Linux Foundation's Desktop Linux Survey Results

DeviceGuru writes "While the Linux Foundation's third annual desktop Linux survey doesn't officially end until November 30th, the number of daily respondents have shrunk to a trickle and the Foundation is working on analyzing the results. They now have up an early look at the raw data. For starters, almost 20,000 self-selected users filled out this year's survey compared to fewer than 10,000 in 2006's survey. Not surprisingly, the Ubuntu family of Linuxes is the most popular among organizations, at 54.1 percent. This was followed by the Red Hat family — RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux/Fedora/CentOS) — with 50.2 percent. The Novell SUSE group — SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) and openSUSE — came in third, with 35.2 percent."

Comments

F!st Sp0rt

[Anonymous Coward]

eAt ThAt

No Debian?

[cerberusss]

Both my current and previous employer has supplied me with a Debian desktop. No Ubuntu so far...

Re:No Debian?

[yog]

Ubuntu is based on Debian so you could argue that Ubuntu has gotten Debian out to the masses. My home workstations have progressed from Redhat to Fedora to Suse to Ubuntu and I feel that they are all fine distributions with their particular strengths, but Ubuntu definitely wins on the plug-and-play aspects. I put it on a Dell laptop and except for having to manually download and configure ndiswrapper to handle wireless networking, it practically required no technical knowledge. The most recent release in fact does away with the ndiswrapper step, I believe. It's not surprising that Ubuntu wins. I hope that the other distributors learn from the success of Ubuntu and make their next releases "just work", thus undercutting one of Microsoft's main arguments against Linux.

Re:No Debian?

[cyphercell]

[sarcasm]It's okay, Debian's in the Ubuntu family of Linuxes [/sarcasm]

Re:No Debian?

[Firefalcon]

From the linked article:

"Debian (22.2 percent)"

So looking good... :-)

Re:No Debian?

[nutshell42]

The survey's your run of the mill online questionnaire. So it's a self-selecting sample (head over to reddit for lots of foaming posts how some mainstream media page took down a poll after Ron Paul got 80% of the votes. The vast leftright-wing conspiracy at work...)

The only thing it measures is hype, and the most interesting fact you can get from the data is that debian users got better things to do than fill out online-surveys. =)

Of course this doesn't mean that the data doesn't correlate with reality, it'd just be the same as a broken watch showing the right time twice a day.

Re:No Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure it is, Debian is "Old Grandpa Ubuntu"!

Actually I think I just lost a bet on how long it was before a major news outlet got it backward and mistook Debian for an Ubuntu distro.

Re:No Debian?

[renegadesx]

In a business setting most (not all) businesses want support contracts, even if it just makes the execs thinking they have some right to sue if something goes batshit. (when was the last person someone successfully sued Microsoft for a dodgy product is beyond me). They seem to feel more "safe" with support contracts in place.

This is something that the likes of SLED, RHEL, Ubuntu, Xandros, Mandriva have that Debian, Gentoo etc do not which gives them an advantage in the business space. Especially if they can undercut Microsoft's pricings.

In the home desktop space, as well to a lesser extent SMB's that doesn't really matter so you can expect openSUSE, Fedora, Debian numbers to be higher.

Ubuntu is in a unique sort of position where it's both the exact same product for totally free and paid support products as it seems to combine most advantages of where other distro's get things right and incorporate that into their distro only missing a few things.

Ubuntu has made it a so near painless process to grab propietry drivers and codecs, the only thing really left for it to improve is how well it plays with AD networks (fingers crossed Samba4 speeds things along) and find a better way to do DVD support.

Re:No Debian?

[Nazlfrag]

How the hell Microsoft gets to play the 'just works' card is beyond me. Unless, of course, by 'just' they mean 'barely', like 'it works, but only just.' Apart from the overly heavy handed authentication that breaks on trivial hardware changes, the godforsaken registry from hell and lets not forget their latest innovation in insanity, you can [Accept] windows 'barely works' or live in [Denial].

Re:No Debian?

[Daengbo]

some mainstream media page took down a poll after Ron Paul got 80% of the votes

Coincidentally, the combo of Debian/Ubuntu (basically Debian) got just about 80%. That's shockingly high. Will we see the survey come down now? I suspect it will come down in the next week. ;)

Re:No Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure your personal experience is enough to prove this poll is flawed.

Re:No Debian?

[the_womble]

In a business setting most (not all) businesses want support contracts, even if it just makes the execs thinking they have some right to sue if something goes batshit. (when was the last person someone successfully sued Microsoft for a dodgy product is beyond me). They seem to feel more "safe" with support contracts in place.

Not sue: blame.

The point is that if something goes wrong saying "its Microsoft's fault, there was nothing we could do about it" is a perfect excuse to give a CEO who knows nothing about IT.

IBM or the like are nearly as good as MS for this. Red Hat etc. are second best because your CEO who knows nothing about IT will not be familiar with them (although at least Red Hat is a listed company). Explaining why it is a good idea to trust Debian to provide a good OS to someone like that is probably a pretty hopeless task.

Re:No Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux Penguins reply to reporters: "No, no... we're not competing with Microsoft! Who has time for that? We're TOO BUSY COMPETING VS. ONE ANOTHER!"

LOL!

Re:No Debian?

[renegadesx]

Agreed, but in larger organizations "potential to sue" is actually more accurate. That is actually official tag lines on why an organization can have a multituted of RHEL servers and still have a company wide ban open source desktop apps such as OpenOffice.org, Firefox and Thunderbird.

Re:No Debian?

[the_womble]

I wonder if the "official" reason is the real one. Are they really deluded enough to think there is a realistic chance of getting any damages given that they have agreed (either in the EULA or the site licensing agreement) to low caps on damages?

I would guess it is to reduce the number of apps IT needs to support. They could use the extra cost as an objection, but that leaves it more open to someone who can show a business case for spending the money (I could certainly demonstrate why I find FF more productive if I had to).

Re:No Debian?

[mdragan]

This is so unfair...
Red Hat family: RHEL+Fedora+CentOS - 50.2%
Ubuntu family: ? probably Ubuntu+XUbuntu+KUbuntu - 54.1
Debian family: Debian+Ubuntu+Mepis+Xandros+Linspire+etc - ?%
Why compare "distribution families", when you can't even say exactly what that means?
Why not compare distributions, plain and simple, and a lot more exact and meaningful.

URL should be www.linux-foundation.org

[chrb]

www.linuxfoundation.org appears to be some kind of domain search squatter.

Re:URL should be www.linux-foundation.org

[houghi]

Just proof that not even the editors bother to RTFA.

The Year of Linux on the Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

The year of Linux on the desktop is never.

Bad Link in Orignal Post.

[Confessed Geek]

Update the link in the original front page post.

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/ is NOT http://www.linux-foundation.org/

The first is just a traffic collector page.

The Linux Foundation mentioned in the story is at
http://www.linux-foundation.org/

Thats where you will find the article/survey.

Re:Bad Link in Orignal Post.

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.linux-foundation.org/en/2007ClientSurvey link to the survey?

Re:Bad Link in Orignal Post.

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot editors sink to a new low by linking to domain squatters.

Someone should submit that story to the firehose.

Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

is the linux for idiots.... I hope the distro goes to hell.... Seriiously, and sadly, that is the direction Linux is taking...Long gone are the times when a normal Linux distro was a REAL OS without the bloat... Yes you can still fins and use one, or use a self made distro, but the average Joe is taking that bloat of shit... called Ubuntu, or mandriva or...you name it... Sad, very sad.

Re:Ubuntu

[boiert]

I myself have started using Debian sid,
can't do without apt-get but Ubuntu is going the wrong way (for me)

Re:Ubuntu

[El Lobo]

Hmm.. I often don't feed the trolls, and you may get moderated insightful, but... what a GOOD thing that Linuzzz is actually getting to the point where it is more or less usable by the "average joe" like you say.

If you are one of those "real men use the command line" , why don't you take a larger step and made your self a punch card computer and program it using binary cards? Now THAT is hardcore...

While you do that, let us, the rest of that inferiour race, use whatever system we wanr, be it Ubuntu Linuzz , Abble OS or MS Windows, or whatever... Yes, we are inferior and not "real men", but hey, I do my work that way, and I'm very happy, believe me, with being a "second class citizen".

Re:Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

tsk tsk, just because 'emerge world' isn't finished...

Re:Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

if linux is going to get anywhere, idiots must be able to use it, as they are the dominant portion of the populus.

Re:Ubuntu

[Selfbain]

This point is totally valid because Ubuntu is the only Linux distro available and.. oh wait..

Re:Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Feeding yourself doesn't count?

Re:Ubuntu

[gudnbluts]

I would be stuck on Windows if Ubuntu hadn't tempted me away (and I've worked for a Linux based company before). Would you prefer everyone stayed with Windows?

Re:Ubuntu

[civilizedINTENSITY]

The commandline isn't about "hardcore" or "my dick is bigger" it is about efficiency. Likewise vim vs. notepad (or vi keybindings vs. mouse). Freshman and sophomores all want visual studio or eclipse. Juniors/Seniors/Grad.s start being more concerned with how fast they can work than how easy it is to work slowly.

Um, I'm sorry but...

[Howard Beale]

I think you mean the *Debian* family of Linuxes, not Ubuntu.

Re:Um, I'm sorry but...

[vux984]

*whoosh*

"Family"?

[Bo'Bob'O]

Family? I guess that make sense. Ubuntu of the Debian Order, Linux Class, UNIX Phylum. I guess that would make the Genus the particular type (server/home), and the species it's version number.

Re:"Family"?

[Glowing Fish]

What would be the kingdom?

Von Neumann architectures?

Re:"Family"?

[Belial6]

I'm thinking "OS".

Re:"Family"?

[azgard]

Genus Gibbon, species Gutsy Gibbon.

Re:"Family"?

[Plaid Phantom]

Von Neumann arch would probably be more like the natural habitat.

Re:"Family"?

[aztracker1]

Since Linux programs can "mate" for all intents and purposes, wouldn't Linux probably be the Species... with Breed being Debian, and Variety being Ubuntu... the server/client would be a characteristic traits, like blue vs green eyes etc...

%139.5

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I could have believed %100 Since this survey was filled out by linux users, but %139.5 ?!!!
Am I the only one who sees a problem with the math here?

Re:%139.5

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Linux math, just like how the Linux logic around Slashdot suggests that a mediocre operating system can be the solution to absolutely every question ever posed since the beginning of human history.

In other words, everyone in the world knows it's silly and wrong, but those who really, really want to believe have an amazing ability to ignore reality.

Re:%139.5

[J0nne]

If you'd RTFA, you'd have read that you could pick multiple distro's. The question was 'which Linux distributions do you run in your organisation', and apparently lots of organisations run several different distro's, instead of standardising on one.

Re:%139.5

[Aetuneo]

Maybe some people or organizations use more than one version?

Re:%139.5

[grcumb]

Well, I could have believed %100 Since this survey was filled out by linux users, but %139.5 ?!!!
Am I the only one who sees a problem with the math here?

Yes. If you bothered to RTFA:

"Yes, that does add up to more than 100 percent. It would seem that groups using Linux in the office have not standardized on a particular distribution, or even a distribution family."

Linux users are - amazingly - capable of using more than one OS at once. I know this is anathema to those who believe that the only alternative to white is black, and for whom anything less than perfect logical symmetry causes cranial asplosion. But hey, we got into weird territory right from the moment we put 'Linux' and 'Desktop' in the same sentence, and left out both 'doesn't belong' and 'the year of'.

Re:%139.5

[Thanatos69]

That's all well and good but shouldn't it still be based on 100%?

Lets take three users:
User 1 uses Ubuntu and Red Hat
User 2 uses Ubuntu
User 3 uses Red Hat

Given this you would assume that it was a 50/50 split but given the numbers what you are going to get is:

Ubuntu = 2/3 = 67%
Red Hat = 2/3 = 67%

WTF kind of math is that? Shouldn't it really be:

Ubuntu = 2/4 = 50%
Red Hat = 2/4 = 50%

Re:%139.5

[bladesjester]

WTF kind of math is that? Shouldn't it really be:

Ubuntu = 2/4 = 50%
Red Hat = 2/4 = 50%

No, it should be just as it was written. It's the percentage of *users* who answered the survey, not the percentage of all answers that were a particular answer.

Given your sample data, ~67% of *users* use each of the operating systems.

Re:%139.5

[shywolf9982]

Well, it's an online survey. The data probably gets collected in a db.
The db has a record for every answer (1 record == 1 user).
So it's more simple to do the math on the number of users rather than the number of selections: having done SQL, and being the lazy programmer I am, I'm pretty sure that's the main reason behind it.

Re:%139.5

[jonbryce]

No, because 2/3 of users do use Ubuntu, and 2/3 of users do use Red Hat.

Re:%139.5

[Thanatos69]

Actually, I believe it was organizations but it isn't really telling us much. I'm just saying that perhaps they could have expanded on it more. For example, lets take the same three users/organizations based on installations:

User 1: Ubuntu installed 97 times, RHEL installed 1 time
User 2: Ubuntu installed 1 time
User 3: RHEL installed 1 time

Now, since there is only a checkbox and no room for a number, RHEL still comes out looking like a winner with 67% even though it is really only 3% installation rate. Personally, I just think it's a retarded way of looking at it. In looking at just who has what installed you aren't really getting the larger picture. They could have RHEL installed just for testing purposes or as an email server while they are using Ubuntu on the desktop. Personally I have Ubuntu, RHEL, Fedora, Win2k/xp/2k3/vista all for testing purposes but which do I use more often? Ubuntu and XP dependent upon what I am doing. The others are only used for testing purposes but according to this survey I use all equally.

Re:%139.5

[Hucko]

Obviously people are running more than one operating system or distro. I'm surprised it isn't at 300+%. I personally run 2 distros (1 Debian, 1 K Ubuntu). I am a novice though.

Re:%139.5

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be most insightful if there was an extra option to specify what you used before and when. I guess all the Ubuntu flow comes straight from Microsoft runaways.

Re:%139.5

[TheRaven64]

More to the point (made up numbers):

• User 1 uses Debian.
• User 2 uses Debian and Ubuntu.
• User 3 uses Fedora and Ubuntu.
• User 4 uses Fedora.

According to their system, each distro would get 50%, even though Fedora and Debian are (in this example) able to meet the needs of an organisation each on their own, while Ubuntu is only used in concert with another distro. More realistically, the results would be 37.5% Debian, 37.5% Fedora, 25% Ubuntu from these numbers.

That said, if they don't include the number of installs each respondent is responsible for, it is a pretty meaningless number anyway; someone who has installed Debian on their laptop adds the same amount to the Debian score as an organisation with 100 SuSE installs adds to the SuSE column.

Re:%139.5

[Peaceful_Patriot]

Nope, not all Ubuntu users are MS 'runaways'. I have used Linuxes of various flavors for 7 years and found Debian and apt-get was the best fit for me. However I got tired of fighting my Debian desktop to do simple things like mounting a cd or a flash drive. So I tried Breezy and have stuck to Ubuntu on my desktops and Deb on the server ever since. I like the desktop to be easy to use, but scratch the surface it is still Debian Linux and, with the exception of sudo, the command line works just like it always has.

wrong link

[simontek2]

Wrong link. http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Main_Page is the correct one

Server vs. Desktop

[Glowing Fish]

Another interesting result from the LF survey is that in most company and organizations, the Linux desktop is more commonly used than Linux servers. From almost the beginning of Linux's business acceptance it has always been assumed that Linux was, is, and would continue to be more of a force on servers than on desktops. That appears to be changing.

Is it just me, or is this possibly a misleading statement? Does "more commonly used" just mean more numbers? Or does it mean that organizations with Linux desktops aren't running Linux servers? Or just that they have more desktops than servers? Even if it is the first, I still don't think it means too much, because one organization running a gigantic Oracle database on big iron and Linux is going to probably be using Linux more than another organization running Linux and OpenOffice for word processing on 10 or even 50 desktops.

