'ers will say "more Linux than Mac" but how many of these are atypical samples.

So I think that the IDC is right, and so are you, but they are different markets.

Ohh well...

[mlk]

OneStat says otherwise.

http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=1706

So what's the point?

[pongo000]

At the risk of losing karma points I don't need, I confess to being at a loss as to what the point of this article is...does this mean Linux is better than OS X? Given that both Linux and Darwin are open-source, shouldn't the headline be something like "Open-Source Desktops Gain on Proprietary, Non-Customizable Desktops"?

Why do we insist upon parading Linux around as the "spokesmodel" for the open-source movement? Wouldn't the advancement of open-source efforts be better served and made more visible by combining the efforts of Linux, *BSD, Darwin/OS X, and other open-source O/Ses, and comparing their collective advance against the Evil Empire?

Re:So what's the point?

[prockcore]

"shouldn't the headline be something like "Open-Source Desktops Gain on Proprietary, Non-Customizable Desktops"?"

Not even close, OSX is very much a Proprietary Non-Customizable Desktop.

Apple is even more anal than Microsoft when it comes to Aqua.

Darwin may be open source, but don't fool yourself, OSX isn't darwin.. It's Quartz and Aqua and a bunch of other closely guarded, proprietary technologies.

Re:So what's the point?

[Perdo]

No,

not when you include proprietary software on proprietary hardware on your open source list.

Re:So what's the point?

[Tony-A]

Something about the "collective advance against the Evil Empire" bothers me. Too much like giving Microsoft only one single front to defend against. Linux world domination may wind up as OpenBSD desktops for all I know.

Re:So what's the point?

[rifter]

It seems no one who replied to this post actually read it. Or the article. The article said there were more linux machines than OSX machines. The poster said "Open-Source Desktops Gain on Proprietary, Non-Customizable Desktops". Your posts that OSX is proprietary are, therefore, redundant, as are those which point out Darwin does not use the proprietary OSX desktop, both of which were part of the posters point which you missed.

Re:well...

[Tablizer]

(* Servers, yes but desktops I'd say no *)

It is possible that spiders and spambots get tallied as "desktops" some of the time.

I bet spambot servers send more email than real people.

What if...

[Ghoser777]

you run linux on a macintosh? Or if you dual boot between linux or MacOS, or even if you run Mac-on-linux? Is the author comparing PPC vs Linux on x86 or what?

It really doesn't matter who's winning the desktop market. They're both (hopefully) beginning to carve out a section out of Window's dominance. When the sum approaches 20%, then good stuff is going to start to happen... then again, I'm assuming linux and mac users numbers continue to grow (I guess no necessarially simultaniously).

Linux takin market share from windows is good; Macintosh taking marketshare from windows is good. Both situations leads to more competition, more developers, better software, etc.

I just wonder - how is the market share of Mac users now compared to a year or two ago. Same for linux. How many people have stayed, how many have switched from windows, how many have switched from mac/linux, how many have switched from *nix. That data would be pretty interesting.

Also (and I should have read the article), does the account for what's happening globally? I don't think Apple has much of a chance gaining marketshare in countries where price is of up most importance.

F-bacher

Re:What if...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Linux takin market share from windows is good; Macintosh taking marketshare from windows is good. Both situations leads to more competition, more developers, better software, etc.

Bravo!

At this point, the only market share comparison that matters is Windows vs. Everything Else -- especially since at this point, Everything Else is some flavor of Unix. As a Mac guy, of course I'd like to see more people using Macs, but I don't have any particular desire to see Apple take over the world. (Steve Jobs may be a brilliant nutcase, but he's still a nutcase.) I cringed at the "Send other Unix boxes to /dev/null" ads. Folks, right now, whether your OS of choice is Linux or MacOS or BSD or Solaris or what-fucking-ever, you only have one enemy: Microsoft. Once they're put back in their place, then we can start fighting over other kinds of market share.

Obvious Flaw With Study

[NilObject]

The study's data is skewed because most Linux systems dual-boot with Windows, whereas MacOS systems typically ONLY boot MacOS (X or otherwise). I personaly will dual-boot Debian and MacOS X 10.2 when my new PowerBook arrives. (Woo hoo!)

The same Dan Kusnetsky who said ....

[burgburgburg]

"Palladium is vital for Microsoft to improve its standing as a seller of trustworthy technology."

Who said about Microsoft: "It's an amazing machine. I admire these people, who were far sighted enough and bold enough to do what they have done," "Microsoft is not afraid of change. It will cannibalise a weak product to launch a stronger product."

Who said about Windows 2000:"The general trend for client operating environments continues to be consolidation around 32-bit operating systems and applications," "Unfortunately for competitors of Microsoft, this consolidation also means a general movement to Windows platforms."

You mean that Dan Kusnetsky? The "world's most prominent Linux analyst"? Well, that's good enough for me.

Re:The same Dan Kusnetsky who said ....

[BitGeek]

Well THAT Dan Kusnetsky just responded to my pointing out that these numbers are made up, on this very same thread, claiming that they are, well, made up.

But he hasn't dared to respond to your catching him in his blatant hypocracy. Too bad.

Yeah, he says what he's paid to say. That's actually ok for PR flacks. There's honor in *that* position.

Foisting it off as *research* or having any quality of *fact* however, is a fraud and lacks honor.

Re:The same Dan Kusnetsky who said ....

[__aannma7340]

I've pointed out repeatedly that the numbers IDC publishes are based upon either supply or demand side research and are not plucked out of the air.

Another point is that what you see in print may only have a small relationship to what I actually said.

Re:The same Dan Kusnetsky who said ....

[BitGeek]

Actually, that is not what you said. What you said was you print what people tell you to print-- and you check it with them before you print it!

In other words, you are a PR agency, who masquerades press releases as "Research"

You have failed to provide a SINGLE example of actually doing any research. Asking CEOs what percentage of market share they have is NOT research.

If the quotes are misquotes, then why are you defending them?

Rebut them if you are being misquoted. Lord knows its obvious that most computer journalists don't know squat about technology-- but you are FEEDING Them misinformation, not disputing it.

I've pointed out this issue to numerous writers for eWeek, Upside, CNET, etc, etc. Yet they all claim that you have shown these things to be facts.

Therefore, you ARE responsible for this misinformation. Retract it or defend it, but stop dodging the issue.

NONE of the "research" You talked about even addresses the question, let alone is a source for hard facts. SEC filings tell you part of the picture-- if you were making stock recommendations it would be relevant. But they tell you nothing about market share because market share is more than just what was sold this year.

Hell, why am I even responding-- you refuse to respond on the issue, you just insist that you do research. Yet you provide no reason to believe you.

I have OS X and Linux.

[crovira]

I use OS X and Macs on my desktops and Linux on my server.

Frankly, Linux as a desktop sucks and blows. The guys at Gnome, KDE and the app writers REALLY need to rip-off Apple's GUI Guidelines and get something consistent and usable into user's hands.

The desktop is no place for the ignorant and its no place to try to re-invent the wheel because users don't fuckin' want it, okay?

Apple spent sixty million bucks developping the GUI. If you think you are going to come up with some thing so overwhelmigly better that it will blow the old order away, then you are an arrogant ass-hole.

Be that as it may, I an NOT buying a windows box.

But lately, I'm thinking that I could run my server on an OS X box.But then again why throw away a perfectly good Athlon.

Re:I have OS X and Linux.

[jhines0042]

Money != Success
Oldest != Best

Just because Apple spent $60M on their GUI development doesn't mean that they got it right. (Not claiming they got it wrong)

Just because what is out there is working doesn't mean that you shouldn't question it and try to come up with something better.

The best developments come when people challenge the establishment. Those ideas that are good will live and those that are bad will fall over eventually to be replaced by something better. Corporate America does NOT have a monopoly on good ideas. Some of the best ideas come out of the heads of college students, patent clerks, or physics researchers in other countries.

Sometimes all you need to do is lose your shaving bag and invent email to get it back.

Re:I have OS X and Linux.

[Shelled]

The desktop is no place for the ignorant and its no place to try to re-invent the wheel because users don't fuckin' want it, okay?

I do, which is why I use Fluxbox. Don't tell me what I want.

Apple spent sixty million bucks developping the GUI.

Apple spent millions, as did Microsoft on a different desktop. If $$$ are the only criterion, which desktop is right? The one which cost the most?

If you think you are going to come up with some thing so overwhelmigly better that it will blow the old order away, then you are an arrogant ass-hole.

Then what does it mean when the company that spent millions makes wholesale changes to the desktop, as Mac did in the transition between 9 and OS X? Does that make them their own arrogant assholes? This argument from the authority of cash never washed and never will. Ironically, Apple's solution looks like the XFCE, FVWM or Afterstep dock with a finder, each themselves a spin-off of Job's NextStep desktop, developed without the benefit of millions of research dollars.

Do the Apple GUI guidelines contain valuable information? Undoubtedly. Does it mean the Mac desktop is the world's best? Only for the Mac Faithful.

The low end, internationally.

[Lemmy Caution]

During my last trip through Mexico's interior, and recently in Peru, I noticed that a lot of cybercafes that had previously been using pirated copies of Windows were now using Linux. Apparently a recent crackdown on piracy scared a lot of the cybercafe owners, and they installed Linux on their (usually low-end, first gen Pentium) machines.

These people, who expect a good 5 years of use out of their computer at least, are not likely to move to MacOS, indeed are probably not likely to spend much money at all if they can help it. It's not a big stretch for me to think of these sorts of places as a good part of the expanding Linux desktop sector.

Is this just business desktops?

[ukryule]

I suspect that the quote is talking about desktops used in companies, not at home. After all the title of the article is 'IT managers cite security and competition when choosing a Linux system', so it implies their only considering the office environment.

I could very easily believe the Linux market share for office desktop computers is bigger than at home, while, as has been pointed out, the Google stats place overall usage at 1%.

Makes sense. Linux will run on Intel

[crovira]

Most businesses already own Intel boxes which are underweight for Windows but plenny okay for Linux.

Which is cheaper?

$50 for a Red Hat box or $1,200 for a new iMac?

Case closed.

As long as they're tossing M$ for anything better...

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[account_deleted]

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Ease of upgrading

[billstewart]

It's easy to upgrade a Windows machine to Linux*. It's difficult to upgrade it to a Mac; that takes capital expenditure, though if you've got a Mac that's new enough, you can upgrade it to MacOS 10.x+1 as needed.

* Ok, in fact it's sometimes difficult *not* to upgrade your Windows machine to Linux :-) In particular, it's often easier than upgrading to a newer version of Microsoft Office (I've found recent upgrades of the Windows operating system seem to work pretty well, if your hardware is fast enough, but the real reason for upgrading is usually driven by Office.)

