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Linux Reaches 1% Usage Share

Posted by kdawson on from the hitslink-confirms-it dept.

je ne sais quoi writes "The April data is out for the Net Applications 'market share' survey of operating systems (more accurately referred to as a usage share). For the first time, Linux has reached 1%. This past month the Linux share increased by 0.12% which is well above the average monthly increase of 0.02%. Historically, the Net Applications estimate of market share has been lower than that of other organizations who measure this, but the abnormally large increase reported this month brings it closer to the median estimate of 1.11%. For other operating systems, Windows XP continued its slow decline by 0.64% to 62.21%, whereas Vista use is still increasing to 23.90%, but its rate of adoption is slowing. That is, this month's increase of 0.48% is well below the 12-month average increase of 0.78% and down from the peak rate of increase of 1.00% per month on average in January-February 2008. The total Windows share dropped to 87.90%. Mac OS use decreased slightly to 9.73% from 9.77%, but usage share of the iPhone and iPod Touch combined increased by 0.1%."

46 of 414 comments (clear)

  1. Boy oh boy! by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can't wait! At this rate, 2024 will be the year of Linux on the Desktop!

    1. Re:Boy oh boy! by Diabolus+Advocatus · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My girlfriends mother bought a laptop about two years ago. She struggled with Windows as she had never used a computer much before. I installed gOS and she's doing fantastic with it.

      Just because you are used to Windows and find it hard to transition, don't blame the OS, blame yourself.

    2. Re:Boy oh boy! by levell · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I can't wait! At this rate, 2024 will be the year of Linux on the Desktop!

      If it increases at 1 percentage point per year (which is what is has increased in the whole of its life so far), we'll reach 100% a lot later than 2024

      --
      Struggling to find a day everyone can make? WhenShallWe.com
    3. Re:Boy oh boy! by A.+B3ttik · · Score: 5, Funny

      My girlfriends mother bought a laptop about two years ago.

      Who do you think you're fooling with this?

    4. Re:Boy oh boy! by orkybash · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I often wonder how easy a time people who are new to computing can have with Linux. It seems to me that re-learning can in many cases be a harder barrier to cross than learning.

    5. Re:Boy oh boy! by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Funny

      A pair of rabbits will produce offspring fairly regularly. This does not mean that the number of rabbits grows at a linear rate.

      Yeah, but we're talking about Jackalopes here. Not clear at all if their population growth follows a geometric progression.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    6. Re:Boy oh boy! by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Keep in mind that Linux is the OS used by Google across hundreds of thousands of their servers. How many people a day use their search, gmail, maps, and other services? Linux use is up, just not in the traditional desktop sense. In another year or two, you could probably get away with a slim Linux image that boots into Firefox, and use that for your basic needs if the work/home environment allowed for it.

    7. Re:Boy oh boy! by fl!ptop · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I often wonder how easy a time people who are new to computing can have with Linux.

      i sell ubuntu systems to regular users. as part of a purchase, if they're local i offer to install it in their house and give an hour of time to answer questions for free. after a brief orientation (don't buy a new ipod, before buying a printer check here or call me, etc.), i spend the time showing them how to find and install software using synaptic, where update alerts appear and what to do, how to use firefox instead of ie, and a few other tips. i leave with them knowing they can call or email me anytime they have a question and i'll do my best to answer it.

      i've been doing this for several years now. i always install the latest LTS version of ubuntu, and i offer to do software upgrades for $60. most customers are happy they no longer have to deal w/ virus, malware and spyware, even though there's a bit of a learning curve. i've had a few who installed xp because they just couldn't "get it," and out of them at least 4 of them come back with, you guessed it, malware and virus infected boxes. i've also had 2 customers who brought the computer back and asked me to set it up for dual-boot w/ xp. i found out later they boot to windows only to use itunes (being unable to get it working correctly in linux) and generally use the ubuntu side for everything else.

      for the most part, i've found that spending just that initial hour is enough to put the customer at ease. additionally, knowing i'm just a phone call away helps too.

      for customers who aren't local, i prepare a pdf document that basically contains what i go over w/ the locals in that orientation hour.

      i've had just a couple of customers who were "new users," who basically had never used a computer before. since they don't know the difference (that there's other o/s's that aren't linux), they take to it a little more quickly.

