New hardware needed

[code_glitch]

Ah, but WILL... WINE. For isntance, I buy AAA titles, but I dont have a copy of windows to my name anymore - I'm a linux user buying retail games (okay, from the local trade in store ). Though this is also true for Mac I believe that WINE is currently more popular on Linux than Mac. And heres the interesting thing: after a little WINE tweaking I get higher frame rates on Linux with WINE in most of my games than I do on windows... Interesting

Linux is great for network gurus, uber geeks and your "free" thinkers, but it's useless for commercial gain. Unless you are are using it for IT purposes.

This I believe to be debatable though. Yes, the market share of AAA titles sold to linux users and other mianstream software is teeny tiny. In that sense of commercial gain Linux has lost and as much as I hate to admit it, I dont see it catching up with Windows. However look at the kernel - theres IBM, Intel, Sun and every other big comapnys' code in there. Simply because its a more flexible platform - thus it was easier to pay people to contribute to the linux kernel than go out and make an in house product or modify existing alternatives. In this sense, Linux was of massive commercial gain to the R&D teams working all the 'new stuff' coming out today.

Then theres the fact that distros now seem to get sponsorhip from search engines based on how much search traffic they get from that OS. eg. Mint & duckduck go. Same story here as what is happening with firefox versus chrome: it is, at the moment, in googles' interest to not mess up relations with mozilla - since if mozilla sets their default search engine they get more queries on which they can display ads. (this one isn't my point, I read it in a ff vs chrome debate type article ). Or you could look at the VPS route everyone on the internet is now rolling out - especcially those on large infrastuctures (eg Amazon eucalyptus bucket E2/3 thing) and those on very limited plans (linode type services for hackers, small companies and so on). These people rely on the fact linux is as versatile as it is to make their products viable and sell in those rather niche/extreme markets.

So when it comes down to it - yes, Linux people dont directly buy products from companies and thus its not of massive commercial gain to the sales people. But when you look at the fact that Linux is responsible for entire markets on which a large portion of the world wide webs and infrastructure we now take for granted - as well as all the trade that generates - supporting the Linux folk becomes far more attractive.

[LP]

However look at the kernel - theres IBM, Intel, Sun and every other big comapnys' code in there. Simply because its a more flexible platform - thus it was easier to pay people to contribute to the linux kernel than go out and make an in house product or modify existing alternatives. In this sense, Linux was of massive commercial gain to the R&D teams working all the 'new stuff' coming out today.

This is a speculation. The reason why companies modified Linux kernel was simply because some of its versions are open-sourced, while Windows is closed source and proprietary. I would speculate even further saying that being open source is what made Linux survive against insanely huge market share conquered by Windows.

Although I keep Jason's point of view that Linux is not a commercially viable platform per se, I think being a niche market it does have a sort of market opportunity exactly as shown in the graphs above, by getting support from people be it in terms of donations or contributions.

A little back on topic though, I do consider that Apple makes some rather good hardware; for instance, even though I had doubts before purchase, I find my Mac Mini 11'' particularly comfy and that tiny little thing powered by Core i5 is quite powerful! It is also *very* thin, while still being quite solid. Mind you, retaking our previous SSD vs non-SSD discussion, that Mac Mini has SSD, which hasn't failed yet. The only thing I hate in this thing is Spanish keyboard, which introduced new buttons and triple combinations, and after few months I'm still not used to it. (I'm used to US-based keyboards and many years ago there was no such thing as international keyboard).

[Cybermonkey]

The kernel of MacOS on the other hand is based on (Free)BSD, another open source operating system ...
But why has Windows this huge market share? Because if one buys a computer Windows is pre-installed. So if Dell, HP and all others would install Linux, I think the market share of Windows would decrease rapidly.
Now, back to my first sentence. If Linux would ever gain a market share above 50%, I'll use FreeBSD.

[LP]

The kernel of MacOS on the other hand is based on (Free)BSD, another open source operating system ...

