Market researcher IDC expects to announce within weeks that Linux’ PC market share in 2003 hit 3.2%, overtaking Apple Computer Inc.’s Macintosh software (as reported a few weeks ago it has fallen at 1.8%, for the first time). And the researcher expects Linux to capture 6% of this market by 2007. That’s still tiny compared with Microsoft’s 94% share. Desktop Linux hasn’t had any appreciable effect on Microsoft’s finances yet, but it could do damage if Linux manages to grab a 10% share of the market, say analysts. IDC estimates that desktop Windows’ share will shrink slightly, to 92% in 2007 as Linux’ share doubles. The first big question though is how all this will have an effect to Apple’s business.
Desktop Linux Share Overtaking Macintosh
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It’s really not surprising. Most of Asia, China especially are going Linux and opensource. I’d wager that’s a huge market that Linux is capturing at least over Macintosh or Windows.
And this not counting the likely adoption of Linux in developing nations, like Brazil and most of Africa.
Although I don’t doubt that Linux has more desktop share then does Mac OS X, I still believe Microsofts is not as high as many say.
I have 3 computers in my house, all purchased with Microsoft products installed, only one still has Windows installed. I believe this echoes many other peoples situations. Microsoft likely has 2 computers in this house counting to there market share that they don’t deserve.
Very few people still purchase Linux pre-installed on a computer, so whatever was installed first is still getting credit for the marketshare, which makes such results unclear as to the real picture.
I also think this is unfair to Apple, Linux can be installed on most popular platforms, Apple has confined themselves to a rather expensive platform. This alone makes it much easier to get a Linux desktop then an Apple desktop. I know many people that would rather use Apple, but the cost is simply to high.
Marketshare almost seems unimportant, and hopefully Apple won’t suffer from such results. I have 2 Linux desktops in my house, but if the hardware for Apple was cheaper, I would have 3 G5’s in this house. Apple offers a supperior product that is simply out of the price range of most.
Anyway, I am glad to see Linux seems to be getting some decent use. I just can’t wait for the day when Microsoft is the dominent desktop, and I hope I do see this is my life time (seem’s likely, I am about to enter just my 20th year.
Played a 17″ powerbook for a while with safari, ms office, photoshop, final cut pro and dvd studio pro. I am really impressed by the elegance and attention to details.
However, my xp box is more practical and virtual pc on a G4 1.33 G felt like it was on a pentium 100 with 32 MB memory. mp3 playback will occasionally choke which would seldomly happen if ever on my celeron 800.
..congratulations?
no idea what to say on this..
I believe Linux will become increasingly common on the office
desktop.. I really think it’s a great platform and its openness encourages development of custom solutions for enterprises..
I stll cant really see it in the home desktop yet except for those who are willing to adventure to get the benefits..
I’m not saying that linux itself may or may not be ready, just that regular people doesnt seem ready for adventuring into the unknown yet…
But I am positive that once it becomes a lot more standard in the office.. people overall will fear less to give it a try at home.. for which I hope linux will be even more mature..
cheers!
I meant “I just can’t wait for the day when Microsoft is no longer the dominent desktop”… oops
Pretty sad. The hardware biz is going to kill Apple this time around if they don’t change quick. I used to be freak and defended Apple in the past..but…They could be a great company on their media stuff alone (iPod, Logic Audio, iLife, Quicktime, Final Cut…)
The greatest service to Open Source since Linux (maybe even better) would be Aqua. God I wish. Linux and Aqua would kill Microsoft so fast. They should just do it for that reason alone…drag down MS with them.
Well, one reason is that many people just prefer cheap/fast PCs (though I hope IBM’s new G5s and G4s will make Macs faster and -relatively- cheaper).
I just switched to an iBook myself (from Linux/BSD and WinXP). The details are better than Windows, plus it’s a Unix, which I just need (no, I can’t stand that cygwin stuff). Still I think the Mac OS interface is less than great, even with Panther. My reason for not buying a Centrino machine with Linux or BSD is that Mac OS actually works, has a great sleep mode, the iBook is light, eats less power, creates less heat (yes, compared to centrino!) and has a strong company backing it, so I have stuff like Java and Flash.
Still I think, for 800MHz applications take years to start. This is probably due to Objective C and big, complex libraries using it.
So if at any time there will be a nice Linux that actually gets details right, has support for Java, Flash, multimedia, etc. and doesn’t require me to do fiddle with the shell for everything (though I’m a shell user lots of the time), and a notebook that has a CPU with less than 15W power and has a working sleep mode, consider myself switched again.
Oh, and Quicktime player and the Mac ICQ suck!
As Linux is running on x86, there is no surprise that the market share of linux can overtake Macos. With the huge amont of x86 computers that are sold (either with windows or Linux) every year, Apple can not compete with the market share. If Apple wants to play this game, they have to play with the same important rule: MacOsX has to run on x86.
But Apple is not playing this game (not yet?), and people should not consider this as a bad point for apple, as its often the case. Apple is growing in a lot of businesses, and has 25 millions of users, it means around 7-8 percent of the installed base computers, thats good.
Linux affects more Microsoft than Apple, but anyway i suspect that apple will take major resolutions this year to enhance their markey share, and expend the mac platform.
But i really don’t think that there is even a question about how all this will affect Apple, we are talking about different things. People should be more aware of the real meaning of market share and stop just considering Apple as a number in the market share!!!!!
Mostly reiteration of old news. Allthough I didn’t know that Munich is behind schedule. But somebody’s got to be the pioneer for proof of concept for the watching crowd. 3% this year. 6% in 2007. Then Longhorn.
Follow up to my comment:
I don’t think Linux will ever take over the desktop unless it either has Aqua, or something just as good. Being as functional as XP or mimicing it (like it’s getting to be) shouldn’t even be a goal. Desktop Linux won’t really pick up until it offers something that blows it away, something more than “just as good as Windows”.
What would happen if apple ported its “operating system” to Linux.
Development tools, applications, GUI. Market an apple Linux operating system.
They can still sell their vertical solutions independently.
Most Linux would love the Mac hardware and would love having a stable professional integrated solution.
Ride the Linux wave instead of being buried under it.
Now instead of when it’s too late.
“Still I think, for 800MHz applications take years to start. This is probably due to Objective C and big, complex libraries using it.
”
No, there is nothing to do with that. Cocoa applications are very fast and native to the system….
Even I think that its not the problem of price, because people are so attached to this, Apple have to make a so called “cheap computer”, maybe they should go to another direction with the imac. I really think that the quality-performance-usuability/price ratio is very good for apple.
Powermac G5 are very good priced (check the price of DEll precision computers), the problem is maybe more in the side of the Imac, maybe….
The first big question though is how all this will have an effect to Apple’s business.
Why should this be the first big question? The real news here is not that linux has overtaken apple marketshare on the desktop, but that linux is _gaining_ marketshare on the desktop.
This doesn’t effect Apple as much as it will (hopefully) effect MS Windows. Maybe this will lead to a saner environment that isn’t controlled by one player but actually has several players that compete with each other.
And allways remember:
Apple – going out of business since 1984
…Jobs has to get over his hardware fetish. Oh, and for those that think that marketshare doesn’t matter thing again. It might not be quite desperation yet, but at some point it just won’t be worth it to develop for Mac anymore. So does Apple end up developing most of the software for the Mac? I see Apple crapping in their pants when MS finally pulls the plug on Office for the Mac.
“going out of business…”
Apple is not going to go away. Just as there is a market for Gucci handbags and Armani suits then there’ll always also be a market for computer gear with aesthetic lines. The Mercedes of computers so to speak.
Assuming there are 100 computers all running Xp and Linux.
Does this mean that both, Xp and linux, have 100% market share?
“It might not be quite desperation yet, but at some point it just won’t be worth it to develop for Mac anymore. So does Apple end up developing most of the software for the Mac? I see Apple crapping in their pants when MS finally pulls the plug on Office for the Mac.”
I am sorry, but developpers does not develop for a market share, but for a number of users. If there are a lot of users, there is a business, and if there is a business there are applications.
