Linux use reaches 1%; world yawns

Market Share not valid for Tracking Linux

"To reach 1% market share in 18 years is not a particularly difficult task, especially considering that the operating system is available for free."

Lets define Market share shall we:

The percentage of the total SALES of a given type of product or service that are attributable to a GIVEN COMPANY.

There is no one "GIVEN" company selling Linux systems and 2nd if Linux is Free how can it ever have any real appreciable market share. You need to track Desktop OS Usage shares. To add to the distorted numbers, almost every PC sold has Windows. When I bought my laptop, Vista was on it. Vista wasn't on it for more than 20 minutes after I got it home, but its still a count in the M$ column. I downloaded Ubuntu for Free and replaced my OS. Now, the 50$(not factual number) the vendor paid for Vista vs the zero dollars I paid for Ubuntu. 1/0 is Infinity, so Windows wins, even though in this case windows was never actually run on the box!

how did they arrive at 1%

i'd like to see the test/research data for this number. once schools start using linux (as many of them already do), the race will pretty much be over. over 100 schools in norway have already started using linux:
http://www.skolelinux.org/no/node/23

Video Response

to Mr. Gralla:

Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_VFKqw1q2Q
Enough said!

Try using Linux longer then two weeks

I just read your article on the world yawning, and living with Linux for two weeks. As a writer, and blogger, and tech guy, you should have been able to figure out more about the system to make it easier.

I started using Linux not that long ago. I bought a laptop about two weeks after Vista came out, after living overseas for quite some time. I had no clue Microsoft had released a new OS, at the time I had no clue what an operating system was. All I wanted to do was listen to my music, check emails and surf the Internet. I quickly began losing interest in computers as a way to help organize my life as I was having issue after issue with mine. I won't go into anything about that, as there are a million articles bashing one system or another. By the time I had had the computer for about 6 months, I was ready to give up, and happened to mentioned to a friend how frustrated I was. I did not even realize he was an IT kinda guy. He flips me a CD and says try this. It was Ubuntu 7.10. Without a hesitation I loaded it, wiped my hard drive of Windows, and dove in to it. I was pleasingly surprised at how simple and easy to use it was. Things made sense with where they were, and where to find them.
I admit, that I went through a lot of troubles, and failed installs, not knowing, just like you, of what these files were. These were caused by me not knowing anything about computers in general. i had only owned one computer before, which a friend set up for me, and then at work, which I only used excel, word, and outlook, with a minimal amount of Internet.
I trudged trough it though, started looking for answers, and going to forums. I tried probably 25 different distros. Figured it didn't cost me anything, so why not keep trying. I have recently settled on Linux Mint. All the codecs I was always searching out everytime I changed were there, it had a nice look to it, and it was based off Ubuntu, which is based off Debian. I know which packages work for my distro, they are .deb and tar.gz. I have figured out how to install them, and both Linux Mint and Ubuntu use Synaptic Package Manager, with Mint also having their own also called Mint Install. For most items that people are looking for, they can be found in here. Open Office 3 not installing on your Ubuntu machine was more problems with Open Office. Ubuntu decided it was not stable enough yet to include with versions 8.04 and 8.10, but it is included in 9.04. Ubuntu has a pretty good philosophy of trying to keep only the more stable versions of software included.

All that said, I know little about command line use and have no need to network with other computers. I am the everyday user who still just wants to surf the Internet, check emails, listen to my music, crop a photo, and have a visually appealing desktop. Most of the time I still have no idea what things are, SAMBA, networking, and all the other techie things are as foreign to me as reading another language. Though on the other hand, if I screw something up, I have learned to have a external hard drive that I simply save my files to as back up. I save the .deb and tar.gz files along with it to reload the programs I liked. i can save my hidden Thunderbird configuration file so I don't have to reset it up every time I crash it from playing around with things too much. I learned all this with relatively no knowledge of computers. I can now completely reboot a fresh install, along with all necessary programs that I desire in about an hour and a half.

