The market has rejected Linux desktops. Get over it.

bekdik

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http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=3372&tag=nl.e101

I’ve been running Linux on PCs since 1998, when Red Hat still cared about the desktop and Mandrake was supposed to be the distribution that was going to bring Linux to the masses. That was also about the time that the mainstream media got infatuated with the story of the free operating system from the Finnish hacker that was going to bring down Microsoft Windows.

Spoiler alert: I’m going to give away the ending now. It never happened. In the decade since it was first proclaimed as the “Windows killer,” Linux on the desktop has made virtually no progress in real adoption numbers. According to market share trackers (based on real PC activity and not just sales) such Net Applications, StatCounter, W3Counter, and others, the market share of Linux has been hovering around just 1-2% of total PC operating system installations for a decade.
 
Oh goodie! It would be a really sad day when the masses start flocking to Linux. Of course, we're not talking servers here, but desktops. IMO, Linux will become Windows and that would be a terrible thing. I would have to find a new OS for my desktop then.
 
What Market? nobody is selling Linux to the masses :rolleyes:

Servers on the other hand, that's game over winblows.
 
*yawn* trollcake:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonhiner?PHPSESSID=1486289a12883ea5c552efc653134c1b

Jason Hiner’s Honors:

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) 2009
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) 2008
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) 2007
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) 2006
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) 2005
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) 2004
Cisco Certified Networking Associate (CCNA)
Microsoft Ceritified Systems Engineer (MCSE)
Microsoft Certified Professional + Internet (MCP+I)
CompTIA Network+
CompTIA i-Net+
Sterling Sentinel Journalism Scholarship
 
Canonical do not charge for Ubuntu and therefore do not actively promote it via marketing. They target a certan corporate market where they can get revenue from server support and desktop support from corp clients that decides to adopt Linux.

However, certain manufacturers are already selling certain products pre installed with linux distro's such as Ubuntu. Canonical also verified that they are in partnership with Google regarding Chrome OS which is a Linux OS. Perhaps next year we will see a nice surprise in this field.

Windowse have unfortunately hypnotised the world and the masses thinks that Windows is the only option. Just the other day me and our company IT guy were talking about Ubuntu and the person that was standing with us asked what Linux is!!!! The reaction out of most people when you mention Linux is....HUH????

In that regard companies like Canonical is perhaps to blame. Promote it better, advertise! Start launching regional offices in different countries to support it and release local pricing for support packages etc. Get people aware and educate them. The general public that uses computers are not going to educate themselves....companies like Canonical that wants to bring Linux to the masses will have to do it for them.

In the mean time...I am very very happy with my Ubuntu and will never go back to Winblows! :-)
 
It’s still too much of a pain - While Ubuntu has made Linux much, much easier, it’s still not quite as easy to hook up a new printer, connect a digital camera, or manage your work calendar, for example, as it is on Windows.

I have no problems with the fact that the masses don't want to use linux, but come on, which of these things listed above are "painful" to achieve in Ubuntu? "connect a digital camera" - lol.
 
Nokia is using Maemo a Linux OS to run its next generation of phones e.g. Nokia N900 - http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/. Symbian will not be powerful enough to compete with the iphone and android.

I agree that the free versions of Linux can be intimidating to use but its free and people are still developing for it.
 
I have no problems with the fact that the masses don't want to use linux, but come on, which of these things listed above are "painful" to achieve in Ubuntu? "connect a digital camera" - lol.

Jip, and the only reason a MS Exchange calendar might be a problem for most email clients, is that MS don't share. There are ways to do it though.
 
really sad but true i concider myself tech savy but cant get away from the windows. I really want to been trying distro's out suse 11.0 being the one I actually installed got most of it working but my printer and gfx card are not yet working correctly cant even get war 3 to work with WINE my believe is if linux could get a single desktop maybe it would be easer for hardware manufacturies is to support and then finally have a really good alternative to windows
 
lots and lots of hardware are supported now. Some manufacturers do not release the stuff the open source guys needs to write proper drivers for certain hardware though. Nvidia for expample supports Ubuntu and once my installation was complete it picked up my Nvidia and suggested the driver for me to download. I downloaded it, restarted and presto! Full res and effects available.
 
