South Africa native and current London resident Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical Ltd. and the Ubuntu Linux distribution, told DesktopLinux.com Friday in an interview that widespread adoption of Linux on the desktop - so long-awaited by many people. "Yes - I think Linux will be the dominant platform. It already defines the landscape in the server space (from supercomputers to YouTube). The desktop is just a matter of time."
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Member since:2005-07-02
I know this is hard to understand for someone like you who has an irrational anti-Linux bias, but it's really a matter of common sense.
If you've ever used a Linux desktop, you know that browsers can be set to identify your PC as using Windows. This setting is used more often than not, because many websites are "optimized" for IE and Windows, and may refuse access (of offer less functionality) for non-supported browser/OS combinations. A good example is using Konqueror to access Google Mail: if you don't masquerade the browser, you only get basic functionality. In order to get the full experience, you need to pass off as a IE/Windows combination.
As for the second point, again it's a matter of simple logic: the proportion of broadband usage among Linux users is greater than for Windows, for the simple reason that Winmodem support has always sucked on Linux. Also, Linux users tend to be more computer-savvy and spend more time online, which means they are more likely to have broadband than Windows users, and therefore less likely to have a new IP address when visiting the same site twice. Since most counters on websites use the visitor's IP address to compute their statistics, Linux users tend to be under-represented.
All of this is of course irrelevant to the innate qualities of Linux, and its many advantages over Windows. But I don't want to expose you to too much logic, as your head may asplode...
Member since:2006-06-01
I wanted some evidence that a significant number of Linux users alter the OS identification.
You bring up Konqueror. Here is a list of user agent strings in use by Konqueror:
http://www.pgts.com.au/pgtsj/pgtsj0208j.html
Almost all of them clearly identify the OS sucha s Linux or FreeBSD even though they also say they are Mozilla/5.0 compatible.
So ... maybe you could read up on user agent strings and then come back to me with some evidence most Linux users alter those strings.
the proportion of broadband usage among Linux users is greater than for Windows ...
Actually, by your logic Linux is overrepresented on weblogs.
Since most counters on websites use the visitor's IP address to compute their statistics
No, they don't.
They count the number of requests by the user agent string. Then they have to parse out the user agent string for OS names and browser types.
Maybe you could Google "user agent string" and improve your education.
Member since:2005-11-11
//most Linux browsers masquerade the OS as something else,
Evidence? //
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent#User_agent_spoofing
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/59/
Member since:2006-02-11
Member since:
2006-06-01
This statistic cannot be used to accurately measure Linux installations, because:
a) most Linux browsers masquerade the OS as something else,
Evidence?
and
b) the percentage of Linux users with broadband is much higher than for Windows, which means a smaller overall number of connecting IP addresses (broadband connections keep the same IP much longer than dial-up).
Evidence? (I mean evidence that you understand how page requests are logged?)
Not only that, but the actual contents of the website will skew the results. This is the reason Google took out the OS survey from their Zeitgest, because it was simply inaccurate and under-represented Linux/*nix desktops.
Evidence?
Come on. The sooner you accept Linux "installed base" is trivial, the sooner you can leave the cult and get a real life.