Linux Pre-Installs In the UK Hit 2.8% 289
schliz alerts us to a story out of the UK PC distribution channel. It seems that the percentage of systems pre-installed with Linux has gone up 28 times since Vista shipped, from 0.1% in January 2007 to 2.8% last June. Still not huge numbers, but Apple did OK for years with similar market share figures. Linux's headway comes in the face of the marketing money that manufacturers pass out to distributors, money that has historically been important to their profits: "In the late 1990s competition was so keen that distributors were said to sell at or below cost and take their profit direct from the marketing funds they received from vendors. Vendors nowadays keep watch to see their marketing funds are actually spent on marketing, but distribution runs on single figure profits and vendor marketing funds are a crucial aid."
Cherry-picked numbers (Score:5, Informative)
Looking at the data, they just picked the lowest and highest points to get the factor. This is not indicative of an overall trend - I could pick March to March and say it had gone from 0.3% to 0.6% a factor of 2, not 28 - indeed from March to June of 07, things went DOWN by a factor of three...
Anyone not trying to fool themselves should really do some kind of best fit line and see that it's going at about 0.1% per month (number guessed). Yes, we're linux is making progress, and it's good, but let's be honest at least with ourselves about how much progress is actually being made.
If it's 2.8% in the UK (Score:5, Informative)
It's probably more like 18% everywhere else in Europe. England is the most conservative and Windows-fixated backarse of Europe.
FFS, this is the same country that made Bill a Knight. Same goes for Firefox market share
Re:For How Long? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, with the eee 901s it's probably better than that.
I know of a fair few folks here that couldn't get the linux 901 (distribution problems apparently) and so eventually caved, bought an XP model and linux'd it.
Re:EeePC, anybody? (Score:5, Informative)
I own a Dell 1420n which came with Ubuntu pre-installed. There are a number of systems [dell.com] that Dell sells like this.
Re:EeePC, anybody? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:EeePC, anybody? (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, I was surprised by the quality of the system. I had expected that Dell would do something brain-dead thus requiring me to re-install Ubuntu, but it was effectively a vanilla install with a couple extra restricted drivers for the video and wifi. I've had mine for almost a year now, going from 7.10 to 8.04 via the update utility and everything is still running great.
Re:For How Long? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:For How Long? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:EeePC, anybody? (Score:3, Informative)
For what it's worth (if you're in the US), I started looking around for a 901 two weeks ago. From what I could tell from the user forum [eeeuser.com] the Linux 901s were held up at customs in San Francisco until early last week.
You should be getting yours soon. I'll be ordering mine as soon as I can convince my company to pay for it.
Re:If it's 2.8% in the UK (Score:5, Informative)
England is the most conservative and Windows-fixated backarse of Europe.
No, that would be Denmark. (Yeah, we suck over here. Almost as much as the Dutch ;)
See Firefox usage, march '07 [xitimonitor.com]
Interestingly I can honestly say that I only know about one person who hasn't embraced the Fox. Who the hell are all those people ?
Wine (Score:5, Informative)
get a Linux one and format c:
What's a 'c:'?
The Windows file system has up to twenty-six predefined mount points, named A: through Z:. The LSB file system used by GNU/Linux, on the other hand, has mount points named like folders in a single root: /mnt/cdrom. On a PC running GNU/Linux, the Wine subsystem [winehq.org] translates between Windows and LSB mount points.
Re:For How Long? (Score:1, Informative)
Wrong. This is a Linux PC.
The Linux command you are thinking of would (from memory) be something like "mkfs.ntfs /dev/hda1".
In any event, what you would do is boot an install CDROM, delete any existing partitions, and start all over again as if it were a blank, unpartitioned, unformatted disk. The install CDROM will partition and re-format the disk for you. This applies for installing either Windows or Linux.
I have linux preinstalled on my laptop (Score:1, Informative)
Go to pugetsystems.com. They are mostly a Ubuntu shop inhouse. I got Fedora 9 preinstalled.
It's great in that you actually save money by not having to pay the Windows tax.
Plus they are a great company. Usually a 9.9 on resellerratings.com, and I can attest to how well they've earned that.
Re:Wine bug? (Score:3, Informative)
Wine's C: is located at ~/.wine/drive_c/
'Formatting' that isn't gonna help you install XP.
Re:EeePC, anybody? (Score:2, Informative)
I've seen that, it is basically an Elonex One, which the Car Phone Warehouse people tried to tell me has been respecified for them. So really what that means is that its an Elonex One with a new, better performing sticker on it.
Still, I'm not sure where you are going to get a subnotebook with a ten inch screen for £220.
Re:there is a difference (Score:5, Informative)
Even without a router, this is DHCP-- plug straight into a linux box (or any other box for that matter) and it will obtain an IP and be on the net.
They may well provide a helpful install CD, but it is not by any stretch of the imagination a requirement, its just something to help old people feel comfortable about the process.