
Sergey Brin Guesses That Only 20% Of Googlers Still Use Windows Machines - ssclafani
http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/11/googlers-windows/
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trotsky
_Brin also said that since Google will be deploying Chromebooks internally, he
hopes that a year from now, there will only be a small percentage of Googlers
not working on the devices._

Weird. It's kind of hard to believe that many google employees will use a 12"
atom netbook as anything close to their main machine. In addition to, sure.

~~~
stonemetal
My guess is they use them like smart terminals and ssh into something else.

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kleiba
I used to work at a C.S. research institute in California. Every machine there
had GNU/Linux installed as their sole OS. I also worked for a German research
institute - when I started in the 90's it was a bunch of Windows machines,
some GNU/Linux, some Solaris. Today with a new generation of college
graduates, virtually no-one uses GNU/Linux any more, it's almost exclusively
Windows, although a few people have Mac Books. There are a few GNU/Linux
compute servers, but they're only rarely used.

What are other people's experiences over the last decade? Any apparent changes
in the usage of different OS's?

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nathanb
At my workplace, it's about 40% Windows, 40% MacOS, and 20% Linux. Those who
use Windows generally use it to ssh and/or VNC into our general-purpose Linux
compute servers.

I personally have a Linux desktop as my main machine and a Linux netbook as my
portable. I could see Google going the same way with its own employees, since
the only things my netbook has to do is connect to the vpn and ssh to my
desktop, where I connect to my existing screen session and keep going right
where I left off. A Chromebook could do that sort of thing relatively easily.

~~~
jmatt
What programs do the Windows devs use as a terminal? When I'm using my windows
box I use Console 2 - which is great. But still doesn't compare to Mac OS X or
Linux terminals.

Of course using a Linux VM or VNCing into one is the easy solution but it's
heavy weight in comparison to having a great terminal app :)

~~~
nathanb
PuTTY seems to be the most common.

[edit] Oh, wait, I guess you mean for a local terminal? I'm far too ignorant
about Windows to know why a Windows user would even want a local terminal. All
the Windows users I polled just log into Linux machines and do their work
there.

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SkyMarshal
Just last year Google eliminated Windows from their list of OS options for new
employees after the Chinese hacks, leaving just OSX and Gubuntu, iirc. No
surprise Windows has fallen to 20% then.

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smackfu
Two things come to mind:

1) What are they running instead? Linux or Chrome OS?

2) 20% is probably about the number of people who do require Windows in a
company. Getting rid of the 20% is the hard part.

~~~
sudont
They are running mainly Mac and Linux. No idea on any particular distro,
though.

[http://www.edibleapple.com/google-revamps-new-employee-
compu...](http://www.edibleapple.com/google-revamps-new-employee-computer-
policy-windows-now-out-of-the-equation/)

Here too, but you've got to be a googler to see it:
<http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Desktop-Linux/topics>

It's pretty interesting how the two big enemies both depend on each others
innovations in rolling out products. Macs google, and Macs _make_ Google.

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evo_9
That actually seems high to me considering how cutting edge they are. I'd
think Mac's would be the vast majority, followed by a fair number if linux
machines. I'd of expected Windows boxes to account for a tiny amount of
testing machines, and maybe a few biz/marketing hold-outs, but even those guys
I'd expect to be predominately on OSX and running either bootcamp or VM'd for
Windows.

~~~
cryptoz
Google builds some of the most popular - and in my opinion, exciting - Windows
software that has ever existed. Between Chrome, Earth, Picasa and others I
imagine a decently large number of devs need to work on Windows machines for
more than just "testing".

(also, in your post "I'd of" should be "I'd have")

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evo_9
No, I meant "I'd" to mean "I would", as in "I would think...".

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cryptoz
> I'd of expected Windows boxes

<http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/couldof.html>

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evo_9
I was actually referring to the first 'I'd think Mac's would be the vast
majority...', not the one you didn't reference until above.

Thanks for the link, I'll keep that handy if my copy of The Chicago Manual of
Style isn't handy (oh they have a nice website now too, cool).

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swah
Anyone knows if building stuff like Chrome on Windows is faster than
Linux/Mac?

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staunch
He's probably way off.

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trustfundbaby
I think you're thinking

Googlers == "People who use Google"

when its actually

Googlers == "People who work at Google"

I know I did at first :D

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staunch
Nope. I wasn't.

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apetresc
As somebody who worked at Google until very recently, I can assure you, 20% is
more likely an overestimate than an underestimate.

