
Linux now on 42% of consumer computing devices - dave1010uk
http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/12/28/happy-birthday-linus-linux/
======
danieldk
In the graph, there is a sudden change in 2005, where (I guess) mobile devices
were added. What I don't get is how Apple jumps to 21%, given that the iPhone
was not introduced before 2007.

Edit: from the linked Seattle Times article:

 _I asked Goldman Sachs about what happened in the 2004-2005 time frame -- as
seen in the above chart -- that made Apple's vendor share jump, Microsoft's
share plummet and the "other" category to go from zero to 29 percent. Goldman
Sachs replied that it has to do with more mainstream adoption of non-PC
consumer computing devices but declined to elaborate beyond that._

Source:
[http://seattletimes.com/html/microsoftpri0/2019853243_goldma...](http://seattletimes.com/html/microsoftpri0/2019853243_goldman_sachs_microsoft_os_has_gone_from_more_than.html)

~~~
SoftwareMaven
They had to have started including iPods and other mp3 devices that year. It
is obviously a change in data gathering, because nothing that exciting changed
that year. Even when the iPhone came out, it was a show ramp that didn't
really pick up until the 3G.

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TallGuyShort
Although it's technically running the Linux kernel, I personally would not
consider it a free (libre) operating system as sold on most of those devices.
I'm sure Linus is proud, but this seems like more of a win for Google than for
the Linux community or free software in general.

~~~
ivix
It's not "technically" running the Linux kernel, it IS running the linux
kernel.

It's also using most of the standard GNU tools - bash, etc. You can open a
shell on a rooted android device and use it much like any other distribution.

This is a huge win for Linux.

~~~
betterunix
"You can open a shell on a rooted android device and use it much like any
other distribution"

Assuming, of course, that you can actually root it.

"This is a huge win for Linux."

Is it? What was won, exactly? If we are not seeing a more vibrant free
software ecosystem as a result, then we did not really win anything. The
prevalence of app stores, the number of Android devices that are difficult to
jailbreak or for which no jailbreaking tools are available yet, and the
partitioning of "users" and "developers" in the Android ecosystem are not
positive things for Linux or for GNU.

~~~
josteink
You actually dont have to root it at all. Just download terminal emulator from
market and you are good to go.

~~~
TallGuyShort
I've been disappointed by it - everytime I use it for real work it's missing
basic utilities and shell features. Has it been more than a novelty for you?
If so, I'd love to hear what you've found it useful for.

~~~
josteink
I use it all the time on my Asus Transformer (which has a keyboard dock).

As for lacking basic utilities, it seems to be a problem depending on your
firmware. CM10+ comes with a lot more basic stuff than just plain busybox. I
know my Samsung Galaxy S came with almost nada (meaning I needed to install
busybox, it wasn't preloaded).

Anyway I now use the Transformer as my main SSH terminal. From the terminal
emulator. Like on a normal Linux desktop.

I also use it for finding and grepping stuff in my user/data-folder. If I am
to copy things to or from the SD-card in the Transformer, I also find myself
prefering to do things via the command line, much like I do on a normal Linux
desktop.

As for the phone, I can't say I use it as much there, more for stuff like
looking up my IP and MAC via ifconfig etc.

But lacking tools is a problem which can be solved. If you buy "Better
Terminal Emulator Pro" ($5-ish) it will offer to download and install a
better, more complete (and cross-firmware consistent) set of user-space tools,
including stuff like ssh.

------
brudgers
My cars have computers which are not running Linux. Same for my microwave
oven. A smartphone more closely approximates their level of end user
programmability than it approximates that of an iMac.

The article splits the world in a way which justifies the desired conclusion.
It reminds me of the way the Amiga press used to hype even the most indirect
cultural references as evidence of its impending success (yes, I know the
scale was different, it's the behavior which is parallel).

~~~
rayiner
Comparing a smart phone to a microwave oven is disingenuous. I'm HN-ing on my
smart phone right now, which is something I used to schlep out of bed and plop
myself in front of my PC to do.

