iOS Passes Linux to Become Third-Most Popular Internet Browsing Platform

[KnightWRX]

1)Looks like you can't have a normal conversation/debate with someone without the constant insults. How many times now have you told me that I am clueless or not know what I am talking about? Give yourself a round of applause for looking so immature.

I'm not insulting you. I'm pointing out the fact that you are clueless. To any informed people on the subject, you really sound like you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about, because frankly at this point, I can say with 100% certainty that you don't.

2)Just because YOUR employer may have Linux deployed...and deployed in mission critical apps doesn't mean THE WORLD follows suit. And I mentioned that. My idea of "mainstream" is like 40% or more servers deployed in a given IT shop. And I really don't count (but if you want to, fine) a Linux box sitting in the IT Shop as a development server because some guy in Cubicle A3 wants a Linux box for testing. But I'm not going to write a book on this entire thread/topic.

But I am telling that is plainly false. Our shop is not outstanding. We're not even an IT firm and we're very conservative as far as technology goes. Yet, we have Linux as our #1 server platform, and it is running mission critical apps.

And this isn't just us, everywhere you look around Montreal, every job posting that has anything to do with Unix asks for Linux experience, because the financial institutions, the IT firms, the insurance companies, everyone here has upcoming and current infrastructure that runs on that OS.

One of the biggest security firms in the world, Checkpoint, is everywhere here and what does their stuff run on primarily ? Linux. Has for years. And years. Secureplatform ring any bells ?

Anyone who's someone in this industry knows Checkpoint. Heck, I'm a big Cisco guy as far as Firewalls go, yet I've had to setup/administer Checkpoint platforms because frankly the PIX stuff always was marginal.

3)You are correct...it is no longer 1996 or even 2001...the Linux community is IN THE PROCESS of getting real-world SLAs together...and listening to the business community ABOUT ALL MY POINTS OF RISK. And from you inference, yes, there are like 900 flavors of Linux. How many do you think there are of Windows? What about Unix. Yea. Lovely. Now the companies have to research those 900 flavors and choose one.

The Linux community ? SLAs ? Who are you kidding. The Linux community hippies can stay in their basements. We sign SLAs with vendors. Guys who have been doing Linux for the last 10 years. Firms like Novell, IBM, HP, Oracle. Even RedHat if you want to count them.

And no, we don't have to research those 900 flavors of Linux. We submit a proposal and then vendors bid on that proposal with their offering. We then only have to evaluate those proposals.

I don't think we've yet had any from the Gentoo folk, nor the Debian folk. In fact, all our proposals have mostly been Novell, IBM, HP or local firms. You know how many different versions of Linux have been even proposed ? About 3 if I count Checkpoint's own system images.

That's how businesses roll. You should know, being in Sales and all.

If Linux is mainstream in the business world, as you claim it to be, then it would have been mainstream for at least the past 6-12 months. If that were the case, every human on the face of this planet would have been reading all sorts of news headlines in every magazine that relates to business (Newsweek, Time, Fortune, CIO, etc) stating how Linux is mainstream and Microsoft is freaking out and how MS has lost 30% marketshare and 45% stock value. Have you heard of those Microsoft headlines? Yea, neither have I. And neither has the world.

-Eric

Uh ? Welcome to 5 years ago (from BusinessWeek) :

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_05/b3918001_mz001.htm

Or last year (The New York Times) :

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/business/11ubuntu.html

Or even your Fortune magazine, from 6 god damn years ago :

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/05/17/369609/index.htm (and SCO lost big time to boot).

Sorry, but even by your own admission, Linux is mainstream. I found these with about 2 minutes of searching on Google. How have you been in the business so long and never read about Linux in these publications ? Do you even read these publications at all or did you just name a couple that you saw on the newstand next door hoping they would never have published anything about the little OS that could ?

And then you wonder why I state you are clueless ? As in, you do not have a clue what you are talking about ? That is because it is a fact you have yourself established through these comments, it is not an insult.

I think at this point you need to quit. You've lost. The fact that you have not been exposed to Linux because you obviously are a Microsoft sales drone (you've been harping on about Microsoft for quite a while now in these last 2 posts) doesn't mean anything as far as its corporate status or even its consumer status. Go get informed, and then we'll talk if you want some clarifications. I've been eating, breathing this stuff for the last 10 years. It's been paying for my roof/meals/toys for the last 7.

Linux has been mainstream for quite a while and I bet most people, even though they don't know, use it daily for work and entertainment.

 

[ericinboston]

I think at this point you need to quit. You've lost. The fact that you have not been exposed to Linux because you obviously are a Microsoft sales drone (you've been harping on about Microsoft for quite a while now in these last 2 posts) doesn't mean anything as far as its corporate status or even its consumer status. Go get informed, and then we'll talk if you want some clarifications. I've been eating, breathing this stuff for the last 10 years. It's been paying for my roof/meals/toys for the last 7.

Yawn...all your rambling here about how Linux is currently mainstream is a waste of everyone's time. We all understand your particular circumstance with your employer. Again...fine. Great. But Linux is...not...mainstream. Period. End of story. Show me some hardcore #s that MS has been overthrown within the past 3 years. Or that MS is somehow now 50/50 with Linux. Is Linux slowly (as it has been for 15+ years) appearing in IT organizations? Yes. Is it appearing MORE AND MORE within said IT organizations? Yes. Have businesses thrown out/replaced existing Windows/Unix infrastructure and converted to Linux. No way. A few (Google recently said they would) I'm sure have, partly to be poster children for Linux. But the vast majority of businesses (and I'll state USA businesses since you're naming countries) are not running a high percentage of Linux boxes and/or critical apps on those Linux boxes. Will they in 2012? Who knows. 2015? Who knows.

As I said, my customers and prospects tell me what OS they are running. Business is and has been just fine for a long time for us people in Software Sales. Linux is becoming accepted more and more (as you stated with your SLA rant about how the vendors now supply it). But to call it currently mainstream is just flat out wrong. Again...mainstream what? You never defined it. Mainstream web servers? file servers? development boxes? mail servers? app servers? database servers? LDAP servers?

At least I can say we can agree to disagree. The best you can say is that I am clueless. And thank you for pointing out that I work at Microsoft (I don't) or that somehow I live/preach MS (I don't...my customers tell me what platforms they have).

-Eric

 

[KnightWRX]

Yawn...all your rambling here about how Linux is currently mainstream is a waste of everyone's time.

Great, ignore list material. In case you missed it, I'm talking about Linux being mainstream for the last 10 years in the corporate world and IT industry.

I've posted material showing it, from publications you named. And you come back with this ? I won't even bother reading the rest, you're uninformed and you'll stay that way if you continue to ignore the people who actually know what they are talking about.

 

[Truffy]

so Apple controls 2nd and 3rd place. Time for iOS and Mac OS to take on Windows!

I suspect that the difference between third and second place is dwarfed by the difference between second and first. And, as noted earlier, the scale on that diagram is telling!

 

[chris200x9]

Does it have the ``just works'' of OS X? No and never will. Does it `almost just work' for a seasoned engineer, developer, multi-systems knowledgeable user? Yes.

My install just works which is better than almost just works, this implies I must be better than a seasoned engineer, developer, or multi-systems knowledgeable user! I hope I can use this logic to get a job

 

[MacKeeperFanMod]

The comparison between iOS and Linux is a little short sighted. Linux has never been a good end user system but it still drives most websites those iOS devices navigate to.

 

[rjohnstone]

Great, ignore list material. In case you missed it, I'm talking about Linux being mainstream for the last 10 years in the corporate world and IT industry.

I've posted material showing it, from publications you named. And you come back with this ? I won't even bother reading the rest, you're uninformed and you'll stay that way if you continue to ignore the people who actually know what they are talking about.

I can most definitely back you up on some of those numbers.
My current employer has THOUSANDS, yes thousands of production Linux based systems deployed.
They replaced a lot of very expensive MS and SUN boxes.
Linux makes deploying very specific, task oriented servers extremely cost effective.
Enterprise support agreements from IBM and HP are very competitive from a pricing structure and the OS licensing is dirt cheap.

Serving up high volume web content or even running several large Oracle 10G back end databases is cheaper and just as efficient as any MS or SUN server.
You don't have to deal with all the bloat either.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

The latest IDC numbers show that in the first quarter of 2010 in terms of units sold, Windows had a 75.3% market share, (1,379,487 units) compared to 20.8% for Linux (380,429 units) and 3.6% (65,451 units) for Unix.

Also RedHat, Novell are Linux companies providing enterprise grade support for mission critical applications.

Amazon.com, various big time financial institutions and trading companies, NYSE etc. all run Linux - for mission critical stuff. IOW you sounded like you were talking from 1999.

This is where Linux is strong and should be strong. It's focus has been driven by > $10 Billion in development investment from IBM, Oracle, Computer Associates, Merrill Lynch, Swiss Banc, DARPA, NASA, Lawrence Livermore Labs, etc.

The Year of the Linux Desktop is not here, yet and its best bet is not to be a better Windows, but to be the sister to OS X.

