What's more widely used on the desktop: OS X, or Linux?

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 12:33 am

I heard somewhere that Linux has surpassed Mac OS X on the desktop, but there are alot of conflicting reports, and it's hard to get the facts strait. Anyone know the exact percentage? OS X recently topped 4%, but I heard Linux was around 5 or 6% on the desktop, and around 30% on servers.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 7:09 am

Dude, Linux completely 0wnz the server market, it's something 65%, Microsoft only has 30% of the server market.

It's actually REALLY hard to track the desktop usage of Linux, because it's freely available, even thought Microsoft sells an XP license to someone, he could just be dual booting to play games. Personally I believe there are a handful more Linux users than Mac users, because it can run on so many different architectures and is fre of charge.

CptnObvious999 · Post by **CptnObvious999** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 12:12 pm

Well with the amount of embeded devices running Linux i'd say 99%

Its hard to say for the amount of desktops I think there are slightly more people running linux than Mac and Linux Im almost sure has over 50% of the server (because the CLI is the best for system administration, and Linux's is so powerful)

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 1:03 pm

Tsuroerusu wrote:Dude, Linux completely 0wnz the server market, it's something 65%, Microsoft only has 30% of the server market.

I'd be interested to see where you got these statistics from. I know that better than 60% of web servers run apache, but apache runs on Unix and Windows NT as well as Linux. Also, there are plenty of servers in the world that aren't web servers.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 1:11 pm

Gomer_X wrote:
Tsuroerusu wrote:Dude, Linux completely 0wnz the server market, it's something 65%, Microsoft only has 30% of the server market.
I'd be interested to see where you got these statistics from. I know that better than 60% of web servers run apache, but apache runs on Unix and Windows NT as well as Linux. Also, there are plenty of servers in the world that aren't web servers.

Fair enough then, what do you think then?

Oh man, why don't we just let Microsoft take over the world and form our own small clubs where we just use Linux and just have fun instead of all this commercial boring stuff?

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 1:20 pm

Here is an article with some statistics. It has numbers and predictions on servers as well as desktops. There are plenty of numbers on sales figures, but it's hard to get any good numbers on how many machines are out there.

I saw an article where Linux server sales had surpassed Microsoft server sales (that's dollars sold, not machines sold), but I can't find it now. Linux certainly "owns" the server market because Linux servers are growing every day, and Windows is shrinking. I can't find numbers to prove we've won, though.

I also saw a Microsoft article that said Windows server sales had passed Linux, but it's hard to believe research that Microsoft pays for. Even if it were true, Windows servers are more expensive than Linux servers.

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 2:08 pm

According to this article from 2003, Linux has 2.8% of the desktop market. I'd like to find something more current, but atleast it's something. It's got to be atteast 4% by now.

This article from 2004 says Linux has 28.3% server market share, and they expect 37.6% by 2008. The problem is they say "Unix and Linux" servers, so that 's probably including all the BSDs, Solaris, and everything else Unix-like. Again, it's based on sales, so it's not that accurate.

CptnObvious999 · Post by **CptnObvious999** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 3:08 pm

Tsuroerusu wrote:Oh man, why don't we just let Microsoft take over the world and form our own small clubs where we just use Linux and just have fun instead of all this commercial boring stuff?

Isn't that what LUG's are for

As far as server percentage goes it incredibly hard to tell because when you run Linux is works as a Server and a Desktop while Windows has a version for the Server and a version for the Desktop. I may use my computer as my main desktop but it also could be a FTP server or Web server.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 3:22 pm

CptnObvious999 wrote:Isn't that what LUG's are for

It is, so screw Red Hat and commercial shit, let's go LUGin'!