Where Linux Gained Ground in 2007

christian.einfeldt writes "Computer scientist and media maven Roy Schestowitz takes a look at platforms where GNU Linux gained the most ground in 2007. In a thorough review which is the first of a two-part series, Schestowitz looks at trends in supercomputers, mobile phones, desktops, low-end laptops and tablets, consoles, media players and set-top boxes. Schestowitz finds that GNU Linux solidified its dominant grip on supercomputers; made huge gains in low-end laptops and tablets; won major OEM and retail support on the desktop; gained new entries into game consoles; and also spawned new businesses in set-top boxes while holding its ground in pre-existing product lines. He sums it all up by saying that '2007 will be remembered as the year when GNU/Linux became not only available, but also properly preinstalled on desktops and laptops by the world's largest companies.'"

Not on the Wii.

[webmaster404 (1148909)]

Linux can not be run on the Wii as the article suggests. It can be run on the Wii in Gamecube mode, but it has no Wii funtions.

Re:Not on the Wii.

[sxpert (139117)]

running homebrew in wii mode was demonstrated at the CCC congress. check the video about the xbox360 security breakeage

Re:

[larry bagina (561269)]

it doesn't (yet) run linux, though.

Re:I sense some bias...

[Miseph (979059)]

While I too doubt the estimate that the number of users running Linux has doubled in 2007, I don't doubt it by much. I know that between 1/1 2007 and 12/31 2007 I have seen more new people install and run Linux than any other year in my memory, and I have not seen any of them abandon it after a few weeks or days. The very fact that user survey participation on Linux specific sites has more than doubled is a strong sign that, even if the actual number of users didn't double, at least the number of people interested in it has, and that's big. If only Dell would take their Ubuntu machines off of the separate page and let us install it on more than two models as a drop down alternative to Vista/XP (with a big warning dialog to scare clueless buyers away from a product they probably don't want) I think 2008 would definitely see the number of Linux desktops double.

Just as importantly, I've seen a massive move toward non-MS products even on Windows machines. My college has Firefox installed on virtually every machine, and I can't even remember the last time I saw an open IE window; I've even seen a few installs of OpenOffice next to Office 2007 on the least frozen machines. The more cross platform apps gain steam, the less reason anyone has to pay the Microsoft tax, and the less likely people are to actually do so.

So yes, doubled is probably an exaggeration, but it's definitely been a banner year for (GNU/)Linux and FOSS in general.

Re:I sense some bias...

[me at werk (836328)]

I think you're close, but not fully there. If Dell gave users an option to install both with dual boot setup easily (which might require license haggling), it could be bigger. "No worries, if Linux isn't good for you, switch back to Windows by rebooting!" It's working for Mac, isn't it?

Re:

[Ambidisastrous (964023)]

It gives Dell something to do in the customization step, too. When I set up Ubuntu+XP for my parents, I added a shortcut/bookmark in Nautilus and the Places menu to the "My Documents" folder on the XP partition (rw access). So all their documents are available from both OSes, they don't need to learn much about user home directories, Dad has easy access to Excel, and Mom isn't plagued by the various anti-productivity measures built into Windows and Norton Antivirus For Home Victims.

This has been a good solu

Re:I sense some bias...

[Daengbo (523424)]

How about this, then: for the first time in ten years of using Linux, I was asked by someone else to install it. In fact, two different people requested it. That' definitely different

Re:

[ricegf (1059658)]

We hosted three Christian youth workers from England in our home a few months ago. They all had laptops, of course, but to my surprise, the laptops ran Ubuntu. When I expressed surprise (because I usually see technical people running Linux rather than Christian youth workers), one of them looked at me with a puzzled expression and said, "Linux doesn't crash so much."

I guess he told me! :-)

But I, too, noticed a much broader cross-section of the "normal" population discussing and using Linux than befor

Re:

[samkass (174571)]

I agree with you in general. I've pretty much been Mac-only at home since 1988. However, as a Java developer the Mac is obviously very, very lacking. In addition, the hardware is frustrating-- no 2nd mouse button (why can't they do a Mighty Buttonbook?), no dock, no 2nd monitor out (which I get with a dock on my work Dell).

If I wasn't so tied to Macs, I'd be seriously thinking about a Dell right about now.

Re:

[nacturation (646836)]

In addition, the hardware is frustrating-- no 2nd mouse button ...

Yeah, Linux shares the same problem. I installed Linux on my PowerMac and it only had one mouse button as well. It's too bad there aren't any third-party products which would alleviate this problem.
 

Re:

[Ash-Fox (726320)]

I admire the work being done with Linux on the Desktop, but all of this talk of "Linux on the desktop in 200X!" is getting to be kind of silly.

Article nor the summary says that.

