For those that decry the constant prediction of the “year of the Linux desktop” I am happy to say that next year Linux may actually ship on more desktops than Windows or the Mac. That is right, I said next year. What is driving this? Two words: fast boot.
Matt Richtell of the New York Times wrote a great article on Sunday about the demand for faster start up times on computers. In the story the chronicled how HP, Dell, Lenovo, Asus and a array of other PC makers are starting to develop “machines that give people access to basic functions like e-mail and a Web browser in 30 seconds or less.” Here is the interesting part: Linux is providing that access.
Ashlee Vance, also of the New York Times, did a great follow up piece on the story chronicling just how prolific this trend is becoming. He states, “Over the next few months, the instant-on technology should become mainstream. Here’s a look at what’s available and what’s coming in the instant-on market.”
The evidence is overwhelming:
“ - DeviceVM – This Silicon Valley start-up has emerged as the leading independent maker of instant-on software. H.P., Lenovo and Asus use modified versions of DeviceVM’s Splashtop software. In all cases, they provide quick access to a Web browser, instant messaging software, photos and voice over Internet protocol software. The large PC makers tend to ship Splashtop on laptops aimed at consumers.
- H.P. – Today, you can buy HP’s Envy laptop with the Instant On Solution software, which is Splashtop in disguise. In the coming months, H.P. plans to ship it on an undisclosed number of systems.
- Dell – In an unusual move, Dell has done a lot of customization work with its instant-on tools. The company plans to ship something called Latitude On with a pair of laptops. This Dell-made software will permit access to e-mail and the other basic functions. The software will actually run on a separate ARM processor, often found in mobile phones, rather than a standard Intel or Advanced Micro Devices chip.
- Lenovo – By early next year, Lenovo will ship a version of Splashtop on some of its consumer laptops.
- Phoenix Technologies – This software maker has been working on a downloadable software package called HyperSpace. It will let you start a Linux-based system early, while Windows boots in the background. People can then switch back and forth between both sets of software as they desire. It should be widely available in January with Phoenix charging a monthly subscription fee to the software.”
What does this mean for Linux? First it means that Linux is more central to the user experience. As the New York Times points out, this is “Microsoft potentially losing the user experience.” Linux is not only powering fastboot applications, but the Moblin project has already demonstrated a five second boot at the Linux Foundation’s recent Plumbers conference.
We may see a world at the end of next year where Linux ships on almost every notebook computer regardless of whether it is loaded with Windows. This in addition to the huge potential of the netbook, mobile internet device and mobile Linux market can mean huge and immediate inroads for a Linux desktop, albeit not in the form most people had predicted many years ago when the first “year of the Linux desktop” was declared.
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Good post. