Linux distro "market" share

[Ray Minich]

From a Digg link:




Some of them still don't know what to do with a SATA drive as the system drive. Debian is the only one I could get to load on a Toshiba Satellite laptop that has a SATA drive.

[Don Poland]

I have PCLinux OS9 loaded on a Toshiba Satelite laptop with no problems what so ever. I have tried a bunch of different distro's over the years, and I like this one best so far.

[Cal Sharp]

I was using PCLinux a couple years ago and completely hosed it by merely trying to change the screen resolution. I really liked it til that happened. I'm using Ubuntu now, booting it from a flash drive on a Windows comp. It's much easier to use than it was a few versions ago.

[Jeff Hyman]

This pie chart is obviously not for Linux commercial distros. Do you have a link to the website? It is probably more applicable to personal use.

[Mitch Drumm]

Yeah, I thought that chart looked weird.

I have not checked in the last couple of years, but when I did last check, Red Hat and SuSe were the most commonly found versions in the corporate world.

On another point about Linux popularity in the home user market:

When I first fiddled with Linux 15 years ago, it was acknowledged that it wasn't yet suitable for the average home user, but the common contention was that it soon enough would be and that it would ultimately be a major contender in the home market. It was only a matter of time.

Well, it hasn't happened. Since I don't even follow Linux news anymore, I am wondering if it is now acknowledged among developers that Linux for home users is and will always be a minor niche, or if the predominant feeling is that Linux will make major inroads against Microsoft and Apple in the home. If the latter, is it "real soon now" or at some indefinite point in the future?

I just googled a bit on OS market shares and quickly ran into a lot of sniveling about claims that the PC desktop Linux share is under 2%. So, it seems there is a lot of defensiveness on the issue.

http://blog.linuxtoday.com/blog/2009/05 ... arket.html

http://www.linuxloop.com/2008/08/14/lin ... y-to-know/

[Jeff Hyman]

Mitch,

RedHat and CentOS are the biggies. One really big national chain that uses our software went with Debian... but RH is king. The heavy developers like CentOS as it is really a flavor of RH with a better support channel. This input is from someone in the trenches. It makes me be able to determine how accurate these marketing guys are. With all this... Windows is still chipping away at the *NIX market. There are some chains that migrated to the Windoz arena, then came back to Linux. Sales/Marketing want MS and the techs want Linux.

Personal Computers? That is a market that appears to be growing for Linux. Macs' use BSD... which is *NIX. That's why the MAC is so stable compared to Windoz. Also an ex employee of mine, and and good guy, and a friend, is a head developer for http://www.pcBSD.org This is an OS worth taking a look at for a home PC.

[Earnest Bovine]

I am wondering if it is now acknowledged among developers that Linux for home users is and will always be a minor niche, or if the predominant feeling is that Linux will make major inroads against Microsoft and Apple in the home. If the latter, is it "real soon now" or at some indefinite point in the future?

I read that Linux fans are worried because the programmers who do all the (free) work are aging & retiring, and younger programmers are not stepping in to fill the gap.

[Earnest Bovine]

I'm using Ubuntu now, booting it from a flash drive on a Windows comp. It's much easier to use than it was a few versions ago.

There in a new Ubuntu LTS version, 10.04 Lucid Lynx, and it seems to meet or exceed the hype. I just put it on my wife's notebook machine (HP dv6000) after it refused to boot at all (Vista).

It was the easiest installation ever. Even the odd stuff was done automatically, or at worst with the mouse. I didn't need to use the shell (terminal) even once.

Here are some start times for the dv6000:
From power on thru BIOS to screen where you choose which OS to boot: 13 sec as it always was

time to finish booting and actually be on the Internet, not just looking at a desktop that is not ready yet
Ubuntu 10.04 : 28 seconds
Ubuntu 8:04 : 70 seconds
Microsoft Windows Vista: 6 minutes

[Meryle Swartz]

I sure wouldn't say that "nobody is stepping in" or even that the project leaders are all old... It's a pretty lively scene! As all meritocracies should be ;) Another cool thing, as OSS becomes more and more ubiquitous, is that more and more commercial companies are stepping in to fund development of the free stuff.

[Earnest Bovine]

I sure wouldn't say that "nobody is stepping in" or even that the project leaders are all old...

OK, so the young kids are not so bad. But what about that horrible stuff they call music?

[Meryle Swartz]

OK, so the young kids are not so bad. But what about that horrible stuff they call music?

I don't have a comeback for that one ;) I will say though that the Ubuntu Community Manager plays in a somewhat alarming heavy metal band, and that the Chief Architect of the OpenLDAP project rocks some wicked Irish fiddle.

[Michael Maddex]

OK, so the young kids are not so bad. But what about that horrible stuff they call music?

Ah, isn't that what our parents said all those years ago, and their parents before them and so on back to the beginning of time?

As for the GNU/Linux, if you just pick up any recent copy of Linux Journal you'll find plenty of young people involved in all sorts of ways. For better or worse, as Meryle said, there's a lot of corporate funding of coding as well.