Linux Market Share Passes 1%

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
2FA
Joined
Nov 27, 2006
Messages
4,646
The Berkeley Linux Users Group (LUG) noted Friday that a recent OS market share study found that linux has passed the 1% mark for the first time. I really should give it a try some time.

1 in 100 desktops/laptops is now linux according to hitslink. Hurray. While this number may be a low estimate due to linux users visiting different sites or hiding their browser identity, the main thing to take away from this is the trend: up!
Click to expand...
 
Wish I could be there.

*grumbles something about software support*
 
The rise over the past few years is pretty impressive considering how long the OS has been out. Ubuntu has probably really helped that by being so user friendly and fitting nicely onto netbooks. However with Windows 7 coming out I wouldn't be surprised if this number starts to fall since it's being designed to fit on and run well on 512-1GB systems. Plus most netbooks can be had with a 16GB SSD - 120GB HDD so disk space isn't going to be an issue anymore. The Linux numbers will probably start to decline by this time next year.
 
If you took a million machines running 9x and Windows 2000 and some other older OSes, and you threw them in the trash never to be seen again, that would by definition cause the percentages to rise, sooo... ;)

The "death" of older machines contributes to the increased share as well. Hell, just a few days ago I recall seeing a report where "non-official Apple OSX machines" were actually at a higher percentage than Linux machines as measured by browser ID/machine data that's been collected... not much higher but it definitely showed Hackintoshes had a bigger share of the market than Linux machines did... thought it was pretty funny when I saw that. :D
 
Ya know what i to was scared and didnt know anything about Linux. I downloaded Ubuntu 9.04 64 bit edition and installed it after the ISO file with nero. It installed in all of about 15 minutes with ALL drivers installed. If you surfing the net and basic everyday stuff minus the games its EASY and FREE...Dont gotta worry about viruses either.The Linux box i run is a amd dual core 4200 ( am2) with a ecs 6100 mobo and 1 gig of ram ddr2 800 mhz and onboard graphics,250 gig sata hdd also..I can go from boot to internet in about 15 seconds..:D
 
Some try to make excuses, but the fact is, more people are using Linux than ever, thanks to Ubuntu, and nothing (i.e. Windows 7) is going to change that. Netbook users were and are a VERY small subsection of the Linux community.
 
I'm currently using Linux as my default desktop and I don't think Windows 7 will make me switch. Sure I'll install the later to game but... what I like about linux is the freedom to customize the desktop the way you like it, not Microsoft's way.
You can customize 3d features the way you like them (compiz Config), add and remove the features you don't want and I surely can't live without the various workspaces (Screen 1, screen 2...) provided by the different Desktop environment. I can decide that audio and video programs to be in Workspace 4, Programming and office programs at Workspace 2. In the end, you have an uncluttered desktop.
 
Linux has been making great strides to be more user-friendly, but they still have long way to go.

Does Linux have something similar to a .exe file? I don't like having to extract, open a terminal and run a command. Or have to spend a while looking for the command on the website.

I like the whole sudo get apt whatever command, but still... it's all these little inconveniences that turn me off from making linux my main OS. I just sometimes try the new builds out for a few weeks and then I get tired of it. It'd also help if I could somehow use my auzentech prelude on it... fdkljdgkjh

ahaha, sorry about the rant, but I'm sure there's a lot of users that want to make it the main OS but can't for similar reasons. They're not huge reasons, but enough of them.
 
I really don't see this as a big whoop.

So after over a decade the free and open source OS that was supposed to dispatch the proprietary, buggy and insecure Windows in quick order has taken that long to reach 1% penetration. And I wonder how many of that 1% use Linux exclusivly. Sorry boys and girls, you give it away for free and only have 1% market share? That's pretty much a flop everywhere else except the Linux desktop world.

Hell I've had Linux boxen for over a decade now and I'm certainly not much of a desktop Linux user but do play with it from time to time and so people like he might actually inflate this number a bit, meaning that he play around with Linux on a regular basis but will NEVER use it as my only or even primary desktop OS.
 