Upgrading a Windows machine to Linux doesn't quite require negative capital expenditure - eliminating bloatware makes the machine a lot faster, but some of the recent window managers get amazingly doggy on less than 64MB RAM, and some of the installers do really stupid things with disk drives smaller than 4GB, and some of the distribution systems really don't netinstall well unless you've got a large spare disk to copy all their CDs into, but desktop machines that don't hav e CDROMs in them are usually too old to bother with. The Register recently reported that many businesses ppear to be moving to a 4-year upgrade cycle for PCs rather than 3-year cycles - Linux makes it easy to do this, and makes it easy to do low-cost bandaid upgrades like adding bigger disk drives and more RAM rather than replacing a whole machine.

The Apple number might be OK

[bstadil]

he Apple number might just be right. The PC market this year is estimated at 135MU, assume 6 years life time and 10% annual growth (Corporate is 4 or so) that gives you approx. 700Mu out there.

3.1% for Apple is 20Mu+- and assume same life span corrected for no real unit growth over last 6 years, gives approx 4Mu / year or 1Mu/ Qtr. That is exactly what Apple is reporting.

Now using the knowledge that Linux as been in the "mainstream" for only 3 years or so. That means the 3.9% equates to 27Mu users or 9mu added each year. That sounds high to me. Remember we are talking people using Linux as Desktop not Servers of various kinds.

The Article says *Corporate* and *Worldwide*

[GroundBounce]

If "corporate" means large corporations (which I suspect it does by IDC's definitions), then their numbers may not be too surprising when compared to Google. In my own observations, I have seen more Macs used in small companies (e.g., storefronts, small offices) than Linux, but I would not be surprised if the tables are turned in large corporations with dedicated IT support staffs. Most large companies already use Linux on servers, and when the PCs number in the thousands, the cost of Windows based solutions becomes very significant.

Google, on the other hand, collects data from every type of user, including home, small business, and student, as well as large corporations. It's not surprising that for this much broader cross-section, Macs have higher usage than Linux. I think we're dealing mainly with a sample space issue here. Both sets of numbers probably equally "real" within their respective sample spaces.

The article also said worldwide. I suspect there are many countries, particularly some European contries and China, where the percentage of Linux usage in large companies may be higher than here in the US, and certainly higher than Macs, which must be even more expensive relateve to PCs in those countries than here in the US.

Obvious

[Evanrude]

Something that struck me as an 'obvious' reason why Linux would have a higher market share is the fact that it will run on an X86 platform, while MacOS require the Mac hardware to run it. Anyone with a/an (ex)Windows box can run Linux.

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[account_deleted]

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It's about price.

[TheTomcat]

My boss is what I would've called a "Mac Zealot", a year ago.

He just ordered a KVM so he could run a PC alongside his mac, in his office.

Why? Web browsing. We got a 10MBit line a few months ago. IE on mac blows. It's SLOW and buggy. Performance of the network in IE degrades from 800K/sec down to 35K/sec (reproducible).

This, of course, doesn't happen in OSX, but it's going to cost us a lot of cash to buy new versions of all the Adobe and Macromedia software we need all over again (we have OS9 stuff now). When those machines need upgrading, we'll prolly go PC. Why? Price.

Meanwhile we're gradually phasing out our Windows boxes (registry rot) and I've been taking every opportunity possible to make the switch to Linux (servers).

OSX is expensive to upgrade (classic mode is slow). Mac hardware is far from "cheap". That's the bottom line.

S

Re:It's about price.

[TheTomcat]

I'd guess that the cost of going OS X for you is going to be comparable to the cost of going Windows

From a software standpoint, yes, you're right.
There was a time when Photoshop ran much better on OS(n) (n=7,8,9). That time has passed, and Photoshop / Premiere / After Effects / Dreamweaver / Freehand work almost identically on much cheaper hardware (x86). I'd rather see us go OSX, but I doubt it'll happen that way.

S

Re:Apple is even more proprietary than M$.

[Fourier]

There are worse things to be tied to. At least Apple has a reputation for making quality hardware.

Re:Yes

[dbirchall]

I might run in slightly different circles than Shamash... most of the Alpha Geek sorts I know have at least two Unix flavors on the desktop, with OS X being one of them. I've got multiple Linux laptops (different distros, even) and an OS X iBook, other friends tend to have Linux or *BSD and OS X.

Interestingly, "Linux" (all distros combined) can have more desktop shipments (which is probably what the numbers quoted represent) in a given amount of time than OS X, while OS X remains "the most widely-distributed UNIX-based operating system" (again, by shipments), if Apple sells more copies than any single Linux distro vendor.

Or maybe the Linux figure includes free downloads? Including free downloads of Darwin in the Apple numbers wouldn't bump them up much. :)

Then there are the Macs that run Linux, and the PC's that run Darwin, and it all gets so confusing...

On the one hand, Linux having a greater overall desktop market share than, say, OS X, is impressive, just since it doesn't have the big marketing dollars behind it on the desktop.

On the other hand, Linux has been around for 8 years, and could run on nearly 100% of the desktop systems out there today. OS X has been around for 2-3 years, and can only run on maybe 5% of the desktop systems out there today.

A 3.1% overall share out of a 5% possible overall share is, in some ways, more impressive than a 3.9% overall share out of a 100% possible overall share. :)

Ah, screw it, they're both great.

Re:Great News

[NickB2]

Not likely.
First, LINUX is free. What CFO is going to approve spending any cash on people who love free software? He may be wrong, but he'll assume you-all'll buy one copy and pirate it 300,000 times.
Second 95% of the LINUX market is x86 hardware. x86 hardware that came with Windows. x86 hardware that can already run his program. Why port? No new sales.
Third, LINUX is used mostly by people who don't buy software unless they really want it. Macusers paid a $300+ Apple Tax. Who's more likely to buy a software package, somebody who cheers when a free product clones a commercial product, or people who are willing to pay a premium for hardware?
Anyone who uses GIMP stand up. You try to run Adobe out of business, and then you complain that Adobe doesn't like you enough to port Photoshop. Come on now.

You all might get games, but that's doubtful. Your hardwre is typically too old and crappy to run them; and you could just use WINE/re-boot anyway. You give software companies no new revenue.

Apple's numbers

[foo12]

FWIW, Apple shipped around 808,000 Macs last quarter. If you look at their recent quarterly numbers, they're shipping about the same number per quarter so that's 3.2 million units per year, give or take a few 10k.

And that's on top of an installed base of at least 25 million.

Anyone have similar, hard numbers on Linux installations? I realize it's substantially harder to extrapolate (multiple vendors, free to download, etc.) but physical media sales might be a decent indicator.

Re:Apple's numbers

[timeOday]

In my personal experience, physical media sales would be a bad sample.

At home, I've used Slackware, Debian, RedHat, and Gentoo, and never bought a disk.

At work, my group has used a single set of RedHat disks to install into about 6 desktops and 3 laptops, plus a 20 processor cluster.

Have you ever seen a regular person with Linux?

[Arkham]

I love Linux. I ran it for 2 years as my desktop OS for development at work and at home. But I have worked at mega-corporations and tiny companies, and I have NEVER seen a non-geek running Linux. I, like many of you, like to be able to compile my own software from the source.

The fact is that no one's mom runs Linux unless someone set it up for them. My mom can't install a plug-n-play modem on Windows. My dad is an Mechanical Engineer, and he has trouble with his computer all the time. There's NO WAY regular people like this, who are very smart, will ever install Linux of their own volition.

Macs on the other hand are almost universally seen as "easier than Windows" by everyone, including Windows and Linux users. Regular people buy Macs for lots of reasons (creative people, geeks who like the UNIX OS and neat hardware, soccer moms who want to use AOL, computer phobic people who want to see what the fuss is about, college kids who like to edit video and rip MP3s).

It's just absurd to think that Linux could be overtaking MacOS at this stage of market share on the desktop. I like Linux a lot, but I run MacOS X on my laptop now, because as a desktop OS it's just better.

Re:Have you ever seen a regular person with Linux?

[aengblom]

Better yet. I'm a 22 year old quasi-geek (few geek friends) and I've never SEEN linux--ever. Now, I don't have a lot of geek friends, which makes this easier. But I sure as hell run into Macs all the time.

Granted, I probably haven't had many web pages served by Macs either ;-)

Re:Have you ever seen a regular person with Linux?

[Ami Ganguli]

The question is 1) how many geeks are there, 2) how many Mac users are there.

Of people I know well enough to know their computer preference, one uses both a Mac + Linux, while about a dozen use Linux but not Macs. Many also use Windows, but we're not comparing Windows usage.

Obviously this isn't typical - it reflects my geographic location and my career - but it demonstrates that personal perception means very little. A graphic artist is likely to think that Apple has 50% of the desktop market.

Re:Have you ever seen a regular person with Linux?

[nutbar]

Yes, in fact I have seen a regular person with Linux. My girlfriend. Admittedly, she's pretty smart, but she figured it out with minimum of help.

She sat down in front of it, commented on how pretty it looked (Gnome2 + Aqua themes ;), and I showed her the apps she wanted to use - a web browser (galeon), aol instant messenger client (gaim), limewire to download mp3s, and xmms. I told her that there were no "drives", the cd was /cdrom, and basically told her what the /home directory structure was as far as she was concerned.

Well what did she do? She fired up gaim to start chatting with her friends, checked her yahoo mail with galeon, downloaded a couple of songs she was looking for with limewire, loaded up nautilus and played the mp3s. It is NOT hard to do normal, everyday stuff with the modern linux desktop environments. Anyone who claims otherwise is a whinger that hasn't really thought through these things.

Admittedly, there are many places that need quite a bit of work - most notably, the application integration side of things. And they are improving incredibly quickly. There are two real reasons people aren't switching to linux:

1. They are quite happy with Windows and don't want to learn another way to do the same things, even if the paradigms are mostly the same.
2. You *cannot* buy off the shelf software for Linux. The reasons my girlfriend doesn't use Linux is basically because she can't go and buy "You don't know Jack - the video game" from best buy and then pop the CD in the drive and play it without wondering if it will work or not, or the sound will be screwed up, or having to check transgaming.com to see if the game is supported. Obviously this isn't the fault of the FS/OSS community, but it is a major hitch none-the-less.

Oh, and configuring the X window system is another big headache. Sure, if it is automatically configured that is OK, but having to edit a text file to change screen resolution is pretty stone age. ctrl-alt-+/- just don't cut it as far as I'm concerned. Sure, editing a text file is okay for a web server, but joe user isn't going to be doing that...

Re:Have you ever seen a regular person with Linux?

[Citizen of Earth]

etter yet. I'm a 22 year old quasi-geek (few geek friends) and I've never SEEN linux--ever. Now, I don't have a lot of geek friends, which makes this easier. But I sure as hell run into Macs all the time.

I'm a professional software developer and I've been using computers for 20 years, but I've never actually *touched* a Mac. I've seen a few, though.

Re:Have you ever seen a regular person with Linux?

[Jeremi]

The fact is that no one's mom runs Linux unless someone set it up for them.

True -- but no one's mom runs Windows unless someone sets it up for them, either.

Re:Have you ever seen a regular person with Linux?

[Micah]

Very good points.

Linux is ready for the desktop TODAY, but the average people aren't going to switch to it out of the blue.

What needs to happen is for computer vendors to start including Linux and a mega-boatload of quality Open Source Software (yes, it DOES exist), along with (optional reading) documentation that will get them interested in the included software. I have a proposal for such a system here.

It's really up to computer vendors, but switching users to Linux is highly advantageous to them, so I think you will see that happenning over the next couple years.

Re:Have you ever seen a regular person with Linux?

[Jebediah21]

I had a geography professor that used Linux. Totally surprised me too. All I did was tell him the margins of my paper were off a bit because of the Linux print driver. We then got into a discussion about Linux. There are more Penguins than you think.

Re:Have you ever seen a regular person with Linux?

[MeNeXT]

Your statement is sooo TRUE. I find the easiest systems to install are those that require you to know something about hardware. I get so frustrated when I have a piece of hardware and know it works but I'm unable to get the OS to see it and have no easy way of telling the OS about it.

Re:Have you ever seen a regular person with Linux?

[Corporate Troll]

The reasons my girlfriend doesn't use Linux is basically because she can't go and buy "You don't know Jack - the video game" from best buy and then pop the CD in the drive and play it without wondering if it will work or not

The problem with this statement is, that you cannot expect that with Windows either. Not because the installer will not work, but because that "normal user" we just talk about will have the drivers of the hardware that came with his machine. Those are probably the first versions that came out when the hardware was still new and the drivers are poorly optimized (ever ran the first-gen NVidia drivers?)

Thar's not the only problem: he will put the CD into the drive and be baffled it actually doesn't perform as advertised because you "normal computer" users thinks that his 4 year old machine will run Return to Castle Wolfenstein or Neverwinter Nights without any problems. System specifications on the box do not say a damn thing to him.
Don't laugh, I have been there... I was waiting in the queue at the local computersuperstore to pay a replacement modem for a family I support in computing matters, and the lady and her son before me were complaining to the salesman that the computer game he bought two days ago didn't work "as advertised". Well, the salesman could only calm them by trying to explain that their 2 year old computer couldn't play that game, and no that the shops policies didn't allow to take the game back.

That, my friend, is what normal users are like.

Re:Have you ever seen a regular person with Linux?

[bluGill]

My sister is a regular person who uses and prefers linux. Mind dad set up that system (she is in high school), but she uses it. They have several Mac and windows systems, the linux systems (which are slower technically) are prefered. Simple games like Sokoban are more fun than the games windows has. (I'm sure there are windows versions, but linux includes it in the distribution)

The linux desktop (kde and/or Gnome) are maturing nicely, and the large number of free programs means that distributions include everything you need in the price. redhat is $50 at best buy, and includes a good desktop, and all the programs most people need. (several web browsers, a large number of games, an office suite, and email). Not the best you could get, but plenty good. Kword meets all of the average person's needs. Sure the hottest 3d games are only released for windows, but most people just want games to play. It doesn't matter that the windows games are better, so long as the linux games will keep you satisfied.

Re:Have you ever seen a regular person with Linux?

[nathanm]

It's just absurd to think that Linux could be overtaking MacOS at this stage of market share on the desktop.

Maybe in the US, but in other parts of the world, Linux may soon eclipse even Windows on the desktop (maybe China).

price comparison...

[Snuffub]

This is way off topic but Im going to mention it none the less becuase so many of the posts are talking about how expensive macs are so I thought I should at least broach the subject. Just about every major study which comes out points out that macs have about half the cost of ownership to a business than equivalant PCs (usualy compared to windows PCs) this is because 1 tech support costs are dramaticly lower, and 2 macs tend to be used longer opposed to most PCs which companies throw out after three years. This isnt my opinion or a personal anecdote, this is what these same profesionals are saying. so im sure there are many reasons why macs arent used in business (key apps like MS access being one) but if an IT department is looking at cost of ownership its not true that macs are more expensive.

Re:price comparison...

[big.ears]

Your statistics are merely correlational. I would predict that if the businesses that are buying and replacing Windows PCs every few years would switch to Macs, they would still replace them at the same rate. Probably, an average non-gaming consumer replaces their computer every 4-6 years, regardless of whether it is a mac or a PC. And for cash-strapped schools, the replacement rate may be even lower. Comparing average mac users (schools and non-gaming consumers) to average PC users (a smaller proportion of whom are educators and more of whom are gamers and corporate users) will produce the correlation you stated, but this doesn't mean that if corporate clients change to macs, they will save money.

Wisdom from Homer Simpson...

[mackertm]

Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that.

Especially if...

[EvanED]

Especially if it's the spell checker that is built into Microsoft Word.

No, Lets look at some REAL data...

[jcsehak]

http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=848&aid=- 1

OS X 10.*, 14%
OS 9, 1%
Linux, 32%
...

I think it's obvious where they got the data from.

Sales != #boxen

[BlackGriffen]

IIRC, market share figures are all about sales, not installed base. Especially considering that everyone I know keeps their macs for quite some time, I doubt that the total number of Linux users outnumbers the Mac users, yet. That said, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Linux were experiencing greater growth than Macs if for no other reason than the cost of switching. With Linux, the cost is potentially labor only (granted, potentially more labor than switching to Macs). With Macs, though, you have some labor, a change in hardware, whole new software investments (the inability to run Windows at decent speeds [VPC is too slow] alongside OSX [as either a dual boot or Lindows] really hurts). Perhaps the Mac switch costs less overall, especially if your time is valuable (I doubt it, but I've learned never to make assertions that may be wrong before I do some actual number crunching), but that bigger initial investment required is a real barrier.

I'm a Mac user, and I'm sticking with it, but this tidbit doesn't surprise me at all.

BlackGriffen

Hard to believe, but possible

[harlows_monkeys]

I've been using OS X at work, first to develop a product, and then for the last few months as a box to SSH to the Linux box I'm working on.

My main machine at home runs Linux, with KDE for the desktop.

I've also got a WinXP machine for when I do Windows programming for work at home, and, or course, for Everquest. I'm reasonably good at using all these from a user's point of view, although I've never done much RTFMing for the GUIs, just experimented.

I was an exclusive Mac user at home from 1985 to 1994, and a Unix user at work from 1981, so am reasonably familiar with them.

Here's what I've found. OS X is beautiful. However, it is full of little annoyances because Apple is stubborn, and won't admit that anyone else ever did anything better. E.g., little things like not allowing windows to resize from any side.

There's no doubt that KDE has a steeper learning curve, and is not as beautiful, but it is not that steeper, and once I've learned something, it generally works better on KDE. Basically, at the cost of being a little clunkier at some things, KDE gets in my way a lot less.

So, among technical users, I certainly have no trouble believing Linux is beating Mac on the desktop. However, among home users, I don't see it. It's just too hard for the average home user to acquire a Linux machine, compared to a Mac.

I've never seen a regular person using Linux

[Infonaut]

The parent comment is quite insightful, imho. I know people who ABSOLUTELY HATE Microsoft, but when I ask them, "Why don't you use Linux?" they tell me, "Uh, look, I hate Microsoft, but I don't know the first thing about command lines."

I'd love to hear from someone at a company other than the Burlington Coat Factory, from a department other than IT, who is using Linux.

I simply find it hard to believe that there are more Linux desktop users than Mac desktop users. For one thing, what are all those supposed Linux desktop users *doing* with their machines. I'm not saying this as flame bait, but while I love Linux for server and development work, most people simply equate Linux with "geek stuff".

It's hard enough to get most users to even entertain the notion of converting to the Mac, and that is an OS that runs plenty of Microsoft software, is oriented squarely at consumers, and has a reputation for being easy to use.

In any event, I don't buy the argument that Linux and Mac OS X are enemies. To me, they're part of an array of options to Microsoft, and in my book, options are good.

Please, people, don't buy this crap.

[repetty]

Please, people, don't buy this crap.

Marketing organizations like this one, Gartner, et al, are brain damaged. They use poor methodologies and frequently draw almost comical conclusions from their lazy research.

Don't be duped.

Example: Software Sales.

Go into the software section of a typical computer store and grab a software title: Zaboomafu, a kid's title, or maybe a game like You Don't Know Jack.

Both games come one a hybrid CD, meaning that the CD contains versions for Windows and the Mac OS -- on the same disk. But when your purchase is recorded, it is classified as a Windows software sale, not a Macintosh software purchase.

Bogus.

Another example... consider the figures that these shithead research companies quote on Linux deployment... They're based on sales.

Linux Sales != Linux Deployment

...and they don't know the difference!


So, file this lazy-ass info into the shitcan where it belongs.

--Richard

What counts towards a share?

[truesaer]

I'm assuming he means that 3.9% have a Linux distro installed on it. Of those 3.9%, I would guess that only about 15-20% are actually using it as their primary operating system. This would make sense, since there is a lot of x86 hardware out there and maybe 4% of people are highly technical.

If he means the primary operating system is linux 3.9% of the time and only 3.1% for mac, he's crazy. I know a fair number of people who use macs, I don't know anyone specifically who is using Linux as a primary OS (and I am a CS student and work for a semiconductor company, so I have plenty of exposure to technical people).

Lots of people play with Linux, most still stick with Windows.

that's consistent with web browser statistics

[g4dget]

I was looking at a lot of web browser statistics around the web recently. I found pretty consistently that Linux was at least as common as all Macintosh platforms combined, and on many sites quite as common.

I'm not surprised either. KDE and Gnome are easily set up to behave almost indistinguishably from Windows--non-techies often can't tell the difference. And Linux comes with a complete suite of applications--OpenOffice and Mozilla really do satisfy the needs of most users.

The biggest problem with Linux, in my opinion, is the excruciatingly painful way in which drivers and other kernel extensions are installed--often involving recompiling the kernel. Even the most painless driver distributions (e.g., nVidia) require much more computer know-how to install than the average user can muster. In corporate settings, this doesn't matter that much--the IT department probably likes it that people can't just plug things in. But in the small business and home market, it matters big time.

