The Desktop use of GNU/Linux has expanded to 8%, or more, per net statistics of server connections. Many of we advocates for freedom are pleased that the revolution is succeeding so well.

We also tip our hats to the efforts of the Vista team.
A race well run, though cheating was obviously rampant.
It is what bullies do, even in a fair fight.

I don’t know about you, but I for one am tired of having to talk to India everytime I need tech support for one of their inferior products. Why should we pay a premium for their product and then another premium for support and then get stuck trying to understand the person who is supposed to be helping solve their issues. There are so many great support sites for the Linux community, that if there is an issue with a hardware driver or some gliche in a program, chances are, you are not alone. The community is always providing fixes and patches to solve these.

I think for personal use, you should use whatever you like and feels most comfortable be it Linux, MAC or M$. But, when it comes to the corporate world, businesses should be looking for the greatest level of SECURITY and you just won’t get it with M$.

Someone once said (and I couldn’t find the source) - “If you think outside the box, you don’t need Windows”

To me, what makes the OS worthwhile is if I can do the work that I need to. I want to be productive. If I am loosing productive time, every time I boot or try to use the OS, it doesn’t make sense to keep using it.

I have not found the Linux alternative yet that enables me to be productive enough of a percentage of the time to offset the potential cost savings. Believe me, I would like to find such a solution, but so far it just isn’t there.

That is my opinion, I know I will get flamed, but thats OK.

About a year ago, that is a while after the linked ZDNET article was posted (late 2003), when IDC was quoted as saying that Linux had overtaken the Mac on the Desktop, I was curious and did some research on the Net of the truth of this, especially as I don’t really take much credence in IDC figures. I also kept an eye on the various Linux magazines of what they might have to say to this news. Curiously no Linux site ever made mention of Linux being more widespread than Mac on the Desktop, in print or online. The truth is that, as one particular article pointed out, getting figures for Linux is particularly difficult. As servers, Netcraft can get a pretty accurate picture, and understandably this is where Linux has taken a big marketshare, since this is where it comes from. But on the Desktop, there are no figured of Linux-configured PC sales to go by like Windows, and many users still download their Distro of choice from the Internet rather than buying boxed sets and install the one copy across the network as needed. Where Microsoft counts every copy of Windows shipped, even when remaining unsold in the shop, and every OEM PC produced with Windows preinstalled, Desktop Linux users tend to buy a PC with Windows and dual-boot with a downloaded or cover-CD distro, which doesn’t register as a sale anywhere. Increasingly there’s a business in selling and supporting the Corporate Desktop, but only a few small companies aim for the home Desktop, and usually only as an addon to their corporate push. I’m following the development of OpenOffice, and I can now see with the increased pressure by governments around the world for an open Office Format Standard, with the leading contender being OpenDocument, that Linux may now have an opportunity to make a significant impact on the corporate desktop. In the corporate/government sector, you usually have a system Admin which can set everything up and maintain it, so this is not an issue, nor are other home Desktop concerns such as Multimedia and commercial app/game support, ie playing region-encoded DVDs or music and associated hardware trouble. Cost is the real driving force here, OpenOffice is far cheaper and uses an open standard, plus with the move to Windows Vista and Office 12, organisation face hefty hardware and software upgrade costs unless they move to OpenOffice on Linux. There is no such incentives for uptake of Linux on the Desktop for most users.

The most accurate figures I could find was actually collated from Google, going by the maxim that pretty much everybody on the Desktop use Google, at least occationally. Certainly Linux users are unlikely to use MSN search, and definitely doesn’t use AOL, but may use Yahoo. Many Mac users would tend to shy away from MSN search, but almost as likely to use AOL as Windows users. Nonetheless it’s as accurate a figure as you’re gonna get. And it showed whereas Mac usage was a little over 3%, Linux usage was less than 1%. In other words, Mac usage was still over 3 times that of Desktop Linux.
But that was about a year ago. Whereas I see articles on how Desktop Linux uptake has stalled, Mac usage thanks to the iPod ‘Halo’ Effect is growing by 30% a quarter compared to the PC industry average of 10%. The Mac won’t have much of an impact on the corporate Desktop though due to hardware cost (and still no OpenOffice), whereas Linux runs on existing cheap hardware. So this will be Linux’s next frontier, and may cross-pollinate to the Home desktop from there as people get used to it at work and can remain compatible (ie no proprietary Office docs). But this depends on the backroom shenanigans of Gates & Co, thanks to George W. Bush the Antitrust suit fizzled out and every OEM PC manufacturer fear Microsoft’s wrath as much as ever for even offering some Linux installs. Now, if only that deal with IBM, Compaq and Dell to license NextStep hadn’t fallen through in the 90’s before it was too late, we might have had a Unix-based alternative as the dominant OS on the PC with Windows resigned to a bit player.