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If we combine BSD and Linux, it's actually not so bad. * Globally, Android pretty much owns the mobile market. Android is a Linux. * Most servers run some fla

by pluma 12y ago

If we combine BSD and Linux, it's actually not so bad. * Globally, Android pretty much owns the mobile market. Android is a Linux. * Most servers run some flavour of Linux or BSD. * Although Windows still dominates the desktop market, a healthy share of the laptop market belongs to OS X, which is (partially) based on BSD. This isn't exactly how the Open Source crowd envisioned "Linux on the desktop", but if the goal was to marginalize Windows in flavour of open source based *nixen, much of that goal has been accomplished. Of course neither Android nor OS X are Free (as in freedom) and OS X is only partially a BSD, but you can't have everything.

ygra 12y ago
> Although Windows still dominates the desktop market, a huge share of the laptop market belongs to OS X, which is (partially) based on BSD. Shouldn't Apple be somewhere in this table, then? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_share_of_personal_computer_vendors#2006.E2.80.932013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_share_of_personal_comput... I think you're hugely overestimating Apple's market share in laptops.
- pluma 12y ago
  Let's say a huge share of a particular niche then. At least Apple is pretty good at making everybody feel as if they dominate their markets. Case in point: I don't even own any Apple products.
- edraferi 12y ago
  That table is global market share. The source article for the 2013 data[1] shows Apple in third place for 2013Q4 market share within the United States: Firm (4Q13 US Market Share) HP (26.5%) Dell (22.8%) Apple (13.7%) [1] http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2647517 http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2647517
yincrash 12y ago
Android's base source is released under Apache 2. Is that not free as in freedom? Cyanogen Mod (among many other distros of Android) would not exist if it wasn't.
piyush_soni 12y ago
So while Linux users can feel happy that Android is Linux under the covers, really, the real reason it is so popular is that it's so different from Linux. For an average user, thankfully it doesn't have any traits of Linux. Like, when I install Android on my machine, I don't have to go and manually edit the xorg.conf file so that the machine knows my monitor can take 1280 x 800 resolution and not just 640 by 480, after being clueless for a long time ... or that even in today's time I have to go and make an application 'executable' from the command prompt after downloading it from the internet. There are some solid reasons Linux "as is" is not successful even today.
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  To be fair, that's because you're buying a phone/tablet with limited, non-replaceable hardware and the software has been customized by the manufacturer to work with that hardware.
- krylon 12y ago
  I do get your point, generally, but your specific example is kind of dated - I have been using GNU/Linux on my desktops for about 14 years now, and I do remember how much editing xorg.conf / xfree86.conf sucked. But it has been years since I have had to do that. The last time I checked was in Ubuntu 10.04, where xorg.conf consists only of a comment that says that xorg can detect the hardware and configure itself, making manual configuration unnecessary nearly all of the time.
  - piyush_soni 12y ago
    Yeah. The xorg.conf file was a little old example. Though I keep coming back to Linux every few years to check, and the 'making executable an executable' problem is still there from my very recent experience (like 3 to 4 months back). Right at the time I was being impressed by how easy it was to isntall Ubuntu from my Windows partition, I couldn't believe when one of the professional products we use in our office had these official installation instructions for Linux: "1) Download the file, 2) go to the command prompt and make it executable by typing <whatever>" ... Now I understand it might be that the product makers haven't updated themselves, but it's definitely a turn of for a lot of people.

by pluma 12y ago

ygra 12y ago

> Although Windows still dominates the desktop market, a huge share of the laptop market belongs to OS X, which is (partially) based on BSD. Shouldn't Apple be somewhere in this table, then? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_share_of_personal_computer_vendors#2006.E2.80.932013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_share_of_personal_comput... I think you're hugely overestimating Apple's market share in laptops.

pluma 12y ago
Let's say a huge share of a particular niche then. At least Apple is pretty good at making everybody feel as if they dominate their markets. Case in point: I don't even own any Apple products.
edraferi 12y ago
That table is global market share. The source article for the 2013 data[1] shows Apple in third place for 2013Q4 market share within the United States: Firm (4Q13 US Market Share) HP (26.5%) Dell (22.8%) Apple (13.7%) [1] http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2647517 http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2647517

yincrash 12y ago

Android's base source is released under Apache 2. Is that not free as in freedom? Cyanogen Mod (among many other distros of Android) would not exist if it wasn't.

piyush_soni 12y ago

So while Linux users can feel happy that Android is Linux under the covers, really, the real reason it is so popular is that it's so different from Linux. For an average user, thankfully it doesn't have any traits of Linux. Like, when I install Android on my machine, I don't have to go and manually edit the xorg.conf file so that the machine knows my monitor can take 1280 x 800 resolution and not just 640 by 480, after being clueless for a long time ... or that even in today's time I have to go and make an application 'executable' from the command prompt after downloading it from the internet. There are some solid reasons Linux "as is" is not successful even today.

ForHackernews 12y ago
To be fair, that's because you're buying a phone/tablet with limited, non-replaceable hardware and the software has been customized by the manufacturer to work with that hardware.
krylon 12y ago
I do get your point, generally, but your specific example is kind of dated - I have been using GNU/Linux on my desktops for about 14 years now, and I do remember how much editing xorg.conf / xfree86.conf sucked. But it has been years since I have had to do that. The last time I checked was in Ubuntu 10.04, where xorg.conf consists only of a comment that says that xorg can detect the hardware and configure itself, making manual configuration unnecessary nearly all of the time.
- piyush_soni 12y ago
  Yeah. The xorg.conf file was a little old example. Though I keep coming back to Linux every few years to check, and the 'making executable an executable' problem is still there from my very recent experience (like 3 to 4 months back). Right at the time I was being impressed by how easy it was to isntall Ubuntu from my Windows partition, I couldn't believe when one of the professional products we use in our office had these official installation instructions for Linux: "1) Download the file, 2) go to the command prompt and make it executable by typing <whatever>" ... Now I understand it might be that the product makers haven't updated themselves, but it's definitely a turn of for a lot of people.