Re:that's consistent with web browser statistics

[miffo.swe]

I dont find the installation of drivers and apps painful. One must remember that until recently linux have been developed by nerds for nerds. For me that are pretty darn good at the inner workings of an x86 its clear ass glass.

The commynity didnt sat down and thought:

"Hey! Ill build a desktop OS so that stupid Joe User that doesnt bother to read the manual enough even to set the time on his VCR can use it!"

I would think that most developers made something they wanted to use and not something dumbed down and stupified. That work has just begun and i do think it will pickup speed soon. Gnome2 is in my opinion really easy to setup and use. Rpm can be made even esier by using a GUI RPM installer that downloads missing libs from the net by automagic. RedCarpet almost does that now.

Linux will be even esier to use and that is probably inevitable with the growing interest to use it on corporate desktops and as a way to cut prices on desktops in general.

Re:that's consistent with web browser statistics

[GauteL]

Well. installing the NVidia-drivers in some distributions is as simple as downloading the RPM and clicking on it, typing in a administration password and watch it get installed.

Granted, it's pretty shameful that the user has to choose between lots of different files which he/she probably has no idea about any differences in.

The biggest problem with Linux-drivers is that there is no binary compatibility between drivers from one kernel to another.
There should definitely be a common binary-compatible driver-API that works across different minor kernel-versions.
By that I mean a binary-distributed driver for the 2.4.x-kernel should work across ALL 2.4.x-kernels. Currently it has to be the _exact_ same kernel (same version, same release-number, same architecture - 686, 386 or Athlon) I seriously hope this will be fixed by the next major kernel release.

Re:that's consistent with web browser statistics

[Arandir]

The biggest problem with Linux, in my opinion, is the excruciatingly painful way in which drivers and other kernel extensions are installed--often involving recompiling the kernel.

Windows: Manufacturers provide the drivers. OS provides the specs.

Linux/BSD/Unix-in-general: OS provides the drivers. Manufacturers provide the specs.

The implications of this in the marketplace are obvious. Every Windows user knows that any piece of hardware they buy will have drop-in drivers included. Every Unix user knows that this week's hardware won't work with last week's OS.

Example One: NetGear PCMCIA card. As many of you know, NetGear products ship with Linux drivers as source code (not drop-in). This card shipped with drivers for linux-2.2, but I was using linux-2.2.4. Driver did not work.

Example Two: New Rage128 card. XFree86 supports Rage128. But this was a PCI card newer than my version of XFree86. The card was not in the PCI database, so XFree86 did not know what it was.

I don't see Linux/BSD/UNIX making it on the desktop until the *Nix releases *stable* driver APIs or DDKs. Actually, I'll go out on a limb and say RMS is full of crap for arguing against the Uniform Driver Interface.

Not really a good question.

[gerardrj]

But saying that X percent of desktop systems run Gnu/Linux is not a very valid statement. There are at least three major distributions of Gnu/Linux that are fairly incompatible with each other, given different directory layouts, package managment systems and the like.

Saying "Linux system" has become some sort of misnomer and masks the fact that there is no single "Linux System". There are probably more than 20 different operating systems using the Linux kernel, many of which are incompatible with each other on some level, or at least present the user/admin with significantly different interfaces and tools. And yes you get the source, and can "fix" it, but that's a lot of cost in time and skills that never seems to get added in to the TCO of the system.

Until THAT get solved (even within the same CPU family) no distro will ever challenge the major two desktop OSes. Both of which offer standard package management, user interface and administration to every user that installs them.

To look at the larger picture for a second:
The overall percentage of open-source (at least partially) based OSes seems to be growing, what with *BSD, Linux, GNU, and OS X (darwin). If more companies are seeing the light of non-Microsoft and open Unixy systems, then who benifits the most? Apple it seems.
With MacOS you can write an app for OSX in the text console with all the Unix features you like, or compile most exising stuff. You can also take your base code and evolve it in to a Carbon app that will run on OSX and OS9 with all the "bells and whistles" of a standardised GUI that you know will be the same across all installations. None of this "do I have the KDE library installed, oops, I've got to install the BZip developer libraries".

Re:Not really a good question.

[gerardrj]

The difference is that each version of windows has been an evolutionary step (arguably not always in the positive sense). Each version of MS Windows' releases essentially existed for only a certain time, then was replaced by the new version. Yes at changeover to a new system there is a lot of overlap, and some people never change to newer versions.

Compare that with current open software systems. There are major distributions, minor distributions, roll-your own. Then there are modified versions of all those, derivitive works, and forks within many of the core components. With Linux you can't even guarantee a kernel function will exist given the several forks of patches that exist.
The major way for Linix to fix that problem is to stop making re-compiles of the kernel necessary. IT should be easier for developers and users to create extensions to the kernel and drop them in to a folder for inclusion when needed by an application. Modules do this to some degree, but it is far from a simple process for 3rd party modules.

Oops

[g4dget]

and on many sites quite as common.

That should have been Linux is up to twice as common as Macintosh (by which I mean, accounts for twice as many hits). And, again, keep in mind that this is all Macintosh platforms, not just OSX.

Check for yourself: you can find statistics from various web sites through Google.

Re:Oops

[AME]

Check for yourself: you can find statistics from various web sites through Google.

You can even check Google's statistics, but I'm afraid your assertion doesn't hold true in that case! Hmmmm...

I'm sure that many people have already said this

[Perdition]

but, heck, I'M using Linux, and I am a certifiable computer moron. I haven't ever seen a Mac running outside of Circuit City. I have Linux on a would-be useless old Presario 1210 laptop that I still manage to use because Linux lets me. OS-X is great news, but the constant pony-up you have to do to stay Mac-plausible is a bit much. My next door neighbor has an old box that I will probably put Drake on inside of a week. Try to do that with the Macs. One thing Microsoft has done for the Linux community: they've made it easy to target what hardware to run on (howl at me, yellowdog fans!). By the way, with the successful supermounting of my digicam, I now boot over to my XP partition only to, um, well, hmm.... I don't anymore! You're telling me this stuff is FREE? WOOOO!

Re:You ever try to decode a MP3 on a 386/486?

[Magila]

A couple of years ago I tried to get a 486 to play mp3s. I tried every mp3 player I could find for both win98 and linux. None of them could play back a 128kbps stream at full quality in real-time. Some of them came close though (within 10%), and downsampling to 22KHz or playing only one channel made real-time playback no problem.

Re:A PDA should mean less work not more

[Archfeld]

I love my Alpha !!!
I've got it running Deb currently..wish I had a use for it :)

Wow outpacing mac....

[_LFTL_]

Isn't this somewhat akin to saying, "I was the MVP center of the All-Midget Basketball Association"?

Linux users don't need Google...

[aquarian]

Dude, it's cuz Linux users don't need to use Google. All of 'em are such hardcore webheads an' shit, they already know how to instantly find stuff! You know, all that doubleyuh doubleyuh dot doubleyuh slash stuff, an' shit...

You're missing the largest market share

[hayden]

People who use computers at home are only one segment of the market. There's a huge area called the business world where pretty much everyone has a computer as well as somebody to look after it for them. Macs have nearly a zero market share here but linux is ideally suited. Being able (much less required to) admin a work machine is not necessary. If it breaks, call helpdesk and somebody will fix it for you. Of course it's much better if it doesn't break and/or can be fixed by somebody else remotely both of which are pluses for linux over Windows and Mac.

This is the market where linux will gain it's market share and it could quite easily surpass Macs in the near future. The home market will be niche for linux for quite a while but it'll still be there for geeks and family/friends of said.

These numbers are fabricated.

[BitGeek]

The penetration rates given by IDG and Gartner are, essentially, made up numbers.

I've been in a position to deal with these analysts, give them information, and observe how they work. They are no different from Wall Street Soothsayers who predict whether a stock is going to go up or down-- except that the Wall Street types are MORE scientific.

For instance, when counting mac hardware sales, they do not count mail orders sales, sales at the apple online store, sales at local apple retailers or sales at independent apple dealers. When they say "Apple has 3.1% of the market" they are really saying "Apple has %3.1 percent of the Retail x86 Market" which is pretty absurd since apple doesn't seel x86 machines. They only look at the distribution channels that x86 manufacturers use, they ignore the majority of Mac sales.

And that was the case in the one instance where they actually gave the source for their data... usually they never provide a backing research, or any explanation where they get their numbers.

As a reasonably scientific person, this data is bunk. It is unsupported, unreviewed (peer review? Ha!) And, of course, it comes from companies who are paid by Microsoft to create a marketing perception that supports Microsoft's' agendas.

I'm not going to say I know for sure what the market share is for Apple or Linux machines, but its worth pointing out that Apple machines have a service life of 2-4 times that of the average x86 PC-- the quality is better, and its shocking what the 2 year failure rate is for the average PC.

Furthermore, I suspect Linux boxes are kept around a lot longer as well -- though we have no way of knowing which ones are used on the desktop and which ones in the server room.

So, these fabricated "annual sales" numbers are irrelevant on the face of them-- the TAM (total addressable market) is going to be much different because people don't replace their computers every year.. but they do buy software every year. IF you're a mac software maker, you know that there are far more customers out there, as people tend to keep their macs for years. Annual sales figures aren't that relevant.

Anyway, I think all of us should make sure we don't take these numbers seriously. And we should not repeat them, and should write to every (idiot) journalist who quotes them pointing out that they are false. Just as %95 of the computers out there are NOT x86, these figures for linux adoption are wrong as well.

These numbers are not scientific, they aren't even "facts". They are, essentially, fabrications.

Re:These numbers are fabricated.

[krokodil]

And, of course, it comes from companies who are paid by Microsoft to create a marketing perception that supports Microsoft's' agendas.

It escapes me where the microsoft agenda would be in comparing Linix to Macintosh sales. Perhaps I am not paranoid enough for slashdot.

Re:These numbers are fabricated.

[BitGeek]

You're right, Microsoft has no reason to try and marginalize its competitors. Why would they downplay the percentage of machines out there that have Linux or Mac installed? What possible reason could they have?

No, you aren't paranoid enough.

Re:These numbers are fabricated.

[BitGeek]

Yep, like you said, they are produced out of thin air.

Unit shipments are not listed in SEC filings. Executives are going to tell you what they want you to think. Public comments are the executives telling you what they want you to think. Hell, every single bit of your "reasearch" is disclosures from companies who are advertising (Press releases that you call "public comments"), Advertising (disclosures to the SEC), advertising (telling you over beers).

There isn't a single example of real research in that whole list. And to top it all off, you give the companies the results to make sure you got down correctly exactly what it was they wanted you to say.