Re:Server vs. Desktop

[idiotwithastick]

The summary says that the users are self-selected. I get the feeling that people who chose to use Linux as a desktop OS are more likely to vote in such a poll than those who use Linux servers for their work.

Year of the Linux desktop

[cstdenis]

It's official, 2008 will be the year of the Linux desktop.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Hilarious.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop

[turgid]

Yes, well, every year since 1996 has been the Year of Desktop Linux for me, starting with olvwm on Slackware 2.x. Now I have Window Maker on Slackware 11.0.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop

[steeviant]

Amen to that!

I found IE4's integration just a bit too buggy and creepy and haven't used a Windows desktop since.

Re:Year of the Linux desktop

[eneville]

Aww I remember that shit. Needed about 32MB of RAM though, which I just didn't have. Yeah the slackware floppy disk set was a life saver.

Links and respondents

[chrb]

Fill in the survey.

Current results

The results say the current number of respondents is 10941 (and counting). Where did the figure of 20,000 come from?

Re:Links and respondents

[vtcodger]

***The results say the current number of respondents is 10941 (and counting). Where did the figure of 20,000 come from?***

Rounding Error?

Probably related to the logic that has 139.5% of the users reporting in already.

In any case, we certainly are not going to blame these little arithmetical peculiarities on Linux. How about we blame Vista, Internet Explorer, the RIAA, George W Bush, and Intel? Don't worry. Ron Paul, Ubuntu, the second amendment and the free market will pull us all through this little computational rough spot.

Re:Links and respondents

[realdodgeman]

10000 is only english speaking results. You have a few hundred for each other language too.

Re:Links and respondents

[slashflood]

You have to add up all the language specific surveys. The french survey currently has 1500 participants, the brazilian 600 participants and so on.

Re:Links and respondents

[Anonymous Coward]

For reading text I'm having a hard time. nWTF does the simplest task now require javascript?

"Javascript is required for this site to function, please enable."

Re:Links and respondents

[the_womble]

We need a new moderation option: doing the editors' job for them.

Re:Links and respondents

[jeffstar]

don't forget excel!

It's still not catching on

[jrothwell97]

Unless Linux and other UNIXes are seriously simplified for new computer users, their market share will never really rise. Even us nerds have headaches trying to get simple hardware working, and most people I know had never even heard of Linux or any other UNIX variant (apart from, occasionally, Mac OS X) until I brought up the subject in conversation. There needs to be a serious publicity campaign around this issue.

Re:It's still not catching on

[mmcuh]

Unless Linux and other UNIXes are seriously simplified for new computer users, their market share will never really rise. Even us nerds have headaches trying to get simple hardware working, and most people I know had never even heard of Linux or any other UNIX variant (apart from, occasionally, Mac OS X) until I brought up the subject in conversation. There needs to be a serious publicity campaign around this issue. Why? Does it matter what other people use?

Re:It's still not catching on

[jrothwell97]

1. Only 20000 Linux users filled out the survey - and, TBH, that would most likely exclude the technophobic average Joes who have Ubuntu installed on their box after a their local technopath installed it, and
2. I myself think that it's not important what distro anyone's using - what's important is that UNIX still hasn't got a foothold on the desktop market. In fact, it would be wise to educate people that instead of the 'crippled/expensive' balance to strike with Windows, there's bound to be a Linux distro or UNIX variant to suit their needs.

Re:It's still not catching on

[Carbon016]

I recently installed Ubuntu on another computer hoping to use it for IM and internet stuff, the HD was wiped but I wasn't going to sell it as fast I thought so I figured, "why not have another one around the house and mess around with this super-hyped OS?"

Yeah, so it doesn't like my wireless network adapter and all the instructions are based on downloading things from the Internet, among a lot of other things (weird UI, outdated manuals, dozens of command line commands to get the simplest of hardware to work etc) despite there supposedly being support natively. There's a ton of problems with Ubuntu, and I would consider myself seriously in the know about software and hardware.

I figure I'm going to wipe the hard drive AGAIN (not going to bother messing with partitions and the MBR) and stick XP on it, and have ruled out dual-booting on my main rig. It may be slower but I'm not willing to have to go through the crap I have to now any time I want to add hardware. I was more comfortable back in the day with MS-DOS. ..at least I can play Sudoku, though.

Re:It's still not catching on

[Locklin]

Wow, you had wireless working on MS-DOS??

Seriously, it sounds like you may have a broadcom wireless card - that's a problem that really needs to be fixed somehow. Hopefully you give it (Linux) another chance some time when you have more time. Many of the "command line fixes" are actually easier than tracking down drivers and installing them in XP - once you're familiar with the platform.

Re:It's still not catching on

[Belial6]

I'm not sure you get to call yourself a nerd. I'm thinking that you are just so isolated that in comparison to the few other people you've met, you seem like the one that understands computers. The reason I say this, is that at least half of the people I run into know what Linux is, and most of the other half don't know the difference between Word and Windows, so they wouldn't know what it is, even if it was down right common in the home. That, and the "apart from, occasionally, Mac OS X" line. Really, you have to be pretty far removed from society to not know about Mac.

My experiences have been exactly the opposite of yours. I considered 2007 the year of Linux when my wife was hosting a play date for stay at home Moms and their children, I came out of my office for some coffee, and there are 4 stay at home housewives discussing who is running Linux, who is running Windows, and if it was a good idea for the ones running Windows to switch to Linux. That was the defining moment for me to say that Linux is officially mainstream.

As for headaches trying to get simple hardware working, I can only relate the story that I have told many times before... My son did his first, unassisted install of Ubuntu just prior to his second birthday. The only thing I gave him was the CD, a computer, and made sure the hard drive was formatted before he started. As, always, I will accept that he is a genetic mutant that makes his intellect vastly superior to normal humans, if you insist on it, but even if he was as smart as a 6 year old when he was only 1, that still means that Linux is extremely easy to install and use. Of course if it turns out that I am an overly optimistic dad with a child that is only average, then we need to consider whether we can safely have those that are unable to install Ubuntu, out in public without a handler.

Re:It's still not catching on

[Anonymous Coward]

why yes, as a matter of fact it does. For linux, at least, since a major part of the users also contribute in some way, by writing code, by helping others get started who write code, by documenting, by testing, etc. etc. So the more ppl use what you use, the better your stuff gets, albeit slower than you might like ;-) Since cross-over between distro's is also less than perfect and has a snail's pace sometimes, there's definitively a difference between distro's.
So if novell loses users, you can expect the linux-netware interoperability to stagnate or deteriorate, regardless of whether you care or not. So I'd say that also matters in the bigger picture. For some of Novell's other projects, there may be a less direct relation, since there are other involvements.
Same for RH and Oracle. If the unbreakable thingy takes off, you can expect Oracle support for RH to deteriorate too.

Re:It's still not catching on

[Culture20]

Tell Broadcom that they need to provide specs for their hardware or even binary linux drivers. Or, spend $40 and buy an Intel 3945.

Re:It's still not catching on

[PineGreen]

Well, this just tells you how individual these things are. My wife wanted a basic computer for editing text, printing, browsing, e-mail. I recommended macbook, which everyone loves and I though it would be ideal.
Nothing worked, she absolutely hated it and I was responsible. I had real big trouble getting even printer to work, having to manually compile drivers, which I haven't done on ubuntu for ages, etc. etc. Fast forward one year - we sold macbook, bought a cheap dell and now she is a very happy ubuntu user.
I think I was just unlucky and so were you. (However, I still don't understand my problem as I always though macbooks are all the same so they should work equally bad for everyone... But maybe people are just massively hypnotised...)

Re:It's still not catching on

[agendi]

I had a similar experience to this when I was at a birthday party for friend which was heavily attended by theatre people. I was surprised when one of the actors started talking about how happy they are now that they have moved over to linux, only to find out that at least one other person (in a group of 7) chimed in with "me too". So that was 2 running linux (ubuntu), 2 running XP, 2 running Vista and one person running a Mac. Both Vista users were complaining about how it came with their computer and that they were considering paying someone to put XP back on.