A developer is not interesting to develop for a platform used by two people (for sure!!!), but he is interested to develop applications for 25 millions users. The market share does not express how many people will use his application, apple has a large users intalled base, that’s the important thing, and it’s worth to develop for this installed base.
And moreover a decreasing market share doesn’t mean that apple sells less computer or that their installed based is decreasing. Apple has shown a increase in their sales last quarter, but a decrease in their market share. Why?
Because their increase of sales is completely hidden by the huge amont of pcs which are sold (this number also increased the last quarter). More pcs are sold more the apple’s market share decreases (and remember that apple is alone against hundreds pc makers), but it does not mean that apple’s sales are decreasing or that apple’s users installed base is reducing. Its only means that there is a much bigger number of pc which are sold than macs. And the last few years the number of mac users has even increased.
So the market share is not the thing that the developers look at…..
Linux affects more Microsoft than Apple, but anyway i suspect that apple will take major resolutions this year to enhance their markey share, and expend the mac platform.
I disagree. Heh, it’s like the movie Kill Bill. Trix has to cut off a lot of heads just to even to get to Bill. Linux entered the server market and a lot of smaller heads fell off before MS felt the pain. As for the desktop: Linux isn’t targeting Apple..It just happens be part of something Linux is slowly moving into. It’s just in it’s way.
Either Apple joins forces with Linux by releasing Aqua or better yet, puts out the complete package and competes with Linux directly as well. Since Darwin’s out, might as well do it all with the whole thing. I mean, it’d be great for Linux either way, great for Apple, consumers, Open Source, and BSD won’t be forgotten either.
Better than just seeing a great company like that slowly dying away. A Free OS X would guarantee Apple’s relevance as a computing platform.
What would happen if apple ported its “operating system” to Linux.
And how is Darwin/XNU not an operating system? XNU supports a number of features which Linux does not, such as “fat” Mach-O binaries capable of containing cross-compile code for multiple architectures. The entire Quartz display system is based around Mach messaging, another facility not supported by Linux. Mach also provides its own non-SVR4 compatible shared memory system which is utilized by Quartz for client-side window rendering.
Development tools, applications, GUI. Market an apple Linux operating system.
Apple’s development tools are fairly integrated into the OpenStep Mach-O 32-bit PPC ABI format, which was designed with a certain degree of backwards compatibility to the m68k ABI originally utilized by NeXTSTEP. These same tools are one of the major hurdles hampering a 64-bit MacOS release.
As for the GUI, they’d need to rewrite major portions of Quartz and CoreFoundation for this to work.
They can still sell their vertical solutions independently.
Most Linux would love the Mac hardware and would love having a stable professional integrated solution.
Or those Linux users could simply switch to OS X…
Ride the Linux wave instead of being buried under it.
Now instead of when it’s too late.
What does Linux give Apple besides a brand name, something which they already have? More and more of MacOS X is being built around newer, state of the art mechanisms the likes of which Linux doesn’t have, like the new volume indexing service built around the BSD kqueue facility. Meanwhile, Linux’s F_NOTIFY facility is incapable of monitoring explicit changes to files, or even which files changed. Because user pointers cannot be passed with events, even tracing a directory event to a structure will always be O(log n), much like BeOS LiveQueries. However, kqueue() allows passing user pointers associated with particular events, and the facility itself is O(1). By allowing user pointers to be passed with events, filesystem monitoring itself becomes a completely O(1) activity, more scalable in this area than any operating system including BeOS, Linux, and Windows.
So should Apple move away from Mach message ports and kqueues to the more primitive mechanisms Linux offers (i.e. Unix domain sockets and the F_NOTIFY)? I certainly don’t think so… by investing the same time it would require to port their tools to improving MacOS as it exists now, they will provide user benefits much more immediately than we would see from a transition to Linux.
As a said Linux does not prevent Apple to increase their number of users because Linux may target only windows and pcs in the desktop, not macs.
How many people are only using linux for desktop purposes on macs, …….an amazing small number. Linux can fight windows not MacOs in the desktop. So linux can take users from microsoft not from apple, because people who prefer to use MacOsX instead of windows, they also prefer to use MacOsX instead of Linux, amd moreover MacOsX is an unix , so Linux users on pc choose rather MacOsX when they use a mac.
So Apple doesn’t lose users because of linux, but Microsoft can lose users because of Linux. Linux is not a threat for apple in the desktop, because apple knows how to stay ahead in this field.
So because of all this, Apple can keep getting new users, Apple is really not dying…..
But i am agree to say that it would be very good for apple to work with Linux, because they can play with that and get a lot of Linux users…
I am wondering if anyone knows if it is possible to use Darwin as the kernel of an otherwise free operating system (run bash, XFree, gcc, KDE on it).
I think this is highly unlikely but I am curious has ever heard something like that.
“All this crap on this forum about Linux not being ready for the Desktop is just that pure crap. People are just lazy and will not invest some time to explore what actually one can do in Linux in and out of the command shell. The O/S is amazing.”
What benefit would the computer user have by learning a whole new OS, when they can hardly even operate Windows? I wouldnt call it lazy, but being smart. Many people just need a computer for doing office work, e-mail, and internet browsing. So why spend (or waste, in some cases) the time in having to deal with a whole new system to do those basic tasks? Although some people refuse to believe it, there are those that actually LIKE using Windows. Yes, you heard me right. For some, Windows hasnt given them any security issues, it runs what they need to use, and it is been rock solid. This may not be an issue of being lazy, but just using what works well for you.
On a side note, I always question the maturity of peoople always using the $ whenever they type the word Microsoft. Is it because they are business and sell a product for profit (heaven forbid anyone makes money!)? I suppose we could apply it to other companies such as: $ony, $un, $u$e, $quare$oft, Ni$$an, and any other company that sells for a profit… Or is it jealousy that they have made some good business moves and have been able to provide and OS that works well for the masses and made lots of money while at it?
1. Darwin is free
2. Darwin is not the kernel
3. You can run anything you want on it.
” am wondering if anyone knows if it is possible to use Darwin as the kernel of an otherwise free operating system (run bash, XFree, gcc, KDE on it).
”
bash, Xfree, gcc, KDE already runs on MacOsX, so they run on Darwin. And its of course possible to run them on Darwin only without osx, because anyway when they run on osx, they run through darwin…..
You may be right in everything that you say. I am not familiar with all the technical details.
However, I do know that technology doesn’t necessarily sell.
If Linux is destined to become dominant in the Desktop, it seems it might be smart to join them. Even if their technology is behind on some or all aspects. I think that’s the sad reality. (VHS vs Betamax?)
There was an excellent article on the web about innovation and apple (unfortunately I can’t find it). The article claimed that although apple is one of the most innovative companies that isn’t enough (maybe not even necessary). I think that’s really sad but true. (They mentioned Xerox as well as an example)
I think this is the article I read:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/78/jobs.html
Many people are saying that Apple will go out of business. I think such comments are rediculous. They went though simular problems in 97 I think, rehired Jobs, and saw a steady incline for a while. Apple is too good to just disappear, although I can see someone like maybe IBM buying them out.
I mean, think about it, Apple already uses IBM processors, and the two already have a good relationship. I think that would be a bad thing for Linux in general, but good for most as IBM would again have a competitive Desktop and is curtainly able to compete with Microsoft financially.
I am not saying I want Apple to be purchased, but them, Sun, maybe even SGI, are all in trouble right now, and buy out talk is inevitable. So long as the industry doesn’t lose out, I don’t think it matters who’s financing what technology. Apple seems somewhat stagnent, the product is to good for that. I hope they turn it around though, although I hope they don’t turn it around at Linux’s expense.
UNIX needs more colaboration, the exact opposite of what SCO is trying to do. I believe that is what such companies as IBM see in Linux, colaboration again, finally. People need to start selling value-added features again rather then a wasting time developing the same features someone else already fully implemented, coding drivers for the same device on each platform is a waste of time.
That I believe is what IBM, Sun, SGI, Apple, HP et al see as being what Open Source represents, a way for them to colaborate. That is also why I think they like GPL seemingly, because GPL allows them to contribute to projects that may advance their competition knowing that the competition will not be able to use it and build on top of it without them seeing the benifits. Apple avoided GPL at first, but they are curtainly seemingly warming up to it recently.