Don't bullshit me, I was one of the "executives" consulted by you guys. I know the score.

As you just confirmed, these numbers are fabricated, from end to end.

Hell, if they weren't you'd provide raw data... but we know you'll never do that.

But since you're here personally-- SHAME ON YOU. What kind of a pathetic existance it must be to lie for a living? I hold lawyers in higher regard... and soothsayers on wall street-- at least they know how to read financial statements, even if their opinions are swayed by their business relationships-- at least they DISCLOSE IT.

Shame on you, Dan Kusnetzky. You are a liar, AND a fraud.

Re:These numbers are fabricated.

[Howzer]

obtains software revenue information from software supplier's SEC forms or from public comments, executive interviews, and the like of privately held firms

What?! You get the numbers from THE SUPPLIERS?!

And you have the balls to call that "research"?!

Man, you must have trouble walking!

Re:These numbers are fabricated.

[pmz]

...its shocking what the 2 year failure rate is for the average PC.

Even more shocking is that my Consumer Reports Buying Guide (from my memory; I don't have it right now) says that PC failure rates are about 7 to 15 percent out of the box. This must be the failure rate where the tech support costs balance the cost of higher QA. Pretty sad, IMO.

Re:These numbers are fabricated.

[BitGeek]

Wow. That's a shocking number! I never realized it was that bad.

Re:These numbers are fabricated.

[TheAwfulTruth]

So you give a fairly rational dissertation on why all statistics are suspect and then INSTANTLY turn and believe a statistic because it's what you want to hear?????

Re:These numbers are fabricated.

[Howzer]

After segmenting the data into over 100 different categories of software, 9 operating environments and 6 different geograpic regions, we model the shipments based upon survey research.

No matter how many ways you slice a rotten apple - it's still rotten. No matter how many ways you slice bad data... I'll leave the rest of that sentence as an exercise for the reader.

The modeling of the financal data is reviewed by the suppliers. We listen to their input. We also listen to the input of many other reviewers.

I'm sorry, but "listening"?! And I thought that research where you produce numbers was all about hard data. You can "listen" all you like, and then distill, but then what you produce is called "comment" not "research".

After weighing all of the input, we publish something which is supportable based upon all of the research.

You "weigh" it all, do you? What, with a scale? "Microsoft sent us 20lbs of press releases this month - we better up their percentage in the server sector". Perhaps you mean that statistical-sounding word "weight", as in "lightweight commentary masquerading as research".

And then, as the final act, you publish, in your words, "something". Well, you've no argument from me there. You certainly publish a lot of "something". Research it isn't. Useful it isn't. But it is, without a doubt, something.

Re:These numbers are fabricated.

[Chris Johnson]

"shocking what the 2 year failure rate is for the average PC."

Computers fail? O_O

I'm typing this on a PowerMac 9500 I got used years ago and have done dreadful things to. In the other room is an 8500 which is also chugging along just fine. I'm retiring a Performa 575 (33mhz 68040) which I was using for MIDI sequencing, which is also chugging along just fine, and I have a small collection of antique Mac Plusses and a Classic, C.A.J.F. again. I think one broke once. Also my Dad had a 6500 (?) that died- but those are known to be lemons anyway.

I take it some PCs just sort of die? More to the point, they die in only two years? I prefer getting over 10 years of use out of a computer... of course I don't upgrade much...

Re:These numbers are fabricated.

[BitGeek]

I never said statistics were suspect, I just pointed out that IDC has an agenda and is paid to say what they say... they provide no mechanism by which they come up with their numbers to give them credebility.

Consumer reports, however, is a neutral party.

Are you unable to tell the difference between pointing out the lack of credibility of one source and the idea that all statistics are suspect?

Worse: blown out by an M$ "update"

[msobkow]

I've had both Linux and WinXX systems for development and experimentation for several years. About 2-3 months ago one of Microsoft's "updates" blew out a stable Win2K system to the point that I couldn't even boot in recovery mode.

That's when I made the permanent switch to Linux as my primary desktop instead of just for my servers (I play around with small-scale simulation of distributed architectures.)

I still have WinXP Pro boot drive sitting on a shelf, but I haven't bothered putting it in a system again. If a client needs WinXX development done, I'll put it in a box, but otherwise there is no _way_ I'll go back to WinXX. Even then, the source code will be duped to my Linux boxen where I know it's safe.

Yes, I have blown out Linux systems by making mistakes with kernel builds and such (rare), but I've always been able to just toss in a clean drive, reinstall the base, and just copy everything back over from the no-longer-bootable drive.

No registry junk lost. No functionality lost because of some file I forgot to restore that isn't in the app directory. No serious hassles at all. Never mind the need for add-on virus scanners, add-on firewall software, compilers, etc -- all taking away money I could have spent on something far more useful or entertaining.

I have absolutely no fear of having a business rely on any reasonably current *nix system, be it Linux, AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, BSD, or otherwise. But there is no way in hell I would ever risk corporate data on a WinXX based server. It's just plain suicidal, and for the life of me I cannot understand why anyone in their right mind would do so.

Re:Worse: blown out by an M$ "update"

[Tony-A]

Look at the ads. You can fly.
Or with "one degree of separation" a dumkoff can come off looking smart.
"There's a sucker born every minute."

Fight club ?

[papero]

I think that until we will continue with a kind of "fight club" Linux vs Mac there will be someone named Bill laughing more and more ...

Re:still... who trusts figures

[danamania]

I think even without resorting to figures down to a tenth of a percent, yes, the monopoly of MS is absolutely huge.

I don't trust -any- figures when it comes to percentages like these, and as both a Mac (OSX and previous OSs) and Linux user I'd like to see every gain I can - but anyone who goes into more detail than "MS has by far the largest share" is just throwing numbers around. Gaining an accurate idea of the amount of macs both new and old that are in current desktop use is hard enough, given you can only guess at the life cycle of older machines while adding on very recent sales - attempting to gauge the number of linux desktop installs is even more futile.

MS has a huge hold on everything - every little effort towards evening things with other options is worth it

a grrl & her (mac AND linux) server

Re:That depends on the employees

[BitGeek]

OS X is not slow. Yo ucan't buy a PC for 1/3 the price, unless you think an XBOX at 1/4 the price is the same as an iMac.

This is utter bullshit. Why do you guys have to make such pathetic claims to justify your platform choice?

Macs are cheaper than PCs, always have been, always will be.

Only by ignoring the costs of PCs and comparing macs that are 20-30 times faster than the PC in your comparison can you claim that PCs are cheaper-- but you're ignoring the performance difference to do so.

Shame.

Misleading Data?

[Galahad2]

As great as Linux is, it seems likely that the data provided isn't really what people are interpreting it as. How many nerd-wannabes have downloaded Linux and followed an online FAQ to dual-boot, only to return to Windows for Quake 3 and forget about it? I'd like to see a number for people who use Linux 90% of the time on their computers, or even more than half. Furthermore, does "Linux" mean strictly that, or does it include BSD or other Unicies? The article doesn't say.

Basically, those numbers are meaningless. As is the vast majority of statistics in this industry.

Re:Attention Slashdot Editors.

[GutBomb]

There are many AC posts that are insightful, informative, etc., but never get modded up, so some of us like to read at 0. But due to your mod system, we have to wade disgusting offensive vile low-life and racist slime such as the above post.

Why can't you change your system to autodetect certain offensive terms such as the vile epithet used above and automod the post to a new level of -10:subhuman slime (or minus infinity, for that matter). This should only take about 10 minutes of coding and would make Slashdot a more fit place for us human beings. Shit belongs in the sewers, not co-mingled with the thoughts of human beings.

someone may say the word nigger in a non.offensive context just as I have here. Yes it was vile and low life scum, however those words when used in other contexts such as "can you believe he just called me a nigger??" or "in the 1800's blacks were known only as niggers" would also be blocked, and then ideas ans speech is no longer free and slashdot usually strives to be an uncensored venue.

Re:You ever try to decode a MP3 on a 386/486?

[forged]

• Even if you just have a 386 or 486, you can still use thousands of decent console applications (including stuff like MP3 players [...]). An old Pentium is fast enough for a simple X11 setup with small desktop aps like WindowMaker, LyX etc.

Unless you had a 486 DX4/100 or DX4/120, decoding mp3's wasn't possible at the time. I *did* try, very hard even, on machines up to 486 DX2/66 with no luck. The DX2/66 was just about capable of playing a 128k mp3 stream in almost real time, but it would still pause to decode every now and again, and certainely not enough powerful to let you do anything else at the computer at the same time.

As for the pentium to run simple X11 setup, I'll make another remark here: my first Linux PC was a 486 DX/33 with 8 MB of RAM and a 512KB video board, and it ran X11 apps in 256 colors like a charm. But of course at the time, people ran fvwm, since Netscape and other memory hogs we have nowadays didn't exist yet.

Linux users have to install, Windows users don't

[Infonaut]

"Have you ever seen a regular person install Windows?"

Actually I have seen a lot of people struggle through the process of upgrading Windows. But the vast majority of Windows users don't have to install Windows because it's already installed on their machines.

How many PCs are sold for consumers with Linux pre-installed?

I think you're equating my discussion about the perceptions of normal computer users as some sort of attack on Linux, which I'm not. The public at large simply doesn't care about "better" computer solutions. They simply use what they're told to use.

Re:NEVER? HAH!

[GutBomb]

IBM lost thier edge because thier BIOS was reverse engineered and clone manufacturers sold thier clone machines at a signifigant discount compared to IBM. Microsoft will probably not meet the same fate because they have the DMCA behind them to protect their "IP" from being reverse engineered. Sure, you were around and IBM was in charge, but it's a differend world now tih different rules. The only thing that is going to take microsoft down is itself, not some company from texas that wants to make cheap computers.

Perceptions of Linux, not capabilities of Linux

[Infonaut]

"If you have used Linux at any time in the past two years...".

Perhaps you missed the part in my original post where I noted that I was talking about the perceptions of normal, non-geek computer users.

We're not talking about the capabilities of Linux as a desktop system, we're talking about how normal consumers perceive Linux desktop possibilities.

While I completely understand that using KDE or Gnome, I can run desktop apps to my heart's content without ever having to go to the command line, I'm not representative of a normal, non-geek computer user. I'd hazard to guess that you don't represent that demographic either.

Are there any websites for "home users" of Linux? Are there any "Linux Home" magazines? Do most Linux user groups consist of a cross-section of people you might find at the local mall? If you sat on the post office steps in your local town and asked any ten random entrants whether they knew what Linux was, how many would give you an affirmative answer?

Sir, I salute you.

[Howzer]

Although your points seemed completely obvious to me, I was stunned reading through the stack of posters above you who seem to be taking the numbers quite seriously. And so, well done for pointing out the truth in a calm and reasoned way.

My window on this? In my job I have been approached many many times by these "number inventors" trying to sell their product to companies I have been working for. You know the names. Everytime they release a "report" you get that awkward phone call where the guy tries to convince you that your company will go bankrupt if it doesn't know what percentage of users use Visa as compared to Mastercard online, or something equally stupid.

Occasionally I have tried to ask how they collect their data, even told one guy I would buy his report if he would make available to me the survey method, but that stuff is hidden carefully because, as you point out, it is utter utter non-scientific shite.

I remain firmly convinved that these numbers would be more accurate if someone literally pulled them out of their arse. Don't feed these people - don't buy their reports.

Re:Sir, I salute you.

[BitGeek]

Yep, it was an eye opener for me. I was employed in the online gaming industry (think quake, not gambling) in the early days and they were predicting adoption rates for the online games going forward. By this point, it was supposed to be larger than hollywood... wow, it was 6 years ago. Anyway, the tellign thing was their numbers for what was currently being done-- they were literally based on what the CEOs of the companies in question told them. The CEO of MPATH would tell them that they have x active members and the CEO of TEN would tell them that they have Y members, and they'd just add x and y and go from there.

Just now I was reading the press release from apple talking about going to all OS X macs in 2003... and they said that %75 of the people who get OS X on the new machine keep it, rather than switch to OS 9.

What struck me about that fact is that in every assesment of Windows adoption, it is assumed that every box MS sells and every computer that ships with Windows runs Windows. That means that there are literally tens of millions of computer out there that have been counted as running windows 5 of more times.... Because business are often buying boxes to upgrade the OS, so it gets counted when it ships, it gets counted with the first upgrade, then there's a site licens and it gets counted again, and then there's another upgrade and it gets counted again....Hell, I'm sure there are almost as many computers that have been decommissioned but are still on the books and counted when the company buys its site licenses....

Like the dead voting in Chicago elections, its a sham.

Re:No Mac desktops? No wonder!

[Tokerat]

You're not using a Mac are you?

I'm not sure if this is an Apple move to get people to switch, citing it's "easier on a Mac", of if it's really just because, hell, to port QuickTime to Windows, they're gonna need a team of Windows programmers...

Upenn CIS goes Linux

[jjsimas]

Upenn just set up all first year Ph.D. with linux boxens...

Re:No Mac desktops? No wonder!

[daeley]

...hell, to port QuickTime to Windows, they're gonna need a team of Windows programmers

Erm, you do know that QuickTime has been released on Windows for years now, right? Perhaps I'm confused, but it seems like that's what you're saying.

Re:computers as tools

[90XDoubleSide]

Hmm.... I have a nice fiberglass hammer and a Power Mac... ;)

Treat market research numbers with scepticism

[rcs1000]

I am always sceptical of numbers from market research companies - whether they be from Minitel, Gartner Dataquest, IDC, Datamonitor, or whoever.

Why? Because I used to work for a market research company.

We were a bunch of 22 year old kids, a year out of university working to such tight deadlines that we just made up the numbers. And guess what? Management had no problems with us doing that.

My favourite story was when I was reseaching a certain market in South America. Because I don't speak Spanish, I decided the way to work out the size of the market was to use some (probably wrong) number for the US, divide by the number people in the US, multiply by the number of people in Venezuela, and apply - say - a 80% discount.

Unfortunately, some where in my Excel formula I had managed to multiply the market size by 10. So, Venezuela appeared to have the largest market in South America.

When I realised weeks later, did I bring this to my boss's attention and risk a telling off? No, I just forgot about it.

Anyway, four months later I had left this job and got myself a proper one, and was reading a magazine. *Another* market research company was touting that "Venezuela [x] market biggest in South America!..."

I was astonished. We hadn't done any real work, and another market research company had just copied our 'work' verbatim.

And here ends my tale as to why Slashdot readers should avoid paying to much attention to market research.

Re:Treat market research numbers with scepticism

[rcs1000]

Don,

I don't mean to be sceptical, but most market research firms get their numbers in the flimsiest way. This is evidenced by the 'overly precise' nature of your numbers. Any understanding of statistics will tell you that - even if you could survey a representative sample of firms and homes to discover desktop usage - you would need to speak to 1,000s of people just to get a number with a greater than 50% chance of being within 0.5% of the 'truth'.

I don't mean to belittle your team, I'm sure they are all good, smart people, but I also understand that IDC is under commercial pressure to produce a 'story'. Saying that Linux has overtaken the Mac generates publicity, and publicity is good for IDC's sales. (Not to mention your career.)

That Google's numbers are so wildly different to yours adds to my scepticism.

Thank you,

Robert

Re:Treat market research numbers with scepticism

[__aannma7340]

Scepticism is healthy when market research is considered. It's really important to know what's being counted, how it's being counted, how it was analyized, who funded the research, etc.

My success (or lack of it for that matter), is not at all gaged by what's said in the media. It's gaged by what subscribers say and what they purchase. Media coverage only is tangentially related to subscribers' interest. Helping them make more money, save money, or in some way making their lives better has a much stronger connection with success in this business.

As an aside, it's often true that a journalist calls me up out of the blue, partially listens to what I have to say on a topic, edits it down to fit the space available, and then presents it as if it were exactly what I said. I have to be willing to go on record even though that opinion, as printed, may look silly or flat out wrong a day or so later. It's part of the job. I just live with it.

IDC does its best to be as accurate as possible and all opinions that it publishes are based upon research its conducted. If better data becomes available, we will respond to that change and publish something to update the previous position. Since the net never forgets, the old comment often comes up again and again even though it has been replaced with a new comment when better data becomes available.

I believe that it was Einstein who said "Not everything that counts has been counted, and not everything that has been counted counts."

Please continue to question analysts, consultants, journalists, and anyone else in the public spotlight. In the end, you may agree with them and find their data and opinions useful. If you don't, simply ignore them and go on with life!

Re:Treat market research numbers with scepticism

[__aannma7340]

Here's a pointer to my bio on IDC.com

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jhtml?containerId=PRF0 00 199

Re:Yes

[Jezza]

With respect, I don't think you and your friends are the people the ariticle is talking about! You say they are all developers, not office workers (I know developers work in offices, but we don't outnumber the suits - unless you work in Software Development {unless of course we're talking about IBM} or some other "IT" thing).

There is simply no way the auther has hard numbers like this from any credable source. Linux is classically difficult to track, I download a copy, cut it onto CDs and install it on 50 machines, how many installations does that look like? 1? 50? None at all?! Who knows, and who can know?

These figures are bogus nonsense! Also numbers tend to be rather meaningless. For example, consider the "known" number of PCs ( I think it runs at something like 2 for every man, woman and child on the planet ) but what does this number mean? Are we including all those Windows3.1 boxes? Are they "Windows" as we understand it today? Or come to that Macs, do original 68000 Macs qualify? Just PowerMacs? Just G3s or better? Only those running OS X? Talking about total numbers makes no sense at all!

Sorry but I can't see Linux boxes outnumbering Macs (especially if we're talking about on the desktop).

PS. I have 4 Macs, oh and an old SE on a shelf, but we're not going to count that are we? I used to have a Linux box (at home, at work the whole shebang) but I've defected.

Re:Yes

[Aqua OS X]

ohh come on. :) This is Slashdot, we're all geeks... of course we know lots of people with linux boxes.

I myself am involved in web publishing and multimedia ...most of the people I know use MacOS. It's a different demographic. I tend to hang out with publishing folks, not SysOps or applications programers ;). The only linux boxes I ever deal with run our web server and mail server.

I have no doubt that their are a LOT of linux box in the world today. Yet, you really have to look at what they are doing. Are folks coming home to a linux box to manage their digital photos, surf the web, check their email, do their homework, etc? I image quite a few people are, however I imagine that a LOT more people are coming home to Macs to accomplish these tasks.

Comparing Linux boxes to MacsOS boxes is like comparing a cheep, hard-working, utility trucks to plush SUVs. Sure, there may be a few more utility trucks on the road, but remember, they serve a different purpose in life.

The numbers are suspicious

[inkswamp]

I know lots of people using Macs for desktop and nobody using Linux in that way. I know a few people using Linux for servers and various networking tasks, but beyond that, nothing. I know this is anecdotal, but you'd think such statistics would bear themselves out in one's daily life to some degree. These numbers do not so I remain skeptical.

You were using Win3.1 and had an Athlon 1500+?

[rcs1000]

Is my computing time-line out, or does this just not make sense.

You were running Win3.1 (from, say, 1994) on an Athlon 1500+ (from, say, 2002). Hmmmm.

Troll?

Re:You were using Win3.1 and had an Athlon 1500+?

[Squareball]

You could try READING and using COMMON SENSE once in a while? I said I used windows since back in the Win 3.1 days. Where does it say that i'm still using windows 3.1?

Re:That depends on the employees

[BitGeek]

Oh. please don't give me that lying crap. iMacs are expandable. You just wnat an excuse to compare apple's high end to the low end no brand piece of shit, won't last two years computers out there.

Pretty desperate and shameless.

As for performance, you're wrong. The fastest personal computers in the world are made by Apple. AMD is starting to catch up, but is still way behind.

Sure, they have their Intel designed benchmarks, designed to highlight the processors clock speed, but little else. But that's a desperate lie as well..

Anyone reasonable competent in the science of computer architecture, knows the x86 architecture is well past its useful life and pathetically poor when it comes to performance. Especially when you include price in the equation.

IT is only thru deliberate misrepresentation, outright lies, and you're desire to suspend reality (or ignore it) that you can say such a thing without being laughed out of the room.

PT Barnum was right, and I own lots of intel stock, but when it comes time to buy my own machines, I buy quality and performance. And hey, I get it for less to boot! Imagine that.

Re:Total Macintosh Sales

[BitGeek]

But annual sales are irrelevant, as I pointed out.

They tell you nothing about total market share-- only what was sold this year.

But that number is given as total market share, which is a bald faced lie on the face of it, when in actuality, the number of machines that are in use at a given point is the total market share.

Plus, there's no way to tell how many of those machines have a different operating system installed on them after they leave the factory.

Hell, windows is counted multiple times for the same machine in many cases-- every time a box is sold its counted as if it was a new install, as if you could even buy a machine without windows up until a few years ago.

Apple can't even tell you the number of machines running OS 9 or OS X or Linux because they don't control them.

And as the IDG guy just revealed- they do NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING, to determine what OS is installed on the machine by the customer.