Re:It's still not catching on

[RotateLeftByte]

Why on earth didn't you install Ubuntu on the MacBook if you were so fed up with OS/X

From my experience, OS/X is about the easiest OS to configure especially with 10.5 but hey, everyone is different ok.

As regards printers, I was a a customer the other day and had to print some stuff for him. I just pointed the MAc at the IP Address and OS/X discovered the priner, its type and setup the drivers. no reboots, manual configurations etc. It even told me that the tone was getting low. The customer (a windows shop) was most impressed.
Then I booted a Fedora 8 VM on the MAC and it found the printer and sorted out the driver. No reboots. Customer was even more impressed.

More and more people I know are switching from Windows to OS/X. Vista is more like a foggy day on the Dogger Bank compared to OS/X. Linux is getting there but it just needs a little more time.

Re:It's still not catching on

[Anonymous Coward]

No. It was year 2007 when you first tried LSD. Then you had a fantasy about having a wife and women talking about women. Women talking linux is about as believable as a Slashdot reader being married.

Nice try.

Re:Binary Cards?

[Zygamorph]

While there are several coding systems for card input, none that I know of are binary ( the card is there or not there? :-) ). The one that I used most was Hollerith. A group of us in university came up with CBVS - Card Based Virtual Storage. The only virtual storage system that gets lighter the more data you put in it.

percent? 54.1 + 50.2 + 35.2

[lems1]

54.1 + 50.2 + 35.2 = 100 ?

Talk about /. math! First it was the dups and now this?

Of course, I have NOT RTFA... This is /. after all...

Re:percent? 54.1 + 50.2 + 35.2

[bouchecl]

54.1 + 50.2 + 35.2 = 100 ?
[...] Of course, I have NOT RTFA... This is /. after all... I filled the survey and I selected the Fedora AND Ubuntu checkboxes. So I'm counted twice (in the Debian and RedHat groups).

Re:percent? 54.1 + 50.2 + 35.2

[marcello_dl]

Read the comments, then.

Re:percent? 54.1 + 50.2 + 35.2

[malraid]

This time twice as many people filled the survey, so instead of 100% like last time, this one goes up to 200%!!!

Re:percent? 54.1 + 50.2 + 35.2

[lems1]

ROFL

Good one

The Survey

[WhiteSpade]

For those who would like to take the survey, here's a link. https://www.linux-foundation.org/en/2007ClientSurvey ---Alex

Re:%139.5 ... you're counting wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were to fill out a form on what Distro I use, I would check off Suse, Ubuntu and DamnSmallLinux. I have boxen that run all three.

If every Linux user had one of each then the total would be 300%.

Proof enough

[DaedalusHKX]

That performance or control over the OS isn't what drives adoption, but instead, it is bloat. Ubuntu could be claimed to be less bloated than RHEL and SUSE (both of which drip with bloat), but overall, I was surprised that among corporate offices and IT places that do Linux, not many are really using Gentoo or LFS or some such OS with a higher degree of control over what goes into the final installs, etc.

Oh well, guess its best to be among the few, than among the many.

Re:Proof enough

[webmaster404]

Yet MS products which give you just about 0% of control are still dominant so It is not surprising that most are Ubuntu, Debian or SUSE based because those give you better hardware detection, plus, Gentoo, LFS, Source Mage, and Arch Linux despite being great distros, lack commercial support that you can get from Red Hat, SUSE and Ubuntu. Also, the fact that you have to rebuild every update from scratch is a real pain on Gentoo, despite it being great for a home user, having 1-2 hours of 100% CPU usage in a business means that 1-2 hours employees can't work.

Re:Proof enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh well, guess its best to be among the few, than among the many.

Yes, it's best to be an elitist tard that snickers at the ubuntu, redhat and SUSE users because they're not part of the gentoo crowd.

Hi boss, can't download from the server today! We have to recompile the kernel again so we can get that 1% extra performance! Can't have that bloat in there!

I was surprised that among corporate offices and IT places that do Linux, not many are really using Gentoo or LFS or some such OS with a higher degree of control over what goes into the final installs, etc.

It's obvious you have no idea about the real world.

Please stay with Gentoo I don't want users like you infecting the other distros.

Re:Proof enough

[mechsoph]

Also, the fact that you have to rebuild every update from scratch is a real pain on Gentoo, despite it being great for a home user, having 1-2 hours of 100% CPU usage in a business means that 1-2 hours employees can't work.

An institutional Gentoo installation would probably have one or two compile/test machines to produce packages, then just install the binary packages on all the production machines. At least that's how Purdue's CS department seems to do it.

Re:Proof enough

[Anonymous Coward]

An institutional Gentoo installation would probably have one or two compile/test machines to produce "packages"

And one hundred minions testing for subtle and not so subtle bugs that arise on each of those compilations.

Gentoo is good for very specific professional niches, geek "aficionados" and almost nothing else. It's not a bad platform, but as long as it has not a solid integration testing and bugfix backporting is a big "corporate no-no" even for big corporations.

Re:Proof enough

[jlarocco]

Please stay with Gentoo I don't want users like you infecting the other distros.

I think you've got the infection backwards. If you're ever having a problem on Linux, 99.999% of the time your best bet is to ask a Gentoo or Slackware user.

Snicker at their elitism, but fact of the matter is your average Gentoo user probably knows 100x more about Linux than your average Ubuntu user.

Re:Proof enough

[doti]

well said.

To each it's own. The ones who _know_ Linux are a minority, that's why Ubuntu and the like are on 95% of the corporate machines: because 95% of the "professionals" have no clue.

One's dream is the other's nightmare: If you know it better, you will _prefer_ to have control of everything; if not, you don't want control, you want it to work as it is.

I used to run Slackware at home, but now I lack the time to fiddle with the machine, so Ubuntu or Fedora are more attractive to me now. But it is still on the email server I admin, and do not foresee replacing it any time soon.

Re:Proof enough

[theheadlessrabbit]

I really hate to agree with you, but since I am a ubuntu user who knows nothing about linux, I really have no argument.

I love ubuntu. It has everything I need built right in: my hardware is detected right away, it comes with open office, the gimp (which doesn't suck anymore!) a decent mp3 and movie player (why isn't VLC the default?) and loads of games to choose from, and instalation is so easy. it has everything i need right at my fingertips, and its all free.

I've tinkered with other releases in the past, and to be honest, ubuntu is the only linux distro that IMO feels like it is 'ready for the masses'.

Im just not nerdy enough for gentoo ;)

Re:Proof enough

[gudnbluts]

Why the hell would I want to be an expert in an operating system? That's just a platform that's there for me to work on.

Re:Proof enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Do I smell the Gentoo/Slackware elitism in this post? Seriously, just because some of us hate to spend hours compiling or working out dependency hell does not mean we somehow know less about the operating system on which we are working. I use simpler ones because I spend all day making stuff work, the last thing I want to do when I get home is fight with my machine. I will gladly give up some of the control for the ease of using apt or yum to handle installs and save my some sanity and time.

This said, I have used Linux for 10 years. Started using Red Hat, moved to Mandrake, used Gentoo for a while, install Debian in a failed experiment, used FC3 on my laptop, switched that to Mandriva, then moved it to Ubuntu, setup my home PC for dual-boot Windows/Ubuntu, and recently returned my laptop to Fedora. This doesn't include the time I've spent at work using RH and SuSe. Not to mention the fact that I have worked with three major *nix operation systems: AIX, Solaris, and HP-UX.

BTW, the infection isn't backwards. Trust me, we want the snobbish prick users of Gentoo to stay out of the support forums and design of other distros. We like to help people and encourage them, not scare them away and tell them they are too stupid to use Linux. Trust me, if we wanted holier then thou attitudes, we would stick to dealing with Windows admins.

Re:Proof enough

[TheOnlyRealPerson]

Or Arch, for Spaghetti Monster's sake don't forget Arch...

