Intel: The year of the Linux desktop is here

http://www.zdnet.com/intel-the-year-of-the-linux-desktop-is-here-7000020849/

by tanglesome • 13 years ago

67 75 13 years ago

Wow, how far has Microsoft screwed up their decades long partnership with Intel that Intel would throw public support behind the Linux desktop is pretty stunning. It doesn't matter because Windows will obviously outsell on desktop/laptop PC's from major vendors like HP and Dell, but still. Microsoft has really fallen these last few years.

wmf• 13 years ago

Intel has been paying lip service to Linux for years but most of their desktop/mobile Linux initiatives have failed. If nothing else, it's a great bargaining tactic to keep Microsoft in check.

ternaryoperator2• 13 years ago

Intel has been vocally supporting Linux for years, including contributing OS code, drivers, software dev tools, and even rewrites of the OS for platforms (see Tizen). They were doing this long before MS's decline.

bluecalm• 13 years ago

Also free C compiler for Linux which costs 400$ (or w/e it is now) on Windows :( It was major pain untile recently when gcc port caught up with visual studio compiler as there was nothing else with decent performance and C99+ support.

ansible• 13 years ago

Whatever else, I do appreciate Intel's efforts in this area. My home desktop/Mythbox/media server/game machine is running all open source code (there might be a few binary blobs for device firmware though).

Of course, all that available source code hasn't helped me debug a video de-interlacing issue with Intel's hardware accelerated video decoding... the next ingredients I need are time and motivation. :-)

pavlov• 13 years ago

Intel has been supporting Linux for a long time. They've even had their own Linux distributions and UI framework development since at least Moblin, which came out back when netbooks were all the rage - around 2008?

If anything, Intel seems to have had remarkably little success considering the amount of effort they've put into Linux. Moblin was merged with Nokia's mobile Linux Maemo to create Meego, and that floated in the market like a rock tied to a solid block of concrete.

Since then, Intel has been doing Tizen with Samsung. It's a closed-development mystery OS that seems to be meant for everything, with every kind of UI, but still isn't shipping anywhere with any kind of UI anytime soon.

kyrra• 13 years ago

Even beyond using linux as a desktop OS, Intel has had an internal Linux distro for a much longer time (if I remember right, they were still stuck on Linux 2.4.x back in 2007, as re-writing a lot of their custom drivers and kernel changes would was taking them a long time to move up to 2.6.x). A lot of their new CPU testing (for development and QA) is done with Linux. It just gave them the control they needed to test new CPUs, chipsets, and other components.

outside1234• 13 years ago

I worked at Intel for a brief bit in their software group - it is literally a comical place. There is no chance anything interesting is making it out of there.

georgemcbay• 13 years ago

Seems like a pretty good hedge on Intel's part considering how Microsoft has been pursuing a device-centric future for Windows where x86 is supported but so is ARM.

straight_talk_2• 13 years ago

MS and Intel have the same partnership as airlines and hotels. Each wants their partner to make as little profit as possible, as that leaves more client money for grabbing.

Intel has been among the top 5 Linux kernel contributors for many years.

api• 13 years ago

This wolf's been cried about many times, but I do think there is a hole in the market right now: Right now Microsoft is the only option for affordable really high-end desktop/laptop computers.

Contrary to the current hype, mobile is not going to replace the desktop/laptop except at the low end. If you want to do anything compute-intensive you need a "real computer."

You have Apple of course, but Apple gets unreasonably expensive for many applications. The Mac Pro is not cost-effective for power users. Their laptops are a tad better but not great.

melling• 13 years ago

You're absolutely right. For the 10% of the population that runs compute-intensive apps, they're going to need a good desktop every few years. The other 90% will probably just keep their old desktop for a decade and keep upgrading their mobile devices.

xradionut• 13 years ago

"Right now Microsoft is the only option for affordable really high-end desktop/laptop computers."