I really don;t care whether everyone use linux or not. Currently I personally prefer Linux. All I would want is for games to work on both linux and windows, then I'd be happy. Then everyone can just use whatever OS they please which is IMHO better.
 
What the heck do you have to do to become a Microsoft MVP, spread FUD like this?.

Anyway, I don't care, Linux is not marketed in the same sense that Ubuntu is, so it's rather pointless bring up the whole "market share" thing in this argument.

And I also say so what?. I could care less who has the most market share, I use Linux, and have successfully used a digital camera, and various printers. Haven't really used the calendar thing much, but appointments that get sent to me by Outlook users, are automatically picked up and inserted into my Evolution calendar without issues, and vice versa.

B
 
my believe is if linux could get a single desktop maybe it would be easer for hardware manufacturies is to support and then finally have a really good alternative to windows

By that I take it you mean a particular distro (eg Ubuntu, fedora, Debian etc) rather than KDE/Gnome etc. In any event what you say is not true in that the drivers interact with the kernel. And the kernel is distro independent.
 
I have a lot of beef with people touting Linux as the next big Windows killer.

Almost his entire argument is based on this!

IT WAS NEVER INTENDED FOR THIS!
And as far as I recall no one of the Linux/GNU movers and shakers (Linus, RedHat, Eric Raymond, Stallman, insert-nerd-name-here) made any such statements, ever.

The closest I heard was when Linus once gave a public talk and said that the point of Linux is not to topple Windows, but if it happens he would not complain.

People, it was made so that you can have a stable, working, secure, open OS, and that is that.

I could not give a owls hoot if Linux takes away customers from Windows or it did not perform as Windows.

Another thing, he says that installing apps and such is a pain and difficult...
I just now got a netbook with XP, lets compare shall we?

In Linux you have a package manager that updates your software automatically or with a command from the user. One command (on most distros) and you are done upgrading or installing said software.
Let's take Firefox, I want to install it on Arch, Ubuntu and WinXP.
Arch:
pacman -S firefox

Ubuntu:
Open Synaptic, search for firefox, mark for installation and apply. Click "finish".

Windows:
Open IE, head to google or do a search for firefox. Go to the site and search for the correct version to install. Download to PC. Go to the folder with the file, double click and answer all the "I agree" and "next" questions. Click the "finish" button.

Great, now lets browse, hmm, no flashplayer...
Arch:
Allready installed

Ubuntu:
Allready installed

Windows:
Download and install

Repeat this for all your applications and you have wasted HOURS in windows while in the other you could just choose multiple packages and have them all installed at once.

Now for the update!
To update your system:
Arch:
pacman -Syu

Ubuntu:
Automatically

Windows:
Windows updates are automatic, but not applications. There are a myriad of update checkers spawned in my start-up list to check for latest versions, basically each and every single app checks for updates on its merry own, luckily some developers have some common sense and only check for updates once you use a program, while other insist that you are too stupid and they have to constantly check for updates.
Clumsy and dirty if you ask me. Robbing system resources and whatnot.

And this is just my experience, take it or leave it. Windows is a fossil of an operating system still using outdated methods that just does not make any sense at all.

/rant over
 
Nice response MyWorld!

This topic seems to pop up from various "experts" every year (maybe every month [maybe every day {maybe every hour}]). Do a search, there was something very similar on this forum this year :mad:
 
Windows is a cool desktop/notebook OS.

Linux is mostly used as a desktop, workstation, netbook, notebook, server & supercomputer OS. ;)
 
Nice response MyWorld!

+1

Linux is NOT Windows and it was never intended to be, the day it becomes Windows would be a dark day.

MyWorld, you also a Arch user? Busy with my 400MB pacman -Syu right now :D

MS would do well implementing a universal package manager for windows. Pacman is probably one of the best out there when it comes to dependancies etc
 
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ponder I was always a Gentoo man and still am very fond of it, but of late their portage repos got very, very messy.

There is no collaboration between distfile maintainers and overlay maintainers and this has caused me immeasurable headaches and about two/three months ago I just installed Arch and got over it.
Gentoo is slipping and unless they can get some dedicated devs again there is no bright future for them.

What impressed me so far about Arch, there is a great relationship between the official repos and aur and they work flawlessly, so far, side by side.
 
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