Slashdot Mirror
(When) Will Linux Pass Apple On The Desktop?
EisPick writes "A column posted today on Slate ponders projections that Linux PCs will pass Apple in desktop market share next year. Will Linux do to OS X what it already has done to Tru64, Irix, HP/UX, AIX and Solaris and emerge as the only viable competitor to Windows on the desktop?"
...done to Tru64, Irix, HP/UX, AIX and Solaris and emerge as the only viable competitor to Windows on the desktop?
Of course not. Two reasons:
1) Apple's followers are nothing less than fanatical; you will pry their Macs from their cold dead fingers.
2) Apple has seen the light. The costs of embracing Unix underpinnings and âoeMostlyOpenSource,â are going to seriously pay off. Soon, there will be nothing cool that comes out for the Linux Desktop that doesn't soon run on the Mac.
No worries.
Maybe when it has Photoshop, Shake, Final Cut, Illustrator, Quark, Acrobat, etc...
Until then OS X has nothing to fear on the desktop.
Server side is completely different though. I run almost all Linux servers (one windows server and one sun server) but OS X kicks the shit out of Gnome/KDE/Enlightenment/etc... It's consistant, reliable and fast. Not to mention the coolest laptops around.
Not to whine or anything, but presently Linux has a niche and Mac OS also has a niche. Some parts of these may touch each other, but there are Mac users who wouldn't touch Linux with a ten foot pole, and vice versa. Right now, Mac OS supports far more commercial productivity software in many areas than Linux, something which many other of the "outmaneuvered" systems have not done. Considering Apples release of the G5 and the continuing improvement of both Linux and OS X, I wouldn't be surprised if Linux and Apple primarily eat Microsoft's market shares, not each others'.
The configuration files stop changing location from release to release.
I am constantly asked by people how to do things with Linux, my response is always the same, which version do you have?
Face it, the desktop market is not self supporting. Until support is easier with Linux, the alternatives are worth the money.
Apple will never go away. Apple has built a loyal fan base that will stick with it through thick and thin.
I am not an apple fan... but I appreciate what apple brings to the table.
That apple fan base is going to remain constant. Apple is safe and it works--easily.
Linux and windows systems CAN be built to work and to work well... however, they also allow a lot of tweakage. A large portion of the users feel they have a muscle car, and they want to tweak, overclock, and customize that bastard of all of its worth.
A world with linux, apple, and microsoft--having the three of them is much better than having any two. New ideas, new flow, new users.
Davak
That's cool that Linux is getting a bigger market share, but I still feel that it's too hard to use for the average computer user. I can use it just fine, but I don't know if someone like my mom or grandparents could. That's pretty much the main place Apple pulls ahead right now. That may change in the future, and I don't want to start a big argument, but that's just how I feel things stand right now.
I'm not sure why this is a big surprise... I'm more interested to know when Linux will overtake Windows on the desktop.
|>>?
I love Linux. I breathe Linux. I make a business out of migrating people from Windows to Linux. My question is though, why should we even worry about whether or not Linux will surpass OS X in desktop usage or sales. If it's for acceptance in the marketplace for newer applications being ported, great. If it's for bragging rights, bad. Remember, it's about the best tool(s) to get the job done, not market dominance. We're not looking to eliminate competition (well, maybe SCO but that's another story for later on in the day), we're trying to add choices and solutions. We shouldn't be striving for all out dominance, we should be striving for the best tools for the job and let the people who need it decide.
Ok, I'm done with my rant. Mod this as you see fit. This isn't meant to be flamebait or a troll but I can definately see how it can be taken as one...
CliffH
sigs are like a box of chocolates, they all suck remove the underscores to email me
From a technical viewpoint, Linux doesn't offer much to the home user:
Aqua's a nicer interface (of course this is subjective), and X servers are still freely available for it
Most (but not all) software for Linux can port easily to MacOS X
Apple's got better game support than Linux. Barely.
Peripheral support is superb under MacOS X - plug-and-play actually works.
sloth jr
1. Much missing software. (Office, Photoshop, etc). Some of these have Linux equivalents but they really aren't the same. i.e. no graphics professional would use Gimp instead of Photoshop. There isn't an equivalent of Illustrator or Freehand. OpenOffice is still very limited in opening up Excel and Word files. (And is clunkier in my opinion)
2. Too much configuration. It is hard for Slashdot folks to realize, but keeping Linux up to date and configuring it is a royal pain in the ass. I consider myself computer savvy and I still have problems with Linux all too often!
Compare this to the Mac. Everything works the way you expect it. Plus you do get nearly everything that Linux provides. So it really is the best of both worlds. The only downside is that the hardware ends up being a couple hundred more than an equivalent PC system. And if you roll your own box (which most can't) then the price difference is even higher. That's a big deal to many people.
After today's releases, I was actually asking myself if OS X could actually start threatening Windows.
I've always been a PC user (because of flexibility, price, and just openess of the whole thing), and I do use Windows, and for the first time ever today (looking at the G5 specs and the MacOS stuff) I was actually tempted.
Sorry wishful thinkers... linux ain't gonna do nothin' to OS X. In any case, it'll have much less effect on OS X than it could have on Windows.
To say nothing of it costing $120 each time Apple upgrades the OS. I paid for 10.1 just in time to watch 10.2 get released. I thought I'd simply do without the luxury of 10.2, but began encountering an increasing number of pieces of software that required 10.2 - not 10.1 - to work. The Apple OS is slick and beautiful, but may not be worth the extra $100+ every N months.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Will Linux do to OS X what it already has done to Tru64, Irix, HP/UX, AIX and Solaris and emerge as the only viable competitor to Windows on the desktop?
<sarcasm>
Of course it will! And it's the wealth of commercial-quality software packages that will get it there! Rumba, Photoshop, PageMaker, Framemaker, Flash 6, AutoCAD, MS-Office, Lotus Notes, Cisco VPN client, Acrobat full, Kazaa... These are all cool pieces of software that run better under Linux than Mac. NOT!
</sarcasm>
Seriously, Linux is great and all but to compare it to Mac is the height of arrogance. Look at Freshmeat some time. There are six times more projects under Software Development Tools than under Office / Business. There are more damn desktop environments than office projects! 435 text editors and only 66 pieces under Artistic Software. Mplayer is great and all but it still doesn't compare to Media Player. And it's the best there is!
Choice is great and if someone wants to write YATE (Yet Another Text Editor) then go wild. But to suggest Linux will surpass Mac on the desktop within the year? I've never owned a Mac and think that's ludicrous!
Speaking as a Mac user who started out and spent better than ten years on Windows before switching my desktop machine to a Mac and as an administrator who takes care of Windows and Linux boxen at work I'm saying it makes no difference to me if Linux passes Macintosh in market share on the desktop.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The percentage points Linux makes in desktop marketshare won't be coming from Mac users. They'll be coming from Windows users.
That's the "it's all good" about this situation. There's a ton of Windows market share out there to eat up so there's enough to grow a healthy Mac and Linux following. The two will play together far better than Windows ever played with anyone and the computing world will be the better for it receeding.
Macs, Penguins, doesn't matter. Better computing for everyone if this bastard (Windows) goes down.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Case in point: I installed Mandrake on a PC. I connected the PC to a printer which we found incompatible with Mac OS X. Once I set up the printer using CUPS on Mandrake, ZeroConf (i.e. Rendezvous) automatically shared the printer on the network, effectively making it compatible with OS X!
This kind of compatibility strengthens both sides, and validates each. Each operating system going it alone will not take either out of niche status.
A rolling stone is worth two in the bush!
I'm a Linux user. No I'm really a Linux user. I currently have four machines. I'm running it at as my primary desktop at work and as a server, primary (gaming) workstation, and diskless PVR at home. I've modded my series-one TiVo. I installed slackware in the days when one had to wrangle 13 floppies.
