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Linux Reaches 32% Netbook Market Share
christian.einfeldt writes "Linux netbooks have captured 32% of the global netbook market, says Jeff Orr, an analyst with consumer computer research firm ABI Research. The largest share of netbook sales is in the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, according to Orr. ABI's latest figures align with a statement by Dell executives in February of this year, to the effect that Linux netbooks comprised about 33% of Dell shipments of Dell Inspiron mini 9s netbooks. These data points cast doubt on claims by Microsoft that Windows XP has captured 98% of the netbook market (a figure Microsoft later revised to 93%). In an interview with DesktopLinux.com, Orr made clear that the 32% Linux netbook market share did not include either user-installed Linux or dual-boot systems, but was confined to just pre-installed Linux shipments."
Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that.
I live in Australia, and find it quite rare to find Linux based netbooks in shops. They are available, but mostly from the more specialist retailers. Even then they only have very low specs.
I just got back from Singapore, where I was hoping to pick up a cheap Linux netbook to use over there at a conference. Not only were prices similar to Australia for computer stuff, but virtually all the netbooks ran Windows. There were only a couple of places that I came across that offered Linux, and they were not cheap. They also seemed to be older models. I was disappointed.
That said, anyone who is really interested in Linux would not be satisfied with the simplified versions that come with netbooks. If you are going to wipe the OS to install your own distro, then it doesn't make a great deal of difference what the original operating system is. Any cost savings for having Linux seem to be offset by the premium of buying such a rare beast.
Alternatively, Linux netbook users could have converted their netbooks to dual-boot systems, hence still allowing the possibility of both to be true.
Sitting here in the US, I pretty much only have Dell and System76 as a choice for netbooks. I'd really like to have more Linux based choices.
I bought an EEE pc 1005HAB and just put linux on it.
It was a better deal than dell who wanted to charge me more and were charging the same price as a machine that came with XP.
I don't think this is the case in Australia at present.
I can't find a way to make Dell Australia ship a Linux-based netbook.
All netbooks I can find on sale in retail stores have Windows XP Home or Windows 7 Starter installed.
"31% of Netbooks Running Pirated Windows"
Here in Australia you are quite hard pressed to purchase a netbook with Linux pre-installed.
I got my original eeePC 701 with Linux, but my newer S101 *had* to come with Windows. At the time the only machine I could find with Linux was a single Acer Aspire One unit. However my wife had her heart set on the S101 ...
It now has openSUSE (currently 11.2) installed and everything Just Worked (TM), but that wouldn't be included in anyone's statistics (except mine).
Speaking of statistics, I RTFM, and I couldn't actually see where / how they came up with this statistic. Did I miss something??
Ever stop to think
you're right! linux is fine if all you want to do is run the os but if you want to run apps you need windows. right on the money!
I've tried and I've tried to find an Athlon Neo system WITHOUT Windows and I flat can't do it. Sure, a lot of the Intel ones have Linux, but even most of those have Windows on them. Seriously, if I can't find an Athlon Neo system without Windows it's not telling me people want to buy the Linux versions, it's telling me they "settle" for Linux, and I don't like that.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
All the ones I see in the shops are running Windows. I've even tried asking and got a blank look. Rinikusu? Nan desu ka (what's that)?
I'd love for this to be true - but frankly, I think this casts more doubt on the veracity of Mr. Orr. This really is a ridiculous number.
#DeleteChrome
I bought an EeePC 701 that came preinstalled with Xandros. Within an hour of bringing it home I started installing WindowsXP. Been a satisfied XP Netbook user ever since.
Did Orr also make it clear that that figure did not include people who slapped on a copy of XP from a torrent?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
32% of netbook buyers have at least seen the name Linux, and probably are even being exposed to the fact that it's an alternative to Windows. That's far more than the desktop market.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I'm a Linux user myself, but I just installed XP on a common desktop box tonight and it was painful. Wifi, sound didn't work out of the box, you have to wait ages for all of the updates and SP's to download and install, reboot far too many times and then you have a empty OS almost without useful apps. Some things were hard to get working (Radeon driver installer throwing errors, Wifi driver refusing to work).
I wonder how many 'average' users would get XP, Vista or 7 working on a desktop, let alone a netbook.
Error 001
Security Scan and Virus Detection do not work with your operating system.
but I immediately formatted the hard drive and installed a pirated copy of Windows XP.
Name me a Linux based professional audio workstation on par with Pro Tools, Cubase, Sonar, Logic, Mixcraft, Tracktion, Reaper, etc., and doesn't require me to spend DAYS trying to get low latency drivers to work.
If you mention Audacity, that shows how little you know about serious audio work, or how your audio editing needs are of elementary quality.
I run FL Studio 9 in Wine and it works fine. Perhaps you could get Pro Tools, Cubase, etc. working this way as well, and spend the extra $100 you saved on new gear for your studio.
Finally 2010, The Year of The Linux Netbook !
Ardour is the only Free software DAW suitable for any serious work. It uses JACK, which is an excellent low-latency audio routing system, but actual audio playback on Linux depends on the ALSA backend, which varies in quality depending on your hardware. Check the Alsa SoundCard Matrix for details. Recent Linux kernels have reasonably low latency by default, but for very tight latency requirements you might need a custom kernel configuration or patches.
"Nearly one-third of the 35 million netbooks on track to ship this year will come with some variant of the free, open-source operating system, ABI Research said."
"In a statement, Microsoft maintained that "over 93% of worldwide small notebook PCs run Windows today."
1/3 of netbooks
93% of small notebook PCs.
Does "small notebook PCs" include every 13 or 15" laptop on the planet?
statistics, statistics, statistics...
I can't count how many times I've seen opposition to Linux from short-sighted, narrow-minded people like you who think that their tiny little niche is the be-all and end-all of computers and any OS that doesn't revolve around whatever specialist program they need is out and out trash.
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Funny that their favorite computer is the Dell Mini 9. It's not a very advanced machine, to the point that it een got discontinued once.
They brought it back though because it is very popular for the single reason that it has a reputation as being the most hackintoshable netbook there is. This implies that a lot of these netbooks are running more MacOS than linux.
How many of those Mini 9s ended up getting OS X installed on them? That was the only reason I was planning on getting a 9 and since the Windows version costs more, the Linux version is a no-brainer.
Being sold on the machine and being kept on the machine are two different things.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Some people say "Yay! Linux on netbooks means more mainstream acceptance!" From what I've seen however, this isn't the case. Linux netbooks, from what I've encountered, are
* Generally more expensive than their Windows counterparts (with identical specs)
* Running some dodgy Linux distro that does nothing to help sell the benefits of running Linux and only provides headaches
* Often simply not available
With this being the current situation, I don't see there being anything to be proud of. Yes, it's better than several years ago when Linux wasn't available anywhere mainstream. That doesn't mean things are going well either.
From the article: "Nearly one-third of the 35 million netbooks on track to ship this year will come with some variant of the free, open-source operating system"
That's pretty vague. Are they including those pre-boot/fast-boot linux distros that seem to be all the rage? I'd hardly count that as a "linux netbook" since the primary OS is still Windows.
http://www.tenjou.net/
One would assume that 32% of Dell's sales does not equal 32% of the Market or is that an inconvenient truth for the story
When people ask if I'm an optimist, I say "I hope so". --Bill Bailey
Chrome is going to run on top of Linux...makes me wonder what Malware looks like in the cloud *snicker*
I bought my mini-9 to hackintosh, and actually have it triple booting now Win7, OSX10.6.2, Ubuntu9.10, and find myself spending 90% of the time in Ubuntu -- that being said I'm starting to use Win7 more, only because it's the only OS that plays Hulu and Youtube cleanly without massive undertaking. It can be made to work under Unbuntu9.10, but it will take about 2-5 hours of work from what I can see -- the problem is because both Adobe and Intel leave linux on the back burner and worry about every else first when it comes to bug fixing, and there are problems with both the Intel GMA 950 drivers, and naturally Flash is a buggy mess, but The win7 solution is almost finished, whereas they are barely started on the OS X and Linux bugfixes.
The numbers don't add up.
About 35 million netbooks are on track to be shipped in 2009.
That's about 20% of all shipments.
If linux is a third of netbook volume, overall linux market share (through netbook sales alone) is about 6%.
Add 2% for Linux on regular desktops and notebooks.
Linux share @ 8% of all new PCs shipped calls for celebration. But I doubt it.
Life is just a conviction.
Windows: Because a Netbook was made for running Cubase!
That giggling sound is the average Windows laughing at you. Although they aren't sure why they're laughing because they don't really know what you're talking about.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Because I think the big flaw with the methodology behind the 30+% figure for Linux netbooks is that it ignores the fact that Microsoft Wish Granting Pony .NET 2008 is an inustry gold standard application for measuring market penetration.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Holy shit, have I been asleep for 20 years?
I'm sure all of them end up with a pirated copy of XP before too long.
is that full screen flash + GMA950 + intel linux driver + crappy adobe linux flash = FAIL
aside from that, Ubuntu Netbook Remix is mighty impressive,
So how many of these (usually slightly cheaper) Linux netbooks are wiped the moment they get home and an illegal copy of XP put on?
Zero, since Linux netbooks are more expensive (as other posters pointed out) and hard to find.
the owner [...] decides they don't like Linux and put an illegal copy of XP on?
a) It's hard to imagine an owner who specifically orders a Linux netbook without first learning what Linux is, and most importantly what applications he will have available.
b) Why must that copy of XP be illegal? TigerDirect has XP Home and Pro in stock ($90 and $140 as of now.)
The requirements to run FL Studio compared to Pro Tools or Cubase is huuge. It's like saying SketchUp for hobby stuff works fine, therefore 3ds Max to create models for a hollywood movie will work fine as well (yes, I know Blender etc etc are available on Linux). When you're dealing with serious audio work, you're talking about layers and layers of synths and DSPs running. You NEED every bit of performance out of your machine. Emulation just isn't going to cut it.
You can get Linux to work for a lot of audio work. Ardor is passable/usable for many basic, and some advance stuff. But for truly high-end stuff, nothing comes even close to the commercial programs out on Windows and OSX.
Um, that would be 9.3% . . .
I'm so tired of hearing this 'no professional level music tools on linux' rubbish. Try Ardour. You can even use VST plugins if you really want to (though I wouldn't, too many are rubbish). I've been a recording engineer for close to twenty years and I find the only barrier I have to using it professionally is uninformed bigotry from ProTools users who regard themselves as the centre of the universe. Also, if it taking you DAYS to get jack working, you are definitely doing it wrong or your computer is from Mars.
...since I know there will never be accurate data for the amount of netbooks running GNU/Linux. But at least those of us who've installed it on a netbook can have some kind of solidarity. I've rolled my own build of Ubuntu on seven netbooks for friends and family, and I'm sure there are others like me.
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
No, the post I was replying to (and quoted) was wanking about the lack of an audio workstation that fit his needs. What you quoted is from the grandparent of my post, if not further upstream. Twit.
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The 98% (or 93%..) figure has been debunked. Microsoft basically measured sales at a bunch of brick-and-mortar stores that'd typically have no Linux machines at all, or at most 1 random Linux model. Surprise! At a store where Linux models are unavailable, people don't buy them with Linux!
They did not count online sales, mail order, etc. etc. where Linux netbooks are bought heavily.
Academic versions of XP run for no more than $25, many times even cheaper.
Its been said before, and Ill say it again-- Wine Is Not an Emulator. And its not just a tagline-- many things run near- or better-than- native speed-- I had World of Warcraft running on a dualboot, vista / ubuntu system. The vista system got 1/2 the FPS in directx mode than ubuntu, reading off of an NTFS partition using OpenGL and Wine.
In case thats not clear-- Vista, running its native graphics API on its native filesystem type, got 1/2 the FPS of a linux distro using the "secondary" API, a non-native filesystem, and so-called "emulation".
The problem are there are many such niches-- audio professionals, video editors, people who need CAD, custom PoS apps, gamers, etc.
... Yes, I know. That's exactly what I said. Quoting yet more (now quoting myself)...
You'll note my use of the word "he" here, implying that I mean the post your parent was replying to. You'll also note that said post claims that Linux is the right tool all tasks. This is followed by somebody responding that Linux is not perfect for some tasks, and then you bring up the completely irrelevant point that Linux doesn't have to be perfect for everything. I'm once again going to try to put everything into context so that you can see the problem:
Do you see the problem here? Your post would make sense if the "Linux is not good for audio" guy was top-posting, but he was in fact replying to a "Linux is good for everything" guy, which makes your "Linux doesn't have to be good at everything" reply completely irrelevant to the conversation at hand.
They did say their stats don't include people who installed Linux themselves ... which would be me. I dual-boot XP SP3 and Mandriva 2010 (KDE desktop).
I do have to agree with one of the later posters though. Why would anyone want Ubuntu Netbook Remix or Moblin on one of the 1024x600 or similar netbooks available today? The original Asus with 800x480 (or some other model with similar resolution) ... maybe, but 1024x600 (in the case of my Acer here) is plenty of space for a standard desktop. Either KDE or XFCE is very good on a system like this, probably Enlightenment as well.
Why would anyone doing professional 3D work for hollywood use 3dsmax with Wine or even Blender for that reason? If they feel they need to use Linux there's a native release of Maya (unless they've discontinued it, I've really only used the OSX version for the last couple of years).
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Not only that, I recall reading a post on /. singing the praises of Linux exactly for working with audio ("jack ftw", somewhat paraphrased and condensed).
It's a shame I can't find the link, and of course one person's success story isn't statistics, but it suggests that Linux does do audio work.
You NEED every bit of performance out of your machine. Emulation just isn't going to cut it.
Got any observations to back that up? Any numbers?
If you emulate a Game Boy or a 4.77 MHz PC (those were the days...), your emulation is going to run faster than the original. Emulation != slow.
I recall seeing a bunch of wine stats, showing that some calls were faster on wine than on windows.
How do you know that it's not the important ones for audio that are faster? How do you know the calls relevant to audio work will never be as fast as on windows (or faster)?
Yes, that there are. However, all of them put together make up a very small percentage of people who might want to use Linux. I don't mind if you say "Linux doesn't have anything for my niche, so it's not right for me." I object to the common attitude of, "Linux doesn't have anything for my niche so it's no good."
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I know it's generally a waste of time to try to discuss anything with AC, but this just might be an exception. I have one question for you: why did you make that a reply to me, instead of the same post I replied to? Clearly, it's that post you're referring to, so that's where it belongs.
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Here in the UK, pretty much every netbook on sale at any retailer I have been to and/or searched online has Windows pre-installed. Anyone care to point me in the direction of one?
On the other hand, a single killer application can keep a very niche platform alive in some industries for years after it's all but died out elsewhere. Sibelius (a music notation program which makes Rosegarden look like it was written by a chimp on acid), for instance, originated on the Acorn and in the UK lots of school music departments kept Acorn computers around long after everyone else had migrated to Windows.
I was travelling in China a year ago. I bought an Asus EEE pc there, and without asking me the salesperson started to install a pirated version of Windows. I was quite surprised when I discovered what he was doing; and he evenmore so, when I explained to him that I wanted Linux on the computer:) And this is actually a good thing. Having a free Linux OS pre-installed, gives the customer the ability to choose what OS he/she wants to install, without donating money to Microsoft, Apple, or some other OS manufactorer, which he/she doesn't want to use.
Would you really be using a netbook as a highend audio production system?