      --
      When you recognize love in another and realize how precious it is, everything else seems so insignificant.
    8. Re:Boy oh boy! by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's like saying "I don't drive a semi to work, therefore no one is using them", while neglecting to understand that almost all goods are shipped via semi trailer.

    9. Re:Boy oh boy! by ToasterMonkey · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's a lie.

      Linux is whatever it is. Just because there is not a prime time desktop environment for the average person sitting at a keyboard does not mean it is not supposed to be or never will be.

      =
      Oh I LOVE these ones. The classic "Linux has no form, and whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you" defense.

      Linux sucks. But Linux is just a kernel, blame the distro maintainer.
      Linux sucks on desktop. But Linux is really a server OS.
      Linux sucks on servers. But we're UNIX and it's proooooven! Oh, you were comparing it to Solaris.. well we don't know anything about that, go away.
      Linux doesn't have foobarqux. Only because you haven't written it yet, slacker!

      You're going to have to suck it up folks. Claiming Linux has no form or direction, therefore can't be criticized is BULL SHIT. It is not "what it is". It is very much what RedHat, IBM, Novell, Canonical, and the rest of the "community" are trying to make it, and we CAN criticize THAT, and we CAN criticize each and every single component of Linux and any other OSS regardless of how lost it's direction or focus is.

    10. Re:Boy oh boy! by miknix · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I did setup a gentoo desktop at my parent's house. They use it regularly and they like it a lot. They only need a browser (with flash to browse youtube), a music player, pdf viewer, text editor and java. Java is needed because the government taxes simulation program is written in java (cross-platform).

      Since I have my own personal server at home, I have shell access to the desktop computer and I deal myself with the updates.

      I must say that is kind of funny when my parents see on the TV news that FOOBAR virus is in the wild and if they shouldn't take care. :P

    11. Re:Boy oh boy! by cp.tar · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Both my father and my grandfather got Ubuntu as their first operating system. I did not want to have to fix all the viruses and spyware and whatnot they'd get from porn and other stuff the internet is for. As complete newbies, there was nothing to impede their learning process, and my father for one is getting along quite nicely. Him I've given a Windows partition, too, and he uses Windows for some tasks, but he largely prefers Linux.

      Thing is, the only thing that really prevents learning a new system is the magical, ritualistic thinking acquired from rote learning. I let my father explore Linux, explained him the basic concepts and had him understand the basics of the filesystem. Then I showed him Windows, and let him notice the ways in which it was similar. That was enough to let him continue on his own for the most part; I still have to teach him some things, which is rare because we live in different countries, but it is enough for me to show him the basics. Sometimes I don't know more than that because I do not use all the things he needs, but he does learn.

      My grandfather is a more recent initiate in the arts of computing, but he seems to have taken fairly well to the internet, organizing his photos, and card games. Now I'm teaching him how to rip his CDs to disk. Still, he does learn more by rote; his memory is not what it used to be, and his attention span is rather like a 4-year-old's.

      --
      Ignore this signature. By order.
    12. Re:Boy oh boy! by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I considered Ubuntu as an experiment, but then I decided against it, because I didn't want to have to deal with the headaches

      Last year, my daughter and a friend were staying with us for about 6 months. I gave them an old Sony (Celeron 800) laptop to use. Ubuntu installed.
      Didn't tell them, or guide them in any way.

      After a couple of months, I asked how the laptop was working with that different operating system.
      "Huh...what do you mean?" Of course, she had been conditioned to FireFox on windows beforehand, but they never knew/realized/cared that it wasn't 'Windows'.

    13. Re:Boy oh boy! by nine-times · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There are distros like ubuntu that try to make as much as possible accessible from the surface, but when you have to do something not exposed by pretty control panels you need a level of understanding far beyond that of the average user.