With that in mind, I recently I purchased a maxed out 17" Powerbook on my research funds at work and have been amazed at the quality of MacOS hardware and software. I get the true Unix experience with terminals, perl, X11, ssh, vim, and the rest along with an exceptional GUI. The best part about MacOS is that it just works. I've got a Sun Blade 2000 on my desk that's a pain. I've been trying to install KDE on it for the better part of a month and I paid $3k for a graphics card that's slower than my nVidia GeForce 3. I upgraded SuSE on my home Linux workstation and once again I have to recompile the kernel to stop my mystery lockups. (One of these days I should write down my sound-card settings.) MacOS provides the best user experience of any Unix OS.
Will I get rid of Linux? No. There's a quality-cost trade off that will always guarantee the presence of both. The ratio is a function of the environment and thus the evolutionary stable strategy that the competing systems reach. When will Linux pass MacOS? Both soon and never. Linux, due to its low-cost software and hardware, will outnumber MacOS soon but Linux will never pass MacOS in quality. Ever.
Linux : MacOS
Michael.
Linux : Mac
Apple is about to redefine the UNIX workstation market that will leave everyone, including Linux, in it's dust.
Why?
1. At $3K, the 2x2.0 is more than half the cost of any other 64bit UNIX workstation, and brings comparable, if not better, performance. Prepare to see a crapflood of cheap SUN ultra's, SGI Octanes, RS6000, and HPUX workstations on EBAY.
2. OS X has one thing that no other UNIX based operating system can claim: Microsoft Office. Look under most UNIX user's desks in the workplace, and more often then not you'll see a windows box for documentation/presentations/outlook stuff. From a PHB's perspective, that means a single $3K box can replace a $9K+ UNIX workstation plus a $1500 PC. Not to mention the associated savings in power, maintenance, real estate, KVM switches, cabling, administration...
3. The quality experience. This is the point hardest to grasp by the typical L1nux d00d. I'm using UNIX for WORK. If something goes wrong, I don't have the time, patience, or desire to recompile my kernel, figure out the config, or test a driver. I want to pickup a phone and pay someone to do if for me. NOW. As Apple sells the "complete widget", I expect them to quickly figure out what's wrong with the box. (The same applies to most other commercial UNIX which is why SUN and SGI are still in business)
4. The codebase. Scratch OS X and it bleeds BSD. Porting most opensource apps isn't too complicated. Add the growing library of OS X cocoa/carbon apps. Windows on VirtualPC should render decent performance on the new hardware (Please MS, don't kill it!). Finish off with Java. You have a computer that may run every modern piece of software written.
5. The interface. While this is subjective, OS X brings a lot of quality that Gnome/KDE/etc can't match, and don't get me started on how it compares against Windows... It just 'works'
Expect to see Apple make a strong play for the workplace. Then see users want to use the same at home. If IBM can supply the faster chips, then prepare to see Apple start to grow in the business and home markets.
Bring me back to reality? Yes, I just *LOVE* setting up a Linux box to do everything my mac can do out of the box.
.. where is my damn menu?!@#.. umm, but then I need sound. So then I just need to choose between ALSA and OSS. And then find a sound card which works with those libraries. Oh, and then pass a funky kernel parameter to grub, editing a config file, so it can do duplex sound, and hey presto, I have DVDs playing, with sound... but I'm only getting 10fps on my Athlon2ghz.. oh, oops, I'm not using the nvidia kernel and xfree86 extensions for hardware acceleration! Silly me, how could I forget!
Web browsing.. so I've installed a nice linux system with Debian, and added what I think is enough packages to get X11 and Gnome up and going.. whaaa.. where's the web browser? Oh right, I need to install that too, should I use Phoenix, Galeon, Netscape, Mozilla, or Joe-tcltk-webrowser.. I think I'll go Mozilla. Everyone seems to be using that now. Hang on, why do the fonts look screwed up? Oops, it looks like I needed to install fonts as well.. I'm sure it comes with some good ones.. there we go. Anti-aliasing? Oh, easy.. xft.. wait, it doesn't see the fonts now.. need to rebuild the fonts.dir file. Screw it..
Playing DVDs, yep, Linux can do that.. all I need is mplayer or vlc or xiph.. and then I just need to install the dvd libraries and it plays! VIDEO_01.TS
Ahh, I think I'll just listen to my MP3s with xmms.. hang on, why is it dying with signal 11 every few minutes? ooh, oops, I used the version of it that came on my OS install CDs, and that had an off-by-one bug somewhere.. ahh well, just need to download it again and install.