/me doesn’t want to turn this into a GPL related discussion, just continuing his ramble… he is bored, and thinks its relivent somehow
I believe Apple can gain more market share if they switch to x86. But if Apple is to switch to x86, before doing so, they must make sure there will be OEMs supporting them such as HP, Acer, Dell etc and these companies must also be supporting local retailers. This means, HP, Dell etc will have Apple based x86 systems dispatched to local retailers so that the retailers will be selling both Windows and MacOS X on an x86 platform. This will also be good for AMD and Intel.
Isn’t there a difference between market share and number of customers? How many customers have Apple specifically *lost*?
Yes, the market share may be lower, but they’d be making the same money if their faithful customers haven’t jumped ship. That won’t kill Apple.
There’ll still be Mercedes, Gucci and most likely also Apple in 10 years.
Apple managed to maintain its market share for a long time i don’t see that changing. I think one of the best things they are doing is getting serious about their server line. I feel Mac OSX server is a hidden gem with alot of potential once it gets recognized and more software is ported to the platform. If it takes off it will defintiely eat into both MS and Linux marketshare very quickly.
This is largly over-hyped. While Linux is gaining acceptance in Asian countries, its not doing so in a massive way. Mostly some government organizations and 80% of the ISPs are adopting Linux and in the ISPs case, FreeBSD also. I know this because I am part of the Asian IT scene and I have 4 computers at home. Government agencies are adopting Linux because it sometimes gets hard for them to hide their illegal Windows installations and for ISPs, its a no brainer. Normal folk, however, don’t feel the slightest urge to use Linux, because they can get any application/OS they want for 50 US cents per-CD, so why would they buy something they don’t know and that has minimal commercial application support (Linux) over something that has a billion commercial applications readily available at almost no cost(Windows)? Even the U.S. hating people use Windows and have never touched Linux, why? Because they simply don’t care, and by using Windows, they’re actually hurting the U.S. more because they pirate it Windows!
Its nice to see that Gnu/Linux is gaining ground on the desktop it deserves that, the developers of the kernel, gnome, kde, openoffice, samba etc. worked very hard the last 2 years and development will be dubbeld in 2004/2005. That is the power of opensource if you have more users, you have more developers…
About Apple is use MacOSX on a daily base and its a very nice system but i think Lindows/KDE is more easy to use for a newbie that MacOSX and that most of the application that i have to pay for on my Mac are becoming obsolute.
Photoshop is nice but i can do all i want, and more, with the Gimp (on MacOSX ) for free i only would than miss myRAL/ CMYK colors but there are tools for that.InDesign could be replaced by Scribus, OpenOffice draw, CorelDraw and PAgestream. etc etc. As we all know its the applications
that ties people to thier not-beloved windows machines not the operating system. Windows as an operation system is completly obsolute. Linux, FreeBSD and MacOSX could easily replace windows OS but they would still miss some applications that users would need/miss.
So once Linux gets more market share (and Apple can help!) Microsoft will be in big trouble, you cannot compete to a superiour OS that is open and free.
My advise to Apple would be to start developing a x86 version of OSX and/or start developing Linux applications.
My advise to Microsoft would be to withdraw from the server and desktop market. The bigger they are the harder they fall..
A long time ago, namely in 1996, we decided to buy a PC. I had only used DOS back then, and made some little drawings in MS-Paint at a friend. So I knew neither Windows 95 nor MacOS. Therefore, the choice was easy: daddy liked to have not-so-common things, the Mac 6400/180 was faster than the fastest Intel (P166) and the Mac was supposed to be more user-friendly.
In the end (2002), we bought a new laptop with Windows, and suddenly he saw that he didn’t need MacLink+ to convert his documents to and from MS-Office. Not to speak about the huge speed Internet Explorer worked!
The latter has a reason: a GeoPort Softmodem consuming 90% of the processor and a “PowerPC” Netscape version that seemed to run mostly in m68k emulation mode, made internetting on the Mac with a PowerPC 180 Mhz like doing it on a 68000 of 8 Mhz!
I believe the modern MacOS works better like that, especially with the UNIX core. But I think I would have a very difficult time convincing my father to switch back… especially if the preinstalled AppleWorks is still incompatible with MS-Office. Or has that indeed changed?
About Scribus: the c’t magazine writes:
“Mit den langen Featurelisten der Profi-Konkurrenz kann sich Scribus (…) nicht messen”
“Eine echte Konkurrenz zu Profi-Vektorgrafik-Software wie Freehand oder Illustrator gibt es unter Linux noch nicht”
So, the professional, expensive programs are still considered better than the free Linux programs.
By the way, there is a reason there is a shift and comma key on the keyboard.
“The greatest service to Open Source since Linux (maybe even better) would be Aqua. God I wish. Linux and Aqua would kill Microsoft so fast.”
Sounds like someone wants the Masses to use QEMU
Short said you can’t compare Mac OS 8.x to Mac OS X. Despite the name it is simply _not_ the same operating system.
I recently installed Mac OS X 10.2 on a old beige G3 that previously had mac os 9 on it. Of course you’d have to plug some ram in it but it really is a totally different sensation. Multithreading is fast. I really wish I had some more cash to play with a more recent mac (G5).
A few years ago (1999-2000) I used to work daily on macs for graphics work. And everyday when I came back home I was so glad to switch back to a PC. Now with Mac OSX I am pretty certain my feelings are different.
I only wish Nokia would port it’s J2ME developer suite to Mac OS X. This is the main reason (as well as other brands j2me emulators) I keep working on windows/linux most of the day.
Oh and speaking of linux… I don’t see what Mac OS X would miss that linux as. Apart from dependency hell.
Market share doesn’t really mean anything. While Linux is may have a larger marketshare/user base, how many Linux users actually *pay* for their software?
I’ve had a Linux box as my primary machine for 3 years, and I never actually paid for any software. The whole selling point of Linux is that it is cheap, you get software for free (with source code).
When I moved to OS X in 2003, I actually bought software. I bought games, applications like MS Office, REALBasic, and the like.
The point I’m trying to make is that the Linux users mentality is vastly different from that of OS X users. With Linux, users generally expect to get things for free, or they would demand that software be Open Source[1], and some even feel ‘deep seated guilt’ for not using Open Source software[2]. While they do not necessarily reflect the attitude of *all* Linux users, you can bet that’s the reason quite a lot of people go to Linux.
OS X users, accustomed to being gutted by Apple prices, have no qualms about paying for software 🙂
With tools like Qt and Java, developers can actually target more than just 1 platform so this isn’t really that much of an issue anyway.
[1] http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=6007
[2] http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5832
[quote]I believe the modern MacOS works better like that, especially with the UNIX core. But I think I would have a very difficult time convincing my father to switch back… especially if the preinstalled AppleWorks is still incompatible with MS-Office. Or has that indeed changed?[/quote]
Ummm…. Last I checked Microsoft Office is still available for the Mac too.
[url]http://www.microsoft.com/mac/%5B/url] I believe Apple will even preinstall it on a new machine as well. Although, it’s been a while since I played with the configurator on Apple’s website.
Just because Apple Works is included doesn’t mean you HAVE to use it.
This is awesome. If linux can get 5-15% of the market in the next few years, the main thust of microsoft’s monopoly is lost. Hardware and software vendors alike cannot ignore the marketshare of an operating system more than 7% or so because supporting it becomes an incredible competitive advantage. Look at how well nVidia has done with the linux crowd over the past few years. Even with all the slow hardware troubles they’ve had with the nv3x line, they still attract a solid market of linux buyers becuase they have the best 3d driver support for linux (best meaning that in the vast majority of cases all the latest hardware just works at full performance).
All I have to say is that more linux programs are on the way!
“Oh, and Quicktime player and the Mac ICQ suck!”
Quicktime pwns j0, and Mac ICQ? whens the last time I’ve used ICQ… a few years ago? Is there eve na version of ICQ for Mac Os X?