      That's true of Windows and OSX too. Don't tell me you'd advise normal low-level users to open up the Windows Registry.

      So here's the real question: how much of the functionality required by new/unknowledgeable users is not exposed by pretty control panels?

    14. Re:Boy oh boy! by TheLinuxSRC · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Which is *exactly* the reason why he mentions it to his clients. If someone is made aware of an issue before it becomes a problem (thus giving them all the information they need to avert the potential problem), in their mind there is no problem.

    15. Re:Boy oh boy! by Dunkirk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sounds like someone hasn't had very good luck with using Linux on the desktop. Yeah, well, me neither, but it hasn't stopped me from using it on my desktop machines (both at home and at work) for over 10 years now. You can say it sucks, but, in my experience, it just sucks DIFFERENTLY than the alternatives.

      --
      Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
    16. Re:Boy oh boy! by the_womble · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Assuming that the market is not growing significantly, Linux usage grew by 13% in a month, at that rate it would reach 82% in two years......

      No, I do not think that will happen. My point is:

      1) I do not believe a 13% jump is usage in one month.
      2) Even if it was true, you cannot extrapolate a trend from one month.
      3) Given the monthly growth is clearly wrong, I do not believe the numbers at all.

    17. Re:Boy oh boy! by orasio · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What you say is just dumb.
      With that mindset, you could say Mac OSX is not ready for regular desktop use, because it doesn't support most motherboards and graphic cards.
      Or you could say that windows vista (or 7) is not ready, because it doesn't run on ARM chips, or because it doesn't have drivers for my older video capture cards.

      Some software runs with some hardware.
      Most printers just work with linux, some don't. Big deal. You can just ask the one who sells them, or just stick to HP.

    18. Re:Boy oh boy! by Culture20 · · Score: 5, Funny

      My girlfriends mother bought a laptop about two years ago.

      Who do you think you're fooling with this?

      More importantly, is the apostrophe [iend's] or [iends']? That's an important distinction.

    19. Re:Boy oh boy! by miknix · · Score: 3, Funny

      In contrast, I have neighbors that calls me for help saying that their anti-virus has detected "cookies" getting inside their computers - What should they do??

    20. Re:Boy oh boy! by Requiem18th · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Is not that easy. I'll try to make it short, my aunt, a prototypical Aunt Tillie user was getting sick of malware and viruses util I installed ubuntu in her laptop. Everything went alright but some problems started to creep.

        OpenOffice fonts looked "jagged", only ate the default zoom level but that was enough.

        Some websites don't load ok, these resulted to be using very intrusive windows only drm plugins, (unsusrprisingly, they were christian radio stations, those pious bastards)

        The old printer, that didn't work because of bad drivers still didn't work.

        One excel/VBA game/joke some friend sent her didn't work.

        That was the straw that broke the camel's back! She bought a Vista Laptop with MS Office 2007 home edition.

        Several hundred $$$ later, the printer still doesn't work, those problematic radio stations still don't work but at least the leaping frog VBA game did work now. A year later it seems to have gotten a virus.

        My point is, ye old saying, Linux must be twice as good as windows to get the same level of respect.

      --
      But... the future refused to change.
    21. Re:Boy oh boy! by jc42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you click the "help" button, it says "This report lists the market share of the top operating systems in use for browsing (not servers)."

      And right there is the common clue that tells you how they're generating bogus statistics: the phrase "market share" means that they are only counting things that are purchased. A very high precentage of linux users get their copy via free downloads, and these systems aren't counted as part of the "market". In fact, since free linux systems are often installed on machines that were puchased with MS Windows (due to the difficulty of gettin the hardware in any other form), a significant fraction of running linux systems are counted by the marketeers as Windows systems. I have two linux systems on the shelf next to my desk, and one had Windows installed when it was delivered, so it's counted as a Windows sale. The other was ordered without an OS (which a local shop will do if you ask), so it's probably not counted as a sale of either Windows or linux - unless the vendor reported it to MS as a Windows box to avoid the usual harassment that happens if they openly sell just the bare hardware.

      Similarly, I've seen listings of web servers ranked by sales, and Microsoft's IIS was the clear leader. Apache sometimes isn't even on such lists, since hardly anyone actually pays for it. There's no "market" for apache, since anyone can download it, install it, spend a few minutes tweaking the httpd.conf file, and use it without ever getting involved in any software market transactions.

      In general, it's a good idea to be extremely skeptical of any figures derived from a "market". This is especially true when the numbers seem to support something you like. Such numbers almost always come from someone trying to sell you something, and the statistics are part of their marketing pitch.

      Anyway, to use an obvious transport analogy, if you're looking for a good heavy-duty truck or small airplane, would you care about statistics saying that some kind of automobile is much more popular? Even if the numbers are accurate, they aren't too meaningful if you need the capabilities of a truck or airplane. The idea that some single kind of computer system is "the best" is equally silly. It depends on what you need it to do. If you think that all computer OSs are interchangeable, you simply don't understand what an OS is.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  2. But seriously folks by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Should we really be including both Windows and iPhone in the same OS usage chart?

    My John Deere riding mower does a bang-up job cutting my lawn (get the fuck off it), but it's not quite built for the same purpose as my around-town Escalade.

    1. Re:But seriously folks by TheModelEskimo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Windows is indeed a lot like an Escalade. An overpriced, bloated, and inefficient showcase of false beauty.

      And I guess the iPhone is a lot like a John Deere riding mower, too. People buy it for the brand prestige, then get angry when their neighbor goes out and buys one the next day. Because everybody knows your neighbor is a jerk.

  3. Economy and No-Man's Land by A.+B3ttik · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There was an article a while back surmising that the downturn in the American Economy would cause more Linux adoption.

    I imagine that is partially the case, but I bet it's also because the Windows folks are currently in No-Man's Land. They've stopped selling/supporting XP, some people are too afraid or unwilling to switch to Vista (I'm one of them), and Windows 7 is still at least months away. With all of these factors, some are seeing it as the perfect time to take the plunge.

    1. Re:Economy and No-Man's Land by PrescriptionWarning · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A friend of mine recently had a similar decision to make. His XP PC he's had since college finally kicked the bucket, as in hardware failure, and he didn't have the money nor the real need to purchase a new computer with Vista at the tune of $500. So I ended up helping him out, sold him my old PC from early college years which was similar in specs to his old one, only I stuck Ubuntu on it and sold it for $50. Now he's able to get back to his basic computer needs, which are mostly web surfing, email, and MP3 playback/syncing. It works with his video iPod and works with his digital camera which for some reason doesn't work on his girlfriend's windows laptop. Not too shabby I'd say.

  4. Inexplicable statistical variations by TheCycoONE · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The site claims that the statistics meet quality assurance guidelines, including that there are no major statistical variations that are inexplicable. They fail to state on the site (that I saw) what is the margin of error in their evaluation, but it seems that this is a major statistical variation, and I'm wondering what their explanation is.

    1. Re:Inexplicable statistical variations by je+ne+sais+quoi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hi there, submitter here. One certainly wonders what the statistical variability is, it's probably pretty high for month to month data. That's what I was trying to do by reporting the 12 month average increase or decrease. I posted a chart of that data here. Rather than look at percent usage share, this is the percent change in usage share for a given month. If it's positive, it means the OS grew, if it's negative it means it shrank.

      Ultimately this is one of those things like political polling data, nobody can really know what the actual answer is. What's interesting here is that there are big bumps in all the OSes, which is the random error, but if you look at the averages, they follow what you might expect. That is, XP stopped increasing a long time ago, but didn't start to shrink (go negative) until Vista was released. Vista really is slowing in its growth, you can clearly see the peak in the average data right at Jan or Feb 2008. For linux, the latest little uptick is this newest data, which in itself is probably insignificant (as is the arbitrary 1% mark), but what is significant is that linux on average is enjoying positive growth as there's more upticks than downticks, as is OS X.

      --
      Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
  5. GIGO? by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How do they come up with these numbers anyway? The jump from 0.90 to 1.02 is relatively large, as was the drop from 0.91 to 0.71 a few months ago. Do they have uncertainty estimates? Inquiring minds want to know.

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
    1. Re:GIGO? by Devout_IPUite · · Score: 3, Funny

      100% of claims on how many statistics are made up on the spot are made up on the spot.

  6. I wonder how it breaks down... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When you look at browser numbers, it is reasonably doable to get a sense of where the browsers are being used. IE6 spikes during working hours, while FF and friends increase on nights and weekends. Fairly obviously, there is a huge difference in usage rates between workplaces, especially big ones, and the home/small business market.

    I'd be curious to know how Linux's market share breaks down in those terms. Is the 1% growth assimilation of the more or less geeky home/school user? Is it j. average user with a netbook or machine set up for them by somebody else? Did a few large corporations shift 250,000 call-center seats in order to save a few bucks on what are basically just terminal emulators?

    I'd be curious to know what the data actually say; because you can tell the story either way: You can say "Linux will make it in the home setting first" and argue that the home has relatively fast app turnover, few critical legacy apps, and tends to suffer from viruses/spyware/malware because it lacks professional admins. On the other hand, you could argue "Linux will make it on the corporate side first" because they have highly standardized hardware and software needs, so there are fewer driver issues and "why isn't aunt maybell's scrapbooking shareware working" issues, and professional admins can handle the tricky configuration bits. Whenever something can be argued either way, that is a sign that you need actual data.

  7. Methodology? How do they measure that? by wowbagger · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I get very suspicious of any site that doesn't go into detail on their methodology for making a claim like this.

    Especially when the site seems to be a web advertiser.

    Have they corrected for the fact that Linux users are more likely to be able to use a variety of ad blocking and filtering tools, and thus may not be showing up in their statistics?

    I always try to be clear about exactly what I am measuring - what are these guys measuring? When they say "market share", what "market" are they referring to? "Users who see our ads?" "Users visiting this set of sites (many of which refuse to work with That Which Is Not Internet Explorer)?"

    Absent a statement of exactly of WHAT this is 1%, and a statement of methodologies used to make that measurement, this is a very questionable number.

    --
    www.eFax.com are spammers
  8. I used to be in that 1% by pablo_max · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I consider myself to be a bit more advanced than the typical computer user..maybe not compared to the slashdot crowd.
    I had Ubuntu(gusty) on a partition for a long time. For about 3 months for so I used it as my primary partition. I liked the look and feel for the most part.
    I even enjoyed learning the command line stuff to get my screen rez correct..it took a long while to set that damn thing to 1366x766! But, once I figured it out, that was that.
    In the end, I went back to Windows and that is where I will stay and here's why...
    Bluetooth!
    At that time, my wife lived overseas and we used skype to talk. None of my Bluetooth dongles would work in the slightest with Linux. I tried and tried and tried, but could not make it work..and hell.. at that time my job was maintaining and creating bluetooth RF test cases!!!!
    I was so sick of having to boot to windows every time i needed to "do" something I said forgot it..im sticking with windows.

    1. Re:I used to be in that 1% by Aphoxema · · Score: 3, Informative

      Gutsy had poor bluetooth support. Hardy had decent bluetooth support. Intrepid broke bluetooth support, I skipped over it for Jaunty which works perfectly.

      Sometimes it takes a while to get things right, but I can absolutely assure you they've got it crystal clear now. I can pair my bluetooth mouse on a new installation in seconds and I use the earpiece thing I use for my phone to listen to music whenever I remember to charge it.

      --
      "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
  9. Not a very reliable conclusion by DaveV1.0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We collect data from the browsers of site visitors to our exclusive on-demand network of live stats customers.

    Non-random source data

    Also, the linked site does not appear to differentiate between general purpose computers and appliances, which could skew the results. Devices like the G1 from T-mobile and Nokia internet tablets, which are not bought for having Linux, but rather for the functionality they provide, should probably not be listed under Linux.

