Where's GNU/Linux Usage Headed? 376
deego writes: "Here are the plots of GNU/Linux number of users, on a
regular scale , and on a
log scale . Though projections have no real bearing on what
actually turns out to be the numbers, they are fun :). The final projections from the
two plots would seem to be a bit different to the naked eye. So, is
GNU/Linx usage asymptotically headed towards, say 'all users' (first
plot), or 'half a billion users' (second plot)?"
MyOS (Score:5, Funny)
Wow!
Re:MyOS (and Elvis) (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MyOS (Score:3, Funny)
Both? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, I think it may well benefit from... (Score:2)
Re:Both? (Score:3, Interesting)
Huge. So huge that this has absolutely no statistical meaning whatsoever. He gives some reasoning [umd.edu] to the numbers [umd.edu], but as far as I can tell, he just threw those user counts from his head. He says there are 40 million Linux users today. The Linux counter [li.org] fellow estimates it at 18 million.
As he says on the estimates page [li.org]:
Google offers interesting desktop usage stats (Score:5, Interesting)
Take a look at the chart here: http://www.google.ca/press/zeitgeist.html [google.ca]
slightly diffrent, but also usefull (Score:5, Informative)
Mon, 15 Jul 2002 15:49:14 -0700
to "Sean Fritz"
cc
subject Re: Zeitgeist item suggestion
memo Dear Sean,
We continue to update, expand and improve the Google Zeitgeist. Thank you
for you suggestion. For now, I have included the June percentages for
browsers below. If you have any further questions, please let me know.
Browsers
--------------
MS 6.0--37
MS 5.5--25
MS 5.0--25
MS 4.0--2
Net 4.x--4
Other--7
Re:slightly diffrent, but also usefull (Score:3, Informative)
are forced to announce themselves at windows, as
internet exploder, in order to gain access to
some content of interest.
The statistics are *reported* platforms. There is
a strong motivation for linux users to lie in
their reports.
Re:slightly diffrent, but also usefull (Score:2)
Don't forget to mention the competing sites that don't block non-MSIE UserAgents, though. It's motivating
Re:Google offers interesting desktop usage stats (Score:2)
Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows 2000 and XP have obvious benefits over Windows 98 -- stability being the biggest one, but also a true multi-user OS with protected memory, a real task manager, etc. They also run almost 100% of the existing Windows 98 programs.
So, if people won't switch off something as flaky as Windows 98 on to 2000 or XP, what makes anyone think that these people will switch to something like Linux (which can't even promise that your old programs will run on it)?
This isn't a troll... it's something we all need to think about.
The fact that the majority of people using Google are still using Windows 98 says volumes: even if Windows 98 is flaky; even if Windows 98 crashes or gives weird errors; even if Microsoft makes something better that promises near-100% compatibility with their old programs -- people aren't switching. The question that must be asked is: why?
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
THE REASONS: (Score:2)
2- A lot of people can't afford a PC powerful enough for WinXP or Win2k. I, for one, sure can't
I feel compelled to add... (Score:2)
I don't really agree that money is the true factor. I think, to partially answer my own question, that the "good enough" factor kicks in after a while. I suppose at this point people just expect computers to crash once a day (or more). It's a frustrating attitude, but it shows that "more stability" apparently isn't compelling enough to get Grandma to upgrade.
So how do you get Grandma to upgrade? What features of Linux can you sell Grandma on? Or do you just let her keep runnning Windows 98 and expecting it to crash once a day?
Re:I feel compelled to add... (Score:2)
So, in summary: Money is the primary factor, and lack of tangable benifit is the other factor.
Re:I feel compelled to add... (Score:2)
(with media player 6.4) choke you with DRM management, or demand a blood sample when you
upgrade your harddrive, and it uses less resources.
It's substantially faster than XP or 9x in most
existing environments for most applications.
I just copied a friend's disk, and it cost me
about $0.40 for the CD-R.
Re:I feel compelled to add... (Score:2)
a Windows license. I *always* give it to someone
else, and keep the original media for archive,
if any. (If none, as in too many crippled OEM
installs, I just give them a copy of one of the
archive CDs.) But I don't give away 9x licenses,
cos I don't want to be responsible for their
headaches.
Re:I feel compelled to add... (Score:2)
$79 becomes even more money in countries where the absurd exchange rate of the US Dollar makes Windows outrageously expensive. In Europe (Netherlands), I saw XP (full version) for sale for E270. That's about 1/10th of a monthly salary. Don't tell me XP is cheap.
Other than that, my laptop won't run XP. Dell doesn't support it, meaning no ACPI, PCMCIA, all those things you cannot live without on a laptop.
I'll keep on hitting Slashdot with my 98 that came with the laptop. Works great! All I run is Mozilla and putty, anyway.
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
The parent post brings up a very very important question, perhaps the very crux of the state of Linux today.
There is a very easy answer: There must be something more important to them than any of those factors. But what could it be? Maybe that doesn't sound very profound, but I think that there are many things that the Linux community is missing the boat on.
BTW - Posted using Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98)
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:5, Interesting)
Dear friend, the cycle of upgrades has been way too quick, and even though I am sure Gates would love us all to upgrade everytime Microsoft burps up a new version of Windows, people just got annoyed with cashing out every year. When Win95 came out, everybody thought it would be the greatest OS we'll ever need. As people started using Win95 they realized how f*cked up it really is, but they started getting used to it. Then came Win98, and it didn't make any difference in stability, and really very little in functionality. And then came Win98 SE, and it changed so little that, no doubt, many got burned right there right then.
There is, of course, the corporate market that is more faitful to MS, and mostly they are the buyers of Win2000. But as recession sat in, even corporations started to press on the breaks. Point in case: in my company only about a third of the desktops have been upgraded to Win2000, the restis still happily running WinNT or, on laptops, Win98SE.
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
The only fix at the time was to wipe the OS and install a copy of OSR 2 from someone else's new computer. And even against OSR 2 Win 98 was a bit better, especially if you made the mistake of integrating IE on Win 95 causing it to explode in a giant ball of flame.
Win 98 was not great, but it generally got the job done...for a while, back when your only other choices were NT 4 with crappy game support and Red Hat = 5.2.
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that the majority of people using Google are still using Windows 98 says volumes: even if Windows 98 is flaky; even if Windows 98 crashes or gives weird errors; even if Microsoft makes something better that promises near-100% compatibility with their old programs -- people aren't switching. The question that must be asked is: why?
Because switching is an investment of time and money, and if someone has a working computer, why bother? The humorous reality is that Microsoft is their own biggest competitor to people upgrading: Even running Windows 98 you can still run IE 6.0, for example. Of course Microsoft has started to see the satisfaction that people have with their current OS, so things like Media Player are now only coming out in new versions for XP, for instance.
Personally I find it very hard to believe that as many people use Windows 2000 as Google reports: Windows 2000 is a `professional' OS, and it was never marketed or really sold to the home population (and it's expensive as well), yet 20% of Google users use it? I have to guess that that 20% is mostly corporate users, or developers.
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:3, Interesting)
What's really scary is that Win3.1 is still in use - although I'm guessing it's a robot/joke. Nice to see there's almost as my Linux users as Win2K! The WinXP stats are exagerated as I use it on my desktop, and I've been testing new scripts on the server lately...
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
Almost all non DirectX windows 98 and 2000 software works in Windows 3.11 still, so they're in no rush to upgrade.
Absolutely false. You can't possibly believe that. No modern (Win32) software works on Windows 3.11 unless the developer spent a significant amount of work porting it. And by significant, I mean it'd be far more feasable to port between Win32 and Linux than bring something down to Win16. Yuck.
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
Using Calmira (http://www.calmira.org) win-3.11 is prettier than win95 and more usable, too.
I never saw any need to update from win-3.11 to win-4.0 aka win95. I updated to SuSE Linux-5.0 in the end
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
There were quite a few changes we had to make.
Remember, a lot of custom code out there ships when it works, not when it is done right. Things that worked due to a nasty side effects in Win16 failed to work in Win32 or worse, crashed the system.
Joe
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
with their user-agent set so that they can get
into microsoft-only web sites.
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
I won't own it unless they change there EULA.
And releasing a 100 piece of software that most people consider to be an upgrade, during economic down turn,is gooing to kill sales.
if the home version of XP was 20 bucks, I would probable be the only person running 98.
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:5, Insightful)
The answer is simple -- The masses view their computers the same way they view their televisions, stereos, and vcrs. They're appliances. They'll use whatever OS comes on the computer they bought up until the day they buy a new computer. Then they'll use the OS that comes on that one, etc...
Average users aren't geeks. Average users don't care about the pros/cons of a given OS. They just want an OS that will run the shelves of software they see in Best Buy.
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
Probably the dumber people don't know how to upgrade their operating systems and the smarter people don't want to sell their souls. The bulk of the market would be the former, who use their computers probably an hour a day to browse and e-mail. It doesn't take a whole lot of OS horsepower to do that.
