What a silly article...
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| softwarejanitor Apr 17, 2009 7:07 PM EDT |
How do they come up with the "Linux desktop nearing extinction"? If you go based on the popularity of Ubuntu alone (and no, I'm not forgetting things like Mint, or the distros orriented towards netbooks, etc), there are probably more people running Linux desktops on a regular basis now than ever before. Not to say that all the suggestions on how to improve the Linux desktop experience or increase the market share are bad... |
| Scott_Ruecker Apr 17, 2009 7:31 PM EDT |
I think Ken is vying for Matt Hartley's infamous position.. |
| caitlyn Apr 17, 2009 7:49 PM EDT |
Anybody who makes up a word like "mootier" can't be taken seriously. Linux has been pronounced dead more times than I can remember over the past 10 years. It's still here. Unfortunately so is the crowd of people pronouncing it dead. |
| ColonelPanik Apr 17, 2009 9:37 PM EDT |
Mrs. Panik is bloging about Linux in education, sharing with other
educators and school IT people. Education is the perfect placement
for Linux. But the "Linux Desktop" will take over the headquarters of
that big corporation in Redmond before it will get into education in
any significant way. Some huge company has a strangle hold on educational IT. Holding administrators and IT directors hostage with NDAs and IMO bribes. |
| pogson Apr 17, 2009 9:47 PM EDT |
It is obvious from the forums I read that GNU/Linux is growing very rapidly as a community world-wide. The trolls keep trumpeting stats from NetApplications and so on that show less than one percent of hits in some niche of the web. OTOH nearly every solid number we have shows growth exceeding multiples of the growth of almost anything else in IT. We have good numbers for GNU/Linux shipped on netbooks. It is at least 25 percent of netbooks, which would mean the netbooks alone in one year exceeded the contribution of GNU/Linux that NetApps shows for the world. We have numbers as high as 20 percent on GNU/Linux shipments in Brazil. Brazil, Russia, India and China all promote GNU/Linux in huge markets. If GNU/Linux is doing poorly, it is only in NetApps universe. There are lots of indications that GNU/Linux is growing rapidly in the USA, the most friendly country in the world to that other OS. Even there, NetApps shows that other OS falling and GNU/Linux growing rapidly. A figure about PC numbers is informative. The world has between 1.2 and 1.3 thousand million PCs and the number is growing by about 100 million each year. New production is more than 250 million annually so 150 million are being retired annually. At that rate, the average lifetime of a PC is about three years. I know a three-year old PC is snappy running GNU/Linux so this means GNU/Linux is a terrible threat to the Wintel empire. If the world adopts GNU/Linux it will need far fewer PCs annually. OTOH, PCs can be made much cheaper at the low end with GNU/Linux, so the only way the PC industry can avoid recession is to produce cheaper PCs. This will break the Wintel monopoly. Intel and all the other OEMs will have to get a much better deal from M$ or go to GNU/Linux if they want to remain competitive. I believe China and the netbook is the first era where M$ has effectively reduced prices. M$ only held its way with netbooks by cutting the price of XP Home or paying OEMs to ship XP. They cannot do that for everything without finally competing on price and features. In these days, any OEM which pays for an XP licence, any school or school division which pays for any licence from M$ or any government which pays for any licence from M$ is extremely foolish. M$ will cut the price to zero to stay in those markets because they influence larger markets. Of course, most would be wise to drop M$ completely. We have seen the browser wars, the protocol wars and now we are seeing a real OS war and M$ will soon be called on the carpet for illegally messing with competition. They have broken the law every time their monopoly was threatened in the past. GNU/Linux is a looming threat now. First they ignored. Then they laughed. Now they are fighting. Next, we win. They have nothing left in their quiver except extremely shaky patents. When they use those as they did against TomTom, we know they are becoming desperate. They are stronger than SCO was in 2002, but their future is just as bleak as far as monopoly goes. 2009 is decisive. A good fraction of businesses will desert them this year. XP is hard to maintain and M$ has only vapourware to offer customers. After Vista, few fall for vapourware any longer. A few years ago, if I offered to fix someone's problems with that other OS by installing GNU/Linux I was unlikely to be accepted. Now it is routine. Folks who have used M$'s stuff for years can see its weakness. GNU/LInux is strong and getting stronger. While everyone is talking about the netbook, the thin client, which is very similar in hardware, is doing very well. By lasting three times as long as a PC, generating less heat, taking up less space and making less noise they have quietly taken about 10% of PC seats and are growing rapidly. The thing I find so cool about the netbooks and thin clients is that people now realize one does not need a powerhouse sitting near them to do the job. China is producing thin clients below $50 and netbooks below $100. China can quickly ramp up production because even tiny start-ups can produce thousands per month and China is full of entrepreneurs. The big guys have to change or be swarmed. BTW GNU/Linux is great on powerful servers running thin clients. That other OS is not... HEHEHE |
| tuxchick Apr 17, 2009 11:36 PM EDT |
I'm convinced there is an organized anti-Linux troll campaign. They attack favorable Linux news and howtos by filling the comments with the same idiotic crud over and over, and bury stories on Digg and Reddit. It's like Animal Farm-- "Four legs GOOD! Two legs BAD!" |
| bigg Apr 18, 2009 7:57 AM EDT |
Click-me-so-I-get-money-from-ad-revenue Sites in Peril. Solution? |
| pogson Apr 18, 2009 11:42 AM EDT |
Correction... see http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2009/03/17/2003... "Last year, Linux-based netbooks made up about 70 percent of the overall shipments of 11.21 million units, as netbook pioneer Asustek Computer Inc (????) launched mostly Linux-based models initially, followed up by Windows-based models, MIC said in a new report." |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!