Is Linux losing popularity?!

[devius]

The "crap" stuff was typically cheap- something they shaved pennies to dimes off their BoM to get their margins up, only to cause other problems down the line.

No no no no no no. You misunderstood me. I was referring to the original post that based something as being popular just by the google trends rank. If you search "crap" on google trends you see it's becoming less popular as well. Probably means an increase in constipation. That's my professionally crafted analytical statistics report.

[devius]

The people here have a huge bias because everyone they know are people that know a Linux geek that can help them out. Without it, most people would be completely and utterly lost.

I know a lot of people who are lost in windows and need help from a geek (yes, me) to solve problems that come up. If someone doesn't know how to configure outlook express or the network settings on windows, they probably won't be able to do the same on linux. It's a misconception that in the windows side everything always works perfectly all the time. Anyone who can solve problems in windows can do the same in linux. It's all a matter of wanting to do so.

PS: I don't personally know anyone else who uses linux, but I know how to use google.

[sabriah]

Out of interest why should we even care about people switching to Linux? Market volume forHardware drivers, ok fair one, its important to be able to have. Other than that whats to gain?

Hmmm... There is a LOT to care about why people switching to Linux matters. Hardware support is definitely there.

Without the hardware support Linux is in trouble as a desktop platform. The last decade's enormous progress has been fantastic. Don't expect this kind of market share that we see now if hardware support would begin to fail. Even if it hurts to say, there needs to be some sort positive hype every now and then. Ubuntu was one.

I for one would be very, very sad to see Linux relegated to mobile phones, dish washers, and obsolete desktop hardware.

Market share as such is not interesting. It is the large number of positive spin offs it generates that is the important aspect. Therefore, one must care about the reasons for people leaving or switching to Linux.

[Dukenukemx]

It doesn't apply just to hardware drivers, if 99% of the market has no problem doing something then they don't care that it doesn't work for your obscure solution. You can look at browsers, when 95%+ was IE nobody cared if the site required IE6/ActiveX (and so Windows). If you used one of those "weird" browsers you were just being intentionally difficult like complaining that your fork isn't working to eat soup with.

When I struggle with one of those IM clones, my Windows buddy asks "Why can't you just be normal and use MSN as everyone else?" Same goes if OpenOffice has some problem, why not use MS Office like everyone else. If some web page plugin doesn't work, it's all "sorry we only support Windows and Mac". Everything is your problem, because you choose to be part of so small a minority it can be ignored.

If enough people use it, it becomes their problem and/or opportunity "10% of the market can't use our Windows solution, we're losing money on this as we lose sales and page hits." It's no longer all your problem having to reverse engineer everything and struggling just to keep the desktop usable. People start wanting to *support* using Linux. Poor compatibility with Linux solutions becomes a problem to producers. More people start making web services or cross-platform software.

Some people in the Linux community really do need some wakeup calls, they go around saying Linux is SO ready for the desktop and when newbies point out the ways it's not they get hounded. It's creepy how much it acts like a good cop/bad cop routine the way where some lure them in while others go like "whine whine whine, you contribute nothing and didn't pay for it so STFU" Well maybe the "recruiters" should mention that you'll get treated like dirt and get shit for help too? And not just spout a lot of dogma about the superior open source model...

I use Linux. I use it because I can hack around on it and make it work, it works as *MY* desktop as so many are happy to point out. But I would quite clearly say that many of the things I've had to do to make it work is not for anyone but hardcore geeks. The people here have a huge bias because everyone they know are people that know a Linux geek that can help them out. Without it, most people would be completely and utterly lost.

To all you hardcore linux guys, please pay attention to what Kjella wrote. He hit the issues right on.

[PsynoKhi0]

Using forums to gauge if a product works or not is a poor barometer. People that have issues go to forums, people that don't have little to no reason to visit such threads.

And for the same reason, seeing a direct correlation between search term frequency and popularity is misleading at best.

"Ubuntu" might be showing a declining trend in google stats because:
- Fewer people are having problems and thus don't need to search for a solution as often, which might also mean...
- More people are using Ubuntu and have learned how to properly manage it "on-site" or know their way around the interwebz (no need for a search), which leads to...
- More word-of-mouth advertising and more people willing to try it out because they know their cousin/pal/neighbour/whatever can chime in in case trouble strikes (again, no internet search)...

Statistics are a double-edged sword, really... The only show "what", hardly ever "why"...

Isn't that why their a fav of MS's PR department?
"W7 is the best selling OS ever"
Well duh?
1. Try to buy a PC w/o from any Joe Sixpack brick-and-mortar shop (that includes getting a refund for an unused license... If you have any trick please share, with the added threat of having to return the comp, I really wonder how their new terms ever got passed legislative bodies)
2. Vista was a dud, and with the explosion of home broadband/internet usage since XP, coupled with the above fact, of course the market's gonna be big
3. In case they've missed the headlines, we're recovering from a global economical crisis, Joe Sixpack's more willing to spend on a replacement to that cranky dekstop of his...
In that context, not ALL that impressive all things considered, now, is it?

@Kjella: that's called the eternal conundrum of alternative OSes... Helped along by less than ethical business methods of established players, mind you, but still

[PsynoKhi0]

Isn't that why their a fav of MS's PR department?

Thank you for the 1-minute edit window, I shall remember to double-check my text for spelling mistakes next time:
their = they're