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
you suffer frequent BSOD after your OS install ages
for a while. I expect to reinstall any win98se
system after 12 months of use -- windows 95, 98fe,
and MEd, significantly less. If you have the
option when that happens, it's a good time to switch
to Windows 2000 Pro, the only reasonably performant
and functional operating system Microsoft ever
produced (or will produce, I expect, given the DRM/
Palladium thrust). If you get a copy of Windows
2000 from a friend, it only costs you $0.40 for
a CD-R.
Of course, for a substantial boost in performance
and stability, with equivalent ease-of-use, you
could always download or buy Mandrake or RedHat
and use KDE3.0.x.
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
It is that sort of logic that led us to the sorry state we are in, where MicroSoft has a bogus lead in the desktop market share, not because they had software people were willing to pay MicroSoft's price for, but because they were willing to steal from MicroSoft.
When people complain that it doesn't make sense for so many people to still be running '98, and "don't they know better", they should realize the timing of MicroSoft's attempts to crack down on "software piracy".
In the meantime, enjoy your stolen operating system, but please stop whining about the defects, afterall, you didn't even pay for the damn thing.
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
The problem is that a lot of people believe that Windows 98 is a multi-application operating system. Its isnt. It's a single application operating environment. That means, you make a clean install of Windows 98, and then install the application or game you wish to use. If you wish to use a second application you must first reinstall Windows 98, then install the other application you wish to use. Or, get another computer to run your second application.
The same applies to hardware, of course. You never ever change hardware in a Windows 98 system. You install the new hardware and then reinstall the operating environment from scratch.
This trick works fairly well because now you're matching a configuration that everyone's testing against. And using it that way you can get weeks and months of crashfree computing with Windows 98.
And of course, this makes Windows 98 useful for certain categories of users. Linux users who keep it around for a few games, and the ones who use their computer as a dust-collecting surf-once-per-week terminal. For those categories the new offerings from MS have nothing to offer.
Of course, the 'power users' who want to install more than one application can get rather frustrated by something like that and should probably upgrade (altho I doubt XP will prove resistant to the usual bitrot that tends to happen to MS OS's once you install a few too many drivers and apps). And, of course, they would probably be better off 'power using' Linux anyway
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
The same applies to hardware, of course. You never ever change hardware in a Windows 98 system. You install the new hardware and then reinstall the operating environment from scratch.
Oh bullshit. I'm running 98SE at home. Hardware-wise I've changed modems twice, added more memory, and added a DVD combo drive. I have at least a half dozen games installed plus most of the standard MS crud, the DVD software, the image software that came with my digital camera, etc, etc. And I've never had to reinstall.
Because it's what was preloaded (Score:2)
1: Buy a new PC, because the old one is *obviously* obsolete and broken.
2: Reload from the recovery CD, which isn't really the same as installing from generic media.
3: Use the computer less, until/if they get around to buying a new one.
We curse the preloads, because they're behind Microsoft's market lock. But the same inertia denies Microsoft the upgrade revenue they'd like, as well. I suspect that PC makers actually like the flakiness of Windows, because it helps drive new PC sales.
No Compelling Incentive to Change OS (Score:2)
Linux? Well, even if you accept the doubtful proposition that they've heard of it, it is doomed to be a nonstarter as long as no Linux apps are compelling enough to draw people away from Windows. (Forget Wine and all that. Why go thru the hassle, risk and cost of switching to Linux just to run the same apps you're running now quite happily in Windows? Again, why bother?)
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
In my case it's because 98 (SE) isn't that flaky. All I use my home PC for is playing games, mudding, email, newsgroups, the occasional small Word document, watching DVDs, and dowloading pr0... I mean, surfing the Web. And I almost never have a problem, although the JRE 1.4 for Mozilla makes it go slightly wacky sometimes. But then, it makes my NT box at work go wacky too.
I realize I am probably in the minority with regards to stability and 98, but my answer to why I don't switch is that I have no reason (and I HAVE a copy of XP).
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
Of course not. A majority still means "more than 50%"
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
Well, in a real democracy, you need the majority, getting "most" is not enough.
Re:Does anyone else find it depressing... (Score:2)
You appear to have confused 'real democracy' with 'pure democracy', which is generally only ever real for a short time with a very small group of people.
Of course, the concept of 'democracy' is irrelevant to the US elections that were being discussed, as the US is elegedly a representative republic that in fact acts as a hereditary feudal confederacy with delusions of electoral integrity.