… Firefox .8 just started freaking out, but in response to “http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=6013#200061“
Why get over the hardware fetish? If it wasent for the macintosh hardware fetish pc users would still be using serial ports
Also, Office for Mac OS X? meh, why not jsut use appleworks or openoffice :p They all do the same thing and are compatible with .doc filetypes.
What would happen if apple ported its “operating system” to Linux. …Most Linux would love the Mac hardware and would love having a stable professional integrated solution.
There’s nothing stopping them from using it now. OSX has the same Unix-style CLI as Linux, and runs the same open-source software. Most of what’s popular has already been recompiled for OSX: I myself make heavy use of X11, TeX, Lyx, ssh, scp, &c. One of my coworkers uses Matlab, whose OSX version is essentially a port from Unix/Linux (it even requires X11 to run).
As far as I’m concerned, the only Linux has is that its GUI is open-source. Alas, the Linux GUI sucks, compared to Apple’s.
Good point. I’m sure Apple would rather have 10% of the customers who spend money, rather than 100% of the computer users who won’t.
“Alas, the Linux GUI sucks, compared to Apple’s.”
You know, some of us like to get real work done, instead of spending all our time cooing over gumdrop widgets. If you look around you, not everything has to be drenched in lavish prettiness — functional things like road signs are clean, simple and quick to read. And as a computer is a tool, a functional item, it should also share a similar philosophy.
It seems that all the people who get so hyperactive about Aqua actually do the least amount of work. To many of us who want to get things done properly and efficiently, Aqua is an over-the-top, pointlessly makeup-laden and incredibly slow toy.
As far as the “Linux GUI” goes (not that there is one per se), it has a major advantage: performance. I can put a GUI Linux on an old P133 box with XFree86, IceWM, AbiWord, Dillo etc. and it flies along. Meanwhile, Aqua is quite sluggish even on an 800 MHz machine.
So to say the “Linux GUI sucks” is broad and uninformed. I’d wager that I can get much more work done with my fast, clean and well constructed IceWM setup than you with the much, MUCH slower, in-your-face Aqua
From the OS News description of this article: “The first big question though is how all this will have an effect to Apple’s business.”
The answer, of course, at least at present, is “not at all.” The folks becoming Linux users at home are generally not switching from Apple, but from Windows-based PCs. And (more significantly in number) the institutions/organizations that are putting Linux on their desktops are not putting them in place to perform the kind of functions where they might have considered Apple instead.
Linux is not affecting Apple’s market share — just Windows.
If Apple merely put their layers on top of Linux instead of Darwin, nothing would be any different. It wouldn’t bring new sales because the number one complaint against Apple is proprietary hardware.
But if Apple continued to sell Mac OS X as it is now, on their own hardware; but also provided a Linux version of Cocoa, that might be interesting. They might be able to bring to Linux the same Desktop, and ability to run some Mac software.
I say some, because I think it unlikely they could port the legacy Carbon API, and that’s where the majority of the apps everyone really wants still live; the Adobe applications, Microsoft Office, etc.
So I find it unlikely that anyone using Linux would be willing to pay for an environment where you would be limited to running a few apps from the Omni Group, good as they are.
Imagine though if Apple gave it away (or sold it for some ridiculously low price). Now you would have a cross-platform API that might increase the number of Cocoa developers for Apple, and provide a more professionally finished GUI for Linux.
It wouldn’t lead to market share dominance, but it would be pretty cool.
As I read through this again I was thinking IBM would probably like to see this happen. I believe IBM, Sun, and Novell have a strong desire to break the Microsoft desktop monopoly; but a professional Linux desktop is holding them back. Sun and Novell may have invested too much in their own solutions to welcome Apple’s involvement at this point, but I can imagine IBM still welcoming it.
How does market share relate to overall units sold – IE are there less macs being sold – or is the size of the overall pie just getting so much larger that someone who remains the same shows up as a much smaller percentage?
Your pretty full of yourself aren’t you?
No one else works as hard as you. Everyone else must be inefficient because their machines are too pretty. A real man works from the CLI.
Tell us about your set up. What kind of work are you getting done. How is it so much faster and I couldn’t duplicate the same thing on my 600 MHz iBook (on which Aqua is very responsive).
Weee! My windows are flying around. Look at them warping into the dock! Ha Ha! This is so much fun! (Oops! Gotta get back to work!)
So to say the “Linux GUI sucks” is broad and uninformed. I’d wager that I can get much more work done with my fast, clean and well constructed IceWM setup than you with the much, MUCH slower, in-your-face Aqua
Yeah right. Mac OS X and Windows wins hands down from Linux in the desktop arena.
Forget about copying and pasting any rich media on Linux. If you want to copy an image from mozilla to openoffice on X11, you can forget about it. Heck, even styled text is too much to handle for the X11 clipboard, and you better keep the origin-app open till you are absolutely sure you don’t want to paste anymore.
That’s just something as simple as copying and pasting. There are still lots of interoperability problems with programs that are made with the KDE frameworks, Gnome frameworks, Mozilla framework, whatever GUI toolkit Openoffice uses, Swing apps. And you can forget about using only applications that use 1 framework, because there are so few quality applications on Linux, let alone quality applications in all the different frameworks. Ported commercial applications will probably use yet another framework, and only run on 1 or 2 distributions.
Dependency hell is still there, only fixed by ugly hacks like apt-get or emerge. The developer can never rely on the fact that “on a linux desktop machine, these frameworks will be there”. So the only way to make it easy to install, is package it for debian and try to get it in their repository, then package it for gentoo, and try to get it in their repository, then slackware, fedora, mandrake, suse,..
And I would seriously call XFree86 allot slower than Quartz and Aqua. Even on the fastest machine, you can easily see the redraws. Click a menu, see the grey square, then see the text. Instead of just square + text immediatly, at once.
The only good thing about the Linux Desktop, is that it is cheap. It’s not actually good, it’s not modern, and has barely a few quality applications (which offcourse don’t integrate with eachother). The quality is pretty much on the same level as Windows 3.11. But hey, it’s cheap, so it’s ideal for cheapskates who value their time at 0 dollars.
Linux gaining share really doesn’t hurt Apple at all. The Linux “switchers” are almost all coming from Windows.
In addition, the Mac platform gets a lot of OS ports from Linux. For the most part, what’s good for Linux is good for Apple.
Dominance doesnt last for a long time. As long as it last enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!
‘Linux gaining share really doesn’t hurt Apple at all. The Linux “switchers” are almost all coming from Windows.’
I’d agree with that. All the Mac OS users I know decided to buy more expensive Apple hardware because they wanted the most friendly and easy to use computer available. They aren’t going to change to an OS that’s much more complex and user hostile than Windows. Plus they’re generally using Photoshop, Macromedia apps, DTP apps, video editing, etc. All things that aren’t available for Linux, unless you emulate another OS.
Even though there’s no chance I’d run Linux as my main OS at the moment, I think it is a good thing that it’s share of the market is increasing. Anything that gives Microsoft more competition and encourages them to improve their product is a good thing. Maybe if it does ever reach 10% of the desktop market some mainstream software will get ported and more hardware manufacturers will start supporting it.
I’d love to be able to switch to Linux, but not while the GUI is such an inconsistent mess, I can’t run the apps I need and so much hardware is problematic.
Linux’s marketshare could be even larger than what IDC says, because people can download ISO off a ftp server, and they aren’t registering or filling out any surveys, and they’re not being counted. Since Apple does get a lot of the big products does this mean that Linux will too since the market for Linux is even bigger?
“No one else works as hard as you. Everyone else must be inefficient because their machines are too pretty. A real man works from the CLI.”
Wow, don’t get so worked up about it. I was just pointing out that launching, running and managing apps and data is a lot faster under, say, IceWM than Aqua. That’s just a fact. I don’t want my system slowed down by superficial frills; I want to do work as quickly as possible. So, for me personally, the “Linux GUI” is more appropriate.
That’s in response to the guy who said it “sucks”. Yes, there are problems, but it works very well for many of us.
“And I would seriously call XFree86 allot slower than Quartz and Aqua. Even on the fastest machine, you can easily see the redraws. Click a menu, see the grey square, then see the text.”
No offence, but you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about in this case. That is a TOOLKIT issue; Gtk2 and to a lesser extent Qt3 are very slow. X was originally designed for ~5 MHz 1MB RAM machines, and I’ve run it without hassle on a 486/25. You just have to choose the right apps.
I’ll show you XFree86 running pretty nicely on a 486/25. Now you show me Aqua running on a system of similar spec (if possible). It is orders of magnitude slower. The “Linux GUI” is therefore more liberating; it can bring back life into older machines, while Apple need to sell new hardware to survive, and consequently don’t need to maintain performance on older machines.
This is where the problem of a single vendor, single architecture OS which only runs on a single hardware platform from a single company comes into play.
It is kinda sad for Mac lovers that Linux is conquering Mac OS, but I suppose that is good. Though, I’d have to agree with the second post: there are 5 computers in my home, 2 are Macs, 3 are PCs with only one of those running Windows. So, someone can’t count very well. I think that Linux is obviously spelling trouble for Microsoft, because Longhorn might not be the usual crowd awing update to Windows. I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but half the stuff released about Windows on OSNews is trouble. Like the source code leaking, or them admitting to a serious security flaw(s). Personally, Mac OS or Linux, I would far rather have an OS that can keep it self secure and somewhat safe. I think that either Mac OS or Linux is going to catch Microsoft at their weak point when they release Longhorn, the crippling OS for Microsoft. If you look at it, Longhorn is almost like Apple’s transition from OS 9 to OS X (8 years later). That transition hurt Apple, though they are recovering. And furthermore, i have read numerous places that Microsoft is having trouble with people upgrading from 98! and NT! to XP or even 2000/2003 Server! Apple just keeps getting better, and they have some tricks up their sleeves with the G5. So, either OS, Microsoft better be ready. Ok, that was just my 10 cents worth…
“On a side note, I always question the maturity of peoople…”
thats too bad Heather you still have to stay home and watch your little brother.
Is the way submenus are handled by X. With the MacOS you can use a logarithmic natural hand motion to go -directly- to the submenu item you want without having to make a persnickety ultra-precise left/right – down motion (without which on linux/windows causes the next submenu to be selected without fail, usually causing me to repeat the mouse motion at least once if not three times just to get to the damned submenu.)
Apple’s had this for more years than I can count (MacOS 4.2 anyone ?), and this is one of the singular most annoying ‘features’ of any OS that is not MacOS.
Mac hardware generally holds its value far longer than x86 hardware as well, and my 8-year-old PPC 7600/132 (40Mhz bus speed) with a G3/400 CPU upgrade still holds its own against linux (with Photoshop 4 still able to perform tasks far faster than Gimp on my Duron 1.1ghz box with twice the RAM on an Abit KG7-Lite mobo, running Fedora Core 1)
For these and many other reasons, my next computer will absolutely be a Macintosh G5.
All the Mac software
All the Classic Mac software
All the Unix software (have you SEEN X11 apps running rootless next to Aqua apps? no? It’ll blow your -mind-)
…and windows under emulation if I really just gotta have something that hasn’t (yet) been ported.
That’s worth a couple extra bucks to me in purchase price, when overall functionality covers all the other bases adequately.
No offence, but you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about in this case. That is a TOOLKIT issue; Gtk2 and to a lesser extent Qt3 are very slow. X was originally designed for ~5 MHz 1MB RAM machines, and I’ve run it without hassle on a 486/25. You just have to choose the right apps.
Well, than every single toolkit on X11 has this problem (gtk, qt, xul, openoffice-stuff, swing). And if every single toolkit has this problem on X11, than that means that X11 makes it too difficult for a toolkit to do backbuffering everywhere. Especially if some of those toolkits *do* backbuffering on the other platforms.
And choosing the right apps on Linux? Are you kidding, in a product category you generally have maximum 1 application that is mature. And that’s when you are lucky enough to actually find such an application.
Trust me, I have worked long enough with the linux desktop. Wether it is KDE/Gnome, or console only, or those alternative window managers like WindowMaker or fluxbox.. In all those cases, productivity is fairly low, has a bad usability (except for Gnome 2.x), and is generally immature and non-integrated with the rest of the system.
I currently have two 17″ LCD iMacs (800 MHz G4) running OS X 10.3.2. OS X runs very well in these two machines, much better than 10.2 (Jaguar) did, in my opinion. I will continue to upgrade OS X on these machines for as long as is economically feasable, or until Apple drops support for them, at which time I will reformat the hard drives and install Linux.
I also have Linux running on three computers, FreeBSD running on two and Windows 2000 Pro running on two computers.
I personally feel that although Linux has come a long way in the past 5+ years I’ve been using it, it still has a ways to go before it is suitable for everyday use by average people. OS X, on the other hand, started out very user-friendly, and has just gotten better.
I do believe that Linux will eventually get to the point where your grandmother could use it without too much difficulty. I also believe Linux is already more than good enough for most businesses to use as their standard desktop.
“Imagine though if Apple gave it away (or sold it for some ridiculously low price). Now you would have a cross-platform API that might increase the number of Cocoa developers for Apple, and provide a more professionally finished GUI for Linux.”
Okay, what is wrong with
http://www.gnustep.org/
?
Apple is even now starting to include linux APIs into its OS (panther), This makes it easier for software to be ported
http://developer.apple.com/unix/
as such an increase of Linux desktops will infact increase mac applications, but its not the desktop side applications that will be of huge benefit to apple, its the server-side ones…
“Well, than every single toolkit on X11 has this problem”
Really? You said that one can “easily see the redraws”. Well, I have XUL, GTK1 and Xaw apps running here, and I can’t see the redraws on any, let alone “easily”. If it’s that apparent on your machine, you need to sort out a better video driver / config, a lighter WM, fewer background tasks etc.
Impressively, though, you completely failed to answer my original point: if XFree86 can run fairly well on a 486/25, why can’t Aqua? For all your hand-waving and guesswork, there’s real practical proof. Run Aqua on the lowest supported machine possible, and then X on a similar spec PC, and compare. I’ve done tests like this, and on the low end Aqua is simply far, far slower.
“Are you kidding, in a product category you generally have maximum 1 application that is mature.”
You know, what you define as “mature” isn’t relevant. My point is that you can run Linux on very old boxes with alternative apps. Dillo, AbiWord and Sylpheed are fine replacements for Firefox, OO.o and Evolution for general tasks. You can still have a modern, supported graphical Linux on very old boxes. Can’t do that with OS X, so that’s why I don’t believe the Linux GUI “sucks”.
“In all those cases, productivity is fairly low”
Erm, who on earth are you to say how productive people are with their choice of WM? I’d really, really like to meet you, and prove your claims laughable. You bring along your iBook / PowerBook, I’ll bring along my Slack laptop.
I’ll be up and running before your OS X machine has finished booting. I’ll be running IceWM at light speed with great keybindings, Firefox with multiple mouse buttons, and all sorts of apps while you’re waiting for the bouncy beachball to finish. I’ll be getting work done while your OS is spending CPU cycles prettifying everything possible.
I’ve spent a lot of time with OS X. And Windows, and BeOS, and AmigaOS, and RISC OS, and SkyOS, etc. And for me, the instant response of IceWM and other light apps just makes me work so much faster. There’s no debate in that. It’s productivity through speed.
So I would say Apple messed up big time by having still such expensive prices, otherwise as you say Apple’s share would be more like 10%. I certainly would have bought a MAC two or three years ago, if the price had not been so crazy.
I don’t think the Marketing/Pricing Department of Apple does a good job therefore.
Interesting Apple and Linux, at a lower hardware cost…….that would blow MS to pieces.
Interesting Apple and Linux, at a lower hardware cost…….that would blow MS to pieces. However doesn’t MS have a share in Apple……….
“Ride the Linux wave instead of being buried under it.”
No thanks, I’d rather ride the wave of innovation than the wave of business. Linux is business. It has a low price point . . . period. Of course I would expect the majority of the world to pick a cheaper product as compared to OS X and Apple hardware. So what’s the big deal with this report anyway? All it says is that people like the Chinese and developing countries enjoy a low price point. Lol.
linux is a subset of the 95% of the world that uses x86 so it should be relatively easy to overtake mac.
