Linux On the Desktop: 0.24 Percent? 684
Canyon Rat writes: "According to this story, less than a quarter of a percent of desktop users have adopted Linux. The survey was based on web surfers so it may be accurate." Anne Onymus adds a link to an
interesting reaction over at lowendmac.com.
er? (Score:3, Interesting)
Er, or it may not. Does the web surfing population necessarily represent all computer owners? I would suggest that web surfers are slightly more likely to be tech-savvy and therefore web-surfers will have a higher percentage of Linux desktop use than non-web users. So the figure may be even lower.
Slashdot Stats (Score:3, Interesting)
A recent survey conducted by mobile telephone.... (Score:2, Interesting)
.24 percent? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow!
Re:The problem is.. (Score:2, Interesting)
I've done work on engineering sites and the distribution there has a much higher proportion of other *NIX flavours (mostly AIX and Solaris).
For the very consumer sites, even Netscape doesnt get a lookin these days....
Browser Identification Strings (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, many poorly designed sites ony lets people with Ms IE 4 or Netscape 4 visit the site. Opera, mozilla, konqueror users have to fake the identification strings to be able to see the site. And, as a matter of fact, I know several people who have set their browsers' id string to be IE like, to avoid troubles.
There's no arguing that Linux's desktop market share is far lesser than that or windows and mac, but I do think and hope it's above 0.24%
The Web is Windows biased (Score:2, Interesting)
This doesn't necessarily make linux a worse desktop OS than windows, it just reflects the fact that most web designers tailor their content to display in I.E. Therefore people (I suspect/hope I'm not alone in this) will ditch linux for windows when they want to surf the web.
Re:The problem is.. (Score:5, Interesting)
From time to time I take a look at the pie chart on Google's Zeitgeist [google.com] page, where they display the relative proportions of operating systems used to access Google. I figure it is a pretty good rough benchmark, as I know they get a lot of traffic from Linux users, so I would expect the representation of Linux on that chart to be high, but we are reading one percent!
It is sobering to see how much the Microsoft browsers have really taken over on the internet. One thing that does make me rest a litte easier about it though is the Mozilla project, and how AOL basicly forces people to use their gecko-based browser instead of IE, so the web is not in too much immediate danger of falling into a MSIE-only club.
I understand that it isn't really reasonable to expect that there would be a large proportion of Linux users though. I agree with some of the other posters that measurements like this are probably more likely to move our way once more people begin to access the internet through Linux embedded devices like cellphones and PDA's, set-top boxes, etc. "Linux on the desktop" probably won't seem like such a big deal as the desktop paradigm begins to fade. I imagine a future where the only people who even use a PC like we do now would be developers or scientists. Regular types will probably surf the web with all manner of specialized devices, and maybe not even think of it as 'surfing', but 'checking the weather', or 'looking something up'.
I'm not registering any Linux User Agents (Score:3, Interesting)
Top 15 of 5486 Total User Agents
# Hits User Agent
1 200870 9.80% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98; DigExt)
2 169779 8.29% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98)
3 161822 7.90% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98; Win 9x
4.90)
4 73991 3.61% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98)
5 72181 3.52% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)
6 70011 3.42% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.0)
7 63082 3.08% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows 98)
8 54560 2.66% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; Win 9x
4.90)
9 46702 2.28% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)
10 43299 2.11% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)
11 41167 2.01% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 4.0)
12 37536 1.83% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Mac_PowerPC)
13 33620 1.64% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 95)
14 29224 1.43% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98)
15 28778 1.40% Mozilla/3.01 (compatible;)
Ok, #12 says it is Mac, and #15 doesn't say at all. I host the primary site for the UNIX Socket FAQ, which you would expect to bring in a significant chunk of Linux users, but it isn't even in the top 15. Maybe users are masking their user agent? Maybe some, but not many.
Take from this what you will, I just thought it was interesting...
Re:Representative data (Score:2, Interesting)
Why?
Because I have the USER-AGENT string set to that as it lets me into a bunch of sites that I can't otherwise access.
Been using Linux Desktop since the summer... (Score:1, Interesting)
That's not exactly an enthusiastic endorsement ("it's no worse! Wow!") but after spending thousands of dollars for one desktop on the Microsoft money-train over the years it's really a pleasure to use this alternative. Sure there are quirks and frustrations to deal with, but it's no worse than before and now I'm not paying through the nose for the priviledge.
By the way, for products that have a purchase option (like Opera, for instance) if you use it and like it for God's sake buy it and support the authors. After spending a decade paying for software I hated but had no choice to use (thanks to my job) it's a pleasure to pay reasonable amounts of money for something I like (Opera again).
The point is that Linux is ready for the desktop, I think. I don't find X too slow or Linux too difficult as long as I stay with the defaults. It's just a matter of getting the word out, I think.
Re:The problem is.. (Score:2, Interesting)
If some could find out the stats for CNN.com or Amazon.com, those would also be good neutral samples with a big pool of stats.
The real test would correlate web stats over time against the development of KDE. I think as KDE succeeds, Linux stats should go up.
Jim
My own stats (Score:3, Interesting)
Total sample: 10000 hits
Windows 98 is way in the lead with 46.5%.
ME comes in at 15.9%
95, 2000, MacOS and NT are all roughly equal at 9.1, 8.8, 7.4 and 6.1 respectively.
XP has 3.6%.
Linux has 1%.
(there are a few others, including "Unknown" so those won't add up to 100)
Considering the differences between some of those Windows OS's, that's fairly diverse. What's more disturbing to me is the following:
IE has 81.3% of the browser stats, Netscape has 16.8%. "Unknown" and Opera together have less than 2%. WebTV brings up the rear with a measly 8 hits (0%) and that's it. No other browsers.
Considering that desktop OS is largely irrelevant to the Internet whereas browser is VERY relevant, this points out a disturbing trend: Microsoft Owns The Client-Side of the Internet.
Re:The problem is.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I told Dad to stick with his Mac...
Here are the problems as I see it (my opinions, I've got about 20 years into this stuff, so I atleast I get to spew my opinion, heh. )
First and foremost:
- No killer desktop application: Yep, thats right. There is no compelling reason for people to use Linux on the desktop. Why switch or even start there? If there isn't an application they can only run on Linux (or run *better* on Linux). BeOS talked about this, never got one... Mac had Photoshop/Quark etc. Windows had Word/Office/IE... Linux needs a similiar app.
Now maybe this application isn't really a desktop application but something like a content creation product, media/video/audio, who knows, but Linux doesn't have one now.
- X Windows: Relying on a HUGE layer for your graphical underpinnings is a big mistake. Remove X. Its too complicated to install, too big and too slow. I could give a hoot about all you so called "Linux Hackers" who say that Linux is for the elite. I look at it as I see it -- it shouldn't be this damn hard, and this damn big! Windows 98 installs in 10 mins -- nice goal to shoot for. Xfree86 my ass, move off that clunker and have a nice thin layer at the bottom... sheesh.
- No Office platform worth caring about: OpenOffice is pretty good, but its NOT MS Office, lets be honest. If OpenOffice started inching more towards the MS side of the world, it wouldn't be such a bad thing -- hey, why not include Evolution in OpenOffice, come on Ximiam, that might help things?? An installable *complete* solution with a good e-mail product. Hmmm... I think OpenOffice is getting there, but its about half the way there... It needs more time and a lot more MS compatibility.
- No good browser: Konq. Nice start. Opera, getting better (although, I could without all the added poop). Mozilla -- please. Netscape -- please. Those two suck on Windows too.
Linux needs a completely IE compatible browser. 100% compatible (there I said it, hate me for it). From a Web designer perspective, to a developer -- the browser choices on Linux are horrible -- we need IE, or an IE clone. I think our best bet is to have Konq. lead the way...
- Fonts suck: Every default font on KDE/GNOME that I've seen pales in comparison to a Mac or Windows desktop/environment. We need good fonts. Freetype2, ok, now we're getting someplace. But thats only recently...
- KDE and GNOME desktop's look like crap: I find every GNOME and KDE environment I try, just looks like junk compared to a Mac or Windows experience. Things just seem patched together, and not completely thought out. Now, I'm not saying Windows or the Mac is the best GUI's around, but boy, didn't anyone learn ANYTHING from those GUI's?!?! I don't see anything in the KDE or GNOME desktops that I would say "hey, thats better than windows", or "wow, I like this better than the Mac".
Personally, I think Linux GUI developers should steal the hell out of both and create a GUI thats even better!
- No good printing: Yeah, yeah, theres CUPS, but you have to GET that and its a pain and driver support is fairly weak. I like the Mac: You plug a printer in to the USB port, click print... boom! printout. No futzing around.
- There are two competing graphical platforms. GNOME and KDE. Thats not helping the overall cause.
- No Desktop "Champion": We need someone (thought we had it in Eazel) that can champion the desktop and create that "killer desktop" that everyone has to have. Linux needs a Linus of the Desktop.
Here are the solutions as I see it:
1. Remove X, standardize on one low-level graphical kernel -- DirectFB anyone?
2. Standardize on one API layer for the GUI, much like Win32, we should have a set of API's that are "God" when it comes to writing GUI under Linux. None of this, Bonobo vs. Qt vs. blah, blah, blah. One standard API thats small, easy and well maintained -- I vote for an API that uses XML/XSLT as its abstraction layer.
3. IBM. IBM should step in and see this as a chance to re-kindle the OS/2 vs. Windows war that was waged from 90 - 92 (which they got their asses kicked).
By dumping some money into the Desktop side of the world (not just the server side), they could create a platform that can beat Windows and Mac.
Hell, I have an idea: Why not port the Workplace Shell right over to Linux, Open Source it and then simply support it as a business platform replacement for OS/2 (if you work at a big company, you know how HUGE OS/2 got during the mid-90's)? Well, in my mind, this could happen again, but only with a platform like Linux under it.
Sure, this is a task, but I bet it would start making believers out of people. Plus, since the Workplace Shell already has a decent amount of applications for Business (3270/5250 emulators), it wouldn't be hard to start eating away at that Fortune 500 companies spending money on XP Professional. IBM could say "hey, why buy that when you can simple get Linux installed on an IBM Desktop for free, oh and we run those same applications... Believe it or not IBM still "kills" at the business level over Microsoft.
3. Gain critical mass with that killer application. Linux need a Photoshop or MS Office.
Anyone got one out there?
4. Stop battling between desktops, choose one or create a new one and settle on that -- but don't use X.
Yep, it's pretty small. (Score:3, Interesting)
Not that this is a problem. For us developers, Linux/KDE is a wonderful system to use. It all comes down to needs. Does the average user need multiple tabbed sessions in Konsole? No. Does he need to be able to play Dark Reign? Yes.
Unfortunately, the "games" problem is not one that can easily be solved. Most software you buy at the store is only for Windows, and I've heard more than one person say that Linux can't succeed with normal users without it being able to run Windows programs. IMO, making it a requirement of Linux to run Windows software (a la Lindows) is too much to ask. Not only is reverse-engineering difficult, but companies these days are making it harder to pull off. And sometimes, it can even be illegal (see DMCA).
So is all hope lost? What can anyone do? Linux is basically done.. Linus said so himself. Now the focus is on the user. Well, what is left for KDE? It is already more configurable than Windows. Ok, so that's done. Now what? If we're done, but we have no users, there is obviously a problem somewhere.
It's the apps. Linux is not scary anymore. The "one guy" I mention above knows nothing about coding, but uses Redhat just happily. But why can't he play his games? And where is Adobe?
We've done all we can do. I think it's just a waiting game now. I'd like to see some improvements with more general (non-distribution specific) software installation. And for video drivers to be kernel controlled, and have X just ride on the framebuffer. But issues like these won't stop average users from using Linux. Just ask a normal Windows user why he would not want to switch to Linux. It will come back to the apps.
Linux has only become more popular, not less. More companies join in the game as time goes. Sure, some have left, but at the end of the day the number is bigger. The general computer user will get his games and his apps.
In the meantime, everyone just continue doing their thing.
Re:The problem is.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Besides, the numbers will lie. I use Linux and BeOS at work, and I use Windows at home because of technical reasons (winmodem in a laptop....). I also use Linux at home, but as a part of my stereo, not as an internet PC(an old p200 with a decent CD-ROM drive makes for a terrific MP3 and CD player, and I can access it remotely through either telnet or an X-server -- p200s are quiet!) so every one of these OS's will hit the logs. Not to mention Atheos and QNX, which I tried recently, and I even log in using Arachne in DOS sometimes.
The point of all this? I forgot. I think it had something to do with misleading web logs.
Re:The problem is.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Hitbox does nothing of the kind. It uses JavaScript included on the site pages. Every time the page is opened in a browser, information about the visitor is returned to Hitbox.
Because it uses JavaScript, it can get exactly the same useragent information that would show in the server logs -- and more.
This method of retrieving information is an accurate reflection of what web browsers are doing at a particular moment, with caveats. They must have JavaScript enabled in the browser and usually they must accept cookies. (About 4-5% of browsers disable JavaScript and 10-15% disable cookies.) The kinds of sites that are using Hitbox and its competitors are likely to be commercial and windows-centric. Also, I think it is worth noting that an estimated 40% of web browsing is done from work, where people have access to high-speed connections not available at home. This naturally skews the results, since offices are presently far more likely to be Windows-based.
This type of traffic analysis is rapidly becoming popular among the major enterprise-level sites, such as Major League Baseball, Ticketmaster and so forth. If you have a Windows machine, you can run bugnosis for a while and see what I mean.
mp
My version of Linux reports itself as MSIE 5.5 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The problem is.. (Score:2, Interesting)
My 60 year old dad uses linux. He doesn't know the difference between it and windows, and he doesn't have to care. It just works for him.
The killer app thing is a total crock. 90+% of users don't just surf the web. It would be nice to have more games, but that's about it.
X works fine, and my dad has a 266 MHz k6-II. He is constantly getting compliments about how it runs faster than other people's machines, and all his friends are amazed that it hasn't been rebooted in three months.
Open office. Let's be honest... who actually uses an office suite for anything? I don't know anyone who does. It might be important in the business world, but 90+% of the users out there could care less.
Netscape and fonts - I don't see the problem. Apparently they work quite well for my pop, as well as myself.
KDE and Gnome being crap? You might actually be right on that one. We don't know or care though - both my dad and I use FVWM (not FVWM2) for everything. It does exactly what we tell it to, exactly what we want, and nothing more. That is a good thing, not a bad thing - especially from the perspective of new users.
No good printing? Don't be a dumbass.
There's not two competing graphical platforms. There's about a hundred. That's a good thing, not a bad thing.
We don't need a desktop champion. Broken assumption.
Removing X is retarded. The only reason for using direct access to the graphics hardware is brute force speed, and that's only needed for things like video playback. Moving the graphics support into the kernel is equally retarded, if not more.
While we're standardizing on one api layer, why don't we also standardize on one programming language as well? I pick forth, since it's clearly the best choice for all tasks.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. You seem to be paving full tilt. You might be more productive spending your time writing code than paving.
-dentin
Re:The problem is.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Why should things become easier by limiting choice? Why not just give them Linux XP (not that I'm for plagerising) with all things standarised: "This is the icon for internet, this is for email, this is typing a letter...". You can get Netscape, Mozilla, Opera and other browsers for windows. Does that make mom&dad go "uuh, this is so complicated, I can't decide, where's the internet on this machine". No, because they don't know about it. What's wrong about windows is that IE is an intergrated part of the OS.
They don't want to mess around with gcc? So what, I don't think they like messing around with mingw or VC++ either. If you mean that they don't wanna compile program, then your right and those targiting those user should ofcourse provide an easy to install method. I agree that linux needs an easier way of installing software.
It raises another question (Score:2, Interesting)
It would be interesting to use e.g. some biological measures here. E.g. the Shannon-Weiner diversity index (used to measure species diversity), although that one mainly just measures total diversity, not actual segregation. I suppose even better would be something like the Fst statistic from population genetics, which measures how segregated various subpopulations are.
Re:The problem is.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I know my daytime hits are usually Mozilla/NT (or Lynx/Solaris if the boss is looking -- or the animated gifs get too annoying.) Of course, at night I'm usually working on something, so I don't have time for Slashdot.
Re:Where they get their stats. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Offtopic (Score:2, Interesting)
he is proposing a fragmentation of the net, so advertizsers could bar ads (sites) from those who have not paid for them to be seen in that locality
Your preception of what I was saying is actually entirely wrong. While it's entirely possible that a site could "bar" users from different geographies or political zones from seeing a site, I doubt a single site on the planet would (especially because the user controls what the browser is sending, so if you're site only lets New Yorkers in then I'll just switch my reported location to New York and circumvent your limited border).
The benefits of geopolitical and location headers being sent with HTTP 1.1 requests are numerous, but here's a few:
-IBM sees that I'm from CA-ON and redirects me to the Canadian page, saving me from searching through yet ANOTHER multinational corporate site trying to figure out how to get to the Canadian section.
-The Weather Network immediately gives you your local weather when you visit. MapQuest can use your current location as a starting point. There are thousands of potential uses where the "starting point" matter: Nearest airport, police department, blah blah blah.
-Advertisers can pay for their ad to only be shown to users in a relevant marketplace. Joe's Sandwich Shoppe could pay for ads to only be shown to users within 10km of his location. There are millions of small businesses that would advertise on the internet if they had the ability to partition to a relevant group, and as it stands they don't.
Technically there is nothing whatsoever infeasible about what I'm proposing: It's a simple HTTP request header that's a function of HTTP 1.1, and there is no partitioning of the web apart from perhaps showing ads to only relevant parties.
Re:Not conspiricy theories (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, why do I say that? Well, There are still relative few companies that give their average user full power to surf the internet, which means that many corporate desktops, no matter what they're running, won't be counted. Also, many desktop users simply don't surf the net. So those are two major statistical variations not accounted for.
Of course, the same thing can be said about any statistic. Nielson ratings only select a certain subset of the population. Various polls are equally self-selecting.
However, statistical theory holds that random selections of people should be accurate within a certain percentage. So while it may not be completely accurate, it does have accuracy withing a certain range.
Now, unless all the sites polled were techical sites appealing only to technical types, chances are they were sites that average out to appeal to an average web surfer. There migh have been technical sites, or general news sites, or public forum sites, or they might have been ISP sites, with thousands of different sites running within them.
I think it's wrong to dismiss the findings as bogus. Unless the sites were specifically selected to appeal to only Mac and Windows users, chances are that it would average out in the end. There is no evidence that this is the case, so why claim it must be? Just because you don't like the numbers? That's equally as bad.
As far as IDC's corporate statistics. That may be true. 2% of corporate desktops may account to less than