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You want to use a netbook as a professional audio workstation?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
There are also many many niches for which windows is completely unsuitable, and probably always will be (some of us need access to the source code)... Your point?
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... to a corporate network.
If you are at the moment then your Sys Admins should be doing something else.
Which means the question stands: why do you need the abomination that the duopoly Outlook-Exchange is?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yours.
Some people live in a world of their own thinking it revolves around what they do.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
There are people that doubt evolution theory, the landing on the moon and global climate change.
There are people that will be presented all the necessary numbers, statistics, statements, and facts and still will chose to ignore the patently obvious.
So here we have, a company that has some hard facts about Linux penetration and most paople can only cast doubts in the numbers.
The amount of literature about Linux out there should give a clue about the position of the project on the psyche of people using computers. People still waiting for the year of Linux on the desktop just missed it, it was last year and now the task is consolidation.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The actual survey (presumably with data, as they list a lot of tables and charts) is available for money. However, ABI won't even say how much money unless you register with them and log in.
http://www.abiresearch.com/research/1003389
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
I doubt if the appearance suddenly inspired a lot of people to switch to Linux. Doesn't this basically mean that the Linux oriented crowd is the one going for Netbooks whereas the usual Windows/Mac crowd is sticking to 'regular' laptops and desktops?
Of course doing a study on what the Netbook users used prior to getting a Netbook would be next to pointless as the survey would either be on a Microsoft oriented site, or a more technical oriented side. Each yielding a study saying that Windows users are the majority of the Netbook owners and Linux users are (respectively).
Life is great! (as told by Lady Susan)
My TI calculator has as much processing power as ENIAC had and that was a mainframe!!!
Come on, you aren't BUYING this netbook back when the D800 was being sold, are you. Technology has moved on.
If you really are a pro, you'll know a huge bag of commercial plug-ins is a must. Otherwise you're just a bedroom "engineer" with all the time in the world and no clients.
The only barrier stopping me using Linux for making music is that it's hard to write when there's no sound coming out of the speakers. Other than that it's great!
I like Linux and yes, you can use it for audio but it really is nowhere near as easy as it is with Windows or Mac OS.
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
Reading through these threads it seems the major use of Linux on Netbooks is to allow people to steal Windows.
How cool is that?
Almost all Movie animation shops and Special Effects companies use Linux and Linux Native apps to to all of their work .... ...It is rare for them to use Windows at all
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Ok, well then add mine to the Linux camp. Bought an HP Mini with XP. It had XP on it for all of 20 minutes to verify that hardware worked. Now it runs the latest Ubuntu (9.10) and does it quite handily.
wrong. If you are a pro a large comfortable room full of outboard gear from respected manufacturers is a must. Plugins are beloved of the 'bedroom' crowd who can't afford real equipment.
Is it time to start "2010 Year of Linux" celebration just yet?
Let me spell it out for you, sir.
He replied to you, because you were flaming an audio guy for saying that professional audio stuff doesn't work on Linux. Our audiophile friend was saying this not because he thinks that Linux must support every specialist program ever, but as a counter to the post above his that said that Linux is the right tool for everything. The gent that replied to you was point out that you should've read the GP before posting.
Follow the thread, please.
I tried playing with Xandros a little bit, but it was pretty crappy and limited.
I never tried the ubuntu netbook remix version, but eeebuntu worked great and supports all of the eeepc hardware up front. Compositing is configured on the "Standard" load and runs surprisingly fast.
Also it can run directly from a 1GB USB thumbdrive, so it's easy to play with.
Are you aware that we're talking about netbooks here? I mean, this is /. and whatnot, but the article aside, did you even read the title?
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
There are no more linux based netbooks available in european shops.
Microsoft has won!
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.