I have a high end laptop that doesn't run Windows as the primary OS. (I occasionally run Windows in VMs to verify that cross platform OSS software runs on it and on Patch Tuesday to fix the latest exploits...) Other than that, Linux is my primary personal machine at home for development, research, office work, music and movies, etc... I'm also shopping for a new desktop and home media server that will probably not be Windows.

Windows currently has a chokehold on the desktop market with it's huge ecosystem of applications and entertainment, that's what's preventing many folks from moving. Games and accounting applications are the only reasons that my spouse still runs Windows at home.

vidarh• 13 years ago

This wolf's been cried about many times, but I do think there is a hole in the market right now: Right now Microsoft is the only option for affordable really high-end desktop/laptop computers.

Regardless what I think about that claim: That market segment is miniscule. One of the reasons Apple has done so well is that Apple has managed to capture the relatively price-insensitive part of that market segment, and as a result their average revenue per unit is north of $1000.

The average price per unit for PC's on the other hand has been steadily declining to the ~$500 level.

Contrary to the current hype, mobile is not going to replace the desktop/laptop except at the low end.

So 95%+ of the market, in other words. The PC vendors have been in crisis for years as PC's got "fast enough" that consumers started prioritising low price rather than maximizing performance within their budget.

If you want to do anything compute-intensive you need a "real computer."

Most users don't do anything more compute-intensive than Facebook and Youtube on their PCs.

jmcintyre4• 13 years ago

"has seen Chromebooks race to a quarter of all computer sales and one fifth of all new PC school deployments."

Are there any hard numbers on Chromebook sales apart from nebuluous things like "being on top of Amazon" etc.?

I find it really hard to believe that quarter of all computer sales are Chromebooks. Does anyone have a source? One would expect Google to announce real shipments if they were that good.

Web usage metrics from a few months ago showed that Chromebooks are used even less than Windows RT.

http://www.zdnet.com/first-real-world-usage-figures-suggest-...

Also, I find it strange that SJVN likes to promote Chromebooks, which are even less "Free" and open compared to Windows machines and force the user to upload everything to Google's cloud.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/why-th...

One of the SJVN's articles reads like PR straight from CDW and Google.

http://www.zdnet.com/cdw-to-offer-enterprise-chromebook-supp...

Not sure why that is posted in the "Linux and Open Source" ZDNet blog when it is all about taking even more control away from the user.

Outside of the community, most people don't see Linux's impact. Linux is usually invisible. When you go to any large Web site--Google, Facebook, Twitter--you're using Linux."
It's not just that even the most die-hard Windows users are invisibly using Linux every day

Does that mean that programmers who claim to have gotten rid of Microsoft/Windows products are really using Windows without knowing it whenever they click on a Stack Overflow link? :)

jmcintyre4• 13 years ago

Sorry to reply to myself but I seem to have found a source for the below.

I find it really hard to believe that quarter of all computer sales are Chromebooks. Does anyone have a source? One would expect Google to announce real shipments if they were that good.
Web usage metrics from a few months ago showed that Chromebooks are used even less than Windows RT.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-10/google-chromebook-u...

The relevant statement:

Chromebooks have in just the past eight months snagged 20 percent to 25 percent of the U.S. market for laptops that cost less than $300, according to NPD Group Inc

So, 20% to 25% of laptop sales costing below $300 became "25% of all computers" ? I don't know if the Intel guy said that in this keynote, or it's SJVN's mistake, but it's just terrible reporting.

ternaryoperator2• 13 years ago

Does that mean that programmers who claim to have gotten rid of Microsoft/Windows products are really using Windows without knowing it whenever they click on a Stack Overflow link? :)

This! The whole article reads ass-backwards by suggesting that if you're accessing a Linux-hosted site you're somehow using Linux on your desktop. I have strong aversions to this kind of sophistry, b/c readers who don't know that that makes no sense innocently repeat it, thereby confusing others or being publicly smashed down by folks who do know better.

phaemon4• 13 years ago

That's an interesting reply, with links to several different articles to back your point. Also, an interesting comment history.

