Comments on: Can Linux supplant Windows?

Windows and Linux have a long, bitter feud still to come, and it's apparently unlikely that latter will conquer the former.

[ldweeks]

I take a look at your blog fairly regularly, and I usually appreciate the content that you provide. I was annoyed at this post, however, because you refer to a "new study" when, in fact, the study you reference is almost four years old. Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but 4 years seems like a long time when you're talking about technology. I think I read that article about a year ago.

[natalieweinstein]

This article has been corrected. See above.

[Matt Asay]

Total oversight on my part, and I should have looked more closely. But I tweaked the post because the vintage of the study actually proves my point (luckily! :-).

[Seaspray0]

One of the problems is when you say linux, it represents... how many distributions? Why won't the linux community unite under a single banner? I think it would be best if the linux community united under a single distribution. If you agree, which one should it be? If you don't agree, explain. How about an article on that, Matt Asay. Pleeeeeeease!

[Matt Asay]

We tried that before (remember United Linux?). The problem is that Red Hat has no interest in giving up its lead, and Novell and Canonical are strong enough that they feel they can fight for dominance. At some point I do think the enterprise market will firmly fall in line with Red Hat, but in mobile/Netbooks...it's an open market, and I think Canonical (or Moblin) just might win there.

[pentest]

Seaspray,

You simply do not comprehend why having so many distros is a good thing.

Unlike the 'users only need what we provide' model on Windows, Linux is flexible enough to run in many different environments, from small embedded devices, to supercomputer clusters. From the desktop to high performance real-time. The various distros provide easy paths to all of these areas. Even the desktop distros provide enough difference that one distro will fit one user, while another desktop distro will not.

[tallpeak]

I half-agree; there's still a lot of fragmentation in the Linux world, and this confuses new users. But on the other hand, the different major distributions are mostly just different ways of installing and updating what ends up being much the same thing (other than the varied window managers and package managers.)

I have wrestled with the "which distribution" question myself lately, including trying about 5 distros inside VM's, and attempting (and failing) to install KUbuntu, OpenSuse, and eLive on an old 256MB PC, before settling on Puppy, which installed fine. I think most of the installers, though better than the Slackware installer I used 12+ years ago, still need more work to work on various hardware, including installing in limited RAM situations, and to provide better feedback when there is a failure. It would be nice if (perhaps like FreeBSD) there were a somewhat larger base-system agreed upon in the Linux world, but I understand the distro creators and users enjoy the flexibility of configuring their systems any way they like. (Puppy, for example, seems a very different animal from the rest.) Still, there could be ways of unifying some more aspects of the configuration of various distributions without locking anyone down. (Perhaps a standards body could help debate the merits of various package formats?)

Hardware virtualization could be game-changing; if motherboard or BIOS vendors start building a Linux-based hypervisor+OS into their BIOSes, so that you can load Windows optionally *after* boot into Linux (which becomes a sort of extended BIOS), perhaps more users would choose to just stay in Linux instead of "bothering" to load Windows. This has happened already on some motherboards; some integration with cloud-computing apps may make Linux-based PCs very common within a few years (as they already are in some segments, such as netbooks). Support could still be a (valid) fear in many users' minds, partly because there are so many varied distributions, and this could make it hard even for a local Linux expert to know exactly how to fix or tweak your environment remotely. But I think remote support for Linux is generally much easier than for Windows would be..

[Razzl]

Let's assume for a moment that the strongest Linux competitors to Windows will always be the commercial flavors that are not entirely "open source", in that they do have some proprietary bits and commercial apparatus to back them up. In that event, Apple is really the primary competitor in the open-source group (as I understand it, Apple takes part in open-source software development, even if it's come under criticism for the sincerity of its effort). If Apple were to start packaging and selling its OS as a standalone product, it could make very deep penetration into Microsoft's market share (my own guess is 40-50% market share in 3-4 years), and blow through the above prediction. I've also made the argument elsewhere, and I'll make it again here, that APPLE HAS NO CHOICE BUT TO ADOPT THIS MARKETING STRATEGY. Microsoft's Windows 7 will be a big hit on the market and threatens to roll back all of Apple's market share gain from the last 3 years essentially overnight. Apple cannot keep on developing high-level software and hardware for a boutique market; it must grow big enough to pay for all that development in competition with Microsoft and Hewlett Packard (among others), so the way forward is through a quick and effective market thrust using its OS software product. Whoever controls the desktop controls the internet and the configuration of all 3rd-party software; this is the moment of truth where Apple either competes or goes the way of AMD vs. Intel...

[a3th3r]

Apple's OS sells the higher priced hardware. Even though it is technically possible to install Apples OS on a PC, it is not legally possible. I know many people who have reluctantly purchased higher priced Apple hardware as opposed to building their own or purchasing a premanufactured PC just for the OS and possibly one or two pieces of software exclusive to it.

Apple may be (justifiably) concerned that selling a stand alone OS could harm hardware sales and the high margins they enjoy. It is also possible that Apple cannot compete on price with Microsoft OS' (which could explain generally the high cost of a Mac vs PC.)

Before this turns in to a Microsoft vs Apple/PCvs Mac flame war, please note I make no claims as to which OS is better, and say that Macs are generally higher than comparable PCs, though I realize this is not always the case.

[monkeyfun14]

That also depends on how Microsoft reacts when they feel something as a threat we all know MS is capable of jumping ship and improving things when competition arises. Look at 7.

