Chile Forum

"It was not long ago when Microsoft Windows had a tight stranglehold on the operating system market. Walk into a Circuit City or Staples, it seemed, and virtually any computer you took home would be running the most current flavor of Windows. Ditto for computers ordered direct from a manufacturer. In the last decade, though, the operating system market has begun to change. Slightly more than 5% of all computers now run Mac, according to NetMarketShare.com. Linux is hovering just beneath 1% of the overall market share in operating systems. And although that might sound like a small number, Linux is far more than just a fringe OS. In fact, it's running in quite a few more places than you probably suspect. Below are fifty places Linux is running today in place of Windows or Mac. For easy reading, they are divided amongst government, home, business, and educational usage...."

http://www.focus.com/fyi/50-places-linux-running-you-might-not-expect/





I switched from Meecroshaft to Ubuntu in 2008 while I was living in Arica. Used Ubuntu until last summer when I went to Linux Mint. I'm using Mint 11 Katya and am quite satisfied with it. I know there may be some extenuating circumstances for people needing to use an MS OS, (like maybe the company they work at is so Cro-Mag as to use MS) but for personal at home use? I can't understand that type of masochism. If your employer still uses MS maybe you should show some decision-maker there this article? Corporate types usually respond pretty well to the "bottom line." Also, if you want a job/crusade/tilting at windmills type thing to do in Chile maybe you could make it your work to get the government to switch.

On the server side of the web technology, roughly 80% of all the pages you view on www are served up by a Linux box. This is primarily due to security, and the hackability of windows OS, not to mention the updates. However, for the client end of things, eg: for all the apps requiring dot net framework for example, we are pretty much stuck with MS. I'm really disgruntled over their purchase of skype...but that's another story.

Chuck J 3.0 wrote:I know there may be some extenuating circumstances for people needing to use an MS OS

Unfortunately many "service providers" only do so via Microsnot operating system, such as my FX/futures trading software platform and filing business activity reports with the Australian government. If it wasn't for that, I too would be Linux only.

Don't put up with it. If there's some silly broken browser detection going on, you could try this firefox plugin:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... -switcher/

Otherwise, nowadays there are free VMs like Virtual Box that will let you run Windows under Linux on a reasonably recent machine if you really have to.

jehturner wrote:Don't put up with it. If there's some silly broken browser detection going on, you could try this firefox plugin:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... -switcher/

Otherwise, nowadays there are free VMs like Virtual Box that will let you run Windows under Linux on a reasonably recent machine if you really have to.

Yep, Virtual Box works well. CJ3 I like Linux Mint too. I am still running v 10.

QIt is now easier for me to list what does not run linux. We have a couple of iphones and one laptop that duel boots to windows 7 and fedora linux. That is only because I have not got around to reclaiming the windows partion.

Everything else from my directtv box and home security systems to the servers we run this forum on are linux. Even the android phone I post this with is linux.

I really find it hard to believe that linux is only 1% of the total os market. The problem with linux is that when I install it, no one needs to ever know how many machines use it or what flavor. It never gets counted by anyone. Also, because it is linux, I can run the oldest piece of junk well past any point that windows will run on it. I have many computers over 10 years old still in daily use. What is that like three versions of windows?

admin wrote:QIt is now easier for me to list what does not run linux. We have a couple of iphones and one laptop that duel boots to windows 7 and fedora linux. That is only because I have not got around to reclaiming the windows partion.

Everything else from my directtv box and home security systems to the servers we run this forum on are linux. Even the android phone I post this with is linux.

I really find it hard to believe that linux is only 1% of the total os market. The problem with linux is that when I install it, no one needs to ever know how many machines use it or what flavor. It never gets counted by anyone. Also, because it is linux, I can run the oldest piece of junk well past any point that windows will run on it. I have many computers over 10 years old still in daily use. What is that like three versions of windows?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_shar ... ms#Servers

there you go, 63.9% Linux, 36.10% Windows....

Have to say, we have 21 windows based servers, but each of them is running on top of xenserver.... that is linux based so even our windows servers rely on linux!