 

[rjohnstone]

Have businesses thrown out/replaced existing Windows/Unix infrastructure and converted to Linux. No way. A few (Google recently said they would) I'm sure have, partly to be poster children for Linux. But the vast majority of businesses (and I'll state USA businesses since you're naming countries) are not running a high percentage of Linux boxes and/or critical apps on those Linux boxes.

Get your head out of the sand and join the last decade.
Yes... many LARGE Fortune 100 corporations have tossed overprices SUN/Solaris and MS based systems for Linux.
Missions critical apps... you betcha. Everything from the corporate website with all it's various customer apps to the internal DNS servers and all the way down to the lowly HR and Payroll system. All were converted from Solaris or Windows based servers to Linux.
Better than 50% of our new Dev systems are Linux.
Granted we only have a $50 Billion market cap so what do we know.

 

[MacinDoc]

Why is everyone going on as if Android devices are wildly outselling iOS devices? All that we know is that in the second quarter, during half of which Apple was not selling or even making any iPhones, Android devices outsold it (hard not to outsell something that is not available for sale).

Wait for the next quarter's results before concluding which devices are "dominating" sales.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Yawn...all your rambling here about how Linux is currently mainstream is a waste of everyone's time. We all understand your particular circumstance with your employer. Again...fine. Great. But Linux is...not...mainstream. Period. End of story. Show me some hardcore #s that MS has been overthrown within the past 3 years. Or that MS is somehow now 50/50 with Linux.

Personally, I often find KnightWRX overbearing, but after following your posts, I have to agree with him. You don't strike me as knowing what you're talking about when you act like Linux is some geek OS in someone's basement and nothing else. Being "mainstream" does not mean having most of the market. The Mac is "mainstream" on the consumer desktop, but it's only around 6-10% at most. Linux is extremely common in the server marketplace. We're not talking about corporate desktop PCs here, guy. We're talking about corporate servers and the IT department. The 2010 figures I just looked at tell me that Linux currently has 20.6% and Unix another 6% or so. That means over 1 out of 4 servers in the entire world is Linux or Unix. That may not be as big as Redmond, but it's a LOT more substantial than the Mac is in ANY single market (unless you're talking cell phones). I'd call over 20% market share pretty darn mainstream (at least as mainstream for servers as the iPhone is for smart phones).

 

[Manzanito]

OK, so Linux is easier to get running now.

Next step: Where's the (quality) software?

Depends on what you want to do with the computer. For light stuff like web surfing, office and things like that there are plenty of applications.

For instance, you have Firefox or Chrome as web browsers or OpenOffice for writing documents, spreadsheets etc.

All in all, for the average user I think linux has enough quality software. Sure, it lacks in areas such as design or video editing, but that's something most of the people won't miss.

 

[meatballs]

just wait until WP7 is released. One company to rule it all, desktop and mobile

 

[pharmx]

Apple doesn't sell the OS to other hardware manufacturers. They are not a software company trying to take Microsoft Windows market share. They are a hardware company that makes the software for their hardware products (including even Final Cut and Logic, etc.). Apple does not market their software as an option to install instead of Windows on an HP or Sony computer product. So how can they be losing in that market. Microsoft, however, is losing market share in markets they actually compete in with Apple. Zune players for one. And they withdrew prior tablet PC offerings, and chose not to release a pending tablet when the iPad was released.

So just because analysts continue to (wrongly) measure Apple's success or lack of, by comparison of market penetration of respective OS's. They are comparing Apple in a race that they are not even running. If Apple provided its OS to Samsung, Motorolla, LG group, HTC Corporation among others and was now losing share to Android or Microsoft on those same platforms, then the comparison be statistically relevant. Comparison of Microsoft market share versus iOS 4 is really not very relevant. Apple is not in a license race to distribute its software to take market share from Microsoft, or Google. Apple is in a race they are winning to sell more MP3 players, and more Tablet style computers than anyone else. Microsoft is losing the race against Apple in every race that Apple is actually running in.

What a great post...it's amazing how many people overlook this fact when posting, either inadvertently or for their own ulterior motives. If anything, Microsoft should be more worried about Google and Android/Chrome, than anything by Apple...especially since Google is adopting similar tactics to that of early Microsoft.

 

[MorphingDragon]

*Yawn*

Your experience must be a couple of years old. Download Ubuntu 10.04, burn it on CD and then boot that CD on your Mac and see that magically everything "just works" - faster and more stable than Snow Leopard.

I can quite honestly say thats a load of BS. For start, its a roll of the dice if GRUB will load properly on EFI systems, and Ubuntu doesn't provide proprietary packages.

