Having FUD With Facts

Well Chris, if you're a tool I'd say you're a Leatherman.

;)

Carla

(Disclaimer: I don't own a netbook either, but I do run Linux on a lot of computers.)

So ... now that the 96% Microsoft number has been debunked, what is the *true* percentage?

The true percentage is about 30% for netbooks and about 10% for all PCs. The usual sources for webstats are not global. They usually concentrate on the USA which is a very different market from the rest of the world. In the USA, most households have one or more PCs, for instance. The rest of the world has hundreds of millions of people who will be able to afford their first PC this year at netbook prices. These folks are very price-sensitive. The usual stats show China as 2% of their sample while China has as many browsers as the USA. The USA shows as 27% of the sample. How biased is that? One place you can see this bias clearly is MacOS share. The usual stats show them at 10% but Apple claims only 3% in SEC filings. Who are you going to believe? Where are the other 7%? With GNU/Linux, globally.

Brazil, Russia, India and China are huge markets with a preference for GNU/Linux. They use GNU/Linux in schools widely. China already has a $100 netbook running GNU/Linux.

I'm not surprised that a large number of people get Windows on their netbooks, mostly because A) so many people have never heard of Linux, and B) people are so afraid of change, that even when they know something is better and offers them many improvements, they will still crawl back into the cage with the "devil they know".

However, I've found it's not hard to convince people in the long run -- just give them a dual boot and encourage them to run the Linux side. In 2 months when they call you back to clean trojans off their Windows side (and one or more are data miners), the hassle of changing their credit card numbers, bank account numbers, Paypal/eBay logins will leave an indelible reminder of the price they pay for drinking from the cesspool of Windows.

It's inevitable. It just takes time. All my friends run Linux. Some of them just don't know it yet and are still in the "hanging themselves with Windows" phase that comes just before I ride in and save the day and they wonder why they didn't listen sooner.

In the USA many PCs are bought in big box stores where the store's buyers are also reluctant to change. In the rest of the world, many PCs are produced by tiny start-ups who choose GNU/Linux because it reduces the capital needed to start up. Bigger businesses like Dell that move into the 'hood have to sell what people are using locally and at a price they can afford, true competition rather than the "herd" effect in traditional consumer markets.

In many parts of the world, the biggest business around is government and governments that have chosen GNU/Linux for their own uses set the tone for IT suppliers. In the USA, the military and other branches are just beginning to do that. Other countries are years ahead in adoption of FLOSS in government. Munich was news in the USA but it was a late adopter compared to Brazil and regional governments in Spain.

Change is happening everywhere but the context is very different in China than the USA. In China there are many small entrepreneurs just going on-line and buying their first computers to make deals and contact buyers and sellers. Farmers are a huge market with government stimulation money ging to help them enter the 21st century. China's IT slowdown is tiny compared to the USA because China has its own domestic market to supply. They are not locked-in to that other OS but will choose GNU/Linux on its merits.

It is a bit futile to try to track OS share on Netbooks. Where in the numbers do I show up? I bought a Dell Mini-9 with Windows because I didn't want Ubuntu and didn't want to wait for Dell to offer more options. I've since converted it to SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11. I did not return the machine, I converted it. I am sure Microsoft still counts it in Windows share on Netbooks. How many more of me are there? And, yes, some that buy a Netbook with Linux end up switching it to something else too.

Congrats on the choice to switch to Linux! :D

I switched about three years ago. It took some time to fully migrate (I still have a dual-boot setup, but I no longer use Windows at all) but it was seriously worth the switch.

My computer is constantly up to date with the latest technologies, and everything about my system is open and free. As a programmer this is valuable because it allows far easier application development.

Try Ubuntu, the most popular distribution and an easy start into the Linux world.

Thanks, Zoasterboy. I'm almost positive I'll go with Ubuntu. I've read only good things about it. I'll probably start with a computer I already own and dual-boot (just to figure things out) before spending all the money Carla wants me to spend. :)

MS has muscled many vendors into not shipping units with linux, on pain of losing the discounts they need to compete. So MS counts all units shipped with MS as MS units. Clearly, many of those units get converted, as above comments show. There's lies, there's damn lies, and then there's MS. And wait til the next wave of netbooks hits, with ARM. ByeBye, MS.

In my experience ubuntu is horrible if you're a developer/power shell user. very hard to install all the required packages because they tend to make many packages for the one product (-doc/-devel/etc), and man pages and documentation are often broken or missing. I tried it for about a year, but was very relieved to leave it behind. I've got better things to do than live in a package installer.

Anyway, why wait till your next computer? IBM didn't delay, and look at how it worked out for them.

michael is that hard to install the package-dev and package-doc and probably devhelp to see that comfortable.
Start ups here out of USA tend to sell ugly linux distros like Xandros ,people remove it as soon as they can and install a pirated version of win xp

I own a netbook, and guess what, I ordered it with Windows. It hasn't run windows ever while in my possession. I didn't even turn it on before I pulled the hard drive put in new memory and a new drive. Why? Because this way I get a cheap Windows license should I need it for some future project, and I can easily download Ubuntu for free and install it myself. I also did the same thing on my desktop machine and my laptops. So I appear in the Windows column but am definitely not a Windows user.

I always thought Ubuntu seemed to oversimplify just a bit too much, not to mention it's nowhere near as stable as some of the other distros. What is bothering me about Ubuntu is that it seems to be turning in to the "Third OS" and it only takes one good software project that is closed source and releases their program as an Ubuntu .deb package for me to lose any joy I have at seeing some mainstream adoption of Linux.

I knew netbooks were going to be a huge phenomenon last summer when my huge local computer store opened up two display shelves for them. These shelves took up about 10% of the display area used for laptops and towers. Yet every time I was there in the following month there were as many people gathered round those netbooks as there were around all the other kinds of computer.

Some months earlier I'd looked at the Asus EEE, but didn't like the feel of the keyboard. But when I got to typed on the Acer Aspire One, I knew I'd got the device I'd been waiting to see for years. And behind me in the checkout, was a couple buying the same linux AA1 as I'd bought.

I was back there last week, and the netbooks were still mostly Linux and still getting more attention than the other devices.

So now I use a 17" powerbook for development, but whenever I'm on the move it's my AA1.

Ha ha ha. You really have to watch who you are talking to. First you've been dealing with Carla Schroder, a known troll who posts articles on a Pro-Linux/Anti-Microsoft website. Yeah, she isn't going to be biased at all! You can trust her!

Then we have comments from Robert Pogson, who on his own blog tried to argue that 60% of computer users in China are using Linux. When I pointed out to him that his own references were talking only about computer servers, he changed the topic. He then continued to lie, telling me that Linux was very popular in Internet bars. Another lie I witnessed first hand because I've been to China. He doesn't know the facts and he doesn't need to.

What's the lesson here? Can you trust Microsoft's figures? Maybe not. Can you trust what the Linux zealots are telling you? HELL NO!!!!!! I swear to God, these people will lie and tell you anything in order to 1) Get people to switch to Linux, 2) Defend all aspects of Linux/Unix design to show it superior to all other systems, or 3) Make you think Linux usage is larger than it is.

Today I am going to a hardware show for Longsoon company. They are going to be showing their hardware running on 11 Linux distro's. If Wintel doesn't want to play netbook ball there's allways MIPS and ARM.

I strongly recommend trying an Ubuntu-based desktop. My favorite is Linux Mint - http://www.linuxmint.com/

It is Ubuntu but with flash, DVD support, Java, and media codec support installed by default. I have had more luck converting people to Mint than any other distro - it is the best OS ever.