Re:Proof enough

[jimicus]

Absolutely correct.

After all, there's nothing like a distribution which occasionally breaks itself to teach you all about troubleshooting Linux.

Re:Proof enough

[Anonymous Coward]

As another anonymous said, at work we want things that work. We use RHL because it does not break down - well we have some minor issues from time to time, but those are _really_ minor. We couldn't care less about your supposed bloat.

On the other hand, Gentoo seems to be unable to prevent its continuous breakage.

None in his mind would even consider to run Gentoo or LFS on a mission critical machine.

Please, stick to Gentoo.

Re:Proof enough

[fellip_nectar]

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" CFLAGS="-09 -march=nocona -pipe=65536 -funroll-every-loop -mrice -mabi=rice -omg-optimized --disable-all-instructions -DREENABLE_FAST_EXECUTION" emerge -av witty-reponse I, for one, find it hard to believe that a Gentooer could break their system. Therefore, it must be entirely the fault of the distribution if it breaks.

Re:Proof enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Snicker at their elitism, but fact of the matter is your average Gentoo user probably knows 100x more about Linux than your average Ubuntu user. This is true for average users, but that's because the Gentoo system requires you to have to spend a lot of time fixing things.

However users who know 100x more about Linux than your average Gentoo user realise that it's better to actually use your machine than wasting all your time trying to fix something.

Re:Proof enough

[Anonymous Coward]

we want the snobbish prick users of Gentoo to stay out of the support forums

Umm, except that Gentoo's forums are full of helpful people and one of the best resources for fixing Linux problems on the net. Of course there are some elitist ricer users, but I really don't think it's typical. I use Gentoo because it's usually easy to update / install stuff without dependency problems, I like minimalist setups, and I'm used to it. The fact it's a bit faster is a bonus but not very important.

Nice troll though.

Re:Proof enough

[spiryt]

However users who know 100x more about Linux than your average Gentoo user realise that it's better to actually use your machine than wasting all your time trying to fix something. I am one of those users. I've been using Gentoo for more than 2 years but got eventually frustrated with the amount of work I had to do for my system to just errr... 'work'. I've switched to kubuntu 2 months ago, and finally I spent more time using my pc for something productive.

On the other hand, as I have started my 'voyage' with linux with gentoo it certainly taught me a lot about how the system works. But then again, one can only be a masochist for a certain period of time...

Re:Proof enough

[derspankster]

I don't want to know everything about Linux. I just want to USE it. I don't work in the business and have no desire to do so. I say hurray for the experts and the expert hobbyists but I'm just a user. Guess that's why I use Ubuntu.

Re:Proof enough

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why are you all putting gentoo and slackware in the same basket.

slackware is an old stable distribution without any of the 'enterprise' nonsense, and especially, without any of the package dependency idiocies that plague most linux and bsd systems. That contributes greatly to its usability, as proved by the hordes of more or less skilled sysadmins that wouln't even consider switching to something else.

gentoo instead is a thing with an agenda, deliberately targetting the 'elite' user, and if you have no time to understand its 'philosophy' and the beauty of Python you're pretty much wasting your time with it, since the distribution would rather stay in your way rather than help you with your work.

Re:Proof enough

[wanderingknight]

(why isn't VLC the default?) Because setting the video player with the crappiest support for soft subtitles imaginable as default would suck a lot.

Re:Proof enough

[mackyrae]

"(why isn't VLC the default?)" Because Totem works fine for pretty much everything. I don't actually know why I install VLC. I've never actually needed to use it. Totem-xine (not gstreamer....gstreamer is crappy for DVDs) always works for me. When I've tried VLC, it failed to play my DVDs.

I'm an Ubuntu user, but I think I'm at least somewhat knowledgeable. I was told to stop answering all the questions in a training session and give the Gentoo user a chance :P

Third with > 33.333% ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Being third while having more than 1/3 of the votes...

Is that like becoming president with less than halve of the votes?

I guess not, one of these things is against the laws.

Novell downturn?

[brejc8]

I keep reading how this MS/Novell agreement is gaining customers but here I can see that:
in 2005 Novell/SUSE got 28%
in 2006 Novell/SUSE got 16%
in 2007 Novell/SUSE got 11.7%

Re:Novell downturn?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are gaining customers but the other distros (especially Ubuntu) are gaining more customers faster.

Re:Novell downturn?

[cp.tar]

Well, that just means Linux is growing so fast that although Novell keeps gaining new customers, several other distros are growing even faster than that.

Re:Novell downturn?

[Ed Avis]

The survey covers how many people are running a particular distribution and replied to the survey, not how many are running a particular distribution, and certainly not how many paid money for it. Novell and other companies are mostly interested in the third number, a bit in the second, and not in the first.

Customers are not people who downloaded a Linux distro gratis. They are people who have paid money for it.

Re:Novell downturn?

[Daimanta]

Yes, that's possible but the importance of SUSE is declining. Not some I would like to report to my boss.

Re:Novell downturn?

[muszek]

Yeah, and there's definitely no correlation between SuSe losing market share according to the same freaking survey as one year ago and sun losing real market share.

Re:Novell downturn?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think so. If anything it's just that huge companies like HSBC and others didn't fill out the survey. Their sales and marketing strategy have been hugely successful in the large enterprise marketplace and in fact have done what Novell set out to do, show that Linux is not some small or fanboy server-centric commodity but a serious operating system. As has been noted the fact is Microsoft dominates the market and to not admit that and include interoperability is foolish. Without collaboration Linux would remain a niche market, but with Novell getting out there it's getting in the press and people are reading about this thing called Linux. Remember, the original IBM PC got into people's homes because dad used it at work. Apple got into people's homes because kids used it at school. Novell Linux is getting into businesses and people are hearing that word "Linux" now so are noting it in the press, at WalMart, on Dell's website, etc. They are advancing at a good pace and definitely helping Linux in ways that otherwise would never have occurred: http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/AQTH07208112007-1.htm

We can only hope that their momentum can keep up and they can keep the MS FUD at bay.

Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

If you fill out the survey, it asks you about anti-virus, and specifically porting bigname AVs to linux.

A few questions I pose:
1) Why do we want the bloaty, slow, pieces of crap that are windows AVs ported to linux?

2) Why do we want to port these, encouraging turning a blind eye to security and letting the AV do the work(such as it is on windows)?
3) Why not just improve support on say, ClamAV?

Re:Problem

[o'reor]

What about those of us who have pointy-haired bosses or BOFHs that try to enforce security policies on all workstations -- both Windows and Linux -- and make the installation of commercial AVs mandatory on Linux workstations ?

Well guess what : those guys are more likely to be heard when they complain about availability of AV programs under Linux, than your average fanboi has when demanding the port of Macromedia or Adobe tools.

What did desktop linux users miss most?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Not surprisingly, the Ubuntu family of Linuxes is the most popular among organizations, at 54.1 percent.
> This was followed by the Red Hat family -- RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux/Fedora/CentOS) -- with 50.2 percent.
> The Novell SUSE group -- SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) and openSUSE -- came in third, with 35.2 percent."

Q: What did desktop linux users miss most?
A: A reliable calculator!

Re:What did desktop linux users miss most?

[MikeUW]

What's so unreliable about kcalc or gcalctool?

Re:What did desktop linux users miss most?

[Anonymous Coward]

'The OP's joke will now be passing over MikeUW's head at 40,000 feet. Stewardesses: please jettison the toilets.' * WOOOOOOSSSSSH *

Re:What did desktop linux users miss most?

[MikeUW]

Sorry...I guess I haven't earned enough airmiles yet.

Re:What did desktop linux users miss most?

[BlueParrot]

Sorry...I guess I haven't earned enough airmiles yet.

Because peopel were allowed to select multiple distributions teh percentages don't add up to 100%. I'm guessing that is what the joke was about.

Re:What did desktop linux users miss most?

[MikeUW]

Phew...thanks for the umbrella - just in time too.

Re:%139.5 ... you're counting wrong

[CrossChris]

With the different OSs around here, we'd score about 1100%.