It would take any half brain twit to know this and this is my backup. Netbooks are small computers "Fact" ive actually seen these things and played around with them,thats a "Fact" also. Netbooks are not high end with the atom processor "Fact". Reasoning with someone with a half a brain theres alot of people who dont have that here im not mentioning names this post, well would continue a large amount of you. "Fact" I didnt get this account to post i was just fed up with it and couldnt take it, but thats the reason i read slashdot "True" It isnt because all the comments are right but its the drama of it,you see i laugh at some of the brainless comments when the person dont know wtf there talking about. Im not supporting Linux in this comment or Windows and i will point this out Windows would not be the sucess today if it were hard to use, People like easy. Me i dont give a rats ass, Im actually used to Linux all of them ive used most to see what there like and i can definatly say ubuntu is the easiest. But the true moral of the story with a 1.8ghz atom what are you really looking for, most people want it run fast i hope and the only logical reason to do that at its fulliest is to what, Some of you dont even know this thats why i come here to get the Laugh. Run the operating system that takes less to run the lightest "meaning in this case lighter is better" and that cant be argued but again you will argue even if you dont understand the size of your processor and while the larger number if its Ghz is better thats not allways the case. They got multicore processors. Some of you think ive seen this for my self with a sysinfo script first hand ok i have a quad core it was seen in script but didnt make it obvious. The reason i used the sysinfo script was to see the remarks nothing more, oh here it came, This idiot did his he had a single core processor, more mhz and he said mine is better. I was hoping he was playing around but i was just curious so i ask him a question, i ask how. So he explains it, well mine is 3.8ghz that is higher than yours, i cant argue with that he's got something there atleast he's got the concept right. But im gonna say mine is better and i can prove this, he's like thats not true explain. Then i nailed him Mine is a 4 core yours is a single core 1. he said so,he actually said that. then i actually had to link him to several pages explaining it i knew but i wanted him to work for it, He comes back and said i learnt something new, i was happy and new right then he wasnt on slashdot or he paid attention and believe the comments, he didnt argue. moral of the story, Linux runs faster on a netbook and yes you can actually do more with linux on the netbook it takes some settings. ok heres a challenge for you to try run your netbook with windows and try to play a 720p hd movie nearly impossible right. the kicker ive seen this done my friend run a 1080hd on a netbook. not not to watch it,just to see if it could be done i know how to tweak mplayer thats what he used and it ran it fine. Thats just a example, i hope you didnt buy a netbook for 200 dollars lets say in hope to play games. For what a netbook is needed for with linux you dont have to do nothing the applications are there just use them, is simply all. What did the netbook first come with "Linux" the only reason windows is even offered is because they seen a share there and went nuts they went to the extreme of offering there operating system cheap to them, then there like ok we will use windows and at that time it was windows xp and yes vista was out. This is why xp was on there and not vista, is it ovious XP is lighter. Netbook sales were good with just linux when they come out, im sure alot formatted but not to put windows on there, but the linux of there choice. now argue as you please and make some people laugh that knows this is the truth. btw i dont use words like noob troll or whatever and id expect people at my age wouldnt, if they do im worried as in they think thats cool. people my age and i hope have allready grown up with point out and bla
No they don't, really, they don't.
Please stop trolling.
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
I just battled a new AMD64 machine trying to get low-latency (alsa/jack/jack-rack for realtime DSP) to work. I found that the ACPI on my motherboard was buggy and was starving all of the real-time processes. Disabling it at the kernel command line (acpi=off) did the trick for me. YMMV, but any modern system should be able to do low-latency audio without a problem, provided everything is configured and working correctly.
Nonaggression works!
I really hope these are true. It's time that people realize that Linux runs FAR more efficiently on hardware than Windows does. Windows is bloated, and as a result cannot run on netbooks nearly as well as Linux. Microsoft has tried to scale down Windows 7 Starter Edition for netbooks, probably to try and trim some of the fat, and also to make more money by making the users pay for more features. It's time that users stop using this plagued Windows software, and use Linux which can do it all. Linux is efficient, free, and does not have any restrictions... it comes with all of the features you want. http://members.apex-internet.com/sa/windowslinux
Expect this number to drop SHARPLY with windows7 out.
What is with this? Why are the vendor specific Linux distros uniformly (or nearly so) bad? Does everyone feel that they have to mess with software? I can see tweaking the drivers to conform to the machine specs, but not much else. It's like the vendor added crap on Windows machines. Even discounting the adware / demo crap they stuff on the machines, the vendor specific stuff is horrid (and Toshiba, I'm looking at you today).
You know, even XP isn't all that bad as a naked install. Unless you really want to put some talented people on the project, leave well enough alone.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
http://www.newtechnology.co.in/acer-aspire-one-d250-price/
Price and Availability:The new Acer Aspire One D250 netbook is available in India at price of Rs.20,000 (with Windows XP OS) and Rs.16,000 (with Linux OS). ie $90 less with Linux.
Two things... 1) as the parent noted, the Mini9 is no longer being produced (replaced by Mini10). 2) The Mini 9 had by default a very small SSD (4/8/16GB) that would barely support a windows install and was designed for Linux. Saying that 33% of a netbook designed for Linux was sold with Linux means that people actually chose to run Windows on 67% of them even though it wasn't designed for Windows.
Adding on to further throw this thread off topic, if you're working with audio you really should be using the real-time preemption model, most distros don't have it turned on by default so you either need to compile your own kernel or find one that does. (i think the pro-audio build for ubuntu has it by default)
So your assumption is that audio production is becoming an increasingly *smaller* niche of computer use? With the number of DAWs, synths and sequencers continuing to rise on other platforms, what makes you think this is the case? If it's a "vanishingly small" market, it wouldn't have made much sense for Apple to release Garageband, now would it?
Really, there is just no form of criticism of Linux that you people can take. If the program in question is for a niche market, then it's irrelevant. If it doesn't exist at all on Linux, we can do just fine without it, and have been, thank you very much. If it's difficult to use, that's not because the software is badly designed, it's that the users are too stupid or accustomed to their existing tools to figure it out. If the documentation is undecipherable (see recent Slashdot article), the user probably shouldn't be reading documentation anyway, as they're probably the kind of user that should just stick to browsers and email. The list goes on and on and on and on and on.
The reason why people aren't using Linux en masse is that for your average user, Linux is simply a waste of time. All the stuff that your crowd dismisses as irrelevant is stuff that, in the aggregate, matters a quite a lot to people. What is a computing platform if not a collection of (sometimes big, sometimes small, sometimes overlapping) niches? Who wants to recompile his kernel just to be able to get passable audio latency? On OS X I haven't had to think about that for...roughly the number of years since I migrated to it. Who wants to deal with woefully inadequate documentation or turn to community message boards where half of the advice is wrong or misleading? Who actually wants to spend more time fiddling with his OS than using it to produce content, or in the case of the non-musically-inclined such as yourself, "do something productive"? Who wants to learn a poorly designed user interface (or better yet, deal with no interface whatsoever) for substandard clone of an existing commercial product when the original product works just fine?
The answer is people like you, and the miniscule market share of like-minded ultra-left-brained mega-dweebs that your insipid post reflects.
You can even use VST plugins if you really want to (though I wouldn't, too many are rubbish).
If you feel like trying to run your VSTs under WINE (audio plugins are tempermental enough in plenty of native hosts). And really, you think you'll be getting better results with LADSPA? Show me a non-trivial LADSPA effect (like, say, a guitar amp simulator) that doesn't sound like trash.
No, and I'd really like to know how you read that into what I wrote. Linux isn't for everybody and probably never will be. That's OK; if you prefer Windows or like the way Macs work, that's what's right for you. My point was, and still is that just because it can't do what you need it to doesn't mean it's no good for other people who don't work with whatever specialized programs you need.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Asia-Pacific? Where people can easily get a pirated versions of Windows, which they promptly put after formatting over the linux install on the hard drive. Oh, and save $50 in the process by buying a Linux netbook instead of a Windows one? That Asia Pacific? ;-)
Requiem
I have used fedora for years then switched to Ubuntu. This is on a bunch of laptops for me and colleagues.