Apple has an opinion about how many are running OS X vs OS 9, but the numbers for microsoft are absurd-- a single computer can be counted a half dozen times in its lifetime, showing up as 5 seats of Windows when it really is only one.

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Linux beats Mac?

[NormalForce]

They probably got the statistics from the latest poll.

isn't it obvious?

[Ender Ryan]

OS X is not open source. While Darwin is open source(with the exception that Apple supposedly keeps parts of it locked up from developers on x86), the Apple GUI is not. It's completely closed and proprietary, with Apple being the gatekeeper. You want OS X, you HAVE to buy a computer from Apple.

On the other hand, GNU/Linux systems are 100%(usually) open source/free. Everything from the kernel to GUI's runs on super computers to PDA's.

There's a HUGE difference between OS X and Linux.

Personally, I like Apple more than MS, but mostly because Apple doesn't control 95% of the market and is less dangerous to the future of general computing for the masses. Plus OS X runs on top of a Unix... and is prettier... ;-)

So, what I'm saying is that everyone has different goals. Some just want to topple Microsoft, some want to push open/free computing. Of course, there's plenty of room in there for these two groups to work together, and I personally believe that Apple can co-exist with Linux a lot better than Microsoft can.

Re:isn't it obvious?

[rifter]

Darwin has been available on x86 for years now. The current version is available for x86 even as an iso. You can get it here Why FUD routinely gets modded as insightful is one of those Great Secrets of Slashdot.

How is this surprising?

[Junior J. Junior III]

Considering that Mac OS will only run on Apple hardware, and only *recent* Apple hardware at that? By contrast, Linux runs on just about anything you can think of.

People who want to ditch Windows can run Linux on the same machine they were running windows on. If they want to ditch Windows and switch to Mac, they have to buy a pricey new box, plus now they have a viable machine just sitting around that they don't have a use for anymore. Not too economical, unless your present machine is so old you can't really use it for much anyway.

The way I interpret this, its is all the more reason to port OS X to x86 architecture. It's a lot easier to switch if you don't have to buy all-new hardware to do so.

Someone wake up Steve Jobs and clue him in to the fact that offering customers *their* choice of what hardware platform to run on is a Good Thing.

Re:No problems using Windows at all

[simetra]

Linux isn't a bitch to run, it's a bitch to set up and get running.

I too have never had any major problem with Windows. The key is to not let every app known to man run in the background, and install good drivers. Windows itself (9x,2K) is perfectly fine. It's the crap you run on it that causes trouble.

A year out of university at age 22?

[Per Abrahamsen]

Are you a bunch of wonder-kids, or do people really graduate that young in the US?

It is possible, but rare that anyone receive a master degree before 25 here.

Macs...

[Junta]

This is being typed from a Mac. Linux is great and offers great flexibility, but does lack a good deal of commercial software. OSX is a fantastic desktop OS. Hell, if you grok a *BSD, you can make a decent server out of it too.

Of course, Mac prices and the inability of the hardware to run windows could contribute to any potential edge Linux systems may have.

*If* the results are viable, does this mean that commercial software will come more quickly to Linux? Probably not, at least not yet at this low a margin.

One, Mac customers obviously are not afraid to put out some cash, and software companies recognize this. While the potential userbase is small, the percentage of that userbase willing to dish out more cash for software is probably the highest of the platforms. A great deal of Intel architecture Windows machines out there just sit and run web browsers and check email, run by people who don't care about a lot of the software out there. Those who run linux come to expect to get a lot for free, and often criticize companies for trying to make money. Besides, distributing compiled binaries for linux is a huge pain in the ass compared to other systems, as part of what has made linux so good is a willingness to tear down things and start over as needed, royally screwing over ABIs (i.e. g++). Linux is a binary-hostile platform with users that are the least likely to put out more cash.

This, added to the ability of Windows versions of the software to run on their hardware, makes porting to linux less appealing. Whether by dual booting or wine, much Windows software runs on those systems and the need for a porting is too low to be profitable. Companies take one look at Loki's failure and transgaming's relative success and discount linux ports. Sad really. And now since OSX Mac is falling into some of those problems linux has, through the use of g++. First developers had to put up with OS 9 to OS X transition, and now every .x release can break their software, not cool.... Apple has produced a great system, but they have to be careful about relying too much on ambitious open source projects that don't care enough about ABI compatibility....

blow it out yer ass

[Ender Ryan]

hmmm... that's a weird expression... ;-)

Anyway, I don't understand what your problem with Linux on the desktop is. The folks at Gnome and KDE have done some incredible work. They have copied things they like from Mac and Windows, and added things they thought should be added, and just basically improved upon everything that's been done in GUI development over the last 20 years.

You know what I have to say about Apple spending $60M on developing the OS X GUI? Waste of fucking money! I really like the OS X GUI, it's very very pretty. But to be perfectly honest, IT'S NOT THAT GOOD. It is MUCH less intuitive than I expected from Apple after developing a new OS. It is very un-customizable. While working on OS X, I thought of a million tweaks that would have made me much more productive, but the OS X GUI is very restrictive. And window cycling? WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING?

So, is the OS X GUI good, or rather, excellent? Yes, HELL YES. Is it what should be expected after spending $60M? Fuck NO! Another poster had it right, Money != Success.

But it seems to me you are simply a troll. Have you tried the latest KDE beta? It's already fairly stable, and it has most of the nice features of OS X, plus about 100 million more. It's just as easy to use(and if I do say so myself, it's actually easier and more intuitive), and it didn't cost $60M!(well, the developers' time may have been worth that much, but money doesn't buy everything...)

And then there's Gnome. Gnome is still lagging behind KDE, but they have made some great acheivements of their own. Personally, I like Gnome better, because they tend to work on stabalising current features instead of adding new ones. Which makes development slower, but overall more polished(imvho, v=very). I really like both projects, and would feel perfectly comfortable switching between KDE and Gnome.

And finally, who the hell do you think you are to tell the Gnome/KDE guys what they should do? You, who apparently isn't even up to speed with the latest Gnome/KDE releases.

But hey, that's ok, you're entitled to your arrogant pig-headed opinions, as I am with mine ;-). At least your using a decent OS...

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

[kalidasa]

How many of the Linux boxen are dual boot with either Windows or OS X? A more representative stat might be percentage of desktops with Windows, Linux, and Mac OS as their primary boot system, rather than just percentage of desktops owned.

That said, of course Linux would have more desktops: you can run Linux on nearly everything, while the Mac OSen need Mac hardware, and Mac hardware costs more. And let's face it - if you're competent enough to use Linux regularly, you're competent enough to get a copy of it for free.

Maybe you can count the number of developers you know (as someone in another thread above did) who have Macs on one hand, but what percentage of UNIX developers and cross-platform developers (including Web developers, e.g.) drool over Mac hardware they can't afford?

It must be true!

[cluening]

Looking at my computer collection, I have four computers running Linux, one running Solaris, one running NeXTstep, and one running Mac OS X. Looks like Linux is winning in my case!

Although, that Mac sure is cool...

Google

[Jagasian]

First off, not everyone uses Google as their search engine. Only a certain type of desktop user. Next, many desktops aren't used to surf the web. Another thing that would throw off Google's stats is that many Linux users have their web browser claim that it is Internet Explorer running on MS Windows. This effectively lowers the Linux count and raises the MS count.

The same goes for Windows.

[Jens]

Or do you really think most people would use Windows if it weren't set up for them by the computer manufacturer?

Do you really think Windows is "easy" to setup, including drivers, applications, etc etc?

Yes, it tries to do more things automatically than maybe Linux does. But it also fails more often to do this, and then stuff like "DLL Hell" and "Do you want to remove shared files?" get in your way.

Honestly, I agree with IBM when they said "The only reason why most people are using Microsoft Windows is the same reason why most people don't convert their toaster to use 110V, or their car to use electricity instead of gas: It was in there when I got it, you've perhaps already seen it used by friends (so you know who to ask, very important), you don't want to tinker with it more than necessary (for fear of breaking things, and losing support), and it works, at least at first."

Put a complete newbie in front of a computer with a Windows install CD and watch him get lost, just like he probably would (or would not) with a SuSE or Redhat installation CD.

And with "complete newbie" I mean people who don't know how to hold a mouse, and who don't know how to use the cursor keys. People who have used computers as typewriters (typically Windows machines) are not "complete newbies" any more.

Odd, and Odd again

[Bobartig]

I worked at a school with about 400 iMacs, and 400 Dell Optiplex workstations. The iMacs were 266 RevB's, and the Dell's were Optiplex 600Mhz PIII's. Our school moved away from Dell because 1) Their failure rate was so high, and 2) in the event of failure, support from Dell was constantly frustrating (the insisted on getting the machines back for routine part replacements, unlike, ANY OTHER REASONABLE company, who'd let you do the install yourself. This was despite the fact that we had two Dell certified tech's who's main priority was maintaining the dell's). They actually moved to Gateway, but I'm gone now, and I can't imagine what their current situation is like.

Sure, we had some optical drive failures in the iMacs (they are laptop parts, and thus have high failure rates.. but just look what PC mfr's are doing with their home systems), but our NT guy was in the lab 3 days a week fixing floppies and other schenanigans, and reinstalling NT. So, my number's are bigger, haha. Seriously, people's experiences vary widely with hardware failure, and it's mostly just the specific batches of goods people get from the vendors. Macs have in the past 6 or so years used drives from IBM, Quantum, Western Digital, and Seagate. Their optical drives are from Sony, Panasonic (matsushita), and LiteOn. These are generally all first-run, very reliable companies. The same stuff a good PC shop uses. Yet, some people's legitimate experience with macs is "we bought x00 iMacs, and 11 of them had to go back because of drive failure," and theirs no reason that wouldn't happen to a batch of PC's from any vendor.

--

Re:NEVER? HAH!

[GutBomb]

you seem to forget that businesses aren't consumers. Most places that do not adopt linux is because it is free, not because they think MS is better. people are worried about job security, and if something goes wrong with linux they only have themselves to blame. if something goes wrong with a microsoft product they have support to fall back on. they can pay hundreds or thousands of dollars an hour to get a ms employee to come out and fix thier problem. they can't do the same for a "linux employee".

Businesses buy software because it looks good on paper. When I worked at Larry Flynt Publications, we ran everything on Vingette StoryServer. They paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for that shitty ass software not because they thought it was good, but because it looked great on paper, and at the time vingette stock was through the roof. Some IT guy is going to mention linux to one of the execs and he is gonna say "so, how is Linux Inc.'s stock doing?" and when he finds out there is no official "Linux Inc." and that the developers are (for the most part) working for free for no particular company he is going to see that he doesn't have a safety net, and it doesn't look good on paper. Businesses want to deal with other big businesses, not hackers.

