Linux on the Desktop Doubles in 2007

00_NOP writes "According to a report on Softpedia, citing Net Applications, Linux usage on the desktop doubled in 2006 — 07: though from a miserable 0.37% to a still not brilliant 0.81%. Given that Linux is free, is based on peer reviewed source (and so inherently more secure in the longer term) and that hardware support is now pretty good, how long are we going to have to wait for the big breakthrough?" Of course the focus of the article is that Vista is kicking butt over Mac/Linux, which is not particularly surprising.

Comments

who cares about market share?

[poptones]

"Market share" only counts MONEY, not "free" installs. If I download ubuntu and install it on my laptop, how do they know? They don't - and they don't care, because there are no beans for the bean counters to count.

Likewise, bootleg installs. I have not yet had a single person seriously inquire about "upgrading" to vista. Many people have, however, brought in spanking new machines to be retrograded - either XP or linux. Many more come in with Vista licenses on the box and unregistered XP installs on the hd.

emachines, gateway and all are now shipping with vista and yet the users are still screaming abou tit and doing everything they can to undo the damage. These folks can spin numbers all they like, real world surveys provide ample proof of the suckitude of vista.

Re: Linux on the Desktop Doubles in 2007

[speaker of the truth]

I still run Windows XP as my desktop of choice. I only run it because it came with the laptop that was provided to me by IT, or I would probably still be running Windows 2000. Very simply, I use the OS as a tool to get my job done, and Windows 2000 was doing the trick. I used Windows back when using Windows wasn't cool. When Works was what people used and I was being different by using Word. I migrated from Windows 98 to Windows XP quite happily because of one very important feature: the damn thing stopped crashing. It was in fact the only feature I migrated for. Now with the release of Windows Vista I've realized that it has no new features I want. I'll be migrating to openSUSE today or tomorrow and already I'm seeing some benefits just by a little research (Something that's been annoying me is the limitation in columns that Windows spreadsheet programs have. I use Excel/OOo Calc as a flatfile database because it has a nice and easy to use interface. KSpread I've discovered has a lot more then Excel 2003/OOo Calc so I'm glad to finally be rid of that annoyance) already, I anticipate more and more advantages making themselves known.

If Linux starts to pioneer in new features and areas that Windows and the Mac OS cannot answer, then I will certainly consider it for my desktop OS. Don't you mean have to pioneer new features that Windows XP doesn't have? Otherwise Windows and Mac OS have to compete with these new features AS WELL AS Linux's price ($0.00).

Meanwhile, I deal enough headaches from users at the server level that I don't feel like battling with my Linux wifi drivers, sound card strangeness, or having to jump through other hurdles to just stay productive. In the past I've tried to migrate and had these difficulties you mention which has stopped me. I'll admit that this time I'm not going to accept failure and I will migrate, but given the many postings on the web these problems are past for most of the popular Linux distros (at the very least for openSUSE 10.3) and so installing it should be as painless, if not less so, then Windows (which many of those I know simply pay the store clerks to install for them because its so difficult). Regardless I'll see later today for myself if the rumors of Linux's installation ease have been greatly exaggerated.

Re:Peer-reviewed source? Come on

[GreatBunzinni]

That's funny, as my experience is the exact opposite. I've developed a very small GPL library and posted the project in sourceforge. Although I'm the only developer and I regularly submit packages of the code, the section which is mostly visited is the project's subversion repository. Moreover, I do get patches from random people who browse the code.

Re:Peer-reviewed source? Come on

[mcrbids]

I used to develop a GPL app, the GNUstep-based character map Charmap. It had a few dozen users, and I'm pretty sure none of them ever took a single look at the source. Only the very biggest applications get attention, and very often quite uncritical examination at that.

In a sort of backhanded way, the fact that nobody bothered to look is a complement!

Programmers typically look at sources when they need it to do something it doesn't already do. There's an itch they're looking to scratch, and your stuff doesn't do it. Years ago, when I was still pretty green at coding, I threw out some code that allowed you to send email through a remote server.

It was about as basic as you could get. And, the many revisions that happened thereafter over the years are a clear example of how source review is done.

What I originally threw out was pretty weak, and was extended by other programmers who wanted to scratch an itch that my original code did not fulfill. This is code review at work...

Re:Linux's price is $0.00 if your time is worth $0

[Risen888]

You should be modded down, for you are dumb.

Last week, I fixed two malware-ridden XP boxes. One I fixed by installing Ubuntu. Took me an hour. One I fixed by installing four different malware detectors, waiting five fucking hours to scan through a 20GB drive, and then cleaning out the registry by hand, and then booting to a Linux live CD to deal with a few nasty self-reproducing files, then running all four of the antivirus scans again while I slept. Would you like to talk to me further about what my time's worth?