As far as I recall, Mac OS was initially proprietary project where Steve Jobs along with some other guys participated. Later, they've based Mac OS X on some portions of BSD in their NeXTSTEP, but correct me if I'm wrong, it still remains proprietary, isn't it?

But why has Windows this huge market share? Because if one buys a computer Windows is pre-installed. So if Dell, HP and all others would install Linux, I think the market share of Windows would decrease rapidly.

"Why" is a much more complex issue. OEM distribution sure helps, but I bet there are historical reasons also. As a counter example, Asus tried to push Linux-based OS on their budget Eee PC line of netbooks, but many people formatted and reinstalled Windows there; now the entire Eee PC line uses mostly either Windows on Intel's platform and Android on ultra-portable line.

[pitfiend]

As far as I recall, Mac OS was initially proprietary project where Steve Jobs along with some other guys participated. Later, they've based Mac OS X on some portions of BSD in their NeXTSTEP, but correct me if I'm wrong, it still remains proprietary, isn't it?

you are right, mac os x is a closed system. but many hackers use freebsd/linux drivers to allow hackintosh to run on any non-apple computer, mainly if one has amd processors.

"Why" is a much more complex issue. OEM distribution sure helps, but I bet there are historical reasons also. As a counter example, Asus tried to push Linux-based OS on their budget Eee PC line of netbooks, but many people formatted and reinstalled Windows there; now the entire Eee PC line uses mostly either Windows on Intel's platform and Android on ultra-portable line.

"why" windows still is the king of the hill? 'cause the inmense software base, think about, if a designer can run photoshop on linux natively, he will switch out of doubts, same happens for any other kind of software, another reason many people didn't switch is because nothing can compete with microsoft office, even if you can use wine. linux, unfortunately has been related to geeks or rocket scientists and it is not windows. the ubuntu distro has made a good job on making linux easier for humans, but still not enough.

[Cybermonkey]

From Wikipedia:

Thanks to its permissive licensing terms, much of FreeBSD’s code base has become an integral part of other operating systems such as Apple's OS X that have subsequently been certified as UNIX-compliant and have formally received UNIX branding.

and

Other operating systems such as Linux and the RTOS VxWorks contain code that originated in FreeBSD. Debian, known primarily for using the Linux kernel, also maintains GNU/kFreeBSD, combining the GNU userspace and C library with the FreeBSD kernel.^[37] Darwin, the core of Apple OS X, borrows FreeBSD’s virtual file system, network stack, and components of its userspace. The OpenDarwin project (now defunct), a spin-off of Apple’s Darwin operating system, also included substantial FreeBSD code. Thanks to the permissive FreeBSD License, much of FreeBSD now also forms the basis of Apple OS X and OS X Server.

It's not the GUI part that's from BSD of course ...

[LP]

"why" windows still is the king of the hill? 'cause the inmense software base, think about, if a designer can run photoshop on linux natively, he will switch out of doubts, same happens for any other kind of software, another reason many people didn't switch is because nothing can compete with microsoft office, even if you can use wine. linux, unfortunately has been related to geeks or rocket scientists and it is not windows. the ubuntu distro has made a good job on making linux easier for humans, but still not enough.

Exactly, I wanted to mention this in the end that the software base creates a vicious circle. Granted, there is Microsoft Office for Mac among other alternatives that work on Linux too (e.g. OpenOffice, LibreOffice, GIMP, Autodesk Maya). I myself have spent some time working in LibreOffice on Mac, but unfortunately, it doesn't handle well Word 2007/2010 documents that have shapes, equations, custom formatting and other visual customizations.

This is unfortunate, as I personally think that Windows 8 Metro style similarly to its mobile variant are regressions in terms of visual interfaces, yet Windows users including partly myself will have to cope with this silliness.

[Cybermonkey]

Just to keep you updated, my new hardware works, Windows 7 is up and running, too. The specs changed a bit, it's now an AMD FX-6100 (6x3.3 GHz) and a Radeon HD 7770. Man it's fast! And silent. But no more time now, I've got the Orange Box and have to play Half-Life 2 (waiting for this since years ...)
Of course it was a bit more expensive ... but less than 500 €.