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Linux Five Years Away From Mainstream
wellington wrote to mention a ZDNet blurb about a Gartner group study. Gartner indicates that 'mainstream' use of open source in IT environments may be 5 years away. From the article: "Gartner's latest Linux 'hype cycle' report shows that open source is halfway to maturity but warns the biggest test will be whether it can demonstrate the necessary performance and security to function as a data centre server for mission-critical applications. Leading-edge businesses are generally still in the early stages of Linux deployments but Gartner expects increased commercialisation and improved storage and systems management for the operating system by the end of 2005, with Linux being used primarily for WebSphere and infrastructure applications on mainframes and web services on blades and racks."
When Linux supports the full range of hardware that is currently under NDA's and vendors that refuse to "support" Linux other than supplying tainted binary kernels; then and only then will Linux be ready.
I personally have moved to a mac because I couldnt wait any longer. Will revisit Linux on the desktop in maybe 3 - 5 years.
> Hasn't Linux for the desktop been 5 years away for the last 10 years?
It was only 3 years away 10 years ago.
that by 2005, Linux would occupy about 1-2 % of all web servers, and would not even make it in the enterprise. This study can only mean that Linux has made it in the mainstream.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Anonymous Coward said: At this point, after the install, most Windows users could use Linux.
Amen to that. I installed 64 bit FC3 on the computer of some very non-technical friends of mine (a cop and a housewife) months ago and the only problem they've had has been the lack of a Flash player for 64 bit firefox, which in nobody's fault but Macromedia's. My laptop has 64 bit Ubuntu w/ Gnome and the sixteen year old foreign exchange student living with my family that has never seen or used a Linux OS before didn't need any help figuring out how to use it.
researching, designing and implementing (smoothly, including migrating your data to your new environment with no impact to the business) a change to a new operating system *always* takes a long time. here, we're not moving to XP from 2000 as it's not worth it: we're moving to longhorn as and when it emerges. it'd take just as much planning (probably more, in fact) to shift to linux. think upgrade cycles. think win2k going off support as a driver to change. 5 years doesn't seem all that long to me...
Assuming that this has been reported correctly (there is no link to Gartner's actual report), it shows just how far out of touch Gartner is when it comes to technical matters such as this.
I won't disect what they've said because probably everyone else reading this knows the flaws in both their arguments and facts, but if an organisation can make money producing unsubstantiated and just plain incorrect claims like this then I am clearly in the wrong job.
So, here's the plan: we set up our own global organisation, just like Gartner, and we issue our own PR, which by contrast will contain no factual errors and will not only contain details of the present situation but also predict how much better the situation is becoming (and how quickly). These reports can be distributed within the community who can then go to their customers/partners/PHBs and say "Hey, there's this great new report out which says that Linux is running on 10 million desktops worldwide and this market share is set to treble in the next 12 months". That way, coming from an authoritative source, they will naturally acknowledge that it is true.
I'm not entirely joking here - who's up for it?
Burns: We're building a casino!
McAllister: Arrr. Give me 5 minutes.
The Executives here try to wave these "studies" in our faces here in IT/IS about how we should back off linux migration.
This one prompted a "see it's not ready to handle enterprise/critical applications.
Until we let the CTO know that we have been depending on Linux for 3 seperate ultra critical apps for over 5 years now. and that tiny companies like GOOGLE use it exclusively for it's servers/backend.
He did his typical "suprised" look and then left us alone once again. The key is to keep your Executives informed so they become immune to the FUD and lies these "professionals" like to spread about.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Most Linux advocates don't just hand their grandma a copy of Linux From Scratch and leave them to it, you know...
.exe from random website, double click to install" mindset. Whilst I agree that a unified packaing system would be great, different distros are tuned for different usage models, so (to me at least) it makes sense that they'll handle things differently. Forcing Linux to adopt the windows method of software installation will create more problems than it'll solve.
My first ever experience with Linux was Mandrake 8.2 Beta. I found the installation of the OS much easier than (my first) windows install two weeks previously; It Just Worked. Once I'd gotten my head around how it handled installing things, it was easy.
These days it's brain-sputteringly simple. Every desktop distro worth its salt has a graphical package installation utility that explains exactly which packages are available, and what they are used for - usualy sorted into relevant categories. Heck, even installing things as complicated (in the Linux world) as kernel modules/drivers is usually simple.
Granted, some pre-alpha drivers require some confugling, but once they go stable and are added to the kernel, it becomes practically impossible not to set things up properly, thanks to the marvell of things like hotplug. Even relatively complicated pieces of software (that no Joe Schmoe would install anyway) such as Apache and MySQL have GUI configurators available. In the realm of pure desktop productivity/leisure software, I've not encountered a single package that didn't just install and give me a nice clickable button in my K/foot/whatever menu.
If there's anything wrong with the way modern desktop distros handle packaging, it's educating the users away from the "download arbitrary
FWIW, my girlfriend is entirely happy with the Gentoo/KDE box I've donated to her.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
Reading this post and the thread that goes with it makes me wonder if anyone else out there bothers to RTFA... /. rather than hust the headline you'd see that the article is about linux being 5 years away from mainstream in IT environments. No mention of joe sixpack or your grandma not knowing how to use linux.
If you even read the summary here on
Hmmm.... What percentage of web servers run Linux?
What percentage of DMZ hosts run Linux?
What percentage of closed email relays run Linux?
THese are all mainstream IT environments and Linux is quite capable there.
Now, if you are talking large database managers, LDAP infrastructures, etc. there is still a little ways to go. But it is still possible today (just not as mature as the above examples).
Gardner makes one extremely serious error in this study: they underestimate the resources that IBM, SGI, and other traditional big-iron vendors are throwing at Linux. I would not be surprised of, in 5 years, IBM is retiring AIX in favor of Linux.
Just my $0.02
As for the corporate workstation, I think 6-8 years is a good estimate (not a question of whether Linux is ready for the desktop but a question of when people will decide to migrate and how long these migrations take).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP