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.'"

Comments

Re:only if the user can afford to...

[betterunixthanunix]

That depends on what you are doing. If you are doing CPU-bound stuff, Linux wins for wasting fewer CPU cycles on bouncy icons...

Re:my rebuttal

[Reverend528]

Macports eventually gets the job done most of the time and has about 1/4th of the packages that the debian apt repositories. Call me when your OS grows up.

Re:my rebuttal

[peragrin]

Not to be mean but Ubuntu, and Red hat have 1/4 of the pacakges of Debian apt suppositories.

Secrets and lies

[maclizard]

When people say Linux doesn't have something, its because they are lying.

Re:hmmm

[prockcore]

Why do I care? I'm anti-closed source, not anti-microsoft. OSX is a closed system built on the backs of open source programmers.

That is LAME

[zappepcs]

Guess what!!! some people don't mind paying for software. Especially if it is good software. WARNING: Automobile analogy imminent!

Uhmmm, Guess what? some people don't mind paying for automobiles, especially if they are good automobiles. The trouble, my friend, is that not everyone can afford a new high end Hummer, BMW, Lexus, or [your favorite expensive car here]. There is a huge number of cheaper automobiles on the road for a reason. MOST people don't need Photoshop, they need a photo organizer and written instructions on how to connect their camera to the computer.

In the LARGEST portion of home computer use requirements, the Mac does nothing better than a Linux system can, nor does a Windows system for that matter. When users can make an informed decision, Linux is the best option for a huge number of people. Don't tell me that Linux is difficult to use or learn. I know better than to fall for that stupid argument. There is a huge number of home computer users that don't know how to use Windows or OSX, so they will struggle along with whatever OS is on their computer despite your arguments.

The sales issue stem from brand recognition (or lack of) and the sales person's quota target or incentive scheme. Instead of getting Ubuntu for their current hardware, people want to enjoy the feeling of an 'upgrade' since we (MS) have been telling them this is the best way to get better performance for years if not decades. With that buried in the general public's social subconscious, the trip to the store results in a Wintel purchase or a Mac purchase, depending on which guru in a sales uniform they talk to.

Re:That is LAME

[doom]

Linux is a pain in the ass to learn and use. Every distro has things in all sorts of places, there is no consistency, NONE.

Right. Well, my roomate was trying to get started with a new iBook recently, and being The Computer Guy, I got recruited to try to help her with it. Despite the rainbow stripe of pretty-pretty hieroglyphics stretching across the screen, there didn't seem to be a web browser in the lot. (What she really wanted to see, of course, was a big widget on the desktop labeled "Internet"... wouldn't that be "consistent", "standard", "easy to use", etc, etc?). So I went poking around on the harddrive (which I know how to do, but she, of course does not) and I go looking through an "Applications" folder (or whatever) and I happen to note that "Safari" is there. Since I happen to be a Computer Guy, I dimly remember that this is what Apple named their web browser... this is, needless to say, not something that a normal, sane, human being would be expected to know. So, I go and create a desktop short cut for her to run Safari, and she's reasonably happy with that.

There are, however, other things she's not happy with, that I can't figure out. She needs to travel between different places, with different internet configurations with this computer (which is, after all, a laptop), and she needs to be able to switch between having a DSL line and doing a phone dial-up. We go blundering around in various Wizards (or whatever apple calls them) and with a suprising quantity of work, I can get it configured to work in one location. It appears we need to go back into Wizard-land every time she switches her internet configuration. This doesn't make any sense -- it strikes me as a near impossibility that Apple didn't allow for different network connection profiles, and provide some easy way (perhaps automatic?) of switching between the two, but whatever it is, I certainly couldn't figure it out.

The point being, of course: how is this sort of shit any better than linux, really?

And a secondary point, being: how is it that Apple-fanatics manage to remain quiet about all of these stupid little problems, and keep swearing that it's Great Great Great (until the stupid little problem is fixed, then they want credit for how Great it is that it's been fixed -- "hey, you can buy a multi-button mouse now!").

Interesting

[ratboy666]

Because I have NEVER HEARD of those programs.

"Office, Scrivener, Coda, the Adobe suite, Garage Band, iMovie, and iDVD."

Well, not true. By "Office" I presume you mean that useless piece of shite sold by Microsoft. Ok, I have even tried to USE that. That was the word processor that self-immolated when I played with the cursor keys too much (adjusting a table). Never could figure that one... Oh, it ate the document when it happened...

The rest I actually have to "Google":

Scrivener: An editor. With an integrated cork board. And a "vi mode". For fourty bucks. Of course, its from "Literature and Latte".

The Adobe Suite: um... "creative tools for quiche eaters". I went there, and indicated what I do... Here it is: Go to the Product Selector: I create images for publication (graphics, diagrams, I mostly use the troff set currently), also I generally use Tex so I choose Design/Print Publishing; I do simple Web pages (mostly information publication, static web) and a bit of UI design (what use is software WITHOUT a user interface, after all?). And, I prefer the UI to be "behind" either Apache with CGI or TCL/TK, because I hate the work. So I choose WEB/Web Developement and WEB/User interface Design. I don't really deal with Photography (other than tossing JPEG files into a movie or onto the web) so I have no picks in that category. I do author DVDs (simple shite, mostly I just use boilerplate and go), so I choose Video/DVD-authoring. And TADA, the fucking quiche eaters want two thousand five hundred dollars.

Garage Band - Have you EVER heard me "podcast". No? There is a reason.
iMovie, iDvd - Not what I do with computers. But, ok, the ONLY sensible thing here. Make family DVDs. But... why don't I just go and buy a direct-to-DVD camcorder, and give the mess to my 17 year old nephew?

So, with Garage Band, iMove and iDvd you have something that will interest my nephew. With a 2500 dollar price tag on the Adobe software, you have something that I will never buy, given that my use is simple, and WORKS NOW. With the recommendation of "Office" -- well that CAN'T be a recommendation, because I have actually used the product and it is shite (Outlook good, Word, Excel, PowerPoint - Shite).

This is going to convince me that an Apple OSX system is worth buying? Maybe you have convinced me to buy one for the nephew, though...

Although I *did* see a feature of the OSX that I liked -- the transparent terminal...

Come on, flame away! I am utterly sure that the Mac Fanbois can't hold back...

This is false.

[Mahjub Sa'aden]

I keep hearing this, and I wonder how grounded in reality the comment is.

All I can contribute is that I was laptop shopping today, and out of curiosity I looked at PC vs Mac prices. As far as I can tell, Mac laptops are + $600 or so for the same spec laptop.

If you're willing to pay extra for the Apple experience or whatever, fine, that's cool. But let's not pretend Macs are at price parity when they're not. Nothing Apple sells is at price parity with comparable products from other vendors.

I'm the Pope!

[primedevastator]

I don't know if apple is really killing linux.. I think it's not possible counter something like linux.. but I am sure about ONE thing.. while you wroted this post you had at least two fingers in your asshole. greetings!