Wow! After looking at all the comments on Thursday’s post titled “Linux’s Market Share: Is There Any Way To Know,” I decided that, although I already had something prepared for today (which is highly unusual - I usually write posts the night I post them), it was worth putting that off in order to comment on some of the comments.

Alright, first of all, this comment, by Richard Chapman, wins the award for the funniest comment:

“Although it’s difficult to tell how many people are using Linux, Microsoft must have a very good idea of how many people are not using Vista.”

Now some more serious ones. Lantesh wrote:

“Just about everyone uses Google on a regular basis. Google could record each unique IP address that visits its home page, and what operating system was used. It is not necessary for an end user to have any special software installed on their PC for this. For example if you visit the download page for Adobe Flash the site automatically recognizes what operation system you have. Google could do the same thing and record the results. The same PC would never be recorded twice, because Google would remember the IP address, and if you change operating systems then that could also be reflected in the data.”

To which Eric replied:

“Using Google’s unique IP address log isn’t going to give an exact picture because: a) gateways and routers can be used by multiple PCs; b) some users have a dual boot PC; c) most ISP clients use a dynamic IP address that could change several times over given period of time.

Other interesting points are: as stated before, not all PCs are connected to the Internet; you can have your browser report anything (OS) by changing it in its preferences.”

(Actually, several people discussed the Google idea, but I am only reposting a few here.)

Obviously, there are a lot of flaws, as pointed out by Eric and others, but nothing is perfect. Especially if a number from Google was compared to some other methods of measuring market share, it would be very interesting. Google, are you listening?

In relation to the Google idea, I should also mention Tolan’s suggestion that Google’s data should be combined with data from the top search engine in every major part of the world.

In addition to the Google idea, a couple of people suggested programs whose download numbers might be telling. The first suggestion, by Mahenda, was the Pixel image editor, which is available for just about every OS in the world. Most Linux PCs do come with GIMP and most (or all) Windows PCs come with Paint, but it is likely that people would want to replace those apps. The main drawback I see to using this application is that it is something of a niche application.

The second application suggested, this time by toogreen, is Songbird, an open-source music management program. The problem with Songbird, as Epicanis said, is that “Mac users tend to stick to Apple-branded software.” In this case, the Apple branded software (which is also preinstalled on all Macs and comes with all iPods) is iTunes.

The third application suggested was Skype, which was suggested by r. This might be a good option, because it is not free software, so distro cannot bundle it, and its competitors have not really caught on.

One idea not mentioned by commenters was Flash Player. Except for the 100% free people, pretty much everyone uses Flash Player, making it an ideal choice - if Adobe will release numbers.

Yet another common suggestion was using distribution’s update numbers. I cannot say that I know the details of how updates work, but, especially since most distributions automatically check for updates at regular intervals, it sounds like a good idea. The problem is that this would just give a number of Linux users. Unless there are good numbers about how many PCs are out there, this would be of little help.

While nothing is perfect, if some of the ideas above were compared and averaged, we might get a pretty good idea of what Linux marketshare really looks like. Now we just need to convince people to give their numbers… Adobe? Google? SKype?

Just like with the Eee PC, ever since the gPC started the low-cost Linux desktop market (yeah, yeah I am sure there is some cheap Linux PC that came before it), many, many companies have rushed to essentially copy the design and call it their own. This is understandable in the case of the Eee PC, since it has done so well, but it makes a lot less sense in the case of the gPC, since the gPC and all the copies so far have basically failed. I can even understand some early rip-offs thinking they could do better, but after every product in the market flops, you would think the flow of these cheap Linux PCs would stop, but it has not. Shuttle just set a launch date of mid-April for their “KPC.” (Even the name is a rip-off.)

While I am saying that companies should stop copying a tried and failed idea, I am not saying that no one should try to enter this cheap Linux PC market. Just don’t do the same thing as everyone else. To figure out how to make a better cheap Linux PC, look at the Eee PC. One major factor, at least in my opinion, in the Eee PC’s success is that it has appeal to both geeks and regular people. On the other hand, the gPC has almost no appeal to a geek (why would they want another underpowered computer even if it were free?)

There are plenty of ways to increase the geek appeal of a cheap Linux PC, you just have to think of it as a little more than your average Dell PC. As one commenter named Robert Pogson pointed out in a comment on “Will Asus’s UMPC Success Carry into Linux Desktops?,” Asus could make their new cheap Linux desktop PC a “base station for the eee (backup, software repository, home files, printing…).” Or how about an inexpensive media center/home server computer? All of this could be done.