Linux is making inroads into these companies too, but lots of these companies that are using linux now are using along side windows.

Again I can't speak for all companies out there, there are plenty of companies using linux, and think the philosophy behind it is a good idea, but i can see it from thier perspective too.

As for the usability comment you made, excluding OS X here is my response: HA! I won't get into the common resolution-changing, copy/paste bullshit (oops, i just did)

Re:NEVER? HAH!

[GutBomb]

ok, if i am working at a company, and some code one of my programmers wrote conflicts with something in the system, but the program can only be fixed by modifying some aspect of the OS, not the code itself, can I call the company that wrote the OS and pay them thousands of dollars to have one of thier programmers come out and either fix my (admittedly lame) programmer's code or modify theier product custom for me? If you pay microsoft enoughm they can do this, will redhat do the same? yes redhat offers support, but not that kind of support.

And my point about linux inc. was moronic! I did not agree with it, but it is a fact. those companies don't employ the programmers that wrote most of the operating system! those companies resell a freely available product and provide minimal support. they are not a fully integrated solution.

Yes if the network goes down for any signifigant amount of time, the admin and certain members of the IT staff are gonna get canned, but i was not talking about thier job security, i was talking about the guy who made final the decision to use the software. He gets canned too if it can't be repaired because the buck stops with him. If he has a bigass MS support contract to fall back on the buck stops with them, and his job is (most likely) safe.

Another example, when working at a different publishing company that made car magazines we employed an equally crappy content management system called Broadvision One2One. Out shit didn't work with thier shit. Our code was written by a bunch of amateurs that didn't know JSP very well. (the exec's don't realize that they save alot of money by paying competent programmers, but that's another rant) and it simply did not work well with te system, it was slow as shit, and we knew broadvision was slow, but not THAT slow, so we called the broadvision folks in and had 2 programmers from thier office come down for a few weeks to fix our shit. If we had been using PHP instead could we have called the PHP team down to fix our shit? I don't think so. The execs that make these decisions like to stay away from open source (free beer) software because the buck stops with them, instead of a service and support contract.

BSD runs on..

[randomErr]

BSD is OSX's core.
BSD runs on PC.

Take a week, Kill Microsoft, port OSX to PC.

Unlikely

[glenmark]

Personally, I've only known a handful of people running Linux on the desktop, and I do IT work at a major University. From what I've seen, Mac desktops outnumber Linux desktops by at least 1000 to 1.

I can now recommend not-windows to novices

[CaptainPhong]

I'm frequently the guy people around me ask "What computer should I buy." For the past several years, I've been saying "Dell." Just this weekend, I've decided I can now safely say "If you're willing to spend a few extra bucks and you can put up with a community of elitist Mac hippies, you may be better off with a Mac." I do this in spite of the irritating, offensive ad campaigns, lies about performance (which they've actually started to give up on), and the proprietary, overpriced hardware.

With OS 10.2 Macs FINALLY have real support for two mouse buttons (IMO, the bonehead one-button-mouse thing was some sort of personal power trip of Steve Jobs). All Macs need to start coming with a good mouse (left and right button plus a scroll wheel). This was actually a major sticking point for me (along with general overdependance on the mouse).

OS X is just SOO much slicker than the other offerings, ESPESCIALLY for n00bs, and the BSDish core is so much more robust than what MS brings to the table. It's not for me (I prefer a Free operating system on commodity hardware), but for the uninitiated it's utopia.

Now, if only there were a FAST, open source, aqua-like GUI, that throws out X11, KDE, Gnome, Motif, QT and all that other CRAP and baggage, uses your 3d accelerator to do the GUI (like Aqua does), has a common set of widgets etc. for all applications, a common interface for things like drag-and-drop and I could compile it for my favorite Linux or BSD distro, I'd be in paradise.

Linux is getting close to the point where I can recommend it to those who aren't willing to spend the extra cash on a Mac. Perhaps with KDE 3.1 and the corresponding versions of Redhat or Suse, it'll be ready.

Re:Total Macintosh Sales

[BitGeek]

And I assume those numbers are made up as well, aren't they?

We all know you don't have a CLUE what the installed base is.... there's no WAY you could know what any of the two hundred machines managed by my co-workers and I are running, for instance.

I don't deny you provide a lot of detail-- thats' what gets the suckers to buy the reports.

Lots of detail makes people think they are getting something, other than numbers pulled from the air.

But given your methodology (actually, complete lack of it) anyone with any horse sense knows you are fabricating your numbers.

Re:Total Macintosh Sales

[BitGeek]

The problem in this whole exercise is that both Linux and Macintosh are probably close to the error bar size no matter how you measure it.


Actually, that's just speculation. For a long time, the Mac represented %32 of the total addressable consumer market for personal computers.

About three years ago (unfortunately, I don't have a reference and I really would like to find it again to re-read it) I read a study showing that the Mac market for application software was about twice as profitable than the PC market. This because even though you charge the same price for both versions, there is less competition in the Mac area, more sales, and a lower cost to develop your application for that platform.

Marketing dweebs are a lot like stock analysts (and IT reporters) they have a herd mentality-- if tall their golf buddies are putting their products on teh windows platform, they'll jump in too-- never mind that the increased competition means LESS sales, not more.

For instance, Disney's Lion King CD rom lost money on windows, but was profitable on the MAc. Mac sales covered the entirety of development costs and the whole profit margin-- the PC version lost money on a adjusted gross revenue basies (ie not even including development costs) because the tech support was more expensive PER AVERAGE SALE than the revenue generated by that sale, on the PC side.

Its not as simple as "more pcs out there, better market".

Re:No Mac desktops? No wonder!

[Tokerat]

Yes, I know.

The joke was, someone was complaining about QuickTIme being a pain in the ass to install. I meant it's either part of an "it's easier on Mac" scheme, or it's jsut because that's what happens to anyone's good software when you let a team of Windows programmers hack it up and make an installer.

Maybe I should stop posting at 4AM...

Re:No Mac desktops? No wonder!

[daeley]

LOL, gotcha. See my sig for implied agreement. :)

Now back to my iCal Library subscriptions...

Germany

[Qbertino]

>Are there any "Linux Home" magazines?

In Germany there actually is. It's called "Linux User".

As you might not know, Germany has the highest amount of Linux Users per capita. The interessting thing about this is, that Linux usage - through thorough help of SuSE, the dominant distro here, and serious advocacy through popular and well know politicians, is on the brink of actually reaching critical mass. You even get german standard commercial software for Linux - such as tax packages or accountant software.
Most people who have some basic knowledge of computers have actually heard of Linux and more often than one may think have a slight grasp of the concept of "operating systems" and that "linux is something like Windows, but better if you know your way aroung PCs". Another funny thing is that SuSE is synonym for Linux. People actually say "Linux 8.0 is out now."
But still: Until people stop using pirated software and actually are grabbed by the purse, windows is still gonna be there for a while. Allthoug the first german Linux Laptops are showing up (www.gericom.de) and every german geek is posed to tell *anybody* *not* to switch to XP.
We'll just have to wait until M$ ceases to support 2K and the gouverment is finished migrating to Linux. :-)

Re:Attention Slashdot Editors.

[glebfrank]

A less heavy-handed approach would be to let users compile lists of words that they personally find offensive, and have messages containing them filtered out, or even replace those words with $%#&. All completely optional, of course.

Please forgive the my US-centricity

[Infonaut]

I stand corrected!

I've always enjoyed using SuSE, and I get the feeling that in Germany people are less interested in how computers are marketed, and more interested in getting things done with them.

I sincerely hope that Germany continues to forge ahead with Linux, and that the rest of Europe follows suit. It would be a helpful wake-up call for the US if Europe showed the US government and big corporations that they don't need to be beholden to the Beast of Redmond.

Thanks for sharing the info, Obertino.

Amusing statstical analysis..

[Anonvmous Coward]

Let's see:

Linux is free, it can be installed on damn near every computer, and ppl are sick of Windows.

Mac requires that you purchase a whole new computer, which costs a little bit more than Linux.

So... using the same kind of math, I'll create another type of statstic: shoes are outselling cars.

Re:IRV

[Jeremi]

Hey there, thanks for the links. I wasn't familiar with Condorcet voting, but having read about it now, I concede that it is likely to be the superior system.

On the other hand -- wow, that's gonna be a tough sell! :^) People already think IRV is too complicated and thus don't trust it... I think Condorcet voting would have the same problem, multiplied by ten. Still, I would be interested in seeing it adopted.

User friendly vs low cost (What users REALY want)

[Felinoid]

Users want with computers what they want with everything else. Something that will do the job for the least amount of money.

The Macintosh is a lovely peace of hardware as is the Sun Ultra Sparc.
If money were not an issue Windows and Linux wouldn't exist.

If user friendly was an issue the Macintosh would have crushed Ms Dos and Windows 286/386, Windows 2.X, Windows 3.X would have no chance. As is however Windows 2.x and 3.X the user hostile versions of Windows beat out the Macintosh. The UI sucked but it ran the software and for the users thats ALL that matters.

Oh I acually doupt more than 1% of the preinstalled 3.X users actually used Windows at first. Microsoft slammed that one on PC users. Before that the demand was for XTs running MsDos.

Now on to Linux. It runs on the cheapest hardware PCs plus it runs all the software titles you need (not all the populare ones mind you sorry but remember free to $150 vs $200 to $3,000... People pick low cost over populare most of the time)

And a bonus.. Your not locked into a single hardware. Linux runs on Macs, Atari STs, Amigas, Sun Sparcs. If something new comes out that dose the job better at a cheaper price Linux will be there Windows will not and MacOs won't unless Apple makes the newer better system. So your upgrade path is exploded wide open.

The Macintosh is great and I'd own one if it didn't cost so much. But it dose and I'm not going to throw money into the trash.

The avrage user only seems less thrifty than the avrage geek only becouse the avrage geek knows what (s)he is looking at. The avrage user has to error on the side of caution just so (s)he can get the job done. They already have Windows preinstalled and it get's the job done.

In the office environment it's the same story. They want to get the job done. They care about user friendly like they care about the pritty case.
Throw it in an ugly ivory box install the business software that get's the job done and don't think about it.

Linux wins converts for one reason... more and more Windows is NOT getting the job done. Downtine is becomming a major issue. Companys paying more and more overtime to catch up on lost productivity becouse a defective printer driver crashed the whole office network or someone openned an e-mail worm or any number of other unexpected strangenesses that could happen to ANY networked Windows environment.