On second thoughts, I think I'll just get around to putting a new larger HDD in my 1999 vintage G3. *screw screw screw fiddle fiddle* ok, done.. power up, put in OSX install CD, click thru right buttons, wait 30 minutes, swap CDs, wait 10 minutes, reboot... ahh the MacOSX background. *press button to open DVD drive*, I think I'll put the DVD in this.. *whirring noise* oh look, the DVD menu *click play* ahh.
Rant mode off.
Yes, you can do many similar things with Linux to OSX, it's just an absolute pain in the ass to get it up and running initially. Your average user doesn't really want to do shit like that just so they can use their computer.
Apple hardware is Cheap!
Go try to price a dual Xeon system to compare to the Dual G5 systems from a company like Dell. You can pay a thousand bucks more for a slower system from Dell, but I don't see why you would want to!
Not flaming you at all, just pointing this out as the myth that apples computers are expensive is really old and really annoying. They aren't.
Apple doesn't sell the bottom of the line machines for $500, for which you'd be better off getting an XBOX anyway, but in tehir price ranges they have much higher performance than the competition.
Thus, Linux on Mac is no problem-- Apple's even putting Linux APIs (I don't know which) into Panther to make porting easier.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
You say "Linux is for when you're young, poor, and in need of serious computing horsepower. OS X is for when you've got money in the bank and you don't want to have to deal with the Linux hassle."
For me it is the reverse. I am neither young nor poor, and am not really in need of serious power, except for serious flexibility.
I love my Linux desktop because *I*, not Steve J or Bill G, am in charge. I can do what I want, I can combine, shells are not hidden, and I have a choice of apps greater than one (vs MS Office for Apple and not much more for the Mac).
You say Windows is open? Not to me it isn't. All the really useful Windows knowledge I have is in the form of "secrets". THAT is why I have a Linux desktop.
Michael
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
For starters, comparing a more advanced distribution like Debian to OSX is rediculous. Perhaps you should compare it to Lindows or Lycoris. Neither of those require a whole lot of effort to install. Lycoris even autodetects and sets up your hardware automatically.
Second, you need *no* libraries to get DVD movie playback to work with MPlayer. It comes with a modified version of libsdvdcss that is *enabled* by default. Many users install it with just a click or two, if they use an RPM based system. And 99% of video cards run on Linux with XV overlay support these days, so no configuration is really needed. It's funny that you have a DVD problem though, because I just installed Slackware 9 on my buddies P3 700 notebook with an s3 video chip. He gets full speed DVD with MPlayer with less than 30% CPU load. Are you another one of those framebuffer trolls?
I've never experienced your signal 11 problem with XMMS. I'm sorry to hear about that though. I listen to XMMS on all of my boxes and have yet to have a single crash in three years of use.
You have a point that Linux isn't for everybody, but neither is OSX. For some reason though, I don't think that was the point that the parent threads (or the article) was trying to make.
Honestly, though... I know *many* more Linux users than Mac users... Come to think of it, I only know a single Mac user. Maybe that article isn't so far-fetched. Perhaps that means that Linux really does cater to more users than Apple does? (I won't sympathize with those that actually take this comment seriously)
I'm surprised just how many posts to this story are discussing OS X vs. Linux benefits, differences, etc. I didn't think it was relevant at all. A simple prediction that Linux will pass OS X market share in the near future has nothing to do with OS flamewars. In fact, Linux and OS X are coming from totally different ends of the spectrum and they are not likely to meet soon.
This is not about KDE or Linux eating Apple market share but rather acquiring new markets or taking some away from Windows. I see it as a natural progression and I expect it. Unless Apple does someting drastic with their product (and everything else being relatively the same), e.g. offer it on x86, open-source much of it, etc. I don't see how Apple's market share changing significantly. Linux, on the other hand, is waiting for an explosion. In the near future, it is very likely that many if not most systems in the developing countries will be running Linux. This is bound to have an effect on developed countries also. Linux has many more significant inroads to make (even as it is), as opposed to Apple. So, I it's likely, IMO, that Linux desktop market share will overtake Apple's. Again, this doesn't mean Linux will beat OS X in UI, or functionality, or slickness, or "being cool", etc.