    --
    There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
  10. the power of the pre-loading by Locutus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    back in the old days( ~1994 ), IBM was fortunate enough to find one or two top OEMs in Germany who couldn't be paid off by Microsoft and accepted the technically superior IBM OS/2 as their primary preloaded OS. In one short year, OS/2 had 25% marketshare in Germany.

    Preloading is the game and Microsoft knows this and is willing to pay out millions in marketing kickbacks to make sure a Microsoft OS is what is preloaded instead of a Linux distro. Remember the ClassmatePC deal in Nigeria? Microsoft got caught purchasing the favor of replacing the preloaded Mandriva with Windows XP once they were delivered. Egypt took tens of millions and became a Windows-only government at the expense of the OLPC MOU for a million units. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Microsoft just redirected billions of "R&D" funds and you know where those will likely end up? Most likely place is in the pockets of companies looking to preload Android, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, or other Linux products. IMO.

    It's the preloads. So when you hear the press complaining about Linux as it came from the OEM and not about installation problems, it's game-on and most likely game-over for MSFT.

    LoB

    --
    "Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
    1. Re:the power of the pre-loading by Thelasko · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's the preloads. So when you hear the press complaining about Linux as it came from the OEM and not about installation problems, it's game-on and most likely game-over for MSFT.

      Exactly! I'm an avid Ubuntu user and post on the forums. More often than not, people are complaining about installation issues. They can't find the correct drivers for their hardware, etc.

      I recently did an installation of Windows XP with a non-OEM disk (one purchased legally, but didn't come with the machine). It's much harder to install Windows than it is Ubuntu. The generic Windows installation disk had none of the drivers I needed for the machine. This was a machine that came with Windows XP from the factory. You can read my story on the forums.

      The fact is, most people don't use Linux because it's too difficult to install. However, Ubuntu is much easier to install than Windows, but it doesn't matter because Windows comes preinstalled.

      --
      One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  11. netbooks reverting to Windows by bcrowell · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The really troubling trend, from my point of view as an OSS fanboy, is that netbooks are reverting to Windows. I teach at a community college. A year or two ago, one my students showed me his eeePC running Linux, which was the first eee I'd seen. This year my wife saw a eee with Linux in Target for $270. "Wow," I thought, "Linux in Target!" I bought her a eee with Linux (not the Target one, but a $400-ish model, via Amazon) as a birthday present, but the wifi was misconfigured. Asus tech support told me the wrong card was installed, and there was no way to fix it in software. We returned it and gave up on the netbook idea. If you look at the reviews on Amazon, you'll see tons of customers complaining about problems with their eee/Linux boxes. Now when I walk through the cafeteria at work, I see lots of students using netbooks, but when I sneak a peek over their shoulders, it's always Windows. IMO Asus really dropped the ball by not getting the quality of their Linux configuration right. They were supposed to be the flagship of the new wave of Linux on netbooks, and it just didn't happen. I guess this kind of thing is just expensive to get right.

    It will be interesting to see if this predicted new wave of ARM-based netbooks really comes to market, and whether they really have a decent price-to-performance ratio. If so, it would be great, because Windows doesn't run on ARM, and if the price gets down to $100-200, there's really no room for profit for MS even if they did make an ARM version of Windows. But so far, the history of netbooks has all been bait and switch. They keep saying they're going to have them at price x, but they're always really at price 2x. Performance is still a problem, too. I'd hate for people to get the impression that Linux is slow and crappy, simply because netbooks are underpowered to run Firefox/js/flash.

    --
    Find free books.
    1. Re:netbooks reverting to Windows by SerpentMage · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As much as people like to say that this is a price issue, it really isn't. Otherwise, why on earth would OSX be near the 10% range? Why on earth would iPhone, and iPod touch be even registering on the radar? It is not cost.

      What matters to the end user is functionality. They want to be able to get things done and that means flash, executables, etc, etc.

      On Windows everything just works because it has momentum. On OSX people KNOW that it is OSX and expect things to be different (eg commercial Think Different HINT HINT...) And there are applications that get things done for users that are based on OSX.