I want to know how the data was collected. How did they have a site that logged the pertinent info when someone accessed it?
I Find the 1 in 100 number to be generous. Think about all the companies out there and that 99.9% of them will be running Windows or Mac OS on their desktops. The only place I see Linux market share up is on servers, which i don't think really helps the cause on the desktop side.
 
Lebowski said:
I want to know how the data was collected. How did they have a site that logged the pertinent info when someone accessed it?
I Find the 1 in 100 number to be generous. Think about all the companies out there and that 99.9% of them will be running Windows or Mac OS on their desktops. The only place I see Linux market share up is on servers, which i don't think really helps the cause on the desktop side.
Click to expand...

I'm sure there are some running Linux. I know my engineering school had(or has they moved the labs) labs full of linux machines. The labs would be 30 or so linux machines then a handful running XP and like 3 sun.
 
Jehuty said:
(1) Does Linux have something similar to a .exe file? I don't like having to extract, open a terminal and run a command. Or have to spend a while looking for the command on the website.

(2) I like the whole sudo get apt whatever command, but still... it's all these little inconveniences that turn me off from making linux my main OS. I just sometimes try the new builds out for a few weeks and then I get tired of it. It'd also help if I could somehow use my auzentech prelude on it... fdkljdgkjh
Click to expand...

1: No, because there is no such thing as a file extension in Linux. Any file can be executable, and a lot of binary packages have either an executable binary (without any extension) or an executable shell script (.sh as a standard) to run it. But package managers are where it's at, which leads me to...

2: You don't even have to use a terminal. Ubuntu offers a graphical "Add/Remove Programs" application to use. It's literally as simple as punching in an application name, selecting it for installation and pressing "apply". I don't see that as an annoyance, I see that as an improvement over the "find, download, execute, click 5 times" system Windows uses!

And, the Prelude SHOULD work with generic ALSA or PulseAudio drivers... what version of Ubuntu did you last try? Under 8.04 LTS I had to manually configure my USB sound card, but with 9.04 it was detected automatically and shows up under my PulseAudio streams.
 
Jehuty said:
Does Linux have something similar to a .exe file? I don't like having to extract, open a terminal and run a command. Or have to spend a while looking for the command on the website.
Click to expand...

An .exe is simply an executable program. Linux, of course, has those ;)

I think what you are more referring to is an installer. And yes, there are installers for Linux, they just aren't used very often. The distros package management is used instead. And you *can* download individual programs and simply double-click to install them (.deb for Debian based systems - such as Ubuntu, RPM for Redhat and friends, etc...) on most systems. Ubuntu (not sure about base debian) even supports apt:// urls (meaning you click a link and it pops up asking if you want to install the program)

You really don't need to use a CLI if you don't want to. Personally I prefer it, as I can do very powerful expressions that generally aren't possible in a GUI environment. But to each his own :)
 
bigdogchris said:
The rise over the past few years is pretty impressive considering how long the OS has been out. Ubuntu has probably really helped that by being so user friendly and fitting nicely onto netbooks. However with Windows 7 coming out I wouldn't be surprised if this number starts to fall since it's being designed to fit on and run well on 512-1GB systems. Plus most netbooks can be had with a 16GB SSD - 120GB HDD so disk space isn't going to be an issue anymore. The Linux numbers will probably start to decline by this time next year.
Click to expand...

i concur that windows 7 is definitely going to help stunt the desktop/netbook growth. I do not run ubuntu eee on my netbook anymore since putting win7 on.
 
4saken said:
i concur that windows 7 is definitely going to help stunt the desktop/netbook growth. I do not run ubuntu eee on my netbook anymore since putting win7 on.
Click to expand...

I don't think so, not if they keep up this "7 Starter on Netbooks" crap... people take 3 applications for granted, and when the general public finds out widely about this, I think they may have another Vista on their hands. I don't see many people paying more than half the cost of the netbook itself, for the OS (which at such a low price point is VERY noticeable) and especially if it's a stripped-down version.
 
heatlesssun said:
Sure there are file extensions in Linux, they just aren't always used to identify file types however like they are in Windows.
Click to expand...