MOD PARENT UP. Survey found here. Thanks!

[KWTm]

Thank you for providing a link to the survey. The survey was not on the main page; the link there merely led a page that blabbed all about how wonderful it was to have a survey, etc. but didn't point to THE ACTUAL SURVEY. Grrr! (Okay, now that I've said this, someone's going to point out some obvious link to the survey, but I had trouble getting to the survey.)

Anybody here still uses SuSE?

[Billly Gates]

It seems after the microsoft deal that it turned into the plague that infects everything.

What's with linuxfoundation.org?

[_Hellfire_]

linuxfoundation.org appears to be a domain squatter site.

Whois shows:
Last Updated On:26-Oct-2007 19:57:38 UTC

Which is not the same day and month as the creation date, so I'm suspecting either someone has taken this domain over or it wasn't legit in the first place (I don't know as I don't think I've ever been there). Maybe check our links before we post them to the front page on ./? Hits on these types of sites just encourage domain squatting.

Re:%139.5 ... you're counting wrong

[turbidostato]

" I have boxen that run all three."

You maybe have three Linux boxen but by the very use of the word "boxen" you already showed you own no common sense so your opinion is moot and ignored.

PCLinuxOS is first at distrowatch

[bunbuntheminilop]

but gets only 5.4% in this survey. I don't understand what's going on.

Re:PCLinuxOS is first at distrowatch

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither distrowatch nor this survey are representative in any way of how many people are actually using a particular distro. Why is that so hard to understand?

Re:PCLinuxOS is first at distrowatch

[Jussi K. Kojootti]

Can't explain the Distrowatch popularity figures (never could). I think that you'll find that PCLinuxOS is a fairly small player by any other measure though. Try Google Trends search on "Ubuntu,PCLinuxOS" as an example. The flatline at the bottom is PCLinuxOS (and it doesn't look much different if you compare Debian, Red Hat or others).

This survey is biased...

[dermoth666]

I just took this survey earlier today, and after looking at the results it is obvious that it is totally biased.

I'm writing from my phone so I won't go in-depth, but two things that bug me the most:

1: It looks like many home users took the survey, but are being categorized as SOHO's

2: At first it looks like the survey adress both desktop and server usage, but then the questions begin assuming repondent are using Linux on the desktop workstations. This isn't the case in my company, but he results to these questions are being used to show Linux desktop penetration.

I also responded to some questions thinking "servers only" but it end up being both servers and workstation. In an organisation with more employees than servers, all running Windows, this obviously change the result!

I'm not a Linux detractor, quite the opposite, but I'm being honest here. When you do surveys, please ask the right questions and make sure anyone responding to the survey won't bias it if the're not the targetted audience. To me this survey says almost nothing...

Re:This survey is biased...

[Anonymous Coward]

It also requires javascript - lame.

Re:This survey is biased...

[slash.duncan]

While the word I'd use is "skewed", I'd basically agree with you.

There was an original announcement of the survey in the Linux-covering media, and I looked at it but didn't take the survey then, as it seemed only interested in business use. Later, there was additional coverage, asking where all the North American users were, as there had been relatively few such responses to the survey at that point. Most were and still are European, altho the North American response percentage increased from about 10% to about 40%.

Anyway, since they wanted N. Am. responses, I went ahead and filled it out then, doing the "choose the best fitting answer" routine, even where the obvious answer for home users was entirely missing. The best available fit classification was small-office/home-office use, with 1-100 machines. I then had to pick an annual income range, with I think the low end being a million or less. Well, millionaires aren't as uncommon as they used to be, but that's still rather ridiculous for a low end choice on individual income. Again, it's obvious they think all Linux users are corporate, since the announcements asking for participation said nothing about business use only, only Linux use. Later, they asked a question of what my primary business was. Using best-fit logic, I think I originally chose health care, as I reasoned as an individual, the most basic purpose will be to maintain my own health and survive. That ended up conflicting with an answer later, so I went back and picked something else.

The survey is therefore incredibly skewed, because it makes an invalid assumption, that all Linux users are business users, and/or that the home-only user response will be so tiny (due to discouragement based on the obvious slant if nothing else) as to be ignorable.

The non-biz response may have been low enough that the home-user response assumption may have actually been the case in times past, due both to coverage and to obvious slant, but I think this year's was obviously skewed by the second round of coverage, asking for more North American user responses. Given the coverage I saw (including user comments on the stories), I believe it reasonable to assume that at least half of that response rate increase for N America alone was home users. That would work out to ~20% home users, minimum, dramatically skewing the results since it's incredibly obvious they were essentially ignoring the home user when they designed the survey, and didn't intend for home users to respond. Well, then why /ask/ them to respond in general community coverage?

IMO, they therefore got the skewed results they asked for and that could have been predicted given where and how the thing was publicized. No WONDER their SOHO segment jumped so dramatically! No WONDER some of the results don't follow previous trends!

Maybe next year they'll include a home user option and home user appropriate options to the further questions as well. Even if they are entirely uninterested in that segment (it doesn't spend enough money, maybe, because much of it simply downloads the free versions, and doesn't spend on the ISVs either), providing options for it would be wise, as doing so would then allow clean separation of what they consider "noise" from the signal they are really interested in, the big-money corporate accounts.

BTW, I was one of the Gentoo respondents, and put in the comments something else the ISVs etc they are apparently targeting the results for aren't likely to like -- that as far as I'm concerned, if it's not freedomware, if it doesn't allow full use of the four freedoms equally to all users and potential users, it's not a solution I can or will consider. So much for the Adobes of the world and their Linux ports. They might as well be un-wine-able MS-platform only, at a price of a trillion dollars a seat, for all I care -- if they aren't freedomware, they are that far out of usable-here solution scope. (It's a legal matter, see. I no longer sign away my rights, including the right to redress for security issues if I can't see and use the source for software running on my machine, so I can't agree to the EULAs, and the software is therefore not a legally viable solution, even if I DID wish to use it.)

Re:This survey is biased...

[yoof]

I don't see the bias. I just read the first page of the survey. The first question gets how many client/workstations are "in your organization"; the second question is, what percentage of those is each of a short list of OS families (linux, "Windows", BSD, Mac). Presumably Dermoth666 answered "none" (or say 1-5%) for Linux and BSD and "more than 50%" (the high end) for "Windows". So right off the bat, the survey knows that his is not a unix workstation house. The next question asks about how linux is used (he would answer something like "servers"). Questions in a survey can't be taken usefully out of context. None of the later questions can be misleading about workstation linux use if it's already established that there is none at his organization. Good data can be analyzed badly, always, but in this case, competent reporting would be results like "30% of respondents reporting more than 20% linux workstation at organizations with more than 100 workstations said..." etc. -- yoof

Not just that..

[schon]

But does anyone else here see the irony of a Linux survey being hosted on an IIS server?

You're right.

[Almahtar]

No single year will have credit because the change is happening slowly but surely.

Is Linux ready as a desktop? Hell yes.

Are all the 3rd party apps necessary for every customer available on Linux? Hell no!

Is that changing day by day, app by app? Yes.

It's only a matter of time. Standard consumer needs are already being met by desktop distrobutions. Before long the application base will increase and fringe cases will be covered. At that point, an OS will actually have to give you a reason (not "all the apps you want only run on our OS!") to spend money on it. Wouldn't that be nice - them having to earn their money.

Re:You're right.

[monk.e.boy]

I guess I'll get modded down, but in my last job we were forced to program for Windows because that's what everyone uses.

But we move from C++ to C# and suddenly 95% of our code was cross platform. I think you'll find that the more companies that shift to C#, the more software will start appearing on Linux.

Mono is a good thing. OK you may hate if from a 'freedom' point of view, but it sure enabled my program with freedom to move to Linux...

Re:You're right.

[Almahtar]

Do you really believe that C# is more portable than C++?

The only thing that gives it even a hint of appearing to be cross platform is that you're writing using a standard library (the .net api). Such libraries already exist in C++ and have for some time.

