For years Linux has been a Geek’s operating system. While the community has worked hard at developing and promoting this alternative, others sat on the side lines and insisted that this project would never amount to anything. People would point to what they felt was the superiority of Windows or Apple products and say that Linux wasn’t user friendly and so on. Many would fiercely debate the idea that Linux would ever in any shape or form become a mainstream operating system. I am sure that many would still debate that idea.
The truth is that Linux is well on it’s way to being a mainstream operating system. The bad news is that this will not happen the way many of us envisioned. We saw Ubuntu or Redhat or Mandriva or perhaps some other Linux distribution taking its rightful place and leaving Microsoft Window’s market share behind. We expected Windows to take a back seat to Linux. We also expected to see a company that was not already ginormous get to take the lead in the tech industry. Instead what appears to be the outcome is that Linux and Windows will co-exist with Windows continuing to dominate the desktop market for years to come. That will change someday, but just not as soon as we expected. Meanwhile Linux will become mainstream on the Mobile platform, becoming more and more popular on Phones, Netbooks and Tablet Computers. And the
As awesome as Linux is on the desktop many will use Linux first on their Phone. Most of them will not know that they are running Linux, which is also a bit of a let down. On the positive side the smart phone market is projected to have a market worth of 150.3 Billion dollars by 2014, that is a lot of revenue being generated by companies dealing in Linux based smart phones. So once Linux via Droid and or Chrome dominates the Mobile market and people including open source critics learn they are using Linux, what will happen next? Will Google take it to the next level and develop a Linux offering for the desktop that is compatible with much of the Linux software available? Will Ubuntu or one of the other distributions of Linux manage to gain the desktop market? We will just have to wait and see.
May 23rd, 2010 - 11:24 pm
Welcome to the party on realizing how linux will get there. But still the prediction is a little off the mark. Android is not useful for just phones and netbooks. Linux ala Android biggest is yet to come — embedded systems market. It will be in vending machines, control systems, NAS, routers, robotics, etc. That is even a larger market than merely cellphones.
May 24th, 2010 - 5:58 am
Linux rocks!!!
May 24th, 2010 - 8:56 am
While Android is dominating mindshare (and increasingly market share) in smartphones today, another more traditional Linux product with major corporate backing is preparing to storm the ramparts this year - Meego, a joint product of Intel, Nokia and the Linux Foundation, with cameo roles by Ubuntu’s Canonical and a cast of thousands (well, dozens) of corporate stars.
Meego is already quite mature, taking the best from Nokia’s Maemo 5 and Intel’s Moblin, with the solid and highly regarded QT4 as its development platform. It explicitly targets smartphones, mobile devices, netbooks, in-vehicle infotainment, and embedded devices, but will also be available for the desktop. Most Linux applications can be built for it with little porting effort (it also will support GTK+, of course) and will run mainstream languages with no problem (and the Pythonistas rejoice), so it’s more of a “normal” distro than Android or HP’s webOS.
Nokia dominates the world smartphone market with the aging Symbian platform; the new Symbian^3 and Symbian^4 versions are also QT4 based, which may encourage a busy common development community for both Symbian and Meego (and apps run on Windows and other desktop Linux products, too). While it’s always easier to fail than to succeed, one possible success scenario for desktop Linux enthusiasts is for Meego to establish a strong beachhead in mobile, and use that to build a solid desktop business capable of breaking Microsoft’s monopoly.
If so, it could be a Very Good Thing indeed.
May 24th, 2010 - 10:05 am
People will know that Linux is running Android, they just won’t care.
Mainstream users these days love the MacOS more than ever. Some know that it’s based on BSD while others don’t care. But it’s the functionality and utility that people are concerned with. Many will hear that Android is based on Linux, others will shrug that off. They just care about what the phone can do.
That’s the problem that Linux users face on the desktop. Linux can be great, sure, but most people can already do what they need to on a Windows PC. Add to that the ubiquity of Windows and there’s absolutely no reason to switch. I know that makes Linux fans bummed (and it drives the Linux fanboy/fanatic crowd insane), but mainstream users don’t care. They just care about opening files and downloading stuff that everyone else has.
May 24th, 2010 - 10:13 am
[...] Linux and Whatever » Blog Archive » Linux is going mainstream [...]
May 24th, 2010 - 1:05 pm
Tensigh:
Mac OS is based on more GNU software than BSD. Mac OS X has Darwin operating system’s hybrid BSD+proprietary Mach micro-kernel, the rest is GNU, third-party software, and proprietary Apple software.
And I agree that some just don’t care, GNU/Linux won’t go mainstream until either the system becomes insanely useful (more so than Windows), or can do one really cool thing that everybody will want to have/do.
Author:
Hopefully the Free Software Foundation will have GNU Hurd done by then, so the users of the mainstream will have a fully free system, one without Linus’ pragmatism. Also every device can benefit from a micro-kernel (the iPhone OS is based on the same Darwin operating system BSD+proprietary Mach micro-kernel).
“Linux” will likely never go mainstream, GNU is more likely.
May 24th, 2010 - 2:10 pm
my concern is that Google becomes the new Microsoft
May 24th, 2010 - 3:19 pm
I did a feature on how to promote Linux on my blog if anyone is interested. Http://linuxandall.wordpress.com
May 26th, 2010 - 1:42 am
Google releases thing super fast something for everything sketch up google map etc
June 4th, 2010 - 11:35 am
@InaTux:
If Apple was able to make something gorgeous out of a GNU/BSD foundation…. why it is not possible for Linux to do something not better, but at least comparable?
August 11th, 2010 - 9:24 pm
I found your entry interesting thus I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog :)…