Do you, or a company you're employed with, have a financial relationship with Microsoft? A simple "Yes" or "No" will do, thanks. I'm very trusting and will believe you.

jmcintyre4• 13 years ago

No, and never did. I am actually working on NetBeans/PHP/Drupal(gah!) on the other monitor, though I am primarily a C# guy.

And even I did work for MS, how does that invalidate any of my points? If I worked for Microsoft, does that suddenly mean it's okay for ZDNet to claim 25% of all computers being sold are Chromebooks? Interesting that no one is questioning SJVN's ulterior motives, if any! I do believe it's just to garner clicks though, Ed Bott will probably reply with an article debunking this one and ZDNet and its "journalists" will laugh all the way to the bank.

bmm6o• 13 years ago

Does anyone not have a "financial relationship with Microsoft"?

edtechdev• 13 years ago

Chromebooks have a 5% share

Who cares - people like them, they have a nice sized niche. Just like macs, just like other distros.

They're great for schools - esp. high schools. iPads are probably the more suitable option for elementary age kids.

And luckily prices are staying down. Chromebooks are <$300. iPad minis are $329.

Windows 8 tablets are good for math/science/engineering majors who have to run windows software and might need to use the stylus for notes/drawings.

Even though I've used middle of the road laptops running Ubuntu the past 6 years, I ended up getting a higher end Windows 8 touchscreen laptop to use for video editing, games, graphics, etc. I'll dual boot to Ubuntu or else run it in a vm.

sliverstorm• 13 years ago

The increasing market share of Linux in the tablet, smartphone, and cloud (server) business signals the year of Linux on the desktop? Well, I've had my laugh for the day.

gngeal• 13 years ago

You never laid your Android tablet on your desk? :)

mwcampbell• 13 years ago

What alternate reality are these guys living in? When my mom, an accountant, buys her next computer, it will almost certainly run Windows, because the accounting software she uses targets that OS. The same will be true for many other categories of software for a long time.

Touche2• 13 years ago

What alternate reality are these guys living in?

One where accountants aren't the only people buying computers.

biehl• 13 years ago

Touché :)

hnriot• 13 years ago

it's the same waffle we've been hearing for years. I am running Ubuntu 13.10, but leaving OSX aside, there's no way in hell Linux is going to make a dent in the desktop market. It wont be linx, it will be some future OS, possible Android that replaces Windows. I know Android is linux underneath, but in much the same way OSX is BSD underneath - to the point that to the user, it doesn't matter much.

shawnz• 13 years ago

in much the same way OSX is BSD underneath

The difference is that Linux isn't, and doesn't claim to be a whole system. For example, Android isn't Ubuntu, but Android and Ubuntu are equally Linux.

EDIT: I am not trying to make the "Linux is just a kernel" point here. Android is by no means a "traditional" distribution of Linux, but I just don't see why that makes it "not Linux". Busybox is available for it (Android is designed for embedded systems, after all) so what's the difference?

Touche2• 13 years ago

I know Android is linux underneath, but in much the same way OSX is BSD underneath - to the point that to the user, it doesn't matter much.

So you define Linux as what? X11? We'll that's going away, so that can't be it. Gnome and KDE? There's also Unity now and Elementary so that's too restrictive... so what exactly is Linux to the user?

mrb• 13 years ago

"I know Android is linux underneath, but in much the same way OSX is BSD underneath"

Utterly false. Terrible comparison.

OS X merely took parts of FreeBSD, NetBSD, and the Mach kernel. The result is some codebase that is very different from any kernel, and that is not following at all the current developments of the FreeBSD/NetBSD/Mach kernels.

Whereas Android's Linux kernel shares ~95% of its lines of code with the stock Linux kernel source from kernel.org. Every time Linus releases a new kernel, the Android developers merge their branch with Linus' branch, almost on a month-to-month basis. Android is Linux (the kernel). Period.

justincormack• 13 years ago

The one where Linux shipped more than any other OS. Mainly thanks to Android, but yeah it happened in this reality figures are out its true.

Permit2• 13 years ago

The article is written in regards to Linux on the Desktop, so I'm not sure how Android is relevant.

rahoulb2• 13 years ago

Yet my accountant and I use web-based accounts packages, making the desktop OS irrelevant. The same will be true for many other categories of software.

YooLi• 13 years ago

Which ones, if you don't mind me asking?

corresation• 13 years ago

When my mom, an accountant, buys her next computer, it will almost certainly run Windows, because the accounting software she uses targets that OS.

Accounting software is being taken over by the web. More generally, the entire financial industry is being taken over by the web. The impact of iPads and smartphones isn't a small contributor to this movement.

There are enormous numbers of office workers who could very easily transition to Linux desktops with barely any notice that they did (Firefox is firefox is firefox, after all).

It took a decade+ longer than most expected, but the operating system really is becoming irrelevant.

harrytuttle• 13 years ago

Not accountants.

Accountants and financial advisers are cheap bastards who have to deal with crap loads of regulatory compliance rules and complicated software that integrates with lots of other companies and governments, costs a fortune and never works properly.

People who package up all this shit and stick it on the web so the end user maintenance cost isn't there are winning over standalone PC software vendors these days.

And it all works via a web browser (which conveniently doesn't require windows).

Even if you bag Office 365 for comms which is typical at the moment from what I've seen, it works on anything.

I've seen IFA's and accountants wholly running off ChromeBooks and iPads in the UK. The only complaint they have is printing and even that's pretty much solved.

digikata• 13 years ago

I know a former coworker who is maintaining 3-4 different desktop accounting packages on independent VMs, each on a different application and windows versions because different clients are attached to their particular rev of the accounting software. He got to this point because he was sick of working out how to get multiple versions of the software to play nice with one another. On the one hand this locks in Windows pretty tightly - on the other, the OS in the VM is just acting as a fat compatibility layer waiting to be replaced. I think he's moving on to experimenting with Wine next (or maybe this is a use case for Docker).

This isn't some a large enterprise company either, just a small accounting consultancy trying to maintain client compatibility.

gremlinsinc• 13 years ago

Good point when 90% of businesses and professionals use Linux desktops that will be the day that they beat out windows for desktops my bet is desktops will be extinct by the time that happens.

peterwwillis• 13 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_Linux#Year_of_Desktop_L...

KeepTalking• 13 years ago

The next best story for linux has been enterprise linux. A stable kernel, easily configurable(and free)toolset and a growing engineering pool has driven this market. In terms of dollar value this market is nearly (if not the same) as large as the handheld/portable linux market that android has conquered.

kyberias• 13 years ago

Let's discuss how Linux is only a kernel. It'll be wonderful.

giardini5• 13 years ago

Sorry, Intel. The year of the Linux desktop will never arrive until I can watch Youtube videos with the goddam Flash player (or anything else) in Linux.

Signed,

- No-flash Giardini who cannot watch Youtube videos on his Linux box.

Sorry, for an Internet user, life w/o Youtube is like being a blind man with a white cane.

mateuszf• 13 years ago

Flash is dying. Let's have it die with Windows.

giardini5• 13 years ago

1) Sure, yeah, any day now. Yet Flash is ubiquitous and Youtube uses Flash for most of the video I view.

2) I see no evidence of Windows dying either.

Flash has been "dying" for nearly two years now yet looks pretty damn healthy from here ( and I still can't watch Youtube on Linux). It's absolute rubbish to use an OS w/o access to Youtube and other (usually Flash) video sites.

I run Windows on a second machine just for Youtube/Flash but I'm about to abandon Linux due to the clumsiness of this arrangement.

computer• 13 years ago

Flash works just fine on Linux. Even out of the box, on many distributions.

giardini5• 13 years ago

And those would be?

dsego3• 13 years ago

well, a lot of youtube videos do work in html5 mode. just visit http://youtube.com/html5 and join the trial.

giardini5• 13 years ago

I've done that. Doesn't work for most of the Youtube videos I want to view.

BTW why the downvoting? I'm simply stating the facts here: most Youtube and Flash videos can't be viewed on Linux, period. It's been true for several years now and sucks bananas.

If you've got a Linux distribution that allows display of more than 80% of Youtube and Flash videos then please tell me what it is. Otherwise don't be buttsore and downvote me simply because I'm stating an unpleasant truth.

Permit2• 13 years ago

Linux has certainly had a number of years over the years.

2006 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1836228,00.asp

2008 http://www.maximumpc.com/article/2008_year_of_the_linux_desk...

2009 http://www.fastcompany.com/1116502/2009-year-linux-revolutio...

2010 http://xerosphere.net/is-2010-the-year-for-linux-on-the-desk...

2012 http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/133669-could-this-be-the-y...

jamesaguilar• 13 years ago

Indeed. The year where one could make do with the Linux desktop came and went not long after Ubuntu was first released. I am confident that I could give one to my parents and they could eventually learn to function with it. The question is, when will the year come where it is the easiest and most attractive option? I'm a little bearish about that being soon.

phaer• 13 years ago

It depends on your use case. If someone did not have 10+ years of intensive windows using wants to browse, listen to music and read some e-mails for example and than Linux or rather Ubuntu is the most attractive solution. You don't to check your anti-virus software every few weeks and upgrade for all your tools a coming automatically. The hardware costs far less than a mac and the software is free, which non of the alternatives is.

In fact i do see more and more non-techies with ubuntu net/notebooks (central and southern europe if that matters)

Silhouette2• 13 years ago

The question is, when will the year come where [Linux on the desktop] is the easiest and most attractive option? I'm a little bearish about that being soon.

I used to be, but I'm coming round to the view that with all of the big commercial players, now including Microsoft, pushing heavily towards services and "the cloud", the decay of their traditional desktop offerings will create an opportunity for a Linux-based (or other OSS) platform to become relatively attractive a lot sooner.

This is partly about the operating system itself, but it's just as much about the applications. Building a direct competitor to MS Office is something few sane people would consider attempting, given market conditions and the effort required. Implementing a native desktop competitor to a typical on-line "office suite" today is something a small team of smart people could do, reaching functional parity within months, and there is nothing close to a dominant incumbent in the market yet, nor is the user experience for these web applications anywhere near as polished.

In short, as they lower the barrier to entry and open up the market, they make it easier for Linux-based applications to catch up. They also make it more attractive for someone to invest significant resources to polish up those applications as a commercial venture.

quacker• 13 years ago

I mentioned the Ubuntu phone to some non-programmer friends recently when they were talking about the new iPhone. They had never of Ubuntu.

radmuzom• 13 years ago

And yet, in 2013, I had to search in Google for hours, read a lot of documentation and tweak a lot of settings in order to 1. get AMD / Intel switchable graphics working in Ubuntu 2. stop the CPU fan from making too much noise!!

Windows 8 got both this right even without me thinking about it.

(Machine: Inspiron 15R Special Edition)

mratzloff2• 13 years ago

This is just PR for their Chromebook partnership.

Intel pushing Linux has nothing to do with Linux and everything to do with the fact that Intel long ago decided to focus on speed over energy efficiency and were caught with their pants down when the future of computing turned out to be low-power SOCs (systems-on-a-chip).

With both Microsoft and Sony choosing AMD x86 over Intel for the next generation of video game consoles and Microsoft and Apple clearly moving to ARM for all their digital appliances, what does Intel have left?

mratzloff2• 13 years ago

By the way, who is the market for the Chromebook Pixel?

dgregd• 13 years ago

Microsoft thinks that mobile is their main enemy.

Sure, tablets will replace PCs in many places. However that war they cannot win. In meantime core PC users are switching to Linux. They can do this because so many great apps live inside browsers now.

dsego3• 13 years ago

Nope.

Intel: The year of the Linux desktop is here

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