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Linux Pre-Installs In the UK Hit 2.8%
schliz alerts us to a story out of the UK PC distribution channel. It seems that the percentage of systems pre-installed with Linux has gone up 28 times since Vista shipped, from 0.1% in January 2007 to 2.8% last June. Still not huge numbers, but Apple did OK for years with similar market share figures. Linux's headway comes in the face of the marketing money that manufacturers pass out to distributors, money that has historically been important to their profits: "In the late 1990s competition was so keen that distributors were said to sell at or below cost and take their profit direct from the marketing funds they received from vendors. Vendors nowadays keep watch to see their marketing funds are actually spent on marketing, but distribution runs on single figure profits and vendor marketing funds are a crucial aid."
I of course have a couple of niggles but that is due to hardware and their drivers not 4 Linux kind of situation (my printer)...
Having said that, I wouldn't have enough space here to list my issues with Windows.
I do use Vista (and like it) on my family home PC. Good for games, browsing (no better than Linux) and using my printer...
I use a Windows VPC in my Windows Vista for doing specific test cases for my work (I have still to figure out vmware with Suse 11) but other than that I am Linux all there way...
So, I as a consumer for my business laptop will, from now, be asking for linux pre-installed. It is by far the most convenient O/S to date for my business needs...no doubt in my mind. Karem
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
You may not want to read the ZD Net article which mentions the demographics of the linux eeePC users in Taiwan, your AC head may just explode.
"Retailers and contract manufacturers in Taiwan say that novice PC users there, like students and housewives, tend to buy the Linux version of the Eee PC701, while geeks go for Windows XP."
And these non-average users who you suspect are pirates buying the linux boxes to I assume install a pirated copy of Windows, that is a stretch. The non-average user is going to buy the parts and build the box themselves as its cheaper and you end up with better hardware.
After years of people having to pay a Microsoft tax when they are going to buy a computer on which they will run linux its hilarious seeing people post about how the linux boxes will end up running Windows. What a hoot. :)
The manual for the Linux EEE includes very detailed instructions on how to wipe Linux and install XP. (The manual for the Windows EEE does not contain instructions on wiping XP an installing Linux).
One totally agnostic guy at my job, was encouraged to use Apple products by the System Engineer because it just works by clicking a button. Surely that was a bunch of oversold hype.
After my experience of transitioning from Slackware to Ubuntu, I felt that it was ready for my non intuitive friends. I told him to try it and guess what? His wife doesn't have a Mac mini, she has Ubuntu. He also runs Ubuntu on the Powerbook the System Engineer lobbied for him.
Conclusion? Linux is already on the right path, the worse that could be done to Linux, which I see popping up everyday, is to make it feel like a Mac.
No! Wrong. The Apple way encourages ignorance, and obfuscation so that it could lock in the 1 button click and conquer generation. Those like our sys admin who is lost without Apples GUI.
Nothing is wrong with a 1 button click. But a user's biggest frustration is when the 1 button click doesn't work; they're feel helpless and clueless.
Think windows and registry. Apple and its gui, with a non-standard POSIX(?) filesystem layout.
Bah, CE didn't kill Palm - Palm killed themselves. Don't ascribe to malice what can be attributed to incompetence. Unfortunately, as a general concept your correct (even if you meant Windows Mobile or whatever else they're calling it this week).
... (cuddles the T|X so it doesn't get too upset).
But Palm has no one to blame but themselves
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!