C# does not run as well on any other platform as it does on Windows - just a fact. Winforms support is still heavily lacking, etc. I can guarantee it never will, either. .NET is said to be a move towards a cross-platform development stack because Microsoft badly needs to maintain the image of 'playing nice' so they won't get the legal smackdown again, but it never will be fully compatible. Microsoft wants it that way.

You forgot...

[Anonymous Coward]

4. Why not just refrain from installing antivirus, fire up wine and go shopping on some xxx/warez-pages with IE. Then afterwards admire your little virtual zoo in /home/username/.wine . Oh, and don't forget to rename your computer "Typhoid_Mary" and make the wine-folder available to teh internetz.

Medieval people thought of it first, lobbing a diseased cow over the wall. Only difference being our cow can be fired live and survive, though still killing the village, kinda like if it had BSE (or was it BSD?).....mmmmm.....ok scratch the cow, use a GNU or a penguin....can a gnu get BSE?......is BSD GNU?.....AHHHHH!

I wanna make a new distro now based on the above. It shouldn't be "Ubuntu : I am what I am because of what we all are", rather "Schadefreudex : I am what I am because of what everyone else is".

What poll?

[bmo]

I used to care about stuff like this about 10 years ago when I was concerned whether or not this "linux thing" was going to last. I don't, anymore. Linux ain't goin' away. As a daily Linux user and abuser, this is the first time I heard about the poll, after 3 years of its existence and I still don't care.

That's a good thing.

--
BMO

Re:%139.5 ... you're counting wrong

[civilizedINTENSITY]

I don't know, this box runs ubuntu and damn small linux and WinXP at the same time. Thank you VMWare!

mod this down but...

[gzipped_tar]

Funny the web site carrying the survey forms seemed to be running MS Active $erver Page Framework

Re:mod this down but...

[slash.duncan]

Funny/ironic* maybe, but as it's outsourced to a third party web survey company, and that web survey company happens to run MS platform, still understandable in this day and age of outsourcing.

Still, one would think they could find another solution provider running on a more suitable if only for appearances platform.

The problem is, this is apparently the first year the survey has made it to the popular media, and it shows in a multitude of ways. The server platform is one. That they seem to have not considered the possibility of actual home Linux users, designing the survey for business use only, even tho the announcement said nothing of that fact and was carried widely in the more general Linux-tech media, is perhaps the bigger one. The results are heavily skewed as a result. See comments I and others make elsewhere.

* Being one who sees language as dynamic, I'm a descriptivist, and see the examples in the song "Ironic" as just that, because that's the popular usage of the term, making it correct by definition, in dynamic language terms.

Counting twice makes perfect sense

[The Monster]

User 1: Ubuntu installed 97 times, RHEL installed 1 time
User 2: Ubuntu installed 1 time
User 3: RHEL installed 1 time

s/User/Organization/g
Organization 1's IT staff must possess competency to run both Ubuntu and RHEL; Org 2 only needs to know Ubuntu; Org 3 only RHEL. The number of machines with each distro isn't awfully important unless it's a really huge entity, and they're able to confine the expertise to smaller teams (e.g. the server admins know RHEL but the Helldesk techs only know Ubuntu). The survey reflects this institutional investment.

He has a point

[DesScorp]

"The year of Linux on the desktop is never."

The parent poster is trolling, but he has a point...there are several factors that insure Linux will not be a dominant desktop anytime soon.

Ironically, some of those factors are the very reasons that Linux is so popular among computer rebels....the nearly unlimited choices they have. The problem is that one of those choices is the choice of GUI. Linux users will never agree on anything, much less unite on a single GUI to use. Until there is one kernel, one filesystem, one GUI on the majority of distros, most OEM's wont install Linux, and most commercial software companies won't write software for it either.

Companies (and people) like simplicity. Windows has a standard interface. OS X has a standard interface. Linux does not. We won't even get into the issues with GPL topics (and just as importantly, the demands by Linux users that all software be free as in beer; the successes here have been few on a large scale, and mostly with games by ID software).

Will more people be adopting Linux on the desktop? Yes. Will the general public in the US and Europe ever make Linux adoption as wide as say, the Mac? No. Linux on the desktop will largely stay in the realm of "power users" and academics.

I bet if you took a survey on Slashdot, you'd find far fewer Linux desktop users than you might think. Just about everyone runs Linux in the data center...but on the desktop?

Re:He has a point

[boxxertrumps]

I use linux on my desktop... The only thing i need windows for is WoW and raiding Habbo Hotel.

Re:He has a point

[wanderingknight]

If you never educate the users about the fact that they have a choice, how the hell do you expect them to choose? That's the beauty of Linux: Freedom. You're not tied to a single GUI. It's not about desktop environment competition (even if some few people seem to think it is), it IS about choice. The problem is, the regular public is not educated to choose, they're educated to use whatever comes with the PC. It's no wonder that Microsoft's greatest strength are OEM retailers, because people don't choose: they buy whatever comes with the "Computer". Hell, they don't even know what an OS is, and most Joe Averages that have ever heard about a Mac seem to believe there's some kind of voodoo magic that makes them not a PC (and, sadly, Apple exploits this and makes use of it in their advertisement campaigns).

People need to be educated. They must learn there ARE choices.

Re:He has a point

[trailnut]

The troubling issue revolving around whether or not Linux will become more than just a choice for the "power user" is the lack of enthusiam by many people for investigating challenges related to learning how to install and use a different operating system.

The current mantra in technology circles appears to be "make it easy to use and the user will flock to your doorstep." Instead, why not highlight the sense of accomplishment that comes from identifying an issue, investigating the facts, and developing a workable solution? Does every aspect of computer design need to relate around the assumption that the average user has no interest in problem solving?

Hardware incompatibility? Learn to find information in forums on the web, learn to utilize a search engine in a more effective way. Need a specific program to accomplish a task? Go out and discover whether or not one exists and whether or not it will fulfill your need.

It's disheartening to think that most people are not at least a little bit excited by a challenge. True, many will claim there is simply no time in their lives to spend working out a software or hardware bug. Conversely, one could argue that there are plenty of folks (myself included) who really enjoy identifying a need and finding (or creating) a workable solution. Personal computers are seen as a tool to accomplish a task; I offer the opinion that the tool itself provides a sense of enjoyment and accomplishment when tuned and tweaked to meet my needs.

_Ubuntu_ family?

[Punto]

Shouldn't that be Debian family? Knoppix is also a somewhat popular desktop (at least it was at some point), and it's not exactly ubuntu, so it's not just a purist's argument (at least that's my excuse).

Re:_Ubuntu_ family?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they are talking Ubuntu and her kids. (see http://www.osml.eu/files/linux_timeline.png)

Proprietary Apps

[JoeCommodore]

When I got to the proprietary apps question I realized I don't really want to see any of those on Linux.

It was a realization that either Open Office and other Linux apps are already doing a good enough job for what I or my office would need, or I would rather those who do use those particular apps to convert their documents to support more open formats.

I did write in one though, Print Shop. Maybe KreetingKard Card will improve.

Re:Poofed enough

[noshellswill]

Well no crap butt-head. A computer user PAYS the OS ( if only opportunity costs ) to, duh ... operate-the-system. If some slut-faced Slackmolian weiner_dude insists on sticking his thumbs into the mix then that's his problem. We really don't need him to continue breathing regular. Eh ?

Bad link

[Anonymous Coward]

Although I'm sure everyone here doesn't need a link to remember the URL. . .

The link to the Linux Foundation in TFS is broken, it links to http://www.linuxfoundation.org/. A true slashdotter would know that it's http://www.linux-foundation.org/.

Re:Idiots

[handydan918]

Some guy said that if you built a system idiots could use, only idiots would use it... I think it was Linus Torvalds...

Wrong address

[bigblackcar]

The right address for the foundation is http://www.linux-foundation.org/ Please correct. The other domain is the usual parked domain full of ads...

Skype, Windows Media Player - WTF?!