Re:Google offers interesting desktop usage stats (Score:2)
Does that take into account that many browsers can change their their user agent string to anything else? For example, I use OmniWeb, but some websites insist that the user run Internet Explorer, so I set it to that and everything works fine and dandy.
/effect. (Score:2)
Found myself here since this is about the only story not slashdotted today.
As reading I reach the above and an idea starts to form, since there is little prospect of actually
So here goes:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=
Don't forget to check back here next week
http://www.google.ca/press/zeitgeist.html
Re:Google offers interesting desktop usage stats (Score:2)
Re:Google offers interesting desktop usage stats (Score:2)
Re:Google offers interesting desktop usage stats (Score:2)
The reports highlight audience reach because that's what advertisers are interested in. It's a stupid metric though.
You forgot the internet. (Score:2)
Guaranteed that most of them haven't heard of Google.
Re:Google offers interesting desktop usage stats (Score:2)
IE goes straight to MSN and it's search search for many people.
.That makes it all the more interesting that Windows should be such a big percentage. With the grassroots Linux users' opinion that Windows users are clueless, this should come as a surprise that they would change their search engine preference. I think it is going to come as a rude awakening that once people are given more of a choice to change their application settings by the latest MS service packs, that those MS users are going to try out the other options. But stay on Windows they will.
Re:Google offers interesting desktop usage stats (Score:2)
Have you tried e-mailing the webmasters at those sites? I know, BMW, Lexus, and Mercedes probably doesn't care what some "stinky GNU/Linux hippie" is running as their browser because they're not going to buy a BMW, Lexus, or Mercedes, but you could pretend! Say you're running Opera or Mozilla under WindowsXP and you wanted to get info on a new BMW for the fall. Take solace in the fact that many of the people designing the web sites in question are no longer employed after the dot-bomb fallout. Being a wizard with FrontPage is no longer a key to getting a job at a fortune 500 company to do web development.. at least I hope not!
Re:Google offers interesting desktop usage stats (Score:4, Interesting)
I am using Mozilla 1.1Beta on Gentoo Linux and I can see all of the sites you list above perfectly. And I mean perfectly - absolutely no glitches (even all the car ones)
It could be because I am using the crossover plugin - but I just don't know.
Maybe you should try out the newest mozilla, it seems to be extremely compatible.
Derek
Re:Google offers interesting desktop usage stats (Score:2)
Insufficient data to draw any conclusions. (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, you should fit to a "logistic" curve, which is a better model when the population you're expanding into is finite...
Regarding the meaning of logscale (Score:3, Interesting)
So, is GNU/Linx usage asymptotically headed towards, say 'all users' (first plot), or 'half a billion users' (second plot)?
So, are you trying to tell me that these two plots contain different information?
If you're going to extrapolate anything, the first plot seems to tend toward a linear increase, which means the second plot is tending toward a logarithmic increase. Neither has an asymptote. Go Linux!
Re:Regarding the meaning of logscale (Score:2)
Oh Good Lord. Are you going around looking for errors? The first plot looks like it is going linear. Therefore the second plot is going to look logarithmic because it is plotted in logscale. We don't disagree, but I think context should have made my point perfectly clear to anyone who isn't trolling for semantic issues.
And for the record, the whole point is moot because there are way too few data points anyway.
Take your "basic math" advice elsewhere. I could integrate circles around you.
Re:Regarding the meaning of logscale (Score:2)
my own experience in the industry. However, we
can expect a dramatic rise in the Linux uptake
rate as better-localized versions become available
in P.R.China (now emerging, and mandated for all government
institutions, which in a "P.R." is pretty much
everything), and in India (not yet emergent, and
certainly slower to appear because of the relative
diversity of written language in India).
image, please? (Score:2)
Please?
Thanks,
_Am
Re:image, please? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:image, please? (Score:2)
I don't what OS you are using, but I'm going to hazard you can find what you need here [wisc.edu].
A dark day for Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Posting a chart with 4 data points?
Slashdot seriously needs to lift the bar on its stories. It's like drinking de-alcholized beer. Wait, at least that's beer.
No (Score:2)
Umm, no.
If you plot linear growth against an exponential scale, then the resulting graph will look like a logarithmic curve (just like the second plot). This does not mean that you have magically produced a finite limit point - the logarithm may look like the growth tapers off, but it's limit is actually infinity just like the line. (Think about - any point along the y axis is going to be log of some x - namely x=exp(y).)
This is Mickey Mouse math people...
Growth rates... (Score:2)
Projections based on things like that have led to things like the prediction that the earth's maximum carrying capacity is something like 10,000,000,000. That shouldn't take much longer, now...