The cheap Linux desktop PC market is not hopeless, it just needs some products that are not copies of failed ideas.

Many decisions and opinions in the Linux world are justified by the idea that the decision will help attract new users to Linux, but why should anyone care at all if other people use Linux? KillaGeorge recently posed the question directly in response to a recent post, titled “A Simple Feature of Ubuntu 8.04 That Could Be So Important:”

“I always wondered why linux users are always trying to convert microsoft users. Whats the deal with that? Who cares what other people use. I use linux and i’m happy with it. If my friends dont want to use it then no sweat of my back. Who cares?”

The main reason for wanting more users to switch to Linux is that the more people use an operating system, the better it will be supported by hardware and software companies and, in the case of open-source software, there will also be more people to develop the operating system. In fact, a good example of this showed up earlier today.

With AMD open-sourcing their graphics drivers, many people are looking to nVidia to see if they will follow suit. Earlier today, an open letter to nVidia was posted that has already received 547 signatures at this time, yet even if this number grows to 1,000 or more, nVidia may still never respond. With Linux’s current market share, nVidia can continue to ignore people for as long as they want. That does not mean they will, but even if nVidia listens, they are only one of many companies that do not have open-source drivers or do not have Linux drivers at all. If Linux had a larger market share, companies would finally have to pay attention to the Linux world and release drivers for Linux.

Unfortunately, the issue is not as simple as more users being better. If Linux ever achieved a large market share, it would become the target of viruses, much like Windows is now. The question is how to find the perfect balance, so that Linux is widely supported, but not the target of viruses and spyware. Right now, Windows is obviously far over that perfect marketshare and Linux is way under. The closest may be the Mac, since most companies do support OS X, but, so far, there are no viruses for OS X in the wild. If you think I am advocating everyone switch to OS X, however, you are wrong. Apple has no intention of stopping their growth. Any day now the viruses will start to come for the Mac and each day it just gets more and more likely.

Hopefully this will not happen to Linux, but it seems hard to escape. Once an operating system gains enough momentum to make it to a significant market share, it is unlikely to stop and no matter what you tell me about the security of Linux, someone will find a way around that security. Perhaps Linux will really find a way to avoid this … I hope it does.

Update: A lot of people seem to be making the same point: Linux is fundamentally more secure than Windows and thus would never get viruses like Windows does. First, I agree Linux is more secure. Second, if anyone ever makes a desktop operating system that both does something useful and is completely immune to viruses, spyware, hackers, etc. I will be very, very surprised. In other words, I don’t believe Linux, or any desktop OS, is completely immune to malicious code.

A few days ago, I asked readers to give their wishes for Linux in 2008. (Realistic or not.) Thank you very much for all the thoughtful responses. I read through them all and came up with this list of the most popular/interesting ones.

1. Better hardware support and certification for Linux
2. A standardized and easy to use system for installing/uninstalling software
3. Get rid of the terminal and editing of text config files - perhaps “get rid of” is too strong, but make it hidden
4. A consistent and pleasing look and feel across the entire distro
5. An easy to use and powerful video editing application for Linux
6. More/commercial games available for Linux
7. Every program ported to Linux (I never said it had to be realistic.)

I would have liked to see some less standard ideas, but perhaps it is best that all the attention be put on the most important issues. I certainly agree that all of these would be great (well, I don’t care much about the games, but that’s just me.)

Thanks again for all the responses. If anyone has additional ideas/wishes for Linux, please put them in a comment. I am always interested.

I know I said that part 3 would be the end, but, as you can see, it was not. A lot of people made a lot of good comments (and a lot of spam, which has been deleted) on the three previous parts so I decided to quote some of those so people can see them/I can respond to them. With good comments, though, come long comments, so in most cases I only quoted a piece of the comment.

Paul Zarucki said:
“Another class of home users, and possibly some small businesses, creative professionals, etc., might be those that depend on a friendly neighbourhood “geek” for their tech support. Geeks like me, who have gone wholeheartedly over to FLOSS, have lost all interest in supporting Windows and don’t want to waste time learning how to fix problems that people have with it.”

True. I have nothing to add. This is somewhat similar to a word-of-mouth type of spreading, which I believe may be the main way Linux will spread.

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