Opinions: Linux Sales Does Not Equal Linux Users

"Just because nobody wants to buy systems with Linux pre-installed"

Not true, there is demand that is simply suppressed because of lack of any good laptops with pre-installed Linux. Where Linux laptops are available, they sell well, see this story:

http://www.linuxtech.net/news/Linux_Laptops_Bestsellers_in_Germany.html

I buy linux-preinstalled machines because even if I change a distro, I know there are linux drivers floating around.
With window machines, you have to check as well as deal with the M$ tax.

Sheng-Chieh

This is why I refuse to buy pre-made computers. Building them yourself will save you $1000+ and thats NOT including the OS. It takes an hour to build a PC thats 10 times better than anything you'll find premade (with the exception of Alienware and those other 'gaming' systems) and its cheaper if you know what to buy.

Two non techie friends of mine recently wanted laptops with ubuntu. I found a quality retail vendor emporium and they have both made purchases. I did not install for them because I am busy helping other (more techie) friends who are content with a non retail experience.

Incidentally, both of the non techie friends had each recently first made separate, serious, enquiries, to the high street stores which they had used previously for purchases of laptops. As you can guess, they did not get very far. In addition to the immediate loss of a sale, I suspect the stores will not see much of these customers in future. Unless they become much more linux (ubuntu ?) friendly.

It's worth buying a computer with Linux pre-installed just to ensure that the parts all work with Linux. Doing it yourself is cheaper, but there's hidden costs in shipping and time and I find it not worth the trouble. Sadly, even buying pre-installed Linux is complicated because some Linux distros include proprietary drivers that may or may not be available for all Linux versions, now and in the future. Even the distros you would think are safe sometimes are not what they seem. The Dell laptops pre-loaded with Ubuntu come with a "special" Ubuntu. Who knows if these machines will run another version of Linux, who knows if they will even run a newer version of Ubuntu?

The only safe and easy choice is to go with a hardware vendor that specializes in selling Linux.

Quote: Every machine I've been sent that has “Linux” installed is using a distribution that is either crippled, or not what I want to use.

Totally agree! It seems to me that any vendor REALLY serious about selling Linux based computers need only do two things: (1) Include only hardware known to work with linux (not that hard), and (2) Just use a DEFAULT install OF a COMMON distro like Ubuntu, Fedora, SUSE or Debian. Period!

I'm in the States, so maybe the situation is different, but you're doing a real disservice to the Linux-specific system vendors by stating "Every machine I've been sent that has “Linux” installed is using a distribution that is either crippled, or not what I want to use." I've owned several machines built by these small companies (and my son owns a laptop as well), and have found the systems to work well - certainly not "crippled" - and the support to be excellent as well.

I do agree with your other points, however.

theres a really simple rule with linux - if you can't install it yourself, you haven't got a hope using it. there ain't no drag'n'drop application installers or support for major office and design suites (no GIMP and OpenOffice don't count). Your on your own most of the time searching boards for solutions - that's for someone way brighter than your average windows user.

I too am a ubuntu user on my Macbook Pro. I tired it out for fun and ended up loving it.

I too buy Linux installed OS and erase them because they are not up to my standards but at least I make my spending count by doing so. Heck, I used to do it with Windows all the time, so there is no reason for me to suffer through Xandros, Linpus lite (although I know some women who still use it and love it) or the fugly Win95esque Gnome interface of the crippled Dellbuntu.
But I will never buy another Win pre-installed machine.

As for users stats, I have 6 computers/lap/netbooks at home, 4 run mandriva2009.KDE4.2 and the two P3.s run different XCFE and low footprint distros.
Both my retired folks run Mandriva on their machines and I also installed Linux (Mandriva/PCLinuxOS) on 9 machines belonging to family members plus 5 more friends as well. All in all, that's 20 people Ive installed Linux in teh past 18 months with less tech support than when I used to be the free tech guy for 5-6 Win machines.
All these installs come for 2-3 different DLed CD but I never DLed the latest mandriva since I had copied it from a friend when i was over one day since he already had it.

So how do these 20 installs count in the greater scheme?
They dont.

Well be installing a dozen computers for a community center next month and those also wont count in the downloads or any other method. 30+ installs is probably not common but my point is I could install 3000 all from one USB key (be green, dont burn cds unles its an old machine that cant boot USB)
and it wouldnt show anywhere.

As for the people dont want Linux excuse, here in Canada, the big retaliers, Futureshop, Staples, Best Buy couldnt keep the Linux desktops in stock long enough between July and Nov 2008 wehn I and some friends were looking at the Acer One and similar Linux based netbooks. They'd get 10 and sell out in a 1-2 days, then youd wait 2-3 weeks for the next shipment and tehn again, they would sell out quickly and so on. THen they stopped carrying them and when asked we were told that no one wanted them which of course we knew was total BS since they were always sold out.
We know the backroom deals that go on but our experience showed that the sales were very, very good.
Of course we also noticed that the salespeople were always badmouthing Linux netbooks (you cant write a word document with it!!) which didnt surprise us since those stores also sold 99 to 175$ plans to protect your computers (basically 1r worth of anti-virus and a few malware protection progs).
What do you think they would rather sell?
The Linux AcerOne for 299$ or the 349$ Windows version AND the protection plan which was 1/3 to 1/2 of the cost of the netbook?
That "no one wants Linux netbooks" was utter and total BS.

"I think this isn't really the right attitude to have. Actually this is the attitude that MS wants.Not only are they getting paid whether or not you use it, they get to include you into their numbers as a Windows "user"."

This exactly the point I was trying to make. Manufacturers are basing how many Linux customers they have on how many Linux boxes they sell. I'm saying there is little or no correlation with this and they need to do research outside of this scope to see their real potential.

Buying pre-built is not a waste of money if you only want a basic machine. You only really see financial savings when you start building really top-end equipment - i.e replicating an Alienware.

Point and click it may be, but why do I have to point and click on 'Synaptic Package Manager'? Why isn't this labelled 'Software Installer'? This one small change would have saved me a lot of frustration when I was trying to switch over. I know what Synapses are, I know a Package is something that comes by snail mail and I work under a Manager but together they make no sense to me as a Windows user.

If its such a viable and good idea, why dont you find some investor, or put in your own venture capitol, and buy in bulk, a bunch of quality naked computers and sell them at a profit to clients with the OS you want to sell it with.

I mean, you keep asking other people why they dont, and they tell you. but you dont believe them. But you wont get off your fanny and do it yourself. I guess its easier and safer to just be a noisy minority than to actually do something about this terrible wrong. That wrong being people are in business to make money and to survive, if you have not got a product that will help them in their business what good are you.

You know, in business you make your money from the value adding you create and the MARKUP on the product.

When the "product" costs nothing, (ie FOSS) by definition the markup is ZERO, and if you make zero profit from giving away free things as opposed to making SOME profit from selling a product.

What are you going to do, give it away and go broke, or sell it and make some money.

The best thing FOSS could do, is PAY their programmers based on SALES of their product, then watch the programmers actually create product that people will be willing to pay for.

What FOSS does not do is look at the real world, people, the vast majority of people are far more willing to pay for a quality product, then they are to get a lower quality free alternative.

whats more, they will tend to pay as much as they can afford and tend to buy the best they can afford.

This is how the world works, and by paying for product the manufactures of that product (who want to sell it) create it in such a way, and of such quality that people WANT to pay for it, and sellers want to sell products for their markup, they will do that over give a product away every time.

FOSS has been around for a very long time now, and they should have been able to work out this basic fact well before now. And related it to their declining market share and popularity.

>>The best thing FOSS could do, is PAY their programmers based on SALES of their product...

But then it wouldn't be Free & Open Source, would it? Well, I guess there is nothing stopping people launching a commercial product according to (most of the) Free Software principles - but why would someone pay for the product when the terms of the agreement allow you to copy & distribute it freely anyway? Your argument is along the lines of "bungalows would be so much better if someone built an upper storey on top of them - like houses have. Then they'd have more room...."

>>...related it to their declining market share and popularity.

How can FOSS applications have a "market share" when they do not compete in a market? You cannot compare software costing hundreds of dollars with something that does not cost anything. Declining popularity? Firefox and OpenOffice have never been as popular.

>>the vast majority of people are far more willing to pay for a quality product, than they are to get a lower quality free alternative.

That statement makes two assumptions:

(i) that just because it costs money, it will be a "quality product";
(ii) that because something is free, it will be inferior to any paid-for product.

You have to balance costs against benefits. Adobe Photoshop costs several hundred dollars. A free "near-alternative" (GIMP) costs nothing. Photoshop has some features GIMP does not have. However, if you do not need those particular features, clearly GIMP is your preferred choice, because it is free. Just because GIMP does not have as many features as Photoshop does not make it an inferior product. In fact, because it is not sold for cash, it is not a "product" at all. And is not competing against Photoshop because the creators of GIMP do not care about "market share". Why would they? They are not "marketing" GIMP, are they? Use GIMP. Don't use GIMP. They're not going to care. It's not like they have a company that can go bankrupt!

I was ranting to my husband about this very thing earlier this week, while deciding which netbook to buy. It is almost like the manufacturers don't want us to buy their Linux versions. They put these stripped down, dumbed down versions on there, when any user who goes out looking for a Linux computer isn't going to want something like that. And any user who wasn't looking for Linux is probably not going to understand what they are getting and won't be happy with it. Why not sell computers with the versions that most Linux users actually use?

I've bought a new desktop and a new netbook recently, both with Windows, knowing I'd be replacing it with Linux as soon as possible. If the machines I wanted came in a Linux version, I'd have bought them and just replaced with another distro, but they didn't. Sure wish I could get my name off of that Windows user's list, though.

BTW, I have in the past bought a bare bones system without an operating system, but of course you have to order them. It wasn't hard to set up. I'm just an ordinary housewife and I managed it.