The reality, is that people don't like change. It scares them. Windows users will swear that they are far superior, as will Mac and Linux people. It would, however, be so much easier for people who don't know to find out and understand these the new technology if people who are privileged enough like yourself to present to them these options in a well informed and easy to understand manner. Once upon a time the Graphical User Interface was a joke, and no one though tit would be necessary to use. Now, the tide has turned, and it is the command line that is not only thought of as unusable, but feared. If articles were written for the everyday user, who only has one computer in their home, the technology would be a lot inviting looking.
I have no need for the command line 99% of the time. I can install everything with a couple of clicks, and it just works. Before I go and by a piece of hardware, I as a conscious consumer should, check the forums or the Internet to see if anyone else has had issues with that particular item, or if there might be something better.
Again, everyday user, simple tasks, part of the normal population, not those with special needs, is what I am, and I am proud to say that I like using my Linux operating system.

Do you ever get embarrased?

Give a donkey a keyboard...

Five years ago there were no way to get free linux for ordinary people becaus microsoft's own cd burner was corrupted to create the necessary cd image. People thought that it was linux's fault and forgot it. Commercial linux was never marketed, so how could anybody give it a try?

Now the situation has changed. Don't stare that 1% mile stone. Be aware that according to pc world vista was disappointment of the year 2007 while ubuntu was the best product of the same year.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/140583-5/the_15_biggest_tech_disappointments_of_2007.html

http://www.ubuntu.com/news/pc-world-top-100-best-products-2007

These evaluations are not unique. Vista was a flop while ubuntu florished.

Now we no windows 7 is not based on minwin while microsoft rejected it but is rather vistas's service pack. There simply are no significant improvements. It is faster, but not nearly as fast as most linux distributions are.

This is not all. People get sick while they know their windows is expensive. MS office is surely better than MS works but it's price is outrageous. You might get your virus and malware scanner for free, but you have to find appropriate programs and an acceptable license. Oh, by the way, microsoft's EULA is not that kind of license. You give up your rights to microsoft while they can read everything you got in your computer. You have no way to check if they do that. You are being told that there is nothing to fear if you don't have anything to hide. Well, obviously MS has something to fear. Perhaps you should know this world just a little bit better.

If you still insist to pay twice too much for your fully operating computer, please do. Just don't give those absent minded OS forecasts based on fear, uncertainty and doubt - the microsoft's trinity as we know it - the FUD.

P.S. Just popped to my mind, check this one:

Windows 48,45 %
Linux 44,66 %
Mac OS X 6,21 %
Jokin muu 0,69 %
http://plaza.fi/muropaketti/linuxin-markkinaosuus-ylitti-prosentin-rajan,vastaukset

This news told about Net applications and the linux 1% barrier and they asked what operating system their readers use. Remember that Finnish muropaketti is not any kind of linux users's fan club. It has nothing to do with linux.

If Linux can eliminate usage

If Linux can eliminate usage of it's Command Prompt and bring things to more of a standard, get some tech support, and *ADVERTISE* some, then they might gain more of a dominance, right now though, the distros are too geared to someone who knows a decent amount about OS' and computers. For Heaven sakes, I have a CompTIA certification and some distro's can give me trouble. Ubuntu is far to buggy, let's face it, in fact, anything that ends in -untu will often give people problems, SuSe is about the only distro I consider using.

Predictions in technology are bad

I hope you realise that predicting the technology world is not wise. "Linux will never be a big player in the desktop market, nor should it be. "

Why shouldn't it be? This already shows your bias clearly and ruins any chance of the article being meaningful. This is trash, just like Steven J Vaughn's articles(if not worse).

The fact that governments and non profits are leaning more and more toward Linux and open source is a sign that there will be a bigger market.

"There are too many variants

"There are too many variants of it, and while it's gotten much easier to use, when you need to install software on it or update it, it's far too complicated."

I can't say I agree with the latter part of this statement. Installing and updating software is certainly different from how it's done in Windows, but hardly more difficult, at least not in distributions like Ubuntu. I like the way the generic update manager handles every piece of software. Making sure that all your software is updated in Windows is quite a chore in contrast.

I believe user-friendly distributions have unrealized potential among indifferent users of low-end computers. Quite recently I helped a female friend of mine with installing Linux Mint on her old laptop, and she likes it. Her Windows installation gave her trouble all the time, and I suggested this as a solution. She was happy to try it out, her attitude was like "Sure, I don't know how to use Linux Mint, but I don't really know how to use Windows either". I guess it's up to us Linux-fans to make a difference.