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Is Apple Killing Linux on the Desktop?
Domains May Disappear writes "Chris Howard has an interesting commentary at Apple Matters on recent trends in OS market share that says that while OS X has seen continual growth, from 4.21% in Jan 2006 to 7.31% in December 2007 at the same time, Linux's percentage has risen from only 0.29% to 0.63%. The reasons? 'Apple has Microsoft Office, Linux doesn't; Apple has Adobe Creative Suite, Linux doesn't; Apple has easily accessed and easy to use service and support, Linux doesn't; Apple is driven by someone who has some understanding of end-user needs, Linux is not,' says Howard. 'Early in the decade it seemed that if you wanted a Windows alternative, Linux was it. Nowadays, an Apple Mac is undoubtedly the alternative and, with its resurgence and its Intel base, a very viable one.'"
When it came time for me to buy a new machine, and I was dead set against another Windows box, I bought a Mac. It gave me the best of both worlds. I get most of the best non-GUI Linux packages (or at least most of the best) via the BSD ports collection, a number of Linux GUI packages with Apple's X interface, great integration of virtualized Windows applications with Parallels, all the Mac specific software, and the Apple store is a 5-minute drive away if I need more help than I can get online.
I can run Linux in Bootcamp or Parallels, so if I really want something only Linux can deliver, I can have that too.
Mac is sort of the "universal platform", IMO, and a year later, I consider it a very worthwhile investment.
Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Linux market share has increased by 117%, while Apple's increase is only 74%.
I liked Linux and was slowly switching until I got to see how nice OS X was and became (as it was released/updated). There is a very good chance I spent most of my time on Linux at this point if it wasn't for OS X. My brother is probably the same was, as are many others in small IT department I work at. OS X provides us the unixy goodness we love (command line and such), with a great GUI that's easy to use and commercial software and things "just working". I've been on a Mac for a few years now, yet I still discover nice little things (like my Mac keeps separate mute statuses for when I have headphones plugged in and not plugged in, so it adjusts automatically as soon as I plug my headphones in.)
If you are not a hardcore FOSS person who wants the source to everything they run... OS X provides a fantastic environment for a great many people.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Honestly, I have never thought of calling my operating system manufacturer for support.
Perhaps it's because I work in IT, and I'm smarter than your average Tier 1 support monkey... But I can't imagine a normal person saying "I can't connect to the Internet, let me call Microsoft".
Then again, I could be completely off base.
if there's one feature about Ubuntu that I love more than my Mac is that you can install a TON of applications from Synaptic or via the awesome Add/Remove app. OSX on the other hand, if you want to install some new piece of software, be prepared to pay for it, or to get a really useless trial version.
The reason people are buying mac is because they want something new, and when it comes to purchasing a computer your only choices are OSX and Vista for most people. I'd bet anything that if we saw more linux pcs at stores like best buy and walmart, the cheaper linux PC would CLOBBER in sales, because people really do care about cost.
VMWare will not run Mac OSX. Well, it will but not very well.
First off, it's not supported by VMWare (I've heard due to legal reasons but I don't know for sure). So there are no VMWare tools and it runs rather slow. Plus I couldn't get sound or networking to work at all. Sound I can happily live without but no networking + the extreme sluggishness made it completely useless.
If you've gotten OSX to work with networking, sound and no sluggishness then please correct me and link to a "how to" because I would love to get it working.
Ha, I own one for that exact reason: it's the best machine for me, a non-Windows, Java/Python/C programmer, that I've found. To each their own, I guess.
I think this is an important detail. While OS X may compete in some peoples minds in the desktop realm, in actual fact they are complimentary. While some OSS advocates may decry OS X as "proprietary", the fact is that Apple releases a lot of the core of their OS as OSS, uses a lot of OSS software in OS X, and they embrace standards (as opposed to trying to co-opt them).
What this means in practical terms is that OS X and Linux integrate together quite easily. For example, stick netatalk and Avahi on a Linux system, and you have a really easy and Mac-friendly file-server.
I won't claim that Apple is always perfect, but at least it's fairly easy to use OS X with other OSs, especially when it comes to Linux.
(I've had the thought int he back of my mind for some time that if I had the time and resources, I'd love to fork a Linux distro to create a Mac-friendly-Linux distro. All the parts are there -- it just takes someone to put them all together).
Yaz.
Yes, thank you! For every barrier in Linux desktop adoption there are ten thousand Linux ideologues insisting that the barrier is a good thing, and you are just stupid if you can't deflibberate your cronoodleblitz.
I ran exclusively Linux on desktop and laptop for 3 years. I ran Gentoo. I deflibberated many many cronoodleblitzen. I loved it. Still love it. Still manage 6 Gentoo servers.
I currently run Leopard an a Macbook Pro.
Sorry, but TFA's right. I run CS3; I develop in Eclipse; I have Terminal open almost all the time; I run Parallels w/convergence and effortlessly run Access databases with no library/3rd party control weirdness such as WINE/Crossover gave me.
My business needs are broad. I live in a mixed Mac/Windows/Linux office environment. I commonly am required to mix graphics design, database, and server work all together into one project (image personalization, data scrubbing, variable data printing, bulk snail-mail processing). I need all the above tools. I could do almost all of the above in Linux, and spend hours being unproductive while I was just trying to make things work. Or I can just use a Mac.
Someday, when life is simple for me again, I may go back to Linux on the laptop. (As it is, I occasionally fire up an Kubuntu VM in Parallels for certain things). But until then, I am very content with OS X.
Mir tut es leid, Menschen daß Einfältigfehlersuchenbaumfolgendenaffen sind.
Being Windows Vista the crap that it is, I don't understand why Apple doesn't release a Mac OS X version for the PC.
Because Windows suffers for its "it'll run on damn near anything" design. It's designed for lowest common denominator, and it's impossible to test every possible combination of hardware.
Mac OS X has the "it just works" reputation it does because it's written for very specific hardware and can take full advantage of all the capabilities of that hardware. As soon as you can install OS X on any shitbox you can cobble together, you lose that.
The closest you'd ever get would be like the post-black-hardware NeXTSTEP days, when the OS supported certain motherboards, CD drives, etc, and you had to use what was on the NeXTSTEP HCL, or you were SOL. But don't hold your breath-- since Apple makes most of their money from hardware sales, they'd be cutting their own throat. Like when they allowed Mac clones and the cloners nearly bled them to death.
~Philly
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
TextMate is a wonderful editor, tell me an equivalent on Linux.
The Apple Developer tools are said to be excellent, but I've not tried them.
3rd party development environments like Unity blow away their windos and Linux counterparts.
You may not personally like it, but there are enough programmers using Macs on a daily basis that your claim "for a programmer it's an annoyance" is solidly debunked.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I bought a Dell Vostro 1400 with a Core 2 Duo, 2 gigs of ram, 14" 1440x900 gloss screen, 120gb HD, 2 Megapixel webcam, Bluetooth, 11g Wifi and DVD Burner for $650 last year.
Apple's nearest competitor doesn't come with a high resolution screen. To me, Apple just can't compete on price, nor is its software compelling enough to switch.
Can I get an eye poke?
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