[Bob_299]

For day-to-day operation by the ordinary end user, the future of Linux is probably the probably the future of Google's efforts to expand the operation of the browser, as discussed in the CNET article on Google and browsers:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10250196-2.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

Google already has a suite of browser-based productivity apps which are more-or-less usable. If I, as a consumer, could buy a Linux based computer that launched a browser instead of a desktop on startup, and if I could use that browser for productivity applications, surfing, and watching TV and movies, then I would probably be a happy camper. And what if the monitor was the consumer's TV set instead of a computer monitor?

Remember MS-DOS 5 and how you could either run the DOS shell file management application at startup -- or use another application such as a word processor as the shell, or have none at all and just go to the command line? Then Windows came along as a graphical user interface application that ran on top of DOS, taking the place of the DOS shell. What if a Linux-based set-top box ran a browser as its primary user interface instead of the currently-employed Windows-line graphical user interfaces? That could be a great consumer product.

[Bob_299]

Typo: "Windows-line" should be "Windows-like"

[Sumatra-Bosch]

Duh.

[monkeyfun14]

I do have to ask why you have FUD as a tag is this a form of hit whoring?

[theantibush]

Linux has really improved, especially over just the last 2 years.
Now I can get drivers and software with ease, driving all the latest neat toys.
And these aren't wrappers anymore...they are from the mfgs.

Im certified on both OSs, and run both. They are just tools.
But I'm telling you, over the long run, Windows hasn't a chance against
Linux.

[01Phyxius]

I second that notion.

[forever4now]

Linux is entering the "desktop" of the average Joe, more and more every day. It just happens to be the "desktop" of a mobile computer (smartphone), rather than a traditional desktop computer. And as users shift a larger percentage of their daily computing to mobile devices (email, messaging, web browsing, social networks, etc.) they will essentially be shifting a larger percentage of their computing to Linux.

[g_smith_tor]

Excellent discussion. You can look at this issue a different way: instead of asking what percentage of users overall are using Windows, consider the breakdown by different market segments. If you know someone who's a writer or graphic artist, or a musician, or makes movies, or is in business related to these, the chances that they have a Mac are hugely higher. My local guitar store has a Mac as the POS terminal. Microsoft's strategy ignores this, they are pouring cement for the masses.

When somebody puts up a web page that only works with IE, they may say, "I don't mind if only 95% of the world will be able to see it". But if you point out that only, say, 30 % of the graphic designers can see it (I'm guessing), or 0% of the webpad users, that may not sound like a good idea.

I've been working in engineering for decades. Microsoft has been a very popular platform for CAD and embedded software, basically from the beginning of DOS; not because it was any good, but because the computers and software were far cheaper than the alternatives (switching from unix to DOS was horrible but necessary). People are realizing that this no longer holds; as a platform for development, Windows does nothing for you (unless you are developing Windows applications), and is actually getting worse over time -- now we have 'new features' being pushed into the machine on a regular basis. When you are working on a large project you want to have the same computer on Monday morning which you left on Friday afternoon. Meanwhile, it's now possible to get virtually all of the development tools you need on Linux (in fact, many of them run 'native' on Linux and need cygwin on Windows). And there are still some tools which are only available for POSIX (or aren't fully functional in Windows). So there's a lot of linux use in this sector, and increasing fairly rapidly.

Standard OS's (I use the term 'standard' to encompass all POSIX environments, which includes linux and MACs since Apple made the brilliant decision to fall in line with OS/X) come with a standard suite of development tools, including gcc, python, perl, make, svn.

Windows-based development tools for engineering come piecemeal from difference vendors, each with its own 'IDE' (since the platform doesn't even supply a text editor, each tool comes with its own editor, project manager, build automation system, and doesn't generally integrate well with other tools). The Microsoft tools are only good for developing apps for Windows, whereas many open source tools are far more general purpose.

I've also heard people developing engineering apps who say (without actual numbers): "our customers run Windows, not linux", I don't think that's true any more. What they really mean is, "nobody complains too much; those who prefer Linux will be able to somehow use a Windows app, if that's all we have; whereas those who use Windows likely won't be able to use a linux app at all". So if it can only be one or the other, it has to be Windows. This mechanism has been a major factor in Microsoft's success in all sectors.

The best approach is to give them both: In general, don't use any development tool that won't port to other, standard environments; if you decide to create an app for Windows, fine, but don't use a development tool which will chain it to Windows. take a look at Netshark, Blender, Audacity, Inkscape; any of the apps which work well across platforms, find out what they're based on. wxWidgets, for instance, is used for many of these. You'll be ready for the whole market no matter how it goes.

[eudefender]

Linux is not ready because during the last 5 years no one invested in Linux Desktops. Remember Corel?

[fisherman385]

The most powerful computers in the world run on some variant of Unix or Linux. Many production, development and research servers around the world run on Unix or Linux. Now let's understand one important point; the Linux is a free operating system which means you can use it free of charge. But some distribution have made it that if you want support, then you would pay for it which is reasonable. But since Linxu is for non-profit then it does not directly compete with Microsoft! Of course Microsoft looses market share and feels threatened as more people use Linux but Linux community could care less for the most part if someone uses Linux or not.

Now these days, Linux can be easily run on desktops and laptops and again it is consumer's choice whether to use it or not. When you buy a new PC, it will not only come with a Windows OS but it will come with an array of commercial software including; Office, anti-virus, spyware, media players, graphic applications and etc. But if you install Linux on that machine you will end up running the free version of all those applications. So the competition is really between the free source software and the commercial software not as much between Linux or Windows.

Now as much as PC makers claim that Linux may not be a good sell for many reasons, probably the main reason that they want to produce Windows machine is that they want to go with commercial software. Now the reason could be; the liability and legal issues, and then also businesses usually stick with each other. They usually find non-profits threatening.