Future of my support for ATI

[rbmorse]

Furthermore do you count in the millions of servers running Un*x? They do not produce "Browser Hits"... they get 'em

They don't buy video cards, either.

[rbmorse]

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=8

[Redeeman]

Wishful thinking, I'm afraid.

i dont know how it is in your country, but here in denmark, i can tell you, that everywhere i've been, theres a higher concentration of linux boxes than osx boxes.. discounting when i pass by a crappleshop..

and when the very few occasions come where one sees a crapbook, its mostly running winblows, hell, i have actually seen more crapbooks running linux than osx, allthough im SURE that they count as a dozen osx's in various statistics..

[bridgman]

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=8

Yep, those numbers seem pretty typical :

90.89% Windows
7.94% Mac
0.80% Linux

and when the very few occasions come where one sees a crapbook, its mostly running winblows, hell, i have actually seen more crapbooks running linux than osx, allthough im SURE that they count as a dozen osx's in various statistics..

That makes sense... I think the Mac sales figures are actually higher than the browser hit figures, so that supports your statement that a lot of Mac's are either running Linux or Windows. The browser hits are based on OS not HW brand though, so Mac should really be read as OS/X.

Running multiple OSes on a machine seems to bias the reported results in favour of the least-popular OSes, ie it probably boosts the reported share of Linux and the Mac OS.

[Redeeman]

Yep, those numbers seem pretty typical :

90.89% Windows
7.94% Mac
0.80% Linux



That makes sense... I think the Mac sales figures are actually higher than the browser hit figures, so that supports your statement that a lot of Mac's are either running Linux or Windows. The browser hits are based on OS not HW brand though, so Mac should really be read as OS/X

basing on browser hits, especially on some specific sites, are just extremely stupid.

for instance, i have seen people in charge of websites say: "because we dont see many firefox users on our site, we wont make the site work in firefox"... Coming from a person which seemingly want people to think he is just the least bit intelligent, but in reality, how the hell does he expect linux or firefox users to actually bother go to the site if it cannot be used with it?!

[bridgman]

Yep, that's a fair point. That said, I think the report tended to focus on large sites which do support most of the common browsers.

[d2kx]

But still, it is quite interesting. I do not know a single person owning a Mac, while a can name quite a few Linux users.

[bridgman]

Yeah, it depends a lot on where you live. There probably isn't a single Mac within a 20 mile radius of my house (vs lots of Windows PCs and maybe one Linux user) but in downtown Toronto everyone and their dog seems to have a Mac. I think the location of Apple stores is probably a good indicator of where sales were high -- mostly downtown core of bigger cities.

[Extreme Coder]

Hmmm.. .8%
I hope I live to see the day where Linux gets above 3$ market share, and I'm only 15 :P

[grantek]

One thing that gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling is that while the percentage market share of any non-Windows OS is quite low, the desktop market is at least ten times what it was ten years ago when Linux first really started maturing and taking off on the desktop. So a fraction of a percentage is still large enough to give you a self-supporting community with ample developer power to keep going in spite of anything else. If you take a look at the Ubuntu forums now, it's probably got as much activity as any Windows-based community had in 1998.

So even though companies the size of AMD/nVidia barely notice whether they're supporting these OSes or not, I think it's strategically ludicrous to be hostile or stubborn against it the way some companies are - there's enough support and money in .8% of the market to fund any Joe Nobody with a good idea to grow into something capable of challenging the behemoths. Imagine if it was a small start-up that came up with the EEE PC, they'd be huge now compared to when they started.