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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.'"
linux has apt, apple doesn't;
Badass Resumes
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
Obviously Apple Matters is going to have a bias towards OS X and that should be taken into account. However, that said we've been reducing both our Windows and Linux systems in favor of OS X for some time now for many of the reasons outlined in the referenced article.
I'd like to add in another reason why Linux is not growing as fast as OS X use: fragmented distros. Supporting multiple flavors of Linux is simply a pain in the ass and the typical end user of Linux is likely to have their own preference (Red Hat, Yellow Dog, Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc...etc...etc... In fact, last time I looked there were over 1000 different flavors of Linux and BSD and with the exception of OS X (a descendent of BSD) every single flavor that I've tried out of that 1000 all required significant effort just to get the OS up and running with wireless networks, not to mention all the various voodoo required for the printer support.
No, for me it is all about getting work done and I don't want the OS getting in my way or becoming an impediment to accomplishing things and I don't want to have to spend time with all of our students on various flavors of Linux. In retrospect, the last project that we worked on with a contractor got developed for Red Hat and in terms of system support, backup, management and more I really wish we had developed it for OS X now. That is not to say that we will not develop our algorithms cross platform, as that is our goal to release them totally open source, but for anything that is going to be developed for intensive use or for further development it is going on OS X and taking advantage of all the platform specific pleasantries such as Cocoa, Core Image, Core Animation, Quartz and more.
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As I've said for awhile, that comparison is only valid if your own time is worthless...
"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.'"
Actually, the Mac has *always* been a more productive platform than both Windows and Linux for most typical users. It's just Apple's recent resurgence that's getting folks to actually try it out.
E pluribus unum
Linux market share has increased by 117%, while Apple's increase is only 74%.
OS X sales can be counted, Linux downloads more or less can't.
Also, those must be US-only figures, surely? OSX 7%!?
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
I'm a programmer at a university, and when my boss asked me what type of laptop I wanted, I chose a MacBook Pro because of OS X. I can run all of the normal OS X applications, compile and/or run almost all Unix tools, and virtualize Windows (2000) for when I need to run something in Windows. It's the perfect platform, and you're seeing a lot of more technically adept people move to it for that reason. Is OS X perfect? No, but it really is easy to use, and it means I don't have to fight with my computer when I want to do something unusual. Is there a price premium? Yes, but my employer paid for it, so ha.
I expect we'll be migrating ~150 or so Linux desktops to OS X over the next several years. Linux is nice and will remain in production for our back-end servers and for computational clustering, but it's more expensive to support than OS X and supports commercial software the user community wants. This is at a technical university on the east coast.
I really enjoy the Ask Slashdot questions that are yes/no.
From 4.21% to 7.31% is an increase of ~73% of market share for the mac.
From 0.29% to 0.63% is an increase of ~117% of market share for linux.
Isn't that a bigger victory for linux?
The relative market share increase of linux being about 1.5 times that of the mac...
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
But isn't OS-X...under the Aqua interface basically a *nix platform? So in a way, can't we possibly...if we wanted to be REALLY anal about it and help shove it down the throat of M$.... claim that with the migration of the Apple OS to the OS X platform from the classic OS (os 9 and prior), that we have actually dramatically INCREASED the adoption of *nix on the Desktop??
I see Apple iPods on the street every day. I see Apple iPhones on the TV constantly. I know Apple is the company to buy my technology from, because everyone else does. Therefore, when I come to make a purchase as boring as a new PC, I know Apple will make one I want to buy.
Sincerely, the average consumer.
"If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever." - George Orwell, 1984
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.
It's much easier to measure OS X adoption since most of it is just purchases of Mac computers. It's impossible to do the same with Linux. Who knows how many Linux users there are out there. I've never registered my copy of Linux, for one.
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
"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."
Well gee, that doesn't sound like APPLE is killing Linux on the desktop. That sounds like Microsoft, Adobe, and Linux itself is killing Linux on the desktop.
Then again, are people really buying Apple so they can run Microsoft Office and Adobe...? I tend to doubt it. The last two points are a little more valid than the first two, but that isn't something that Apple is doing WRONG, as the headline implies. That's something that Linux is doing wrong. Or, at least, that is how it is being perceived by many would-be end users.
The Macintosh started with a larger user base. Taking that into account, the percentage of increase is 25% larger for Linux than for OS X.
Take heart: Apple is actually killing Linux slightly less than it used to.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
1. The enemy of my enemy is my friend
2. Linux will get cool stores, too
3. OOO is just as good as MS Office
4. KDE 5 will look just like Aqua
5. Gimp and Adobe work alike.
No, it's not flamebait, just reality.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
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.
When the trend is UPWARDS, I.E. when Linux is being used MORE than before, then why does it make sense to use the word 'killing'? Surely if the trend was downwards this would be sensible, but not the other way around?
And also.. it's very easy to blame others for your problems. What problems are those? Well, they are the plusses of Apple's and Microsoft's solutions. They are those software or productivity suites that those respective companies have which Linux does not have. It is not Apple or Microsoft's fault they have those things as much as it is Linux's fault for NOT having them, or for what they do have simply not being as good. You can only blame yourself for what you lack in comparison to what is the widely accepted and used norm.
It's all a geek dream anyway, that people doing work for free is going to somehow outperform people who do their jobs to get paid and rely on that payment to sustain the quality of living they are used to. Not to mention that during this time that the people are writing free software they have to be working for a living; working on other projects and with other distractions. It just doesn't add up that Linux could be better than Apple, or even Microsoft, despite how completely fucked Vista seems to be so far.
Now, I know there are many ways you can tear up the logic in this post, and I freely encourage you to do so. But ultimately what you need to do is explain why, if my logic is flawed, the situation is as it remains today.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Linux comes with a fully features graphical editing tool which is lovingly called the Graphical Image Manipulation Program. Apple and Windows are packaged with bare bones, stripped down graphical editing tools.
The point is, "Linux" is a lot more than just the Kernel is nobody is "Killing" it. Ever.
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
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.
Believe it or not, I just bought a MacBook and one of my considerations was price. Comparably equipped PC notebooks were more expensive. I don't think that price is really a consideration anymore.
I took one look at the statistic and thought: Wtf?
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=8
0.12% of all devices that access the internet are IPhones? How many did they sell?
0.63% for Linux, which means that only six times as many Linux computers are used to access the internet as IPhones.
About one persent for Linux and about seven for Mac: I would buy that. Sounds reasonable, since many open source guys I know use a Mac for desktop stuff.
But with those numbers for the IPhone the numbers look more like something someone pulled out of their a**. Plus all the computer lab computers at our universities got converted to Linux over the past years. And our university is not Linux friendly in any way. So I imagine that this would happen at many universities and colleges.
These are all the reasons Microsoft gives for using their product, and I expect if their product wasn't riddled with bugs and annoyances, you'd be a closed MS shop.
I think the bottom line is that Linux is, and always will be, a bit of a hobbyist and/or experimentalist bleeding edge platform. It's like the difference between commercial radio and amateur (ham) radio: the former is all about "getting work done," as you say, and so it's streamlined, standardized, and widespread. The latter is about experimenting with new ways of doing stuff, about cooking it up at home by yourself, about trying out your individual creative thoughts and ideas. So it's idiosyncratic, quirky, customizable, and thinly spread.
Each has its place, of course. Without streamlined standardized production platforms, people trying to get stuff done who don't give a hoot about computers and software would be endlessly frustrated. Without weird individual experimentation, advancement stagnates. (I don't doubt that one of the reasons OS X is so much more useful than, say, OS 9 or, God forbid, that bombing monster Mac OS, is because it was goosed by Linux coming up fast from behind.)
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.
Apple's increase from 4.21% to 7.31% is (7.31-4.21)/(4.21) = 73.6 % relative growth in market share
Linux's increase from 0.29% to 0.63% is (.063 - .029)/(0.29) = 117.2% relative growth
So actually, Linux grew faster over the period in question. Though I am deeply suspicious of anyone who claims to calculate market share to three significant figures.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Fink is a package manger based on debian aptget. there's thousands of free packages there. and because the mac environment is so homogeneous they build seamlessly without surprises, many downloadable in binary form. works great from the command line or from the gui. Easy to keep up-to-date
then there's darwin ports and a gnu-darwin if you want other package managers.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Most people I knew to run Linux did not run it for the costs (me including). It is a tool of the trade and my optimal working environment. So 500$ is not going to phase me if it does the job. Windows simply does not.
As far as the article, frankly it is based on the "optimistic" stats. A while ago there was another article on Slashdot which was on Vista vs MacOSX based on browser usage. It had some striking stats. A nearly direct correlation between "all others" and MacOS growth along with no correlation between Windows XP decrease. Essentially looking at those stats it was clearly obvious that the primary source of MacOS growth in the beginning were not Windows converts, but Unix converts:
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=5
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Mac OS X is the success of Unix on the desktop, period.
There are a lot of geeks who are reluctant to admit it, though. Most people pinned their hope on Linux + GNOME/KDE for delivering us from evil. While GNOME and KDE brought Unix miles ahead in terms of GUI usability, neither matched the elegance and power of the NeXTSTEP interface developed years before; the evolution from NeXTSTEP to OS X has further secured this lead.
The defeat of their favorite candidate for Unix GUI Savior left many geeks unwilling to even consider or support the idea of OS X as a real Unix, as an improvement to Windows or existing Unix GUIs, etc. Sour grapes, basically. The whole experiment goes to show that in software, as in government, in the ideal case you want a well-backed tyrant with his head screwed on straight. That's Steve Jobs.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
Linux's strength is in it's staying power. It's not going anywhere. You can't kill it the way you can a start-up company... or even a large and powerful company.
It's still largely a hobbyist platform. (Remember, I'm talking about Linux on the desktop, not on the server.) But given a time-span long enough, Linux is bound to be a major player on the desktop (possibly even the dominant player).
The economics of Linux don't place the same value on a perfected user experience. But it does place some value on user experience. That value only goes up over time. What was the most user-friendly Linux distribution in 1996? What was the installation like back then? Now compare that with installing today's Ubuntu or SUSE or Fedora or Mandriva or almost any distribution that you randomly pick off the front page of distrowatch.com. The difference is huge, and the user experience can only continue to improve.
If Steve Jobs is the great master of the user experience, what will happen to Apple if when he quits or dies? I don't know the answer to that.
But I know what will happen to Linux if Linus Torvalds dies... Pretty much nothing. Linux is analogous to the internet. It keeps getting bigger and better, and it has no weak link. The same cannot be said for Apple or Microsoft.
Regardless of how good VMware is getting, most people would rather have native implementations of their favorite apps than run them on a virtual machine. I cannot imagine anyone who uses Adobe's applications professionally with any degree of proficiency - and note that this does not include people who think they need Photoshop to size and crop a wide range of image formats - settling for less performance when full performance is just a boot away.
I think you have a point with Office, though. I can see myself keeping a VM for the few tasks that OpenOffice can't do quite well, or at all. But with Adobe's apps, computer speed often has a direct effect on project completion time. Someone working contract would be daft to effectively choose to make less money, and someone working salaried would have their manager calling them daft for effectively choosing to hurt the company's bottom line.
In the Mac vs. Windows Commercials that apple Runs....who do you think would be a good person to represent the Linux OS?
RMS? : p
This guy's the limit!
I switched from Linux to a Mac a couple of years ago. What I found was that I was spending a lot of time on system administration and wasn't benefiting myself or anyone else. There were too many cases where things wouldn't work unless I dug down and found an obscure file to update to make things work. And no, I'm not talking common ones like /etc/resolv.conf. The free software answer is to modify the code to improve the programs, but I don't have the time to do that. I tried a Mac that I inherited, then bought a Mac Mini, then finally a MacBook Pro. I still have my Linux computer, but it is in my closet turned off for over a year. I've installed Linux on a couple of desktops at work but don't really use them much, and when I have problems I'm reminded why I switched to a Mac.
I will say that Ubuntu is a lot more convenient than the plain Debian I used to run and I might like Linux on the desktop if I tried it again. I've found, though, that I have a lot more apps I rely on on the Mac than I did with Linux so it would be a lot harder to convert back to Linux than it was to come to the Mac.
Windows was Microsoft's effort to fight back against the GUI interface of the Apple Macintosh. Back in the old days of DOS, the Apple Macintosh was the "windowing operating system." UNIX and X-Windows systems also did graphics, but generally only for CAD (Computer Aided Design) applications.
Linux has never fought in the graphical environment and ease of use space. Traditionally, its strength has always been that it is a great Unix replacement. Today, Linux dominates the university and scientific computing landscape. Additionally, Linux is a great operating system for many focused, special purpose projects. Projects like embedded web servers, routers, and even small portable computers like the Asus Eee PC. In many of these applications, neither the Mac nor Windows are feasible alternatives.
Since the mid-80's, the dominant PC in the market has been an IBM Compatible PC running Microsoft Software. The Graphical arts people have always used the Macintosh, because initially it had good and easy to use graphics. Unix and Linux have dominated in almost every special purpose application environment that the other two architectures could not accomplish.
The new effect is that the Mac, Windows, and to a lesser extent Linux, can all run the same desktop applications, or at least the same types of desktop applications. The result has been Microsoft pushing the .NET languages, hoping to create such a large application monolith, that no one will ever consider switching from Windows again. In practice, people want a simpler, more reliable alternative to Windows. For ease of use, Apple is winning. For cost, adaptability, and reliability, Linux is winning.
desktop market. Since then the number of folks using Linux on the desktop has certainly increased:
http://www.itfacts.biz/linux-desktop-market-share-to-reach-6-in-2007/723
It was predicted to be 6% in 2007 and I'd wager that is pretty close.
Of course, that doesn't count Linux users like myself who purchase through the retail channel only once out of every 4 downloads, and the much larger number who only download free copies of Linux. This "0.6%" also never takes into account the fact that a single download of a Linux distro is often installed on more than one computer.
So, all this report is comparing is the retail channel sales of Mac, the only way one can get it, with the retail channel sales of Linux, which is usually the choice of last resort among Linux users.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
...Apple spends a pile of money on advertising and producing pretty, slick, expensive machines, Linux does not.
I also wonder how these people take into account the number of people who run linux on macs. One of my friends was running gentoo on his macbook for a while.
what's that now?
1. I don't think mature Linux users will care. Linux is a great tool and does some things that osx can't do. At some point the killer Linux app will come along that will drive adoption. This is pretty much how it's always worked. This is how Linux is gaining now.
2. Stealing desktop share is a moot point. Apple has been trying for as long as I can remember to switch windows users and it doesn't work that well on its own until Vista came along.
3. Right now, Linux is the third alternative that will probably make either osx or vista look better to most. It's the shouting (advertising) that makes Apple products more viable. If Ubuntu could afford Apple-scale advertising, then you would see even more adoption.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
First, some basic questions as to measuring Linux installs. Very hard. No bar-code events in many cases.
/. about the really stunning popularity of Linux AND Mac sales on Amazon.
Also, there is a totally different distribution chain. Macs are sold in stores or on-line. Linux is often distributed through social networks, such as the telecentros in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Extremadura, Spain; or in thin client networks such as at this public middle school in San Francisco; or via free giveaways, such as this guy who gave out 16,000 Linux computers in Berkeley, California; or via the numerous municipal and national migration projects to Linux, such as in Munich, Madrid, and Extremadura Spain; or via Nokia's N880; or the OLPC; or the Asus EEE PC, or the Everex PC.
The other problem that I have with this guy's article is that it is contrary to recent reports even here on
It is a totally different business model. The fundamental problem with TFA is that it does not understand this fundamental different.
For many people and companies, myself included, WINE's ability to run WoW on Linux as a "platinum" app shows technical expertise, but a lack of vision. There would be much more interest in the project (and possibly a cash infusion) if they publicly declared something like "WINE v0.9.xx will fully support MS-Office 2003 on Linux by this summer..."
Wishful thinking on my part... I doubt that CodeWeavers (a big sponsor of WINE) would allow that.
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
Could you point me to where I can find evidence to support this over/under-estimation?
I'm not a Linux fanboy, even though I use it. Conversely, I'm neither a Windows or OSX hater, though I don't use either one. The fact is this, I don't have a grand in US dollars to spend on a really pretty PC (Apple). I could, however, scrounge up enough spare parts from around and about to build my own PC. However, again, I didn't have a couple of hundred dollars, minimum, to buy an operating system and associated office software (Windows and Office). I did, though, have access to a broadband connection at a friends house who also owned a DVD burner.
Thusly, I have a really inexpensive PC with a damn good Linux distro (openSuSE) that provides me with everything I need while I pauper myself through college as a middle-aged white guy (MAWG).
So, to Apple and Microsoft; bite me.
I'm just saying...
Oh, for the days when sig's didn't have to be cute...hey, wait a sec.
So... Apple has some great software (and some not so great software) and is easy to use and Linux desktop distributions don't. How is that Apple's fault?
Seems to me more like the lack of software, support, and easy-to-use interface are killing Linux on the desktop, not Apple.
I used to be a pretty hard-core Linux on the Desktop guy. Every PC I ever built or bought (laptops) dual-booted Windows and Linux. At one point in college, I was even writing my essays in HTML to print from within Netscape 4, as there weren't any decent Linux word processing software (that was free ;)) circa late 1996.
I kept Windows around because there was-and-is a lot of stuff that Linux doesn't do well, if at all; Photoshop (GIMP wasn't a contender until GimpShop, too little too late), Office, Final Cut Pro, StarCraft, etc. OpenOffice (NeoOffice) is finally to the point where it's almost an Office replacement (in my line of work, I have to volley a document back and forth a dozen times or more between my office and third parties', with Track Changes and Comments and those aren't in OpenOffice).
I returned to Mac (my last Mac previously was a PowerBook 5300/100 with System 7.5.x and MachTen (http://www.tenon.com/products/machten/) around OS X Jaguar, on an iBook G3/600. That thing was indestructible (fell off the back of my motorcycle at ~40mph and survived outdoors for a week before I recovered it, still works 4 years later), and led to a PowerBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook (engineering school tote-along), iMac, Mac mini HTPC...
What I love? Running Perl / Apache / PHP / MySQL / etc. in a comfortable "native" UNIX environment, while still having all my GUI goodness with Mail.app, Safari.app, Preview.app, Office 2004, StarCraft (yeah, I'm way behind the times in gaming, don't care, don't have time), etc., all a click away as native apps. Plus, now with VMWare and Windows, I can keep around the software I need for school (XILINX, Visual Studio Pro 2005, etc) on one platform. Front Row is a great HTPC interface. AppleScript lets me automate flipping between it and my Elgato EyeTV, with the sleek little Apple remote control. Awesome industrial design (Macs are pretty; most PCs look cobbled together, with the possible exception of the VAIOs).
I haven't run Linux in years, except at the office where we setup a big Linux file / backup server. Even my home server is now an old PowerMac G4 with matched (and software mirrored) internal hard drives and OS X Tiger Server. The UI is better, the third-party application support is there, and most software I want is either a single-click .dmg install or no more difficult to install than it is on Linux (through Darwin Ports and fink), often easier (fink vs. yum, for instance).
Most servers I'd deploy would still be Linux, as Apple's hardware is expensive in that market niche and there's no value add (I'm going to be running the same AMP software stack regardless of OS X or Linux as the underlying platform). But on the desktop, unless you're totally cash-starved, there's no compelling reason for me or most of the techie people I know to run Linux on the desktop, and lots of good reasons to use OS X instead.
This is a trend that's been building for a while (I jumped in 2002, the biggest geeks in my circle jumped shortly thereafter): http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/29/1818256
geek. lawyer.
Right now, you cannot clone, download, or virtualize cars. So, THAT analogy I don't get.
Maybe Linux developers who don't want to outright sell or enter the vicious retail market should try "rentware". I know some choose to go for donations (donorware?), and some choose to give away things, but...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Macs were the perfect solution. They ran our geeky unix software. They ran powerpoint which most prefer for presentations. Wireless just worked.
After a brief stint with macs, I'm back to linux. I love free software. I love the fact I can customize the GUI easily. But most of my colleagues couldn't care less. They just want their hardware to work. They will not listen to argument about free software and proprietary lock-in.
Here's an aside about OS X that's relevant for people who work with PDFs, which includes scientists but I'm sure a lot of other people too. One area that OS X beats linux in handily is Preview, their PDF viewer. Preview does the following things that are much harder or impossible to do with linux software:
In summary, I love Linux, but I do believe that the article/summary have a point and that Apple's significant resources in (1) spending money on proprietary drivers and (2) developing software that is in some cases superior is cutting into Linux.
I've just returned from a small town in the middle of the Philippines. Recently, two interesting things have happened. 1) XP will no longer let you get updates if it's been pirated, 2) the software police have been raiding even nothing little towns, and *confiscating* computers with pirated software. They are forced to pay ~$250 US on each copy of Office and they don't get media. They have to download it for every machine, which is really hard when you have slow and unreliable internet access. Microsoft is forcing them to look at alternatives, and OpenOffice and Linux are being looked at, and used in some cases.
My point is that in the West, OS X is great, and is so much better than XP. In some parts of Asia and elsewhere, OS X isn't really an option. They just don't have the money. The way it appears to me is that in a few years, Linux will be the only viable option in some places, and many of these places have a *lot* of people.
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
Probably the Apple products bring the salvation for windows users, providing many creative (relative!) ways to work easier and efficienter. But they provide *one* way, that might fit for the masses, but not for the ones who are used to be able to choose from dozens of windowmanagers, configureable ones into the smalles detail, and so on. Heck, my ipod doesn't even allow to delete files on-the-go. No sloppy focus? Or no *choice* for it? Where are we, in the sixties? A friend of mine said if he wouldn't need hibernate/wlan and stuff he would run already solaris on his macbook for long. Or linux, and accept having to configure something all the time. So he has now macosx - and no choice.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
I'm not a Windows advocate, or any particular OS advocate. Just be careful what you wish for -- You might just get it.
And don't let anyone trick you with the whole thing that you never need to reboot OS X. I have had to reboot OS X for installing codecs, QuickTime updates, iTunes updates... Basically non-essential OS programs requiring me to restart.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Yes, Apple has been notified, yes the systems were sent to Apple and Apple sent them back - I'm not going to get into the Applecare mess though.
No, I think Apple does things the way they are doing because that is how they feel they are the most profitable.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
The enemies of Linux aren't Apple or even Microsoft, but the fragmentation and confusion caused by the many different distributions out there. Also, since Linux is driven by noncommercial interests, for the most part, it isn't targeted towards nontechnical users, isn't tied to any particular hardware platform and is sorely missing a services infrastructure. That's is a great pity, because Linux is a beautiful idea, except for the fact that the market or target audience just isn't there!
I want Linux to succeed among nontechnical users, but for that to happen, a number of changes will have to be made.
1) Standardization. The various distros need to converge and be forged into a very solid and highly polished unified distribution, a product if you will. This standardization will have to cover every aspect of the operating system.
2) Branding and marketing. Linux needs a common denominator, a product name that people will remember and desire. If there was a Google Linux, I'm sure it would get a huge following, for instance. But there isn't - just a bunch of quirky distros, I'm sorry to say.
In many ways, Apple is the opposite: it's a very tightly run ship, and ultimately, there is only one captain on the bridge: Steve Jobs. This would be a very bad thing if Steve was just a dictator, a greedy tyrant. But he isn't. He has a very positive side that eases the pain of the bad ones: he knows how to bring out the creative energy in people, and how to transform that energy into great products that people want. If there was no Steve Jobs, Apple would be just another mindless computer maker, another Dell or HP, and the Mac OS would be a buggy, slow, messy piece of junk just like Windows. But it isn't, because Apple knows how to meld all this into products that a) are technologically sound and b) succeed in the real world of commercial software and hardware.
What I have just written may offend many Linux people, and for that I am sorry. But some people perhaps need to change their thinking around a little. As much as I admire the Linux movement, Linux will never be a household item, or embraced by people who are more interested in using their computers in creative ways and less interested in tinkering with them, unless the changes I mentioned above happen. Does that make sense?
Somebody needs to step up to the mike and say: "This is the way forward. Let's create products for a mass market, products that people will care about and use in their everyday life!"
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
I run OS X, Kubuntu, and WinXP daily.
OS X is nice, but it is black box, and in the end you will loath it.I've been running it since version 10.0. It was pretty rough at first, but has really stabilized and continued to advance at a good pace. In fact, it is my OS of choice for applications, all other factors being equal. I don't loath it at all. More generically, I know literally a hundred or more engineers who have switched from Linux or a BSD in the last few years and only one who switched back and these are users with a choice of what they want to use for their daily work developing software for Linux and BSD based appliances.
As any other OS, it has lot of bugs, including VERY annoying ones which you can't fix even with having support contract with Apple and Adobe.I've had my fair share of feature requests go unfulfilled, but all the actual bugs I filed in OS X have been fixed and I don't have a contract with Apple. Adobe is another story, but that is unrelated to the platform. I have the same problem with their Windows and Linux software.
However, Apple and OS X strenght[sic] is integration.I'd say their strength is in their ability to make major changes that break things for the sake of advancing their platform and scrupulous user testing.
I just wish they would not be so annoyingly similar to Microsoft as they were in last year - all standard stuff, supporting OOXML, closing DAAP, etc.They have read only support for OOXML, while TextEdit reads and writes ODF, seems pretty useful to me. They never closed DAAP because they never opened it in the first place. Some people reverse engineered it and things broke when it changed.
For Linux, problems are two - user base and apps.I'd argue both of those are situational items that are contributed to by flaws in Linux. The first, is contributed to by Linux's commercial software unfriendly package management. Linux distros are varied and don't all use the same package manager or libraries, don't have support for software registration or software updates from a Website maintained by the distributor, who won't put it in a repository for technical and legal reasons. The second problem, user base, is partly because Linux does not do a very good job of catering to normal users, maintaining it's focus on current users who are mostly power users and CLI fans.
I'd also argue that while Linux is technologically ahead in a few ways, it is technologically behind in a lot of ways that matter to normal desktop users. There is no drag and drop package install/uninstall. Installed applications aren't easily portable. There are no OS X style system services. ZeroConf has not been ubiquitously integrated into standard applications. All of these (along with a good expose clone) are things I miss while using Linux.
However, I think it is not the end of desktop of Linux. For me, it's only now getting in shape that I have no shame to show to others.I've been a desktop Linux user for years, but in my opinion it is falling behind rather than catching up. I've also seen some serious brain drain as Linux desktop user/developers move to OS X and stop contributing to Linux desktop efforts. There is hope, but OS X does seem to be a serious detriment to desktop Linux, even if it is not intentional on the part of Apple.
Computers like the Asus EEE are signs of the future. When computer hardware is around $200, where is the profit in that for Apple? It's nice and dandy if you live in a rich country and can afford to buy a Mac, but 90% of the global hardware market still belongs to commodity PCs. Since Vista has priced itself out of the commodity PC market, what's left? Linux and the *BSDs.
Its easy to compare market values for Microsoft and Apple. Since they
both are sold on the market. Linux based software isn't all commercial,
and being Ubuntu has the ability to run Office suite, with the only limitation
being having the MS Office license agreement. How does one honestly compare
market values???? I run multiple partitions on my Windows machines so I
have the ability to run anything I want. 98% of the time I use the Linux
base distros - with the ability to run the MS products also. I use the wording
ability to run. But with the advent of OO.org I have no limitations.
I have no expense limitations also. And beside I never access the internet with
my windows partitions, mainly for security reasons. Secondly Linux base distros
operate so much more effectively and faster on internet and/or network connections.
Apple? Now that the mac is a dual core pentium and OSX is unix based. Why not
it works and a lot of open source is available for this nice OS too. And
one can add partitions and install ubuntu with it also, or better yet
us Vmware Fusion, and run anything you want. Cost factor. Open Source Linux
Distros - Run better - Cost less in the long run.
Until We Meet Again.
Nisqually Pauli
Bonjour for services hasn't taken off in a big way on Linux (or Windows outside of Adobe Products/iTunes for that matter). However, most Linux distros now ship with Avahi which is fairly mature but there are comparatively few programs that can use it (its main use currently seems to be for autoip configuration). Some distros also firewall it off by default (but Kubuntu isn't in that list).
I've noticed music programs (Rhythmbox, Amarok) often support it but they are trying to interoperate with iTunes which is another issue again.
By the way I think someone said they might work on a Kopete bonjour plugin a few weeks ago.
I'm also a little sad that OSX has dropped default support for printers annouced over CUPS broadcast but thems the breaks. If you know what you're doing it's possible to renable it (and set your Macs to broadcast too but that's another story).
Sound like your installation in b0rked.
Normally both of the 2 bigs desktop environment GNOME and KDE have a system of plugins that gives them support for other way to access data than the standard system :
KIO slaves in KDE and VFS plugins Gnome.
It's those modules that let you type "ftp://" "sftp;//" "smb://" "webdav://" or "nfs://" addresses or that let you freely browse a ZIP file as if it was a simple directory.
These modules are not only used by the file browser, but by all other application from the desktop environment :
For exemple under KDE (openSUSE running here), not only can I browse my files while away from home using SFTP, I can even remotely edit them because KATE (KDE's nice text editor) use them too.
And probably after a couple of versions, this modules will be available for any other software by using project like FUSE : currently FUSE can mount anything that can be accessed by a KIO slave. It's only a matter of time until someone write a nice plug and play automatic wrapper that dynamically mounts network KIO objects as needed to access them in non-KDE and non-GNOME application (for example OpenOffice.org's own webdav module isn't on par with the desktop's one).
But for now if you must copy locally your files before using them with application that are part of your desktop, you should check if those modules are correctly setup to be usable from within those software.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
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.
Before buying my MacBook Pro I compared it to similarly configured Dell and HP laptops. While the HP was similarly priced the Dell was about $200 more than the MBP. If I had bought the Dell I would have paid extra, money I could not afford.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I've been saying this for a couple of years now. I was one of the very early Linux adopters and loved it because it was lots cheaper than the Unix machines out there (I worked on Digital UNIX on the Alpha). Suddenly, I could have Unix at home!
Now, I write embedded code for a living, mostly on small devices like set-top boxes and mobile phones and the like. I do it all on the Mac. The toolchains that I use are all portable, and build nicely on the mac, so I can choose between Mac and Linux freely.
I choose the mac. Why? Because I need to get the work done, not fiddle with the OS. I don't have time to try to bang out a new xorg.conf to support that second monitor. On the mac, you plug it in, and poof, up it comes. Don't even need a reboot. I don't have time to find out why when I close the laptop, everything goes to hell in a handbasket. I don't want to spend a lot of time trying to get wireless working. I don't want to deal with the details needed to get a VPN working.
Sure, Linux is great, I code for it all the time. But when my personal productivity drops by using it, the love affair ends. I'm in the real world competing with other engineers, I don't have time to fix my tools.
The article is absolutely right. And it won't get any better for Linux unless massive changes are made. I've been saying this for years now, and outlining what I firmly believe are critical for Linux becoming mainstream:
1. One Desktop environment
2. One main distribution
3. One main package management system
4. Reduce the duplication of Linux based applications. If all developers get behind one application, it means it will be better produced. Splintered development gives great choice, at the cost of quality code imho.
5. Better UI - Linux is still far to geeky to use, even though the likes of Ubuntu has made great strides (and many other distributions as well).
6. Popular software MUST run on Linux. Photoshop, Office, autocad, quicken, Dreamweaver are the big ones.
7. More hardware manufacturers MUST write quality drivers for Linux natively
8. More games developers MUST port their games to run natively on Linux, without performance drops.
9. The kernel development team MUST start to improve the Linux kernel for the desktop users, and not corporate business. The 2.6 kernel has seen the Linux kernel developers playing slaves to the corporate interest, at the cost of desktop users imho.
10. A stable API, one that is NOT constantly changing from distribution to distribution, or over the years. I can pretty much install a 98 based application on XP, MOST Linux applications circa that period would NOT install on a modern Linux system.
11. Whilst Linux installers are VERY good these days, when you're talking partitioning, you're asking for much trouble with the average user, which leads me to my next, and final point...
12. Linux MUST get a far larger share of OEM manufacturers...
Things that will NOT change, and that will always hamper Linux...
1. Unreasonable copyright terms (by terms I mean length of copyright ownership)
2. Software patents, which are ALL blatantly illegal.
3. Microsoft corporate sponsorship of US government officials
You may disagree with me, but I think in the long run, history will prove me 100% correct in each and every point. The sad thing is that the vast majority of Linux geeks are so far up themselves, and so far in denial, that they'll never admit the above points. And that is another MAJOR weakness imho.
I'm being bluntly honest here, because I'd LOVE to see Linux become mainstream, and have these applications running on it etc. I'd love to see the Microsoft monopoly broken. I'd love to see Free Software become widely accepted, and the ideals of the FSF appreciated and understood by the majority of the populace.
But, as the parent article says, it'll never happen. Apple, even for the many areas that I dislike it, has a very good idea of what its customers want, and how to deliver that to them. It has the support of 3rd party applications, games developers (not as strong as it should be I admit) and hardware device driver developers. It's sexy, easy to install and maintain and most importantly, easy to use. Apple hardware is now as powerful as Intel based hardware, and the cost of Apple hardware has plummeted. True, it is still more expensive than PC based hardware, but not by a huge margin that many Windows geeks would like to imply.
That's my 2.2c worth, inc. GST.
Dave
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. --Martin Luther King Jr.
In my anecdotal experience, desktop Linux is driving Mac sales. Whenever I point a frustrated Windows user towards Linux, they never go back to Windows. Some of them stick with Linux, and some of them buy Macs, but all of them learn that it's not really all that hard to switch. Those that end up as Mac users will have no difficulty switching back to Linux if Apple stops being worth the price premium to them.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
It's a simple equation, really. People - the mass market, as opposed to coders, hackers, and IT managers - need a computer that lets them do their stuff easily. It should be easy to learn and fun to use. Windows is not easy to learn or fun to use. Customization is tricky and requires some schoolin' and practice to accomplish. The system completely locks you out of places MS doesn't want you messing around. If the average guy gets through the interlocks he could be in deep doodoo. Linux is fun to use if you like playing around in the guts of the computer, don't care much about GUI, and you're into full tilt customization, but it is not easy to use. If you don't know what you're doing you can break it really easily. Joe Neurosurgeon just wants to do his taxes and send email without having to think about it too much. OS X is easy to learn and fun to use for non-geeks. The average doink can figure out how to customize a few aesthetic and cosmetic parts of the interface without breaking it. The system protects me from myself unless I'm smart enough to circumvent the boundaries. In other words, the average dumba$$ like me can function just fine on OS X with very few problems and actually enjoy it. That's the mass market experience in a nutshell.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.