The future for mac is in moving up to high-end computing (a al SGI/Sun) and pushing out into consumer electronics.
IBM will have significant volumes for its g5’s thanks to IBM, microsoft, apple,and perhaps sony (at least for the fab not the g5 itself).
at some point apple has to VASTLY reduce the cost of their desktops. Will they do it? i think so. Jobs is well aware of the market share and he is interested in expanding it. Question is how do they do it? And…do they license their os to a limited group of firms (say to IBM to push into enterprise).
I think these numbers are either bogus or misleading. Linux on the desktop — real desktops, as in, can do everything Windows or OS X can do desktops (not crippled business terminals) — is typically pegged at 1% or less. That’s the figure I’ve been hearing from everyone: 1% or less. Look here: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html . The Mac is at 3%, Linux is at 1%. That sounds about right to me (for the average Google-using public).
Perhaps what IDC means is that sales of desktop Linux are growing to exceed Macintosh sales. That might be true — but Linux is still playing catch up.
As a supporter of Linux, I’m all for growing marketshare — especially at the expense of Microsoft — but using faulty marketshare numbers as an excuse to piss on Mac users (of which I am proudly one) is something that I find extremely obnoxious.
Regards,
Jared
I am not sure if those who stop using Apple start using Linux. I think that most new Linux users are former Windows users, just for the hardware reason. But these are just my guesses. I thing that surveys should be done first. Plus I am not sure how to count dualboot machines. For example I could be classified both as a Windows user (games, office tasks) and as a Linux user (software development).
Zeitgeist is an interesting source, but not wholly representative. Various factors come into play:
1) Most Linux deployments are on servers, which won’t ever be visiting Google.
2) Many desktop Linux users change their browser’s UA string to be Internet Explorer
3) Their ‘other’ section will include various lesser-known Linux browsers which don’t reveal the OS name
4) As a ‘geeky’ OS, Linux users are more likely to have broadband and/or a static IP. So they’re only counted as one visit, whereas each time a Mac / Win user dials up and has a dynamic IP, it’s seen as a separate entry
So, combining all these together, Linux could well be closer to 3% right now. It’s interesting to note that here in the UK there are three newsstand Linux magazines; I’m not sure how many Mac ones but I don’t think it’s more than four.
The advantage of the basic pc is for basic power you can create a cheap white box easy. Thats the advantage. However, I dont know if your necessarily paying for the quality behind it.
The current ideology of Apple is not to be in everyones household. Would that be nice? yes. Does it matter ? no. Steve Jobs knows this, he can survive as a nice niche player. Hes always pulling something out of his sleeve like the ipod. This is the guy that brought apple back and introduced Pixar to us, he is not stupid.
1) Steve Jobs know he has loyalists that will never die away. Its kind of hard to kill an Apple Zeolot lol.
2) Steve Jobs will never, ever go cheap because he hates white boxes. Ever since he brought the imac he has been making things that look cool or pretty, I dont believe he’ll change that even if it meant more customers and lower prices
3) Steve Jobs wont lower the prices because he knows someone will pay for them as well :-p
4) Lets talk about quality design besides the pretty eye candy.. Apple is an innovator. Sure you could say theyve copied somethings and just made them better. After all they werent the first ones with a 64 bit processor, they werent the first ones to have UNix as an operating system they weren’t the first ones etc… However they were the first ones to introduce this concept to the Home Office market as they always do. No one, had a 64 bit CPU in the house unless you were some engineer tinkering with a Sparc Machine lets say. and and the AMD64 came after the g5, though that did manage to kick Apples behind in raw performance. They brought firewire and made it a household name(though at the time they didnt support USB 2.0 which ticked me off for a while) but then they adapted that. They gave the world the Imac which by the way is a cleaner PC design than most computers. They have a nice concept of control of OS and Hardware. Some would argue this is bad, but for the Average Joe its nice because it usually means quality control more than having to support millions upon millions of x86 hardware. ALso the way they design the system makes it much more effiecient and cleaner. Look at the inside of a g5 and it looks much cleaner and better than lets say the inside of a basic pc with everything thrown together quickly. They obviously did some designing.
So thats my rant for today, your not going to agree with everything, but come on their apple, they never were cheap lol. Besides at least its not Windows 😉
Being the Mercedes of the Comp biz is a good thing? I don’t think so. What would be worse is if Apple became the Ferrari of the computer world. Being Mercedes or even Ferrari has never been the goal of Apple Computer, as mildly lucrative as they *might* be. Maybe it was good enough for SGI or Sun at one time, but Steve Jobs has always wanted to be a relevant competitor in whatever arena he’s entered — And with Apple it’s the desktop. If he wants Apple to be relevant outside specialty markets, there aren’t that many options left to ascend.
If the Mac minority complex has hit so deep now that it’s part of the reason to use them, that Mercedes is actually a “good” thing, then it’s sad indeed. More sad than this market report for sure. Being a boutique was the hand dealt to Apple, nothing they chose themselves.
As for superior technology keeping Apple alive: It just doesn’t work that way. Sure, they can hold a small market and stay alive (which is exactly what’s been happening the past 15 years), but it’s supposed to be a home computer. A product wins in this arena by osmosis, not technical superiority. If that wasn’t true, x86 chips would be forgotten, 68k would have been the bomb, and Windows 3.1 would have never made it. And on and on and on. What I’d like to see is technical superiority coming out on top for a change.
But now Linux. Yes, a great OS and all, but nothing special in terms of UNIX, except the free part — Why Linus Torvalds is GOD I’ll never know. What Linux lacks from modern UNIX functionality it makes up for in managability and price. It is the Intel of the UNIX world. That’s how it has grabbed the server market. The direct route of osmosis is related to cost. And cost is exactly what will bring it to the desktop.
Linux right now is a disservice to desktop users (yes, you heard me right)..Yet, Linux will pick up, especially once it’s desktop and media functionality becomes as unified as the rest of it’s UNIX underpinnings. That’s all it needs. X, KDE, Gnome, ALSA, etc., can do this eventually, they’re sufficient. But this goes back to me wanting technical superiority to win for a change. Since the total destruction of Windows is what we seek, these projects should be scrapped for something better than “sufficient”.
No, Apple customers will not switch and buy Linux themselves, but when Linux starts slowly unseating Windows it’s presence will insure that Mac OS X doesn’t gain any more ground that it already has, just like Windows has been doing to it all these years. Mac OS X will have a new, larger, but technically inferior enemy. And it’d be a damn shame if don’t work together before they do actually come in direct conflict. Apple could speed up Linux and BSD progress overnight. Everyone would win except perhaps KDE, GNOME, and of course, Microsoft.
There is no war fought with Linux and Mac being allies against Microsoft.
Open source and Linux are about collaboration; taking control of the software and use it the way you see fit, not as a way of driving Microsoft out of business.
There really isn’t much difference between using Windows and OS X. They are both proprietary platforms controlled by big corporations, OS X has a smaller marketshare and uses UNIX, that’s about it.
What’s pathetic is that a lot of you are so zealous about buying expensive hardware and software, badmouthing Linux while at the same time taking advantage of a lot of software developed for Linux and the BSD:s.
A few weeks ago my company issued me a new laptop from Dell. The first thing I did was remove XP and install Fedora Core 1. I’m betting that someone has counted this as a Windows Laptop. My coworkers are considering making the switch too. After a few weeks observing me, they’ve decided that I’m able to complete my tasks with little or no hassle and I’ve not required additional expensive software.
The only way to look at this is similar to looking at the PC market share. You always count all the PC vendors against the one Mac vendor Apple. So in actuality both the Mac OS X and Linux market share would count against the Windows market share as a group since they both are Unix like systems. I think Linux has already made a point in the server market since Microsoft just reported a $204 million dollar loss on its server division. It will probably will only get worse as time goes by.
GIVE ME MORE GAMES!!!
I hate dualbooting
Whenever someone that is not especially interested in the internals of computers asks for my advice on what to buy, I usually send them to http://www.Apple.com. Easy to use computers with a UNIX-like OS underneath if ever they decide to learn.