~~~
brudgers
I can program my microwave to automatically heat my soup for 85 seconds at 80%
power beginning at 2pm. End users would struggle to program their smartphones
to navigate HN automatically at that time.

Traditionally, programmability has been the consideration when determining
what constitutes a general computing device. Browsing the web or reading email
are not.

What deserves analysis are the premises upon which the conclusion about Linux
has been reached. The basis upon which the conclusion about Linux has been
reached relies on a special definition. When an argument relies on changing
the meaning of words, its honesty is suspect.

------
Hawkee
The most striking statistic to me was Microsoft's drop from 97% to 20% over
the past 12 years.

~~~
rhplus
How many devices did the average consumer have in 2000 (a desktop PC, maybe a
game console, maybe a laptop, a cable box) compared to now (an MP3 player, a
smartphone, a laptop, a tablet, an e-reader, a game console, an internet TV
box, in car computer, a wifi router, a backup NAS, etc). How many global
consumers (think BRIC) are buying devices now that couldn't dream of it in the
early 2000s?

Microsoft's share of the pie has dropped, but the pie has exploded in size.

~~~
justincormack
Despite that MS has not had an explosion in sales, the outcome they were
hoping for. They probably wouldn't mind a fall in market share so much if
their sales had still quadrupled.

~~~
rhplus
You're right, their sales haven't quadrupled, but to be fair, across the
company they haven't remained stagnant either. The best proxy I could find for
sales was annual revenue, and that shows 3.2x growth for the 12 year period:

FY 2000: $22.96 billion FY 2012: $73.72 billion

Now, I'm sure financial geeks will pick holes in this simple comparison. And
of course I realize that company revenue is heavily weighted by Windows and
Office, and increasingly servers and tools, and much less so by direct
consumer purchases.

[2000] [https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/news/press/2000/jul00/q00-4e...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/news/press/2000/jul00/q00-4erpr.aspx)

[2012] [http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/news/press/2012/jul12/07-19fy...](http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/news/press/2012/jul12/07-19fy12Q4earningsPR.aspx)

------
FranProgrammer
I am very tired from the statements like this from time to time.

I use Linux, I like it, but please stop to remember every day that Linux is
the best and in a position of global leading.

------
dan1234
I thought OS X and iOS were derived from BSD. Is the graph supposed to be
generic Unix/Unix like OSs or should Apple not be included in this? Or am I
just wrong?

~~~
jeltz
OS X is based on NeXTSTEP which is in turn based on Mach. Mach is a micro
kernel based on BSD.

~~~
vidarh
The version of Mach in OS X is _not_ a microkernel. Only the last version of
Mach was a microkernel, and OS X's kernel is based on an earlier version.

And while the Mach project used a BSD userland, Mach is not really "BSD-based"
other than in terms of interfaces to userland - it is based on Carnegie-
Mellon's earlier "Accent" project.

~~~
jeltz
Thanks, should have written that in my comment. I did not intend to fool
anyone into believing NeXTSTEP or OS X are micro kernels.

And Wikipedia disagrees with you about Mach. It says Mach was the "logical
successor to Carnegie Mellon's Accent kernel" and that Mach was based on
BSD4.2. Though Wikipedia could obviously be wrong.

------
rhplus
How big did the overall pie grow in each of these years. They're claiming a
massive drop for Microsoft, but wouldn't it be true to say that the total
number of devices out there has grown hugely too. I know kids and teens with 2
or 3 "consumer devices" each and adults with 5 to 10. That certainly wasn't
true in the 2000 - 2005 period.

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jarin
tl;dr: A lot of people have Android devices.

------
mrshu
42?

Really?

What was the question again?

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recoiledsnake
>For Microsoft the situation is not as good. The combined share of Redmond’s
different operating systems fell from 97% in 2000 to an estimated 20% in 2012.
Apple, with OS X and iOS, grabs a 24% share.