Well yes and no... they are used to make distinguishing the types (both for applications and users) of files easier, but theoretically they're not needed at all... metadata in the FS and the file itself take care of that.
 
fightingfi said:
Ya know what i to was scared and didnt know anything about Linux. I downloaded Ubuntu 9.04 64 bit edition and installed it after the ISO file with nero. It installed in all of about 15 minutes with ALL drivers installed. If you surfing the net and basic everyday stuff minus the games its EASY and FREE...Dont gotta worry about viruses either.The Linux box i run is a amd dual core 4200 ( am2) with a ecs 6100 mobo and 1 gig of ram ddr2 800 mhz and onboard graphics,250 gig sata hdd also..I can go from boot to internet in about 15 seconds..:D
Click to expand...

unless you actually have / use more than 4gb of ram, i highly recommend against using 64bit linux. it only causes headaches.
 
djBon2112 said:
Well yes and no... they are used to make distinguishing the types (both for applications and users) of files easier, but theoretically they're not needed at all... metadata in the FS and the file itself take care of that.
Click to expand...

File extensions are really more of a convention than anything else these days however its up to the specific application to determine how it identifies files and files extensions are used for speed and convenience when displaying files in most file browsers.

I'm not a Linux guru but my guess is that you'd break more than one Linux application if files didn't have extensions though my guess is that Windows has a much higher reliance on them than Linux. That said, there's nothing to stop a Windows app from using file structure and file metadata to identify file types as well, but once again is just simpler to use extensions for browsing purposes.
 
heatlesssun said:
File extensions are really more of a convention than anything else these days however its up to the specific application to determine how it identifies files and files extensions are used for speed and convenience when displaying files in most file browsers.
Click to expand...

Windows still heavily uses extensions for things like program associations and whatnot. It is far from just a convenience on Windows.

I'm not a Linux guru but my guess is that you'd break more than one Linux application if files didn't have extensions
Click to expand...

Nope. Unless, of course, you rename a config file or whatnot, as then the app can't find the file ;) Spend some time with Linux and you'll likely see many files that don't have extensions at all (usually text files).

Files are, by default, identified by their CONTENTS, not their extension. You can rename an .mp3 to a .txt and it will still open with your default music player. Extensions in Linux are pretty much always ignored (except for things like file open filters, but even then not so much)

That said, there's nothing to stop a Windows app from using file structure and file metadata to identify file types as well, but once again is just simpler to use extensions for browsing purposes.
Click to expand...

The problem is that Windows *itself* needs the extension to identify the file to determine what to use to open it. Applications usually don't care what the extension is, as they generally treat it as if it is the type expected until it causes an error.

For example, you can take a .docx and rename it to a .jpg. If you open it through Word, it'll display correctly. Windows explorer, on the other hand, thinks it is now a picture so if you double click it it opens with the wrong program.
 
This was the point that I was trying to make: http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/File_extension

The shell has the capacity to execute a shell script whatever its name, due to its executable bit, but some text editors implement syntax highlighting on a simplistic check for a '.sh' extension, rather than looking to the shebang magic number (the characteristic sequence of #!). So some shell scripts may have the .sh extension and some may not.
Click to expand...

File extensions are mostly a convention and some programs even in *NIX use them but since they came from the DOS mainly they are not a core idea in *NIX like Windows.
 
Well, since 9.04 I've tried both mint and kubuntu. I liked neither

so now I'll try ubuntu and mandriva. would anyone help me through msn or something so I can go through installing the sound drivers for my auzentech?

I'll try ubuntu first and see how that goes. if it doesn't go well I'll go mandriva.

I do like the OS, but it's just these little annoyances that turn me off. but I do want to learn.
 
Linux is everywhere no doubt. 2% on the desktop? Perhaps, but once again how many people like myself have a Linux box and dabble with it versus people who flat out are 100% on Linux on the desktop with absolutely no other OS? My guess is that number might be very well below 2%.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top