Wireless broadband didn't work in 7.x could get it in 8.4 with great amount of effort, out of the box in 8.10, fucked it again in 9.04 and had to fix it manually with usb_modswitch, fucked that up again in 9.10.
This is a Telstra series 7 (Australia's largest ISP) USB modem.
In the work sense you can imagine how crap Linux looks when it works, then not, then click the icon, no wait run this script, no now you can right click the system tray, no wait Apps->Internet-> Gnome PPP...!
If companies like Canonical / Ubuntu really want Linux to be adopted then they need to stop users have things that are crucial to the user experience (of a netbook) break just because the user - quite rightly - clicked "Update".
I love Linux but there are pleanty of other OS's I could use if I didn't need working Internet access. :-)
Andrew S. Tanenbaum is probably the best known author of Computer Science textbooks and he does in fact use Windows as an example along with UNIX and Linux.
It's interesting that the only evidence you present for your view on UNIX/Linux (other than it not being Windows) focuses on their design done "with good practice and proper methodology".
I've never read any description of UNIX historical development practices or methodologies. I haven't read anything about Linux's either. Given that the former was done by 1 or 2 people within a big corporation and the latter was done about 25 years later by a large group of unpaid developers scattered around the world, it seems quite unlikely that their practices and methodologies have much in common.
Linux installed laptops is still an Oxymoron in Tokyo.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
"You named one author, odd that there are thousands of others who write Operating System books and write them far better then Andrew S. Tanenbaum."
Now you know the danger of making overbroad generalizations. Perhaps you should of said "none of the OS book authors that I'm familiar with". Oops, I guess that doesn't work either since you claim to know that Tanenbaum is a bad author.
"And if for some reason you didn't take a Linux course ..."
It would have been rather difficult for me to take a Linux course in college given the fact that it didn't exist then. Yes, there were operating systems before Linux and before UNIX.
If Linux and Unix are the only OSs covered, no wonder young CS students have a bias for them - there's a whole world of OSs that have been omitted.
"In fact I want someone to prove to me that Linux and Unix are not the best designed Operating Systems."
Sorry, bub. If you state that Linux and Unix are the best designed Operating Systems it's your burden of proof, not mine. I suggest you confine your proof to those operating systems and don't mention Windows at all since it's irrelevant.
Newsflash, the number is up from 32% to 34%! - I just switched...
But seriously. My netbook is counted into the Windows XP, because it wasn't available with Linux when I bought it a year ago. And until a week ago it was correct to count it to the Windows pile. I had been looking for a distro that would support my netbook (Asus S101) out of the box. I don't want to do work at home, that's why I didn't want to play the hunt-for-the-red-driver-game at home. I just wanted a Linux that would work out of the box on my rather rare netbook.
I got fed up with Windows freezing up every now and then. And lately more now than then. It would just freeze the UI to do Something Important, and then continue. A fresh reinstall didn't help it, so I started the hunt for a working Linux distro again. And now it seems I've finally found it, the Easy Peasy.
Sure, it's not a "real Linux", neither is my netbook a "real laptop". It's a netbook. I use it for web browsing, Skype, email and occational word processing when travelling. At home it's the surfboard that you use when lying on couch, or I admit, in bed when I actually should be reading a book instead. And for this I don't want a "real operating system". I want something that just works for these tasks. Something that doesn't freeze and doesn't require configuring.
Well, I think I've found it, and I'm happy now!
On the subject of the article, though. I was wondering how many other netbook users are out there that have ditched the preinstalled Windows in favour of Linux, thus contributing to the numbers of Windows netbooks instead of Linux?
If all else fails, pull the plug and get out...
The Life is out there...
In my case, I have converted over 25 brand new netbooks (mainly Dell and eeePC) from Windows to Linux at the request of my customers and several colleagues claim the same so this is not an isolated phenomena.