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Linux Reaches 1% Usage Share
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri May 01, 2009 11:46 AM
from the hitslink-confirms-it dept.
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%."
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Is Linux's "Overall Market Share" Statistic Meaningful? 300 comments
ruphus13 writes "Linux recently achieved 1% market share of the overall operating system market. But, does that statistic really mean anything useful? This article makes the case that it doesn't. It states, 'Framed in the "overall market share" terminology, the information (or how it was gathered and calculated) isn't necessarily questionable, it's more that it's meaningless. It's nebulous, even when one looks at several months worth of data. [How] Linux is used in various business settings answers an actual question — and the answer can be used to ask further questions, form opinions — and maybe one day even explain to some degree what 1% of the market share really means. ... Operating systems aren't immortal beings, and by rights, there can't be (there shouldn't be) only one. ... No one system can be everything to everyone, and no one system (however powerful, or stable) can do everything perfectly that just one person might require of it in the course of a day. While observing trends and measuring market share are important, the results (good or bad) shouldn't be any platform's measure of self-worth or validation. It's a data point to build on (we're weak in this area, strong in this area, our platform is being used a lot more this quarter, where did all of our users go?) in order to improve and stay relevant.'"
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Boy oh boy! (Score:5, Funny)
I can't wait! At this rate, 2024 will be the year of Linux on the Desktop!
GIGO? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:GIGO? (Score:4, Funny)
100% of claims on how many statistics are made up on the spot are made up on the spot.
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Re:Boy oh boy! (Score:5, 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
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Re:Boy oh boy! (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but we're talking about Jackalopes here. Not clear at all if their population growth follows a geometric progression.
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Re:Boy oh boy! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Boy oh boy! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Boy oh boy! (Score:4, 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.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re: (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 f
Re:Boy oh boy! (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.
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Re:Boy oh boy! (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.
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Re:Boy oh boy! (Score:5, Funny)
My girlfriends mother bought a laptop about two years ago.
Who do you think you're fooling with this?
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Re:Boy oh boy! (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.
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Re:Boy oh boy! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Boy oh boy! (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [linuxfoundation.org] 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.
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Re:Boy oh boy! (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.
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Re:Boy oh boy! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Boy oh boy! (Score:4, 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.
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Re:Boy oh boy! (Score:5, 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.
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Re:Boy oh boy! (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
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Re:Boy oh boy! (Score:4, Interesting)
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'.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you define "supposed to"? I've always thought the phrase "supposed to" was kind of weird and hard to say what it meant. Certainly there are people working on Linux on various levels who would like it to be popular, and are even working with the intent of making it popular.
Also, it's not at all strange for them to be strutting their market share. There is probably some market share (though surely above 1%) where Linux will reach a sort of critical mass, in which it will get mass recognition and bette
Re:Boy oh boy! (Score:5, 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?
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Re:Boy oh boy! (Score:4, 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.
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But seriously folks (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.
Re:But seriously folks (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Simian lol ... phones for Monkeys. And I thought that was iPhone's marketing campaign ?
Economy and No-Man's Land (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Economy and No-Man's Land (Score:5, Interesting)
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Inexplicable statistical variations (Score:4, 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.
Re:Inexplicable statistical variations (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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I wonder how it breaks down... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Methodology? How do they measure that? (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.
I used to be in that 1% (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.
Re:I used to be in that 1% (Score:4, 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.
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Re:bluetooth RF engineer and Ubuntu (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). .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).
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
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.
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Not a very reliable conclusion (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
the power of the pre-loading (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
Re:the power of the pre-loading (Score:4, 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. [ubuntuforums.org]
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.
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netbooks reverting to Windows (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.
Re: (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 H
Microsoft Funded (Score:4, Interesting)
according to Boycott Novell
http://boycottnovell.com/2009/02/03/net-applications-big-lie/ [boycottnovell.com]
Make your own mind up, though
No. (Score:4, 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.
Quick! Do your part! (Score:5, Funny)
My wife is now using linux (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:In related news... (Score:5, Informative)
It's because 90% of /. readers browse /. using their Windows work machines, then go home and use Linux.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
When it's pre-loaded.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So when are they going to make it desirable for the non-tech literate to use?
It's there already.
The part about Ubuntu UI my wife uses is the Firefox icon. As the OS is increasingly becoming a trivial commodity, Linux will continue to gain share with accelerating rate.
Re:what's the margin of error? (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.
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