IDC Proclaims Linux Is Now Mainstream

robyannetta writes "Eweek has an interesting article quoting IDC analyst Al Gillen saying "Linux is no longer a fringe player. Linux is now mainstream." He made that observation because IDC's research predicts that Linux's overall revenue for desktops, servers and packaged software running on Linux will exceed $35 billion by 2008."

Comments

Won't be

[mpeg4codec]

Linux won't be mainstream until I can set up a Linux box for my grandmother and leave it knowing she'll be fine with it for an indefinite period of time. Right now, the one thing it's mostly lacking is a unified, simple interface [a la Windows or OS X] and just user friendliness in general. Grandma can't figure out how to print? It's not ready..

Just my $.02.

Re:It's mainstream now?

[Chuck Bucket]

Or FreeBSD, which is running better than ever now. It may my new server, replacing my beloved Gentoo box.

CB

Re:It's a good thing

[Chuck Bucket]

Thin clients are where it's at. Today there is no reason anyone needs a full computer tower at their desk: go thin clients with Blades back in the server room. Everytime we hire someone I just cringe at how much hardware gets thrown their way.

This looks like the future if you ask me: Clear Cube.

CB

uh

[Anonymous Coward]

check out fedora ya old a-rab

Ubuntu? WTF???

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu linux? You're kidding, right?

Was someone so unhappy with the other 1500 distros that they just *had* to create yet another distro? And what a great name too... was "kumbaya" linux taken already?

Are there any *VALID* reasons to create a new distro anymore, aside from sheer boredom or ego? I would think it would be enough to have Red Hat, Fedora, Suse, Madrake, Debian, Gentoo, Slackware, Sun's JDS Linux, Knoppix, Mepis.... oh screw it -- you get the point!

Re:Interesting...

[Chuck Bucket]

Relax Grandpa, note I said I could do it for my Grandma, not for EVERYONEs! My point was, Linux CAN be easy to use, if you have someone to set it up for you. Honestly, I can SETUP a Gnome desktop to work basically like OS X. Plug in a camera, have things like Hald and D-bus in the background detect it, launch Gphoto2 and start downloading. I've also starting using Gamin in place for Famd, it's much better. Change a file, save a new one, bam, it shows the change in Nautilus immediately.

Oh, and thanks for calling me a genuis, but I don't consider myself that smart, I'm just inquisitive. Oh, and I'm proud of you for learning how to bold words! It sure puts me in my place. ;)

CB