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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.
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??
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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.
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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'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.
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Security Scan and Virus Detection do not work with your operating system.
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.
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.
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.
In my case it's not paying the money, it's who the money goes to. I don't want Microsoft taxing computers - it's philosophical.
Another reason I want to find a system with Linux pre-installed is when I wipe it and put my distro of choice on there, if it was sold with Linux chances are I can make all of it work with Linux. There's still a lot of crappy software based hardware out there that practically requires Windows to work, or requires so much effort and maintenance to work/keep working in Linux it's not worth messing with.
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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.
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TFA claims: "In many of these markets, the $15 to $25 price differential compared to Windows XP makes all the difference." I have a really hard time believing that anyone who has the $400 to buy a netbook will decide to save $20 by buying one without Linux and then installing a pirated copy of Windows. Installing any OS on a laptop is a total pain, and often results in a system with all kinds of problems, like power management and sound that don't work. This is completely different from the situation we used to have about 4 years ago when Fry's was selling desktop Linux boxes for $200, while the cheapest Windows box they sold was $450. Sure, for a 55% discount, a lot of people are going to be willing to do their own install of a pirated OS. A ton of that definitely happened back then, and AFAICT that's actually why Fry's stopped selling cheap Linux machines; people would botch the Windows install and then try to return the computer.
If I was really going to believe this article, I'd need to know what the country is that is bringing the average up to 32% -- by buying significantly *more* than 32% of their netbooks with Linux. TFA says it isn't China. Several Australian slashdotters says it's not Australia. Are there massive Linux sales in India, for example? Seems unlikely, given that most of the Indian tech support people I've talked to don't even seem to understand what Linux is.
Another thing I'd need to see in order to believe this article is independent confirmation of the price differential in this mystery country. It's very rare in in the US for Linux machines to sell for significantly less than comparable Windows machines. This is partly because OEMs get huge amounts of money from software houses for loading their crapware onto Windows boxes, and this offsets most or all of the cost of Windows.
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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
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.
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.
It's not that hard to go back to a traditional desktop. Disable Netbook Launcher and Maximus in Startup Applications. Enable show_desktop in apps->nautilus->preferences in gconf-editor, then set up your panels. You can even keep the netbook-launcher icon and start the launcher when you want it.
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Serious question..
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".
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.
Clueless one, go visit http://www.mydellmini.com/forum/mac-os-x/ to see hundreds of Dell Minis running OS X...
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.