Share Of Operating System
you’ve all used a personal-computer that runs the Windows operating system, but how many of you have actually used Linux? If you look at the market share of operatingsystems for PCs over the last few years you’ll see that Windows totally dominates the market. It’s been that way pretty much since Windows came on the scene in 1985. The word Microsoft became a household nameand synonymous with both home computers and operating systems. In January 2019, Windows had just over an88 percent market share. Apple’s Mac operating system is next, withjust over 9 percent of the share and after that comes Linux, with just a tiny share. What might surprise you, though, is perhapsthis shouldn’t really be the case. We are not going to bother explaining to youwhat the Windows OS is, that would be almost condescending. You’ve all used it, and many of you probablyloved the XP version, hated Vista and Windows ME and probably weren’t too fond of Windows8. When Microsoft released Windows 10 it said this was the last in the line of totally new versions, it would be updated forevermore.
The point is, we’ve likely all gotten used to Windows. Using Windows is as familiar to most peopleas opening a window in your home. It’s that familiarity, and of course, thefact that it comes pre-installed on many PCs you buy, that prevents some people from crossing over the scary waters of OS change towards the little-known island of Linux. For those of you who don’t know what Linuxis, you can actually just go to the Linux official website and the company answers that question for you. We’ve done the reading, so we’ll paraphrase what the company said. First of all, Linux tells us you probably do use Linux but just don’t know about it. This is just one sentence from its grand openingparagraph,
“It’s in your phones, in your cars, in your refrigerators, your Roku devices. It runs most of the Internet, the supercomputers making scientific breakthroughs, and the world's stock exchanges.”
It’s also just a regular operating system for your PC. The operating system, which most people justinitialize to OS, is like the brain of the machine. Without it the machine is pretty much useless. We don’t need to tell you that these systemscan be very complex and we imagine most of you wouldn’t be confident enough to sayyou know exactly everything you can do with your Windows OS. That’s one reason people stick with whatthey know, because moving to a different OS is like finding yourself in a totally new environment. You have to learn the laws of a new virtualjungle, which can be exciting but also a bit frustrating at times. But get this, you can install Linux on yourcomputer for nothing. Yes, it is absolutely free. Installing a Linux server is also free. This is what you need when you have a networkof people that need serving. It isn’t free if you need Windows serverOS though. Linux makes a big deal about this, and rightlyso. Who doesn’t like “free”? Linux also says its server is so easy to runthat anyone could do it. Ok, so the next big point when discussingLinux is the fact it is distributed under an open source license. Hmm, what does this mean? Well, basically you can do whatever you wantwith your OS, which is great for many folks since they enjoy the fact they can study exactlyhow it works and make a change. Imagine you were not into a Windows featureand then thought ok, I can do this better, I’ll just rewrite the code and add something. Linux lets you do this.
Linux also notes these two things, that users have
- “The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.”
- People also have “The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others.”
This is why Linux users like to say they arepart of a community. A common phrase is it is an OS that is runby the people for the people. The same way you can tinker under the hoodof a car, Linux lets you see what’s inside. Some folks like to get under the hood, that’sjust their nature. Linux really works for these people. So this is starting to sound too good to betrue. An easy-to-use free OS, that doesn’t breakmuch, and one you can alter and fiddle with and improve. Anything else? Yes, in fact there is. Linux has a lot of versions to choose from,but the company calls them “distributions.” So, you have quite a few choices of how youwant your OS to work and what your desktop will look like. When we say a few, we actually means hundredsif not thousands. Some are more popular than others, and ifyou so choose you can opt for a version that is pretty close to Windows in look and feel. If you like the Apple Mac OS, there is a Linuxdistribution that tries to mirror that. Another major point is that Linux is less vulnerable to attacks than Windows.
some questions in your mind.
Who’s had a virus before? What about some particularly hard to removemalware? Who’s been hit so hard they felt like takinga hammer to their blue screen of death? Now, you might be thinking, wait a minutehere, if Linux is basically an open system surely it must be more vulnerable to attacks? Well, we are told by the security expertsthat Linux is actually harder to gain access to, so fewer files can be corrupted. It’s a long story, but the way Linux isdesigned makes it less likely to suffer from viruses. It can happen, but it happens a lot less thanon the average computer running Windows. Of course there is also the fact that Windowsis way more popular so of course that’s the system people want to hack. We are also told that running a Linux OS requiresless power, so in other words you could run the system on an older computer. So, it’s reliable, easy to run, allows youto choose from many distributions, allow developers to fiddle around, and is free. So, c’mon, there must be a downside becausehardly anyone in the world uses it compared to Windows. Something just doesn’t add up here. Well, Windows being so huge means it has muchmore software you can run on it. There are thousands of programs you can runon Linux for free, and you can even get Windows software on Linux. With a bit of effort, you can even have yourbeloved Microsoft Word running on your Linux machine. But all in all, Windows offers a much widervariety of software.
What about the hardware supporting the software?
Well, it’s said in the past you might havetrouble getting Linux on a machine, but that is a thing of the past. Most machines you can buy today should beable to run Linux without issue. Enough of the expert commentary though, let’ssee what the real people who have switched from Windows to Linux say. The most popular comment on one Reddit threadwas, “At the end of the day, the Linux community wants to make software, and Microsoft wantsto make money. When those goals are opposed, Linux becomesthe better choice.” In fact, a lot of the people who now use Linuxsay they are very happy they made the change, and mostly for the reasons we have talkedabout today. Another person wrote: “updates not buggingyou, it’s faster, no spyware, runs well on older machines, tons of variety, and penguins,he likes the penguins.” Another person wrote, “It is free, as infreedom. No stupid licenses that tell you that youcan use your computer the way you want it. You're free to use it for any purpose, changeit, redistribute it and to distribute the changes you make. It is software that is useful for society.” We didn’t see many negative comments forLinux, but one person said when it comes to gaming Windows is better as the games aredesigned to run on Windows. He also said that as Windows 10 is the entiredeal, Microsoft is focused on making it the perfect environment.
It’s coherent, he said, whereas the Linuxworld is massive and for some people that could be confusing. Actually, when it comes to Linux and gamingyou can find many forums with people arguing about this. This is what one very popular gaming websitesaid, “Yes, Linux is a decent operating system for gaming, especially since the numberof Linux-compatible games is increasing due to Valve’s SteamOS being based on Linux. However, we would still advise anyone whodoesn’t need any of the advanced features that Linux has to offer to stick with Windowsdue to its ease of use and fewer compatibility issues with games.” So, with all this positivity being spokenabout Linux why is its market share not even two percent? You can read tech websites where the realcomputer nerds talk about this, and you will see people saying that Linux really shouldbe ascending faster than it is. But actually, one developer said what we havejust said, in that Linux is just too fragmented. He also just said the obvious in that it justhasn’t gained momentum yet, and well, Microsoft has a PR machine that’s virtually unstoppable.
This is not to say, however, that Windowsis bad. Not at all, and Windows 10 has been for themost part very well received. And as we said at the beginning, Windows hasbeen part of people’s lives for many years. People know what they are working with, andeven though Linux offers similar alternatives a lot of people don’t want to make the effortto change.There is also the case that for a long timepeople haven’t gone over to Linux because they thought it was only for people who knowa lot about computers. That using it might take some amount of computersavvy. There is no doubt that people will have dosome learning as we said already you are entering a different jungle, but no, you don’t haveto be a computer science major to use a Linux computer. That said, some people just don’t want tohave to learn something new. And on top of that, if a computer comes witha pre-installed version of Windows and it works well enough, why on Earth would theygo through the effort to change? No matter which you choose - Windows, Linux,or even a different OS altogether, one threat is a constant - Hackers.
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