So does this mean anti-monopoly restrictions must be lifted on Microsoft in
the US and the EU? Why is Microsoft being unfairly targeted by, for example,
being forced to include a browser choosing dialog in the EU while Apple gets a
free pass for Safari inspite of having a higher marketshare and the lockdown
of alternate browser engines and Javascript interpreters on iPhones and iPads?

~~~
guard-of-terra
They might be. I don't see the point of forced browser choosing given that the
browser market is very competitive right now.

~~~
azakai
> the browser market is very competitive right now.

The important bit is "right now". It used to be competitive before IE6's
stranglehold. And today, we can see a single implementation rapidly rising in
marketshare, if that continues then we may have a non-competitive marketplace
in the not-so-far future.

In fact already right now WebKit has a dominant position in mobile, and many
sites only work in WebKit.

So even if the market is fairly healthy right now, we still need to be careful
that doesn't change. The current trend hints that it will.

------
martinced
A lot of people have Android devices. And TV decoders running Linux. And
routers running Linux. And the trend ain't stopping anytime soon: it's hard to
compete with free and open.

That's when you do really want to go back to the late nineties, on Usenet,
where all the MS fanbois kept singing: "Nothing to see, move along, Unix is
dying and Windows is going to conquer everything, including the server space".

How farsighted these where uh!?

And that's in not even 20 years. I can't imagine how the landscape shall look
like in another twenty.

~~~
brudgers
_That's when you do really want to go back to the late nineties, on Usenet,
where all the MS fanbois kept singing: "Nothing to see, move along, Unix is
dying and Windows is going to conquer everything, including the server
space"._

Replace:

    
    
      "90's" with "teens."
      "Usenet" with "HN."
      "MS" and "Windows" with "Linux."
      "Unix" with "Windows."
    

Same song. Different day.

~~~
cms07
You really think that Microsoft is going to be able to make a push in consumer
electronics? How?

------
lucian303
Linux is NOT an OS and Linus did not create the OS. The OS is GNU the kernel
is Linux. Thus you are comparing numbers for a kernel (Linux in Android OS
versions) vs. numbers of OS's (Windows, OSX, iOS). This isn't a technicality
either.

Get it straight because as the article stands, it's unresearched garbage.

~~~
adrianm
I've heard the argument that Linux is not actually an OS several times; but I
must admit I don't completely understand it. Why is it so inappropriate to
conflate the operating system with the kernel?

Perhaps this is just the operating systems course I took in college talking,
but I recall that an operating system is defined not by the programs in user
space, but rather by how everything is handled behind the scenes; in kernel
space.

Process management, threads, interprocess communication, memory management,
the file system structure, input/output, network primitives... Aren't these
responsibilities of the operating system? All of these programs and low level
interfaces are provided by the operating system, and thus by Linux and not by
the GNU utilities.

~~~
lucian303
The OS is way more than the kernel. Device drivers for example. Compilers
(while technically ran in user-land, try to build a kernel without them). Etc,
etc. I don't know what they teach you at school, but I'm sure you can figure
it out from here on.

~~~
adrianm
"I don't know what they teach you in school, but I'm pretty sure you can
figure it out from here on."

Your statement is pretty condescending. I'm not sure what I said to deserve
that.

"The OS is way more than the kernel. Device drivers for example. Compilers..."

Your first sentence makes a broad generalization. As far as device drivers go;
the operating system provides the interface for such drivers to be programmed
and work together with other devices in a way that should be transparent to
the programmer. This is part of the I/O system that an OS should provide.
Classic OS responsibility, but not "way more than the kernel". The interfaces
are provided by the kernel.

As far as compilers go, I obviously agree they are a necessary component of
any extensible platform; but they are not 'technically' ran in user-land. They
ARE application/user programs! They are not part of the operating system.

If you insist on playing the "technicality" card here, you can't have it both
ways.