You want Unix

Unix is not important to me, I also don't think the majority of people who use Linux, use it because they want something Unixy. But! If I were to choose a system for Unix capability, I would choose windows over OS X since Windows' POSIX subsystem actually behaves completely to spec for one, unlike OS X's BSD subsystem (

Re:

[EWIPlayer (881908)]

Article nor the summary says that.

Google is your friend... I'm being general.

Unix is not important to me, I also don't think the majority of people who use Linux, use it because they want something Unixy.

Wow... well, I think you just might be wrong there.

Tons of high quality third party applications and you are going to mention OS X? Can I have what you are smoking?

What do people do most of the time? Photo editing, surfing, word processing, spread sheets, movie watching, music playing, IM,

Re:OSX...

[Divebus (860563)]

The biggest drawback for Linux isn't the platform or OS, it's all those dumbass Klingon sounding names for the applications. Fix that - and for god sake don't make people use a perl script to install it - and you might be able to claim more inroads into general public market share. People don't WANT to use Linux, more people just don't want to use Windows because they've realized how treacherous it is. The iron is hot.

For that reason, your instincts are good for OS X because I've seen many people switch off the Windows platform in 2007 and never look back. They love their Macs mostly because the OS leaves them alone to work plus they've discovered all the software that comes with it. If you are the kind of person who can install any Linux flavor and be able to answer the question "ok, now what?" then Linux is for you. That excludes the vast majority of people who just want to use a computer.

Re:OSX...

[by Anonymous Coward]

You want Unix and a production quality desktop with tons of high quality third party apps with a buttload of real-world usage? Stop waiting on Linux and switch to OSX... What you want is here, now.

And yet, we're not "waiting on Linux". We're using it on our desktops today. What does that say?

Forget about all of this "It's got to be 'free', man" stuff and just recognize the fact that it has to work, and work well...

I saw a NeXT cube when I was in college, and I thought it was the greatest computer ever ... until I saw a Pentium-75 running Linux 1.0 (without even X). I suggest that it is you who are ignoring the elephant in the room. We've seen Mac OS X. We've used it. We've developed for it, and played games on it. And we still want Linux! We are not so shallow to think that if it's Unixlike, then it has all of the benefits of Linux. You can put our words in 'quotes' and pretend that we talk like stoner-dudes, but it does not change anything.

I realize that if you've been setting up hundreds of Linux boxes, you're probably just ranting, and want nothing more to do with something called "Linux" no matter how good it is. I could tell you that these days it's pretty much "insert Ubuntu installer CD, reboot, press return" (you don't even have to give away personal data like on the Mac), but you wouldn't hear me. That's OK. We'll still be here in 20 years if you ever decide to come back.

You are Soooo out of date

[John Jamieson (890438)]

OK, now I think the Linux distro's you installed were ALL a decade ago.

Hey, even Corel Linux (remember that one) handled USB ports. Now, almost 10 years later I can tell you I have NEVER had to "modify fstab to get my USB mounts working right" or install something that can play mp3's ... etc.

Man, the distros I try just work out of the box. In fact, if you want something that "just works", some of the Linux distro's come with every codec you can think of. Files that the average Windows and OS-X user can't

Thanks, but no thanks.

[Haeleth (414428)]

That might be today. Check out the OSx86 project. It might not work for you but it's worth a shot.

Yeah, very nice, I'm sure. But I can run Linux on my hardware legally. Unlike some people, I prefer to respect copyright holders' wishes and only use their intellectual property in the way they desire. Come back when I can run OS X on my hardware without violating the EULA.

Re:Easy Answer

[Ash-Fox (726320)]

Where are the commercial game ports for Linux?

Beyond the obvious FPSes, Eve Online and Second life. There are also these game companies [quickfox.org] that have commercial ports for Linux systems.

We have Parallels for Mac OS X, which seems to be quite capable at running Windows programs at a decent speed, with good compatibility.

VMware server works fine for me. But best perforance tends to come from wine and crossover I have noticed.

I think anyone who's actually tried to use either of these will probably tell you that if you really want to run Windows programs on your Linux machine

I run all the source games (includes half life 2 and all it's episodes, portal, hl2 death match,, team fortress 2) just fine, Steam and so on just fine under. I hear World of Warcraft runs quite well too.

and the fact of the matter is that most of the commercial software out there is for Windows

Most commercial software available for the most popular platform. Who would of guessed?

Distributions are still a fragmented mess, it's incredibly difficult to produce a binary for Linux that will work across all distributions (especially with Gentoo and their whole CFLAGS fiasco...thank goodness that fad died off)

No it isn't. Follow the LSB.

As much as you'd like to complain about Windows and Apple, binary compatibility is not a problem.

I have plenty of applications that don't run on OS X from older versions of OS X. Windows Vista has issues running some older Windows programs. As for Linux... I can't think of a time EVER when a LSB program didn't work.

Professional audio? Don't even bother. ESounD, ARTS, JACKD, now PulseAudio seems to be the big name in useless sound daemons...but that doesn't mean everyone will standardize on it.

Gnome and KDE are adding support for it. gstreamer and KDE4's new sound system supporting it as a back end pretty much means it is going to be supported by a wide range of applications already.

Linux kernel is supposedly so "flexible" that it can be used in any range of devices from computers to cell phones, then why is it that 18 years or more later after the first release, there -still- isn't an easy way to do very low-latency, high quality audio recording on Linux?

Simply because the problem hasn't been addressed yet.

Linux distributions could _EASILY_ supplant a lot of the Windows based environments for professional audio if the kernel was up to the task.

I heard similar crap about when wine would run Photoshop and others. When Wine finally did for a large period of time, nothing changed at all. So forgive me if I just remain skeptical.

I haven't run Windows on my PC in over six years, so clearly Linux has been capable of meeting my desktop needs

I use Windows, Linux, various BSDs and OS X regularly.

Re:

[misleb (129952)]

I can build applications against the Windows 2003 SP1 platform SDK and they certainly will not work correctly on Windows XP SP2 (Having done this myself, runtime errors popping up randomly are most common to happen in such cases).

The question is, why would you do that when targeting say, Win2k, is adequate for most applications?

If I build applications against the latest Windows XP SP2 platform SDK. You will also find that running them on Windows XP (no service packs - a 2001 OS) will likely cause these ap

Re:Easy Answer

[Vapula (14703)]

1) running Windows games on Linux
I've personnal experience of playing GuildWars flawlessly under Linux using Cedega. Cedega also supports World of Warcraft and other games making it probably much better than Wine (well, I should check on this one, lots of progress have been done) and CrossOver Office (which wasn't meant for games in the first place)

About Linux commercial games, you forgot about NeverWinterNights, and some promising products like Planeshift. And the upcoming "project Apricot" (Blender Foundation and CrystalSpace).

2) Audio
Very few sound engineers rely on only ONE program. Most of the time, they switch from one to another depending on the task they've to do. Don't forget that SAE is behind Ardour... They would not lose their time and money with it if it was useless...

3) compatibility
Linux rely on some standard components like openGL, X11 and the kernel. If you want to distribute some closed source binary, you may statically link those libraries which may be a problem.
Source distribution don't have many problems thanks to the autoconf and automake.
Did you already try to run some old Windows 3.1 softwares on Windows XP or Vista ? Often, Windows 98 applications don't run under Windows 2000 or XP.

4) ESD, aRTS, JACK,...
Well, ESD was GNOME, aRTS was KDE and JACK was for Realtime with low latency... You forgot about OSS and ALSA, GNOME/KDE and lots of other similar duplicate efforts.
GNU/Linux is also about choice... something lots of people have forgotten since the old ages...
COMMAND.COM or 4DOS.COM ?
Sound Blaster or GUS (now, most of the time, it's the onboard sound card)
EMM386 or QEMM386 ?

If you're "computer illiterate", you don't mind about what's installed and go with what the system install (aRTS, ESD, what are those things ?)
If you know what you're doing, well, you will choose the one which suits the best your needs...

I agree that there is still lots of place for improvement, but when I look back to the old time of Linux 0.99pl10, yggdrasil (CDROM) or SLS/Slockware/MCC (floppy) installs, the X11 Config file to build by hand (with a calculator and the specs of your monitor), very basic keyboard support (US qwerty, FR azerty and DE qwertzu, nothing more),... the way behind is much bigger than the way ahead...

Lately, I had to install a brand new computer in dual-boot Windows/Linux. Linux didn't need any extra driver but Windows needed lots of extra drivers (Video, sound, network,...). Security updates were also much faster to install under linux (and they included lots of apps, unlike Windows)... So, unless you need some specific software or plan to use the computer for gaming, Linux is going to become a better choice than Windows... Truly PnP !!!

Re:

[Stormwatch (703920)]

An SP2 installation is going to work on a 99% of the computers out there and maybe popping in a driver disk from the mfg or letting it update from M$. In any case, it's usually pretty simple. You CANNOT say the same for linux.

Installed XP Pro SP2 on my new computer. No network, no proper resolution for my widescreen monitor, without installing the drivers that came with the motherboard.

Booted with Ubuntu 7.10 CD. Network and proper wide resolution just work.

Wiped everything and installed iATKOS (hacked Mac

Re:

[Xabraxas (654195)]

Musicians write and perform music and the apps themselves are designed to let them do that with a minimum of hassle. Do you really think that any pro musician wants to spend any time whatsoever setting up the OS audio, let alone even having to choose which audio code to run, when OSX requires nothing of the sort and outperforms Linux anyways?

First of all ARTS and ESD are being deprecated and OSS has been deprecrated already so take them out of the picture. Linux can do low latency scheduling and in comb

Fragmented mess?

[betterunixthanunix (980855)]

People who say that a problem facing Linux is that there are too many distributions and too many different ways to do things have the wrong perception of what an OS is. Different distributions are different operating systems, and expecting binary compatibility across different OS's is folly regardless of what kernel is in use. That's why systems like automake/autoconf exist, and standard API's like POSIX, exist, so that source code can be recompiled on different platforms without too much pain.

"Linux" is not a single operating system, it is just a kernel. The kernel can be run without GNU utils, without X11, etc.

Re:

[Kelbear (870538)]

Diversity as a quality taken by itself is definitely useful. However, in this case it diversity is bringing up cross-compatibility issues. If software works on one fork of diversity, but fails to work on another, each fork has been locked into that road, resulting in less diversity everytime a fork is made.

Windows definitely has limitations that Linux OSes can offer(I definitely prefer this alternative to the Windows Startmenu and startbar/systray), but in terms of software, Windows has more compatibility w

Re:Easy Answer

[entrigant (233266)]

Where are the commercial game ports for Linux? No one wants to make them, obviously, save for the FPS crowd (and there's only an Unreal Tournament for Linux because Epic passes the buck to Icculus to get the job done, not because they have the in-house talent to do it themselves). There are a few commercial games for Linux, yes, but only a few, and there's very little variety between them. In the open source world we have a few good games (the majority of them being FPS's, what a surprise), Battle for Wesnoth if you like strategy games (turn based ones, that is). Then we have the unfortunate, ugly ripoffs like "Secret Maryo Chronicles," and other games that look like they were developed for a C64. Plenty of selection, not a lot of quality.

The following publishers develop comemrcial linux games:

http://www.pompomgames.com/ [pompomgames.com]
http://www.garagegames.com/ [garagegames.com]
http://www.introversion.co.uk/ [introversion.co.uk]
http://frictionalgames.com/ [frictionalgames.com]
http://sillysoft.net/ [sillysoft.net]
http://www.basiliskgames.com/ [basiliskgames.com]
http://www.guildsoftware.com/ [guildsoftware.com]
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ [shrapnelgames.com]
http://www.rune-soft.com/ [rune-soft.com]
http://grubbygames.com/ [grubbygames.com]
http://www.caravelgames.com/ [caravelgames.com]
http://www.planewalkergames.com/ [planewalkergames.com]
http://www.graalonline.com/ [graalonline.com]

There are also the high profile ones such as neverwinter nights, the doom and quake series, unreal, etc.

There are many high quality independant titles such as neverball, you mentioned wesnoth, crimson fields, flight gear, torcs, the spring project, total annihilation 3d, tecnoballZ, powermanga, tile racer, pingus, clonk, freeciv, ultimate stunts, planeshift, scorched3d, VDrift, silvertree (not complete, but being created by the wesnoth guys so likely will not be vapor), ufo: alien invasion, scourge, etc.

http://spring.clan-sy.com/ [clan-sy.com]
http://www.wesnoth.org/ [wesnoth.org]
http://torcs.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
http://www.flightgear.org/ [flightgear.org]
https://icculus.org/neverball/ [icculus.org]
http://ta3d.darkstars.co.uk/ [darkstars.co.uk]
http://linux.tlk.fr/games/ [linux.tlk.fr]
http://tileracer.model-view.com/ [model-view.com]
http://pingus.seul.org/ [seul.org]
http://www.clonk.de/ [clonk.de]
http://freeciv.wikia.com/ [wikia.com]
http://www.ultimatestunts.nl/ [ultimatestunts.nl]
http://www.planeshift.it/ [planeshift.it]
http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/ [scorched3d.co.uk]
http://vdrift.net/ [vdrift.net]
http://www.silvertreerpg.org/ [silvertreerpg.org]
http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
http://scourge.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

Many of these are very impressive independently made free games. Perhaps they lack the multi million dollar marketing budget and won't make your geofrce 8800 gtxz 45 x super elite ultra melt, but theya re *fun* games, and they are numerous. Also keep in mind this publisher and free game list is only what I could find in 1 hour of searching.

Then there are freed older commercial games such as warzone 2100, homeworld, descent 1 and 2, doom, quake, etc.

Lets not stop t

Re:Easy Answer

[Kethinov (636034)]

[quote]Making software that works right out of the box requires a grown up sitting at a desk working their ass off 40 hours a week getting paid a nice fat wage.[/quote]

This is why most of the best open source software is written by people who work for a company which derives its profit from elsewhere.