Sorry, no time to find nice links for the foregoing, they're left as an exercise for the reader :-)
Re:Growth rates... (Score:2)
Hahahahhahaha!! Don't get out much, do you?
Re:Growth rates... (Score:2)
Whether or not it kills people is more or less beside the point -- which is, that there's a ceiling, and the growth which is initially "exponential" levels off. This constraint on growth has to do with the fact that, contrary to your assumption, the population is in fact finite.
The reason the growth looks less exponential (assuming, as a hypothetical, that we actually believe those numbers) is that there's a transition where the finiteness of the population becomes apparent.
ObSimpsons Quote (Score:3, Funny)
~Philly
Linx usage is up! (Score:2, Funny)
Yes, eventually all people will be using linx. With it's frame support, it is highly superior to the the older, yet more established lynx.
Yes, it is asymptotic (Score:2)
Eventually it will be replaced by something that hasn't been created yet. Or, taking the really long view, you can choose from: "The Big Crunch", proton decay, or the heat death of the universe.
-
Meaningless (Score:5, Insightful)
Mmm..extrapolation.. (Score:5, Funny)
Scientists have shown that the moon is moving away at a tiny, although measurable distance from the earth every year. If you do the math, you can calculate that 85 million years ago, the moon was orbiting the earth at a distance of about 35 feet from the earth's surface. This would explain the death of the dinosaurs...the tallest ones, anyway.
Why isn't this posted under "humor"? (Score:4, Interesting)
Resurgence of BSD (Score:2, Funny)
Samurai accountant? (Score:5, Funny)
67.7234597% of statistics are made up.
No indication of what numbers he is using..... (Score:4, Interesting)
This guy is not saying ONE word about where he got his numbers from; that's a new low in statistical harebrainedness.
If I could invent my own data points, I could do considerably better than three datapoints, at least. So he's probably using someone's numbers. But whose?
Did you forget the Linux Counter? (Score:2, Informative)
Best regards from Linux user #127040...
GNU/Linux vs. Linux (Score:2)
Some of us just don't give a rats ass about the GNU part of things.
The market will either go up or down (Score:2)
Linux usage will exhibit fluctuations both up and down.
Oh? you mean complete world dominance? Nah that's just the Ecstacy talking.
Linux is good. (Score:2, Interesting)
not to mention... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, I'm currently running Mozilla on Debian and it can't even display the
Re:not to mention... (Score:4, Informative)
I do agree, however, that raw PostScript is perhaps not the most appropriate format. May I suggest PDF? It's basically a wrapper for a large subset of PostScript, and there are viewers for most every platform. It also has compression built-in.
Personally, I'm just wondering why 2 images with no surrounding document for context, and no real discussion rather than a retarded blurb in italics would be regarded as an "article".
PNG has native browser support (Score:2)
Sure, it's not the ideal format to store a vector graphic in for future editing, but for display it's perfectly fine.
Re:PNG is not appropriate for most graphs (Score:2)
Is that why most perl-based graphics routine-using programs (namely MRTG [ee.ethz.ch] and RRDTool [ee.ethz.ch]) use PNG as their graphing format?
different targets (Score:2)
However, what we're talking about is the web. You can embed a PNG image in a webpage. You cannot embed a PostScript image in a webpage. In fact, the only vector graphics format I know of that can be embedded in webpages with any chance of your audience being able to view it is Flash, and it's targetted primarily at vector animations, not static images.
Re:different targets (Score:2)
Re:not to mention... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:not to mention... (Score:2)
call me paranoid...
A hundred years from now ... (Score:2)
A hundred years from now, people may not know what a ".ps" file format is.
But I am sure, somewhere, somehow, some machine(s) still runs gnu / linux codes.
Re:there's no built-in viewer for GNU/Linux either (Score:2, Offtopic)
$convert bob.ps bob.jpg
it comes with most distros.
Re:postscript (Score:2, Informative)
What you're not running CygWin [cygwin.com] with XFree86 [cygwin.com] and GNU ghostscript on your Windows box?
While running Windows go to those web sites and click on "Install Now" on each of them to run setup for each free product. If you have enough disk space you will eventually have the X Window System and a UNIX emulator running on your box. To update the system at a later date just use "install now" again.
Re:postscript (Score:2)
A simple google search for "postscript viewer windows" turned up good results.
Re:postscript (Score:2, Funny)
Re:postscript (Score:2, Insightful)
Justin
Re:GNU/Linux (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:hello (Score:2, Funny)
Is this where the GNU "Black Ops" budget goes?