Finally, I'd like to mention that the guy, Alex Salkever, who predicted this in a linked Business Week article, calls Safari "Apple's homegrown" browser and reiterates that it was built completely from scratch in-house. Dude, you are wrong! Get your facts straight before shelling out with your "expert" predictions.
Most of the switchers to OSX that I see aren't coming from Windows. They're coming from Linux.
The old Mac zealots are staying with Apple despite their dislike of it's Unix core (a typical comment is "I got a Mac to get AWAY from things like Unix and command lines". OSX is good enough that they're staying anyway).
That leaves the new crowd of Apple fans, attracted by it's Unix core. And there's a lot of them from what I've seen. I go to lug meetings around my state, and more and more Ibooks/Powerbooks are popping up, sometimes outnumbering X86 laptops running Linux. This is at LUG meetings, my friend. My own lug's vice president uses a Powerbook now. He only touches Linux now for his servers. Despite the advances of GUIs and window managers for Linux, what I typically see is if that a Linux guy can afford a Mac, he gets one. If he can't, he runs Linux with a shiny KDE or Gnome desktop and talks about how it's "just as good" as a Mac; usually he's looking at the Mac with utter lust as he says this.
I personally think this is one reason that Apple hasn't released a port of Quicktime for Linux. They're busy wooing Linux users, and doing it very successfully.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I mean even if the article portrays the situation as "success for Linux means failure for Apple", we should be smart enough to realize that that isn't true. Success for Linux means more portable software like Mozilla and OpenOffice. Success for Linux means that products start to be judged on their ability to work on multiple platforms again (that's almost totally fallen away these days). Success for Linux means that grunts can have cheap Unix boxes running free office software and managers and hotshots can have lickable ones also running Unix.
I don't think that the Macintosh has in recent memory cracked 10% of the market and today I think that even 5% would be progress. It would be sad to think that people out there have such low expectations for Linux that they say "no way will Linux ever beat Apple." Guess what: price matters more than quality and IT managers today see either Linux or Mac on the desktop as more expensive because of the support costs. But Linux can gradually eat away at those support costs. The Macintosh is forever stuck with the license and hardware costs. But that's okay. I don't care if a secretary in Munich uses a Mac. I use one and that's good enough for me. If she can save some money using Linux then I'm happy for her too!
"Honestly, though... I know *many* more Linux users than Mac users... Come to think of it, I only know a single Mac user. Maybe that article isn't so far-fetched. Perhaps that means that Linux really does cater to more users than Apple does? (I won't sympathize with those that actually take this comment seriously)"
/. is than don't too. That must mean that /. is the most popular site around, right?
You don't have a random sample of the population. I bet you know a lot more people that know what
The demographic that is in contact with you is in no way representative of the normal population. You can run Linux, and so can the people that you know, so I can probably guess that you're probably generally better off than most people, have post secondary education of some sort, and probably like movies like 'The Matrix'. The people that walk into Walmart or Best Buy to buy a computer are NOT necessarily the same people that you know. In fact, it's likely that they bear no resemblance to you and your group.
Incidentally, I agree with this guy. I sold my PC last year, and I'm planning on buying a G5 this fall because I'm tired of system administration stuff like he was talking about. I used Slackware for years, and I'm a fairly reasonable administrator, but I don't want to do MORE work when I get home. In essence, I'm willing to pay Apple to be my sysadmin. That kind of convenience is worth my money, because the actual work isn't worth my TIME.
An area that seems to have been glossed over in this thread is the laptop market. The reality is that running linux on your laptop is tough. The hardware isn't really upgradable anyway, so why not go mac?
I've seen a real increase in the number of powerbooks and ibooks that people are carrying around with them, especially in technical circles. It's unix without the hassle, in a spiffier piece of plastic/titantium/aluminum.
You're on to something here man...
Just breath deeply, and get rid of the hatred of windows... I personally think the desktop market miraculously being split 3 ways between OSX, Linux and Windows would be the best thing we've *ever* had. *EVER*