Installing and running Ubuntu Linux on COMPATIBLE hardware has become as painless as installing and running Mac OS X on COMPATIBLE hardware. And amazingly enough, Apple Macintosh hardware is fully compatible with Ubuntu Linux. It's actually easier to get Linux running on a Mac than it is to install Windows on it.

No its not, Ubuntu doesn't include any proprietary codecs, proprietary drivers (You know, the type that sort of work) and a comparatively abstract way of installing utilities so unless you have someone experienced holding your hand, you have on your hands a subpar system. Also you're kinda stuck when you have to run anything useful like Visual Studio or Photoshop.

Pray to god that ATi or nVidia fully support the version of X ubuntu is using.

I would in-fact recommend Windows 7 over Linux if they want to use Multimedia, as thats subpar in Linux too. Because the same BluRay playback method in Mac OSX is used in Linux.

 

[AidenShaw]

I can quite honestly say thats a load of BS. For start, its a roll of the dice if GRUB will load properly....

You can stop there.

I maintain a FAQ for my more technically astute users, and some of the topics are:

• Grub says "GRUB"
• Grub says "GRU"
• Grub says "GR"
• Grub says "G"

Booting Linux is a "roll of the dice" - no need to say more.

 

[KnightWRX]

Ubuntu doesn't provide proprietary packages.

No its not, Ubuntu doesn't include any proprietary codecs, proprietary drivers (You know, the type that sort of work)

Uh ? Ubuntu does provide the nVidia drivers and the mp3/h264 codecs. They just don't install them initially, but on first boot, you will be given the option to install them.

It has been this way since I first tried Ubuntu back in version 7.10. Did this change for 10.04 or are you just making stuff up as you go ?

You can stop there.

I maintain a FAQ for my more technically astute users, and some of the topics are:

• Grub says "GRUB"
• Grub says "GRU"
• Grub says "GR"
• Grub says "G"

Booting Linux is a "roll of the dice" - no need to say more.

I think you mean LILO.

And booting Linux "Just Works" as long as the guy who installed the boot loader knew what the heck he was doing.

 

[AidenShaw]

I think you mean LILO.

Grub also has the cryptic (non-)error messages.

And booting Linux "Just Works"

OMG, I just spit up my macaroni and cheese.

Linux "just works".

LOL

 

[kalsta]

@MagnusVonMagnum: enjoying your well written and informative posts on this topic.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Uh ? Ubuntu does provide the nVidia drivers and the mp3/h264 codecs. They just don't install them initially, but on first boot, you will be given the option to install them.

It has been this way since I first tried Ubuntu back in version 7.10. Did this change for 10.04 or are you just making stuff up as you go ?

No, you get a little popup window for the drivers when you first boot and codecs are downloaded as you need them. Even then thats not an Ubuntu only thing.

Maybe you're the one making up stuff as you go along?

I think you mean LILO.

GRUB has continued the abstract error tradition.

And booting Linux "Just Works" as long as the guy who installed the boot loader knew what the heck he was doing.

That insult is pointless considering as OS installers handle the bootloader installation. Or are you saying all those engineers and devs are all useless?

Also, GRUB has automated (re)installation.

/sbin/grub-install /dev/hda

OMG, I just spit up my macaroni and cheese.

Linux "just works".

LOL

Damn you, stop writing stuff I agree with.

There is more than enough proof that Linux does not just work,
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Lucid
http://www.fedoraguide.info/index.php?title=Main_Page
fedora.missingbox.co.nz

 

[Winni]

There is more than enough proof that Linux does not just work,

Yes, and there is also a long list of evidence where OS X didn't "just work" either. Apple even has an own support knowledge base for it.

But you guys should just grow up to the fact that this is the year 2010 and most of your anecdotes are based upon your Linux experiences from the year 1999 where "desktop Linux" was still a pure hacker dream.

The other reality today is that the average John Doe spends around 99% of his computing time online using a web browser. It just doesn't matter anymore what frigging operating system you use as long as it can launch Firefox or Chrome. And Linux, no matter what distribution you are using, is more than up to that task.

Looking back to when I switched from Windows to OS X Tiger, I had so many issues and applications that were not there that I could have easily switched to that year's Ubuntu distribution. I mean, without applications like VLC that were born in Linux land we would still be pretty much ****ed on the Mac. Or are you guys seriously telling me that you downloaded all the videos that you are consuming from the iTunes store?

I still use Macs at home but earn my living in Windows and Linux land. I've grown platform agnostic over the years because all three actually suck almost equally nowadays. There is no magic bullet, but at least Linux gives me absolute control over the soft- and hardware that it's running on. That's just something that money can't buy you in Apple or Microsoft land, but it very often is critical to our business (which is global satellite communications, a market where you have to write most of the software yourself).