Computers are supposed to make life easier for people to get things done, and tasks that should be automated or handled by the computer should be in fact, done automatically, by the computer. Linux is not currently for everyone, and it’s silly to think that it’ll get to the stsate where it’ll be all things to all people anytime in the near future.
It’s too difficult for new users when something goes wonky (which invariably it does), too counterintuitive, too bloated (how many DEs, office suites, web browsers and text editors does the average Linux distro install out of the box?), and lets not forget the fact that most Linux distros are ridiculously unpolished.
All taht said, I can see Linux taking off in places like Asia (even right now) due to both the pricing and the fact that they’re not quite so tied to the evils of corporate America.
> The first thing I did was remove XP and install Fedora Core 1. I’m betting that someone has counted this as a Windows Laptop.
Of course they did! Your company gave $55 to Dell to pay Microsoft for its OS.
Now, how much did you pay for Fedora Core 1? Nothing, probably. That is how much Linux software developers got from you for all their work. Did you at least send them a ‘thank you’ letter? I doubt so.
So, what good has come from your Linux conversion? Next laptop, in 2006. with Longhorn: $55 to Microsoft, $0 to Fedora Core 11.
>I’m able to complete my tasks with little or no hassle and I’ve not required additional expensive software.
Expensive- as in ‘software developers paid for job they do?’ Well, congratulations: you just explained why there is not enough third party software for Linux to make it viable alternative to Windows in the eyes of an average home user.
Small part of every society works for charity, because they can afford to. Most have to sell fruits of their labour to make ends meet.
I very much doubt that Desktop Linux will become a reality before ‘free as in $0’ mentality dissapear.
“Now, how much did you pay for Fedora Core 1? Nothing, probably. That is how much Linux software developers got from you for all their work.”
Wow, way to totally misunderstand the development foundations behind Linux and RH / Fedora in particular. Let me try to explain. Red Hat sells enterprise level distributions and support services. They pay developers to work on many components of Linux. To get more testing and suggestions, they release a more cutting-edge unsupported version, Fedora Core, for free to the community.
So it’s a symbiotic relationship. There’s no need to pay RH anything for Fedora, because by using it we’re doing testing and QA for them. We get the latest Linux goodies, and they get to develop their enterprise distro further. You see? It works very well.
“I very much doubt that Desktop Linux will become a reality before ‘free as in $0’ mentality dissapear.”
That mentality has never existed. Sure, you can get Linux technology for free, but if you want support and good engineering you typically have to pay for it. Desktop Linux is becoming an enormous reality, with good money being paid; for instance, the Chinese government recently signed a deal with Sun to provide Linux on over 500,000 desktops.
That’s how it’s starting to pan out. Hobbyists and developers can get Linux for free, but plenty of people are happy to pay for more — Lindows / Xandros etc. for newcomers, Sun JDS, RHEL and SUSE for corporations.
I don’t even know why I’m replying to this, TBH. OSNews is a good site but really needs a more thorough moderation, so uninformed comments like the above (along with all the Apple fanboys creaming their jeans over gumdrop widgets and one-button mice) can get out of the way, leaving it open for proper, informed and constructive discussion.
Depends what you call work. If by “work” you mean dilly-dallying around on the web and typing up text docs then great, you can probably load the program faster on your machine. Now consider that for a living someone does video editing or photoshop work. Woops! Yeah, the options aren’t there. While SGI and Discreet are porting some of their top end apps to Linux they are also not for PC hardware. That said, also consider that one would like to do these things on a more amateur level, the options arent there either. I for one work on Maya (3d app) which is available for all the major platforms, however I use this along side Photoshop and Shake. While its not available for windows anymore I see a move to OSX/Apple coming soon. I have no arguments against this as some minor work will have paid for the move anyhow. My point is, you can’t argue that something is faster for work when the apps used simply dont exist for the platform. Slow is better than never/indefinite.
and become a software vendor. They should open the specs to their PPC models and then using OS-X they can corner the OS market on the PPC platform along with providing other software. Maybe they can even provide their own PPC Mac OS-X Office suite.
You know, some of us like to get real work done, instead of spending all our time cooing over gumdrop widgets.
You know, when I’m talking about a GUI, I’m not necessarily talking about its eye candy. I use Keramik on my Linux box at work, and sure it’s pretty, but the Linux GUI still sucks.
So to say the “Linux GUI sucks” is broad and uninformed.
It may be broad, it is not at all uninformed. I use Linux at work, and it is a huge hassle to get things to work properly. Most Linux GUI apps are not programmed properly as regards the clipboard, and many of them (esp. Waterloo Maple) are programmed terribly with something as simple as regards keyboard bindings.
Anything that I can do with my Linux desktop, I can do with my OSX iBook, except… better. Maybe not faster, you’re right there (and besides I have a lower-edge machine). But I can do it better.
> So, combining all these together, Linux could well be closer to 3% right > now. It’s interesting to note that here in the UK there are three
> newsstand Linux magazines; I’m not sure how many Mac ones but I
> don’t think it’s more than four.
Mac mags in the UK:-
Mac User (fornightly, Dennis Publishing)
MacWorld UK (Monthly, IDG)
MacFormat (Monthly, Future Publishing)
iCreate (Monthly, Paragon)
Plus MacWorld US and MacAddict (US) are also available in most newsagents.
Then there’s Computer Arts, Computer Music, Digit and the rest of the design-tech press which covers the Mac PLUS the professional design press (Grafik, Creative Review, Blueprint etc) which cover major Mac related issues.
J…
You haven’t tried Xfree 4.3.99 and kde 3.2. I’m running Xfree 4.3.99 with kde3.2 and everything is fast and clean. kde3.2 Is the most beautiful desktop I have ever used(yes I have tried OSX) It looks great without looking like bubblegum. Xfree 4.3.99 is very fast, I see a 10%-20% speed increase. Everything feels clean and well organized. There’s still a problem with different toolkits but there are so many quality “K” apps I almost never feel the need to use a “G” program, but I could with no problem.
This article should be focusing on Microsoft more then Apple. Everyone like bashing Apple, when it’s Microsoft that needs it, because most of the linux is run on X86 processors. What is MS going to do? OS X and Linux share some likenesses,and I think they will dominate the desktop for years to come.
“Dude he’s Russian !”
Russians are cool, my best freind is one! That wall fell along time ago……..
1-st – I’m russian
2-nd – Please ban —.client.comcast.net
3-rd – I totaly disagree with Russian Guy, IMO Linux must be free, linux developers are paid and it’s not communism or volunterism.
Too bad there are still ppl who live in the ’80
Apple Computer is first and foremost a computer company. One whose market share is always compared to the whole of the computer community. Neither Linux nor Microsoft make computers.
I wonder how Dell, Gateway, HP or any of the other thousands of computer companies would fare if their market shares where pitted against the whole of their competitors.
When in the world of stupidity did it become popular to compare a single computer company’s market share against a software company’s market share. If that is the case then why not compare Apples market share to Adobe or any other software company.
Only if Apple were just a software or OS company selling to the legions of computer companies would such a comparison be valid. Perhaps Microsoft could manufacture its own computer and see how well it does against the compition.
Apple does very well by the computer industry that loves to copy it.
I’m in the same boat, not as much with 3D as with audio and video, and the GNU and Linux tools for these areas are all but useless. I don’t doubt some tools will come along, but just like any graphics professional would rather pass at Gimp or Scribus, I’m not going to expect GNU ProTools either.
If GNU/Linux is going to become common, I’d like to see less “contentment” with the mess that Desktop Linux really is, and more effort providing something more workable for companies to port to. I’m sure some things will eventually be agreed upon, but it’d be nice if someone with expertise like Apple got involved.
“If Linux is destined to become dominant in the Desktop, it seems it might be smart to join them. Even if their technology is behind on some or all aspects. I think that’s the sad reality. (VHS vs Betamax?)”
What the hell are you talking about? Obviously you really DO know nothing about technology. The Linux kernel isn’t even CLOSE to being behind in ‘all aspects’, and while ‘some’ may be true, it’s not even close to a majority.
The scalability of darwin is laughable compared to 2.6. Hardware support ditto. General speed and optimization? ditto.
