Is Linux A Strong Force?

[Johnsie]

I've read reports that suggest between 0% and 5% of people use Linux and that Linux use has only improved by a couple of percent over the last 5 years. What do you guys think of this?

[meng]

Which people? All people? Industrialized nations? Adults/children? Households? Businesses?
How much do percentages mean? How are they determined (e.g. by sales of systems or software)? Does anyone really care?

[win_zik]

To add:
Percentage of what? Desktops, workstations, mailservers, fileservers, webservers, supercomputers, cellphones, digital video recorders, music players?

[xpod]

75% of people use it.......Well 75% of the people in my house that is.
How would anybody "really" know when live cd`s are probably getting passed around amonst friends..

..The Ubunto live cd i got two weeks ago has already been used in 3 different homes..

[meng]

Maybe the statistic is generated by dividing the number of Linux Genuine Advantage notifications received by Microsoft by the sum of this and Windows Genuine Advantage notifications.
[/unfunny comment]

[MKR.]

How long was it before Windows had the majority? Ten years? Fifteen years?

Would it even be where it is if not for the rush to replace old hardware pre-y2k?

These things take time. Ubuntu is a step in the right direction, and every person that gets a successful install is a potential proponent that will be helping get their friends up and running.

Just keep in mind that it has only been in the last couple of years that Linux has attained mass-market appeal.

[MaximB]

yes...like MKR. says...
and we are doing pretty good
and developing very fast !!!
in a few years MS would be left behind (I mean in the tech stuff).
did you saw there "new" vista desktop ?
they stole it from "project looking glass" - wich is a open source project and could be installed on winxp and linux too.
but have you seen our old XGL desktop ?
if not you would be AMAIZED !!!
look here : http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=238271

[DC@DR]

OK, guys, don't get too excited and over-enthusiated about Linux. We have to admit the fact that there're still things we need to improve to make Linux/GNU a real user-friendly OS (comparable to M$ *******) and to snap up more and more market share in the years to come. But we're definitely getting closer to that point, with Ubuntu and many other user-oriented Linux distros :).

[win_zik]

We have to admit the fact that there're still things we need to improve to make Linux/GNU a real user-friendly OS (comparable to M$ *******) and to snap up more and more market share in the years to come.
While I can certainly agree that Linux can and should improve, calling windows user-friendly is simply ridiculous. (And writing it M$ ******* always strikes me as a little childish).

[.t.]

Where do you get these figures?? Are they reliable? On whose account? Or did someone pick them out of thin air. Sorry for being blunt, but I hate figures like that.

[Adamant1988]

Right now the dogma for "alternative operating systems" like Linux and Mac OSX are like this

Mac OSX :"Oh that's for graphics designers and multimedia professionals"

Linux : "That's for developers and it's only command line anyway"

Overcoming these images is a big step to increasing the spread of "linux" (although I think it is more reasonable to look at the progress of specific distributions rather than Linux as a whole) you'll see the "linux adoption percentage" increase as more preinstallations happen and people are looking for alternatives.

Another note, you ask if Linux is a strong force. Define strong force in your perception, please. Linux (in general) is an immovable object, the open source nature of it means that it is very difficult to kill the whole thing, nigh impossible I would say. Linux is also seeing a slow, but still viewable growth in several areas. (including the enterprise and the home)

So in that respect, I believe that Linux is a strong/powerful force indeed, and it's not getting any weaker.

[Blondie]

Another note, you ask if Linux is a strong force. Define strong force in your perception, please. Linux (in general) is an immovable object, the open source nature of it means that it is very difficult to kill the whole thing, nigh impossible I would say. Linux is also seeing a slow, but still viewable growth in several areas. (including the enterprise and the home)

So in that respect, I believe that Linux is a strong/powerful force indeed, and it's not getting any weaker.

"Linux is a tough competitor. There's no company called Linux, there's barely a Linux road map. Yet Linux sort of springs organically from the earth. And it had, you know, the characteristics of communism that people love so very, very much about it. That is, it's free. And I'm not trying to make fun of it, because it's a real competitive issue. Today, I would say, we still don't see a lot of Linux competition in most quarters on the desktop, and we see a lot of Linux competition in some server markets. And we could either say, hey, Linux is going to roll over the world, but I don't see that happening. That's not what's going on right now."

Steve Ballmer in 2000 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/31/ms_ballmer_linux_is_communism/)

[Brunellus]

I would say it's more like gravitation than the strong force....oh wait, wrong discussion.

[insane_alien]

yeah the force isn't transmitted by gluons so its not the strong force.

the force carrier here is ubuntu beans. hey its a new force! nobel prize for me !

[Johnsie]

I got my statistics from W3c and several other big online companies who release their visitors operating system stats. From what I can see Linux was way behind in terms of populartity... You can deny that all you want and make all the excuses you want but from what I've read it appears to be a fact. Linux is not growing as fast as people on these boards pretend it is and it definitely doesn't meet the needs of the average end user... Especially when it comes to eas of use and multimedia capability. To me it just always seems to be playing catch-up with Windows, especially when it comes to Multimedia (Win32Codecs), messaging (GAIM being a windows messenger emulator with less features) and gaming. I mean even many of the shortcuts are the same!