      Linux is more problematic. First there is very little commercialware support. THus the end user has to figure things out for themselves. And there is very little support among hardware vendors, meaning the end user has to figure things out.

      The end result is that Linux will remain a niche product. I look at 1% and think, great in 2100 we might even get drivers to work... Yippeee...

      --

      "You can't make a race horse of a pig"
      "No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
  12. Re:In related news... by Chabo · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's because 90% of /. readers browse /. using their Windows work machines, then go home and use Linux.

    --
    Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
  13. Microsoft Funded by Ynot_82 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    according to Boycott Novell
    http://boycottnovell.com/2009/02/03/net-applications-big-lie/

    Make your own mind up, though

  14. No. by wandazulu · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe they go by web logs, but I and my friends have many Linux-based devices; I have a TomTom GPS, my friends have Linksys WRT(Can't remember the num) routers, and I do a lot of work on Linux servers that are completely headless and "somewhere in the cloud".

    Linux is bigger than anyone can monitor effectively; so many Linux machines will never touch a web page yet they do useful stuff every day.

    BTW, do they break it out by platform? If so, I wonder how many people like me are out there using Linux on a PS3.

  15. Re:bluetooth RF engineer and Ubuntu by Erikderzweite · · Score: 5, Informative

    To be fair, bluetooth audio wasn't simple in Linux (and I know what I'm talking about, I've been using a bluetooth headset for some years with Linux now).
    First you had to use snd-bt-sco driver with btsco program, you couldn't avoid some console work, had to explicitly start btsco to make it work. But it did work pretty stable, however.
    Then, around bluez-3, they have started using ALSA for bluetooth, you had to put your dongle ID in .asoundrc and you were in trouble using Skype on 64-bit systems (at least so was I, had to copy some libs from 32-bit chroot to make it work).
    Only about a month ago, with pulseaudio-0.9.15 and blueman project it has become possible for me to set up and use my headset the easy way, exactly as I want it to work, and that's without knowing its ID, without console fiddling and so on.
    You turn it on and pulseaudio reroutes earlier chosen sound streams to the headset, even if it's already playing. I can pick up/end twinkle calls with headset's button, blueman's killer feature for me.
    Skype on my 64-bit system has trouble with it though, but they promise a fix soon (doesn't matter for my family because we use SIP with ekiga/twinkle anyway).
    Of course, there has been bluesoeil for Linux, but I haven't used it.

  16. Re:what's the margin of error? by hey! · · Score: 5, Funny

    The margin of error is the numerical magnitude by which, within a specified degree of statistical certainty, the true value of a figure for a population may vary from a specific statistical estimate of of it. due to the effects of chance on the composition of the sample population used to calculate that estimate.

    But that's not important now.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  17. Quick! Do your part! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
     
    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent]
    "Platform"="X11; U; Linux i686"

  18. My wife is now using linux by i)ave · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The last time I tried to install a linux distro was back in 2000 on an old parts computer I had laying around. It was a total disaster, nothing worked and I wasted a good deal of time. That was enough for me to steer clear until 2 days ago. My wife's computer is used mostly for email, facebook, youtube, and light word processing. It had been running windows XP until I got tired of cleaning viruses off her computer. A couple days ago, it was really the last straw and I'd heard about Ubuntu 9.04 being a pretty good distro, so we gave it a shot. I was dreading trying to get it to work with her linksys wusb54gc network adapter and worried about the prospects of getting it to work with our networked lexmark laser printer. I remember my reaction when everything worked without a hitch. I just laughed at how brainlessly easy it all was. This is the kind of experience that is going to bring linux to the mainstream. I don't know if I just got lucky, but for anyone who does not require specific software programs such as outlook and adobe photoshop -- for people like my wife, who use a computer for internet access and basic email and light wordprocessing -- this is the type of experience that Linux needs to maintain and expand on. She loves it and hasn't had any problems -- I got flash installed without a hitch and as far as she's concerned, her computer does exactly what it did before linux, only now it is faster. From my perspective, not having to spend so much time maintaining/fixing her computer is a welcome relief.

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    -- I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous