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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.
Linux = preformance
Linux = stability
Linux = proper OS design
Linux is the right OS for any job period, windows is used when you want to play solitare or make a spread sheet or even when you want to see an OS crash.
"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
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.
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.
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
It is now official. Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
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.
Finally 2010, The Year of The Linux Netbook !
"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...
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.
bitch
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?
Or after trying for a while the owner (who had the best intentions) decides they don't like Linux and put an illegal copy of XP on?
Just sayin'...
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.
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,
Um, that would be 9.3% . . .
...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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
... 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.
Reading through these threads it seems the major use of Linux on Netbooks is to allow people to steal Windows.
How cool is that?
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.
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.
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
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.
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. :-)
Linux installed laptops is still an Oxymoron in Tokyo.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
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.