Linux users only have between 0 and 5 percent of the market share of operating systems so are insignificant in the world of computing.

[DoctorMO]

Johnsie there are two things you don't understand, the first is that this isn't a 'product' it's a comunity effort thus the correct response should not be that Linux doesn't provide WMV support but that anybody releasing videos in wmv should be shot, hanged and sued. (in that order)

Multimedia - being controlled by technoledgy companies such as Microsoft (wmv, wma), Apple (itunes, ipod, acc), Real (heelix, rm). ogg theora MUST be encouraged for our freedom.

Games - pander to the largest market, are quite stupid when it comes to making open source engines and keeping their business in the content market where it belongs.

GAIM - works like a dream with all protocalls DESPITE the market being once again controlled by Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo ect.

So let me get this strait, your annoyed because all the catch up work, all the massive investment in time and energy that Linux programmers and developers need to do in order to get around the road blocks put in place by certain market controlling companies is not good enough? and their volenteers for the most part!

I have 3 words for you: How dare you!

[Johnsie]

jjj

[Johnsie]

How dare you?

I have three words back: No killer app :-p

Rather than trolling me for making criticism you should be trying to improve Linux for the end user because there are a lot of things about Unbuntu that are unsatisfactory to the end user and you have seen that time after time on these boards.

[DoctorMO]

Tat: No killer reason.

Why in the world would I want to help whiny 'end users' that can't even be bothered to help out? all they do is take take take and then expect respect from complaining about things in the most brutal and uninformed fashions of ignorance.

I'm sitting here making a driver for the MP360 scanner, not for my own damn reason but for another Linux user, in my damn holiday time! but he asked nicely and specifically for help.

your just complaining about your own ignorance which is something I can't help with.

[Johnsie]

That was very rude and personally offensive to me. End users have needs too. It was extremely rude to call me ignorant when I was talking about a avilid grip. Reported for personal abuse.

[chinaski]

I've read reports that suggest between 0% and 5% of people use Linux and that Linux use has only improved by a couple of percent over the last 5 years. What do you guys think of this?
excuse me but..... where did you get this report from? any link? name? can we read it too?

and then, as GNU/Linux is freely downloadable from Internet or found as CD/DVD ISO with GNU/Linux magazines and can be copied and distributed freely, how is possible to calculate how many people are using it?

this sound like crap to me...

[Johnsie]

you can get statistics from http://w3c.com , http://alexa.com and many other big websites that publish their stats. It's possible to estimate what percentage of people use Linux online by looking at those stats. Mathematically it works the same way as polling and the margin of error is considerably small.

[DoctorMO]

Please come back into the real world, you inability to accept critism is only overtaken by you ability to rant about things.

[chinaski]

Linux is not growing as fast as people on these boards pretend it is and it definitely doesn't meet the needs of the average end user... Especially when it comes to eas of use and multimedia capability. To me it just always seems to be playing catch-up with Windows, especially when it comes to Multimedia (Win32Codecs), messaging (GAIM being a windows messenger emulator with less features) and gaming.

but c'mon, be honest

if Windows wasn't preinstalled on 99% of new machines, you tell me how the hell "average user" could install it, install drivers for all hardware, install klite_codec_pack and all other tasks you need to do in order to have a full working box

as a matter of facts, when the "average users" catch the virus or get in trouble for having installed SP2 or any_other_thing every day happen to break a Windows machine, then they call the geek friend if they have one or run to the shop to get it fixed

be honest man and watch it from a 360 degrees perspective


Linux users only have between 0 and 5 percent of the market share of operating systems so are insignificant in the world of computing. maybe is like you say (still I can see no links or references) but it's more than yesterday and will be more tomorrow

if everybody had your attitude, we'll all be Mr. Gates unhappy customers

edit: is the alexa link you provided the same alexa stuff known to put spyware in Windows machines?

I can't believe this!:D

edit2: it's www.w3c.com, not w3c.com ;)

[Donnut]

When I got into linux one year ago, everyone said I was just a computer nerd. Their tunes somwhat changed when they saw my ubuntu desktop, and how I could open most Microsoft files out-of-the-box. Sounds kinda like mac OSX don't it? It was harder to learn linux back then, but this forum was there. I like it not because it's cool and all that, but because it simply works, and windows doesn't always. I don't have the time of day to nurse a computer back to health before I even use it. 5% of the american or worldwide people use it, but it's OK. Less targets. And also, linux has changed by leeps and bounds in the year that I have tried it. They have come out with two very stable OSs for Ubuntu alone. This is frankly amazing.
That's my 2 pennies.

[DoctorMO]

I have a powerbook, and it didn't come with hardly any software for opening most kinds of files. I had to install open office before I could view microsoft files and that was old, slow and generaly foo. it didn't come with iLife, they revoked my use of iPhoto upon 10.3 (rather pissed of at that) because they added it to iLife.

So unlike MacOSX, Ubuntu comes with _more_ support out of the box. and Mac OSX can go because now my powerbook will have Linux on it, something for which I'm not being asked to pay more money for something I once had access to.