Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Linux now on 42% of consumer computing devices

royal.pingdom.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 90 posts

Re: Linux now on 42% of consumer computing devices

#71

Post by brudgers »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #66
brudgers wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the average computer user cannot, painlessly. Though Linux has gotten easier to install, the average computer user is relatively less proficient than they were a dozen years ago. Linux is not tailored for most people because of its fragmentation and the depth to which FOSS ideology drives its development. Supporting Linux is bothersome to the point that Red Hat run a lucrative business doing so.

>But the average computer user cannot, painlessly. Have you tried installing Linux lately? The Ubuntu installation is simpler and faster than a Windows install and on par with OS X. At best, it's hard to get users to download an ISO and know how to burn it (even though that functionality is built into Windows/OSX/Linux), but even then Wubi is dead-simple to use.

I've recently installed Ubuntu, Kbuntu, and Windows 8. Windows 8 as a clean install was the most seamless in terms of hardware compatibility. Installing additional software on Windows 8 is vastly easier.

Re: Linux now on 42% of consumer computing devices

#72

Post by drivebyacct2 »

brudgers wrote: post #71
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But the average computer user cannot, painlessly. Have you tried installing Linux lately? The Ubuntu installation is simpler and faster than a Windows install and on par with OS X. At best, it's hard to get users to download an ISO and know how to burn it (even though that functionality is built into Windows/OSX/Linux), but even then Wubi is dead-simple to use.

I've recently installed Ubuntu, Kbuntu, and Windows 8. Windows 8 as a clean install was the most seamless in terms of hardware compatibility. Installing additional software on Windows 8 is vastly easier.

What hardware did you have issue with?

>Installing additional software on Windows 8 is vastly easier.

huh? Besides the fact that I can install every application I need in a single command in a few minutes, or despite USC's one-click install of all software... Windows requires either independent one-off nuanced installers or require using the Store that has hardly any apps and requires you have and link a Microsoft Account.

Re: Linux now on 42% of consumer computing devices

#73

Post by jeltz »

brudgers wrote: post #71
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But the average computer user cannot, painlessly. Have you tried installing Linux lately? The Ubuntu installation is simpler and faster than a Windows install and on par with OS X. At best, it's hard to get users to download an ISO and know how to burn it (even though that functionality is built into Windows/OSX/Linux), but even then Wubi is dead-simple to use.

I've recently installed Ubuntu, Kbuntu, and Windows 8. Windows 8 as a clean install was the most seamless in terms of hardware compatibility. Installing additional software on Windows 8 is vastly easier.

I can believe the first part. When I last installed Ubuntu some years ago it was indeed clunkier than a Windows installation.

But installing software being easy at Windows? The main reason I switched to using Linux as my main system is due to the vastly improved process of installing software. Windows has not improved in this area much in recent years (though many other aspects of it has).

Re: Linux now on 42% of consumer computing devices

#74

Post by jeltz »

vidarh wrote: post #54
jeltz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OS X is based on NeXTSTEP which is in turn based on Mach. Mach is a micro kernel based on BSD.

The version of Mach in OS X is not a microkernel. Only the last version of Mach was a microkernel, and OS X's kernel is based on an earlier version. And while the Mach project used a BSD userland, Mach is not really "BSD-based" other than in terms of interfaces to userland - it is based on Carnegie-Mellon's earlier "Accent" project.

Thanks, should have written that in my comment. I did not intend to fool anyone into believing NeXTSTEP or OS X are micro kernels.

And Wikipedia disagrees with you about Mach. It says Mach was the "logical successor to Carnegie Mellon's Accent kernel" and that Mach was based on BSD4.2. Though Wikipedia could obviously be wrong.

Re: Linux now on 42% of consumer computing devices

#75

Post by temac »

ivix wrote: post #9
TallGuyShort wrote: post #5

Although it's technically running the Linux kernel, I personally would not consider it a free (libre) operating system as sold on most of those devices. I'm sure Linus is proud, but this seems like more of a win for Google than for the Linux community or free software in general.

It's not "technically" running the Linux kernel, it IS running the linux kernel. It's also using most of the standard GNU tools - bash, etc. You can open a shell on a rooted android device and use it much like any other distribution. This is a huge win for Linux.

> It's also using most of the standard GNU tools - bash, etc. You can open a shell on a rooted android device and use it much like any other distribution.

Nope. Android does not use GNU. It is not just a GNU/Linux distribution, it is a completely different operating system, even more different than other alternates to GNU such as Busybox if you consider the philosophy of the whole thing. GNU's Not Unix, but a little bit anyway. Android is not Unix, no matter from which angle you view it.

Re: Linux now on 42% of consumer computing devices

#76

Post by jstanley »

ivix wrote: post #9
TallGuyShort wrote: post #5

Although it's technically running the Linux kernel, I personally would not consider it a free (libre) operating system as sold on most of those devices. I'm sure Linus is proud, but this seems like more of a win for Google than for the Linux community or free software in general.

It's not "technically" running the Linux kernel, it IS running the linux kernel. It's also using most of the standard GNU tools - bash, etc. You can open a shell on a rooted android device and use it much like any other distribution. This is a huge win for Linux.

"You can open a shell on a rooted android device and use it much like any other distribution."

This is the nub of the matter. It's not a free system because of the ludicrous hoops you have to jump through in order to actually get to the Unix underneath.

Re: Linux now on 42% of consumer computing devices

#77

Post by mmastrac »

ivix wrote: post #9
TallGuyShort wrote: post #5

Although it's technically running the Linux kernel, I personally would not consider it a free (libre) operating system as sold on most of those devices. I'm sure Linus is proud, but this seems like more of a win for Google than for the Linux community or free software in general.

It's not "technically" running the Linux kernel, it IS running the linux kernel. It's also using most of the standard GNU tools - bash, etc. You can open a shell on a rooted android device and use it much like any other distribution. This is a huge win for Linux.

Android doesn't run the GNU tools - it uses a pared-down set of "POSIX-like" tools that aren't GPL.

Re: Linux now on 42% of consumer computing devices

#78

Post by josteink »

jstanley wrote: post #76
ivix wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "technically" running the Linux kernel, it IS running the linux kernel. It's also using most of the standard GNU tools - bash, etc. You can open a shell on a rooted android device and use it much like any other distribution. This is a huge win for Linux.

"You can open a shell on a rooted android device and use it much like any other distribution." This is the nub of the matter. It's not a free system because of the ludicrous hoops you have to jump through in order to actually get to the Unix underneath.

There's no need to be rooted at all. There's actually no hoops.

Just download Terminal Emulator from Google Play and you are good to go. If you have a fancy phone and a USB OTG-adapter, you can actually hook up a keyboard as well, and you now have a text-mode Linux computer with a tiny, tiny screen.

Re: Linux now on 42% of consumer computing devices

#79

Post by josteink »

betterunix wrote: post #11
ivix wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "technically" running the Linux kernel, it IS running the linux kernel. It's also using most of the standard GNU tools - bash, etc. You can open a shell on a rooted android device and use it much like any other distribution. This is a huge win for Linux.

"You can open a shell on a rooted android device and use it much like any other distribution" Assuming, of course, that you can actually root it. "This is a huge win for Linux." Is it? What was won, exactly? If we are not seeing a more vibrant free software ecosystem as a result, then we did not really win anything. The prevalence of app stores, the number of Android devices that are difficult to jailbreak or for whi…

You actually dont have to root it at all. Just download terminal emulator from market and you are good to go.

Re: Linux now on 42% of consumer computing devices

#80

Post by jeltz »

lucian303 wrote: post #22
aleprok wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GNU is not either the operation system as without Hurd, Linux or some other kernel you can not use the GNU tools. GNU/Linux is a collection of software which forms the operation system though this collection can contain even more software and with different collection it becomes different operation system which is why Android is Android and Ubuntu is Ubuntu, etc. But Linux will always be the key component of operatio…

And without GNU tools, Linux by itself is also useless without GNU tools (unless you can compile C by hand). GNU/Linux is the OS. Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. are distributions of this OS.

Android, which this very article is about, is Linux without GNU tools. The Linux Kernel can also be compiled with at least ICC and Clang.
Post reply on HN