[Anonymous Coward]

From https://www.linux-foundation.org/en/2007ClientSurveyResults (English results):

13. Which Windows applications would you like to see ported to a Linux environment to enable Linux desktop/client deployments? (Select all that apply)
Adobe Photoshop - 47.1%
...
Skype - 17.3%
...
Solitaire - 2.0%
Windows Media Player - 10.1%
Windows Movie Maker - 3.7%
Norton AntiVirus - 3.5%
McAfee VirusScan - 3.8%


14. Which best represents your plans for running or replacing Windows applications on a Linux desktop/client?
Use virtualization and run native Windows applications - 31.5% 2511
Use a compatibility layer (e.g. WINE) to run Windows applications on Linux - 31.5%

That's right! Emulate Windows and run Skype and Media Player! And don't forget Solitaire!

Re:Idiots

[marcosdumay]

That is ok. We have thousands of distros, one of them can be exclusive for idiots.

But that doesn't really apply to Ubuntu. It is (yet) so customizable that non-idiots can use it too.

Re:Idiots

[Ginger Unicorn]

yeah but it's a false dichotomy. so there's a distribution that idiots can use. that doesnt impact anyone who wants a distro that idiots can't use. that's the beauty of software freedom. you can have your cake and eat it.

and linux isnt "bloated". linux is the kernel. individual distros maybe considered "bloated" by people who want a stripped down single purpose box but there is absolutely NOTHING stopping these people from simply using a distro that exhibits that property.

Playing catch-up

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe if Teh Lunis had bothered to take the time and code it right the first time around, he wouldn't have to keep updating it all the time.

Why rush to get Teh Lunix, since there is just going to be another version out in another three months? I'll hold off until it's ready for prime-time. And... seeing as how they are STILL chasing Windows 95's tail lights... it's going to be a loooooooong time.

There's no compelling reason to use Teh Lunix on Teh Desktop.

Re:Playing catch-up

[cerberusss]

There's no compelling reason to use Teh Lunix on Teh Desktop.

No, not at all if you forget viruses, malware, spyware and reboots after a patch.

Parent is Flaimbait

[Dan Ost]

And one hundred minions testing for subtle and not so subtle bugs that arise on each of those compilations.

What are you talking about? It's not like compiling from source is some black art only known to gurus and initiates.

Using an ebuild that's been marked stable in portage is no more risky or unreliable than using an .rpm or .deb.

WTF? Where is QA/testing?

[gosand]

How come in the "What is your job within your company or organization?" section, the only thing around software development is "software developer"? Where is software QA/test? And why is this such an overlooked part of software development? I've been doing it for 13 years, and it always seems to be the thing that is overlooked the most often before going out the door, yet is always the scapegoat when things go wrong. Why is it so hard to get out of the land of "programming" and into the world of "software engineering"?

Maybe it all depends on who is making up the survey.

Poor UI in survey - no thought of accessibility

[myvirtualid]

Imagine my surprise when I visited the survey and could not see the selection boxes or radio buttons for answering the questions.

Oh, silly me, I have my browser set to "ignore colours specified on web pages"...

...because it is easier for me to read and I get fewer headaches, that's why.

Don't get me wrong: I run Linux on every machine I possibly can, and if I could completely dispense with Windows, I would. But the major "they/we still don't get it" feature of the FLOSS world is the (apparent) "our way or the highway" perspective when it comes to information presentation and UI design/layout.

It's like the bad old days of mackytacky just won't go away - remember when the first Macs came out, and soon everyone had these crazy resumes with 10 different fonts and 12 different point sizes, just 'cause they could?

FWIW, while it's getting better, IMHO MS and Apple and good web designers take usability preferences and accessibility concerns far more to heart, generally speaking, than FLOSS GUI and web designers.

Number is for English responses

[r_jensen11]

Aggregate the languages to get the total number.

DESKTOP Linux survey

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps it is biased towards desktop Linux because well, it is a "Desktop Linux Survey," as it clearly says.

To beat MS...

[WebCowboy]

...Linux has to play the MS game.

As has been noted the fact is Microsoft dominates the market and to not admit that and include interoperability is foolish.

Equally as foolish is to sacrifice standards to the dominant player. The risk with Novell's "deal with the devil" is that is could subjugate them to MS. If they roll over and accept MS' assertion that their patents are valid, or toil on projects to implement proprietary components of the .NET framework, or any other manner of invented-by-MS initiative, the result is that MS remains in control of the computing environment. If effort is made to entrench technology already embraced by MS, all the easier for MS to extend it. It is MS' goal to be able to say "sure we have no problem with Linux..in fact here is this SuSE one that we endorse so try it out", then once they've got something in place they can come in again and say "looks like Linux doesn't meet all your needs--try our Windows server with these new MS-only extensions!"

In short, cooperation has to be balanced with competition.

Without collaboration Linux would remain a niche market, but with Novell getting out there it's getting in the press and people are reading about this thing called Linux.

Novell has to go further than offer collaboration--they have to beat MS at its own game and offer something compelling to the PHB's of the corporate world that MS doesn't have (i.e. they must "out extend" Microsoft) or else their agreement with MS will do more harm than good. They have to be able to use whatever advantage they can within their agreement to compete agressively with Microsoft. I'd like to see them aggressively develop and market a "Reporting Services fro PostgreSQL" that would appeal to MS SQL Server users looking to upgrade, plus add useful "extended reporting features" to lock them out of MSRS. I'd like to see "the next Groupwise on Linux" and offer a migration path from Exchange that is as easy or easier than upgrading to newer Exchange and work better. Ideally I'd like it to all be Free software but I'd love to see this happen even if it wasn't.

Of course, all of this would depend on if they can find that useful hammer in the Toolbox MS has offered--if the agreement precludes them from doing this (or requires Novell to pay royalties so MS can benefit too much) then there is no hammer to nail MS with. Hope there is though, 'cause right now Novell doesn't offer anything markedly compelling to end users that Red Hat can't offer, except for anger and concern in the Linux world over these dealings with MS, which will contribute to further dwindling market share.

Consumers have no other choice but Windows

[Yfrwlf]

Why does it seem like everyone is so blind to this fact? Microsoft is violating anti-trust laws like crazy, their agreements with companies to force Vista down everyone's throat is appalling, just go to any common PC vendor and gaze in wonder at their similarity. If I read one more "We recommend Vista Crap Version" I'm going to puke. If true competition were actually allowed into the marketplace, all these companies would offer consumers the ability to save by either not having ANY OS installed, or by offering a free OS, and it would be RIGHT ALONGSIDE VISTA. I'm sick that Microsoft has pushed this on all these companies in return for these companies being *allowed* to sell their OS and allowed to keep their so-called "discounts" from Microsoft. Competition is broken, consumers are deprived and taken advantage of, and it's flat wrong. When are the courts going to step in and kick their ass for this behavior?
 
...and don't try to tell me customers wouldn't jump at the opportunity to save $50-150 by having a free OS that can do most everything they need, or that there is ANY reason whatsoever for them not to have a no OS option. If the market was fixed, MS would be in the dumps.

Re:Consumers have no other choice but Windows

[Chili-71]

This is not an advertisement, but shop online at Dell and you can get Windows XP Home/Pro installed on your new PC instead of Vista. Just ask for it. Dell is one of the few companies that are willing to provide their clients with what they want. Sure, Dell has to say, "We recommend Vista", but they don't force it down your throat.

I don't care much for Windows, but unfortunately we sometimes don't have a choice. I am an avid on-line gamer and since all the games are currently ported to either Windows with a smaller share also ported to Mac, I don't have the option of running Call of Duty on Ubuntu or any other Linux distro.

Re:Consumers have no other choice but Windows

[Yfrwlf]

It's buried very deeply on Dell's site. It may as well not exist at all for most consumers. They will have no idea where to look. What my argument is is that there is NO reason whatsoever for Dell and all the others not to offer a "No OS" option, at the very least, and the effort they'd need to put forth by offering Linux is extremely minimal, as minimal as they care to make it actually to the point of not offering any support whatsoever, even though there are many companies that would love to do support for them.