What MAY be behind is the userland tools — mainly the GUI, though I’d say it’s pretty much a wash with the way GNOME 2.x is going.
“I very much doubt that Desktop Linux will become a reality before ‘free as in $0’ mentality dissapear.”
>That mentality has never existed.
Sorry, I thought you said you don’t have to pay for Linux software. How much did you personally pay for it?
>Sure, you can get Linux technology for free, but if you want support and good engineering you typically have to pay for it.
Bottom line: how much do you pay for support and good engineering of these OpenSource products you used to replace expensive Windows counterparts?
If your dollars are not going to OpenSource, but going to Microsoft instead- you should be counted as Microsoft user. It is capitalism after all: one who gets money is better off at the end.
You know, it is easy to say that someone somewhere would support some good cause, and relax.
But you know what: it is people like you and me who actually support one cause or another. If you gave $0 to OpenSource and $55 to Microsoft and use OpenSource you are not better than, say, me- who also gave $0 to OpenSource and $55 to Microsoft and uses Microsoft. Why? Because we both support Microsoft.
Thats exactly why I build my own computers. No money for BillyG
macs are ok, dont get me wrong but no thanks.
anyone here used kde 3.2 yet ? i can sit here and say in all honesty its perfectly fine in looks and use.. But is it good for everybody, its not a case of being good enough its a case of being willing to try if you can use and navigate through windows then using kde 3.2 is just as easy.
the aqua interface looks nice, thats all i can really say about it.
As for hardware, my mobo fries just go out and get a new one.my hdd gets damaged easy get an eide or sata replacement and the list goes on most macs you cant just rip out mobo and order a replacement online from a houndred different retailers.. If i dont like something its easily replaced both by my os (linux) and my hardware (athlon xp 2600+ currently) very easily.. Its about freedom of choice.. Windows locks you into bullshit software which imo is worse than apple locking you into hardware.. Linux i get locked into neither which is brilliant.
As for apple anything before os x just sucked, ive used apple before os x and anything without a shell is just wrong im glad apple learned that.. As for me rushing out and buying myself an apple no thanks.. I built this comp for about 400 uk pounds. Its great even has an fx 5700 ultra.. but the nforce2 chipset really blows.
All thats really left to ask is how would apple be if it was the dominating force instead of microsoft ? that would be an interesting question.. As they not only own the software but also the hardware.
rambling aside mac is atleast open in software aspects it took the konqueror core (which someone posted as being the mozilla core, which is wrong, its the konqueror core a different lean mean beast) improved it (ala safari) and gave it back which helped out konqueror, so no steve jobs in his own way should be respected his more about technology than hype and if i had the money i would probably buy a g5 just for owning a g5 and probably stick linux on it :p
There was a lot of FUD in your post, but I’ll only address two glaring points:
Dependency hell is still there […] So the only way to make it easy to install, is package it for debian and try to get it in their repository, then package it for gentoo, and try to get it in their repository, then slackware, fedora, mandrake, suse,..
It is not developers who make packages for distros, but distro makers. So, really, this is no concern for developers at all.
Oh, and dependency hell has gone away with modern package managers such as Apt-Get, URPMI (and it front-end, Rpmdrake) and Red-Carpet. Click, click, click, it’s installed. The last time I had some dependency issues was, like, eight months ago.
And I would seriously call XFree86 allot slower than Quartz and Aqua. Even on the fastest machine, you can easily see the redraws. Click a menu, see the grey square, then see the text. Instead of just square + text immediatly, at once.
That’s not a matter of speed, but of double-buffering the desktop. The new extensions developed by Keith Packard will give X a double-buffered compositing layer, which will negate any perceived advantage of OS X and Win XP’s rendering systems on XFree86.
Not that the difference is that striking: on my Athlon 900MHz, using KDE 3.2, when I click on a menu I see the square and text appear at once.
Most of your criticism are hopelessly outdated. Apart from the copy/paste limitations (which are being worked on), the Linux desktop is actually superior to Windows XP. To claim that it’s on the level of Windows 3.11 is simply ridiculous.
Firstly, greater desktop Unix use is a ‘good thing’ for OS X.
OS X is a form of BSD. BSD is very similar to Linux in terms of architecture and system calls. Hell, BSD and OS X even use gcc. So a Linux application is likely to be easily ported over to OS X, even if running under X11. More desktop applications made for Linux means more (easily portable) applications for OS X. Applications running on OS X under X11 is not ideal to an Apple user though. Apple and their users want Cocoa applications being developed otherwise there is no benefit to using a Mac desktop over any other Unix.
Next, Apple need to understand that a lot of developers are currently thinking about developing desktop applications for Linux. They will be looking at the plethora of toolkits and widgets and will be eventually choosing one. Apple need to realise that Linux programs that use GNUstep are prime targets for *good* OS X ports and Apple should try to encourage GNUstep as a decent platform. Not only would this give easier ports but it would also increase the number of Objective-C programmers.
IMO, Apple should promote some form of platform which is similar to Cocoa for use on Unix. They could, maybe, put some time and money into polishing GNUstep and making sure that it’s included with Linux distros for the desktop. Or they could produce their own alternative.
I feel that this sort of strategy would not detract from the polished, integrated image that Apple are trying to create as they would only be providing a application framework for other Unixes and not a whole (cough) “desktop experience”.
Let me remind you something. Once in a while, these firms made so many number of predictions, that turned out to be all wrong.
My prediction is that, linux is going to lose its momentum, because currently the whole momentum is anti-Microsoft bashing. I don’t see people getting excited about Linux, despite the fact that people try to push it. People usually consider Linux in the context of Microsoft. They don’t consider Linux by itself. All the linux kids posting here post anti-Microsoft stuff, nobody who favors linux favors it for the sake of Linux itself. Clearly, this proves that people will lose interest after a while.
With Longhorn Microsoft will increase the gap even further. Linux on the desktop is a hoppy for people like me, and it will return to its origina again and will be a hoppy again. I don’t see Linux becoming a serious desktop player by the help of idiots thinking that email programs are part of the operating system and thus windows is inherently open to viruses. That’s never going to happen. The only chance Linux has is on the server market, and that is even under threat.
Anonymous said it couldn’t be done, but it can:
Copy and pasting an image from moz to OOo is easy. In Firefox I just choose copy file location from the right click menu. Then in OOo Writer I choose from the menubar:
insert|graphics|from file then paste into the file selection box – and lo the image is pasted inot your OOo document – Easy!
You know, Sam, for a self-proclaimed Linux user and Open Source developer, you seem to have a really poor opinion of the OS.
Linux is not going back to hobby status, not with backing from firms like IBM, Novell, Sun, HP, Sony, Toshiba, Nokia, Samsung, Unilever, and so on.
Linux is quickly growing in server space, and is growing – at a slower pace, but growing still – on the desktop as well. You need to accept this, just like you need to accept that, through its actions, Microsoft is mainly responsible for all that anti-Microsoft resentment out there. And that’s not going away either.
Now please try not to call me an idiot over and over again for stating these simple truths… 🙂
Copy and pasting an image from moz to OOo is easy.
I just tried it with Konqueror and it works as well. However, I understand the original poster’s criticism and while there are some easy workarounds (like you’ve demonstrated), it will be nice to have a clipboard that’s consistent across toolkits.
Linux in desktop will always be behind Microsoft. No matter what open source zealots do, with a big task force and combined focus of Microsoft, its very hard for Linux to beat Microsoft in desktop market.
Server market, yes Linux does stand a chance but Microsoft is investing lots and lots in it too. Did you hear about Small Business Server? Integration is what matters in the coming days, integrated applications for ease of use and linux is mostly missing that, except in few cases.
Till now linux is only surviving because it is free, i can bet try selling linux at the same price as Microsoft does and you will know where in terms of quality and preference of use, linux vs windows stand.
Think about it guys, Microsoft is able to compete even when the competition is against something which is free, that clearly shows its got something, you can’t just sell anything unless people want it.
Finally my prediction is..Linux may take more share in software developer market segment but i don’t see any significant share in user market for atleast next 10 years or so and on the other hand i see windows penetrating more in server market along with Linux thus killing Unix completely.