Linux on the Desktop Doubles in 2007

00_NOP writes "According to a report on Softpedia, citing Net Applications, Linux usage on the desktop doubled in 2006 — 07: though from a miserable 0.37% to a still not brilliant 0.81%. Given that Linux is free, is based on peer reviewed source (and so inherently more secure in the longer term) and that hardware support is now pretty good, how long are we going to have to wait for the big breakthrough?" Of course the focus of the article is that Vista is kicking butt over Mac/Linux, which is not particularly surprising.

who cares about market share?

[poptones]

"Market share" only counts MONEY, not "free" installs. If I download ubuntu and install it on my laptop, how do they know? They don't - and they don't care, because there are no beans for the bean counters to count.

Likewise, bootleg installs. I have not yet had a single person seriously inquire about "upgrading" to vista. Many people have, however, brought in spanking new machines to be retrograded - either XP or linux. Many more come in with Vista licenses on the box and unregistered XP installs on the hd.

emachines, gateway and all are now shipping with vista and yet the users are still screaming abou tit and doing everything they can to undo the damage. These folks can spin numbers all they like, real world surveys provide ample proof of the suckitude of vista.

Re:Peer-reviewed source? Come on

[Anonymous Coward]

You have one data point: a shitty esoteric application with next to zero users. There is a lot of middle ground between that and "the very biggest applications". And who the fuck cares whether your character map got peer reviewed anyway? It doesn't listen on any ports or sockets. It doesn't manage anybody's data for them. It's not bundled in any distributions (things get checked anyway when that happens). Nobody cares.

Meanwhile, I rest easy knowing that every piece of software that came with my distribution has been proven to be reliable. Uncritical examination? Are you fucking kidding me? People spend days at a time trying to break the big name applications! You thought those security updates just appear in the fucking mail, sent by some mystery hacker from the I.T. underground?! Sounds more like you're just butthurt about how few people gave a shit about your character map, so you're all like "Everybody thinks that Mozilla Firefox is so cool, but it's not! They're so busy fawning all over her that she's probably got all sorts of flaws that they don't even notice, and meanwhile *sob* nobody even cares enough about little *sob* old *sob* charmappy *sob* here to even give her a second look!!! It's not fair!!".

In conclusion, fuck MATLAB.

Re: Linux on the Desktop Doubles in 2007

[speaker of the truth]

I still run Windows XP as my desktop of choice. I only run it because it came with the laptop that was provided to me by IT, or I would probably still be running Windows 2000. Very simply, I use the OS as a tool to get my job done, and Windows 2000 was doing the trick.

I used Windows back when using Windows wasn't cool. When Works was what people used and I was being different by using Word. I migrated from Windows 98 to Windows XP quite happily because of one very important feature: the damn thing stopped crashing. It was in fact the only feature I migrated for. Now with the release of Windows Vista I've realized that it has no new features I want. I'll be migrating to openSUSE today or tomorrow and already I'm seeing some benefits just by a little research (Something that's been annoying me is the limitation in columns that Windows spreadsheet programs have. I use Excel/OOo Calc as a flatfile database because it has a nice and easy to use interface. KSpread I've discovered has a lot more then Excel 2003/OOo Calc so I'm glad to finally be rid of that annoyance) already, I anticipate more and more advantages making themselves known.

If Linux starts to pioneer in new features and areas that Windows and the Mac OS cannot answer, then I will certainly consider it for my desktop OS.

Don't you mean have to pioneer new features that Windows XP doesn't have? Otherwise Windows and Mac OS have to compete with these new features AS WELL AS Linux's price ($0.00).

Meanwhile, I deal enough headaches from users at the server level that I don't feel like battling with my Linux wifi drivers, sound card strangeness, or having to jump through other hurdles to just stay productive.

In the past I've tried to migrate and had these difficulties you mention which has stopped me. I'll admit that this time I'm not going to accept failure and I will migrate, but given the many postings on the web these problems are past for most of the popular Linux distros (at the very least for openSUSE 10.3) and so installing it should be as painless, if not less so, then Windows (which many of those I know simply pay the store clerks to install for them because its so difficult). Regardless I'll see later today for myself if the rumors of Linux's installation ease have been greatly exaggerated.

Yeah, thanks to ME.

[Donniedarkness]

I'm proud to say that I'm one of those new Linux users (Ubuntu). I'm honestly very impressed with it; I expected to like it, but not find anything mind-blowing.

I love the application manager, I love the ability to switch desktop workspaces, I love how I can update everything from one spot.

However, one thing has kept XP on my system (dual-boot)-- drivers. I can't find drivers for my printer (Lexmark x7350), or newer ones for my webcam (Logitech Quickcam Communicate STX). I can't use my printer at all, and my webcam is using some way old drivers and is very blurry-- looks much better with the newer ones on XP. I've looked around, but not found anything to help me out... and I'm not even close to being talented enough to write my own.

Re:Nothing New.

[speaker of the truth]

Anyone who think Vista will not be a leading OS is hopeless lost in the realm of Fanboyism

Anyone who thinks ME will not be a leading OS is hopeless lost in the realm of Fanboyism. Windows will remain the leading OS in the foreseeable future, however Vista is by no means guaranteed that slot.

Still unpolished compared to XP/Vista

Really? Less polished then Vista? Then why am I hearing about all this trouble with installing drivers and hardware support while Linux keeps touting how it supports most hardware now?

for only a couple of Major advantages (Security mostly)

And:
* Free OS (for those of you who aren't suckered/forced into buying from stores that bundle the OS price with the hardware price making the two inseparable)
* Free upgrades. Forever.
* Lots of software bundled with the OS. Cutting down on the need to buy all of these other apps at premium prices.

Just those two minor advantages.

Websites that don't work

I can't remember the last time I went to an IE only website. Besides all Windows users should be using Firefox due to its superiority to IE. Most places I see now have both installed.

joining a user community who is notoriously unhelpful towards people who just started, tricking them to deleting their drives and other things.

Funny I've had nothing but help from Linux users in selecting a distro and installing that distro, even many years ago when I eventually gave up on installing Linux the people were still helpful and invited me to go to them if ever I wished to try again.

Most people really don't care about the politics they just want to get the stuff done.

Sounds like a good reason to avoid Vista.

Re:who cares about market share?

[Loke the Dog]

They don't count sales, the count visitors to a selection of websites. I'd say their system is as good as you can get when it comes to counting linux penetration percentage. Besides, come on, do you really think there's more than 1% of PC using linux? Their numbers seem a lot more likely than the 3% w3schools claim. The thing is of course their selection is not representative of all internet users or that they count servers too.

Re:Peer-reviewed source? Come on

[GreatBunzinni]

That's funny, as my experience is the exact opposite. I've developed a very small GPL library and posted the project in sourceforge. Although I'm the only developer and I regularly submit packages of the code, the section which is mostly visited is the project's subversion repository. Moreover, I do get patches from random people who browse the code.

Re:Peer-reviewed source? Come on

[mcrbids]

I used to develop a GPL app, the GNUstep-based character map Charmap. It had a few dozen users, and I'm pretty sure none of them ever took a single look at the source. Only the very biggest applications get attention, and very often quite uncritical examination at that.

In a sort of backhanded way, the fact that nobody bothered to look is a complement!

Programmers typically look at sources when they need it to do something it doesn't already do. There's an itch they're looking to scratch, and your stuff doesn't do it. Years ago, when I was still pretty green at coding, I threw out some code that allowed you to send email through a remote server.

It was about as basic as you could get. [phpbuilder.com] And, the many revisions that happened thereafter over the years [phpbuilder.com] are a clear example of how source review is done.

What I originally threw out was pretty weak, and was extended by other programmers who wanted to scratch an itch that my original code did not fulfill. This is code review at work...

Re:Peer-reviewed source? Come on

[Anonymous Coward]

Its going to get even better over the next year ...

I'm installing opensuse 10.3, and have enabled the additional repositories. Here's what you get:

1. almost 20 GIGS of software
2. mp3 and dvd playback
3. virtualization is now point-and-click
4. the ability to boot and run win9x and winpx (pro, not home) either in a window or with individual programs running directly on-screen alongside X11 apps - no more dual-booting

Oh, and no rebooting after installing programs, no "checking with the mother ship" WGA shenanigans, no viruses, no BSODs ...

So what's left for Windows users to complain about? Heck, you can even make the login screen look almost the same ...

counting weblogs doesn't count

[poptones]

Especially when using ubuntu. Because any newbie using ubuntu (and especially any of my customers) is initially, or soon after the upgrade, going to visit the forums where they will likely find information about privoxy. Anyone running ubuntu I installed doesn't even need to go to the forums to have privoxy installed because I do it for them.

Privoxy allows you to replace the browser information string. I do this as a matter of course and there are instructions on the forums on how to do this. As a result, sites by default think I am using Windows XP with MSIE6. Why? Because there are fewer problems when I hit a site that uses embedded media. Opera allows this same sort of functionality and I recall doing the same thing ages ago when I used that with windows.

Now, how many of those linux installs are actually saying MSIE?

Re:Peer-reviewed source? Come on

[smilindog2000]

I was similarly disappointed. Open-source work is fairly lonely most of the time. To justify doing open-source projects, you valid reasons beyond hoping others will pitch in and help, since that rarely happens (contrary to popular belief). Even with bigger more popular programs, there's still often a single programmer doing practically everything. Users generally don't help out, but post a lot of "Help me, please!" requests, soaking up even more of your time.

I have some projects I'd like to do if I had other interested programmers to make the projects more social and fun. For example, I'd like to implement a P2P file system [slashdot.org] that downloads data only when accessed the first time, caching it on your disk. The idea there is a really tiny Linux installation could be created that has the whole freaking Ubuntu or Debian distro already fully installed, but the files wouldn't really be there - they'd be out on the P2P network, waiting to download when needed, rather than filling up my disk with crap I never use.

Even though such a project sounds super-cool to me personally, getting even one other human being interested takes a miracle. In reality, you just have to write it, and hope the user base grows.

Re:Linux's price is $0.00 if your time is worth $0

[Risen888]

You should be modded down, for you are dumb.

Last week, I fixed two malware-ridden XP boxes. One I fixed by installing Ubuntu. Took me an hour. One I fixed by installing four different malware detectors, waiting five fucking hours to scan through a 20GB drive, and then cleaning out the registry by hand, and then booting to a Linux live CD to deal with a few nasty self-reproducing files, then running all four of the antivirus scans again while I slept. Would you like to talk to me further about what my time's worth?

Re:OS X

[Almahtar]

Ugh. And I even had mod points. I couldn't resist:

but no good reason why the UI and "user experience" shouldn't be better than that offered by OS X or Vista

It is. I have *never* used a system that had the seamless interface that (Gnome or KDE) + Beryl has. Expose? Check. Zoom(useful for graphics design)? Check. Invert (useful for web app creation)? check. Taskbar previews? Check. Drag and drop from an SFTP or FTP site to your (graphics, text, etc) editor, and save within the editor? Check and ONLY check in KDE and Gnome. Windows and OSX still can't do that. Show hidden files? Simple hotkey (control+h (for "hidden")) in Nautilus (Gnome's file manager). In OSX? Edit a config file, kill finder (from terminal). In Windows? Tools->Folder Options->view->show hidden files. Virtual desktops are still not supported in Windows (unless there are 3rd party apps I don't know about... the ones that existed last year were cumbersome hacks, well intentioned as they were), and in Leopard they are a new addition. Linux has had for ages.

I've used OSX, I've used Windows a TON, and the interfaces that really seem to increase my efficiency just tend to be Gnome and KDE. The only advantage Windows or OSX give me are 3rd party apps. That is NOT an inherent quality of the OS, just a simple circumstance. Circumstances can change.

I cannot find an interface I like better than (Gnome or KDE) + Beryl. Maybe you like OSX better, but it just frustrated me. It's all a matter of opinion. Before saying that Linux (by which you only actually mean Gnome and KDE) hasn't caught up with OSX (by which you mean ONLY the interface since the kernel and many drivers already existed) in 15 years, maybe you should think about that.