 

[MorphingDragon]

Yes, and there is also a long list of evidence where OS X didn't "just work" either. Apple even has an own support knowledge base for it.

Therefore you should not say that Linux just works either - which is what we're responding too.

*Yawn*

Your experience must be a couple of years old. Download Ubuntu 10.04, burn it on CD and then boot that CD on your Mac and see that magically everything "just works" - faster and more stable than Snow Leopard.

No Red Herring for you.

But you guys should just grow up to the fact that this is the year 2010 and most of your anecdotes are based upon your Linux experiences from the year 1999 where "desktop Linux" was still a pure hacker dream.

Umm What?

Most of us have been talking about our recent experiences, more specifically Ubuntu 10.04

 

[KnightWRX]

I think you guys going too deep into the "Just Works" thing are a laugh. CONTEXT, how many times do I have to repeat this simple word for you people to understand and not drive the conversation everywhere but where it was going ?

Again the exact quote :

And booting Linux "Just Works" as long as the guy who installed the boot loader knew what the heck he was doing.

Many elements here, let me help you guys understand. First, "Just Works" is in quotes, denoting that there is an hint of irony there. Then it is qualified and conditions are imposed on it. This is in the form of the guy who installed it knowing what he's doing.

Yes the installers install the boot loader for you as Morphing Dragon points out. What he doesn't, is the plethora of options/screens the installer asks for (unless you're using a distro that assumes way too many things).

Will GRUB reside in the MBR or the the first sectors of the first partiton ? Where is the kernel to boot (the installer should know this, but many more rudimentary installers are dumb enough to assume /dev/sda1 or /dev/hda1 is the / partition or /boot). Finally, there's the plethora of display options that if wrongly configured can leave you without the proper boot options. Then there's also grub-install giving an error and you clicking OK and NEXT and not correcting the problem and reinstalling.

Finally, there's a bunch of software on Windows that will screw up your MBR installed boot-loader and its data (so of it resides on padding between the MBR and the 1st partition, which isn't technically used but it shouldn't be either). As long as you don't dual-boot or are careful about what Windows partition tools or system repair functions, you're gold.

Ok, now that that is done, all I have to address is the following :

Uh ? Ubuntu does provide the nVidia drivers and the mp3/h264 codecs. They just don't install them initially, but on first boot, you will be given the option to install them.

It has been this way since I first tried Ubuntu back in version 7.10. Did this change for 10.04 or are you just making stuff up as you go ?

No, you get a little popup window for the drivers when you first boot and codecs are downloaded as you need them. Even then thats not an Ubuntu only thing.

Maybe you're the one making up stuff as you go along?

WTF.

Seriously.

You basically changed your initial stance of Ubuntu not providing proprietary drivers/codecs. I pointed out they do. You realised you were in fact wrong, repeated my exact words at me reformulated and tried to pretend I was wrong ?

How does that even work when people have access to both posts to basically see how you changed your position to reflect mine ?

You have issues with being wrong, yet you keep posting stuff up before checking. Hint : Macrumors is an Internet site. You can search this Internet thing for information before posting.

 

[MorphingDragon]

WTF.

Seriously.

You basically changed your initial stance of Ubuntu not providing proprietary drivers/codecs. I pointed out they do. You realised you were in fact wrong, repeated my exact words at me reformulated and tried to pretend I was wrong ?

No Cannonical don't provide the packages with Ubuntu (Which is what have been saying), but they provide a way to download the drivers/packages once the OS is installed. Linux Mint on the other hand, do provide the drivers/codecs with the OS. Or can I say that RPMFusion and Livna is having drivers and codecs provided with Fedora/RHEL/CentOS?

Though, on the topic of Linux installers, I find Anaconda to be the most balanced.

 

[KnightWRX]

No Cannonical don't provide the packages with Ubuntu, they provide a way to download the drivers/packages once the OS is installed. Linux Mint on the other hand, do provide the packages with the OS.

They do provide them, they are in the restricted repository because they use a non-free license. This is still a Canonical/Ubuntu provided repository, not some 3rd party. You're getting mixed up with Debian which doesn't host a repository for non-free software.

They even rebuild the source portion during kernel upgrades so that your install doesn't break. It is an official Ubuntu package, just not one installed by default or provided on the install image (which does not even come close to containing the thousands of software packages in the official repositories).

Oh, I was changing my stance? I was simply correcting you on how the proprietary bits are delivered.

Correcting me by being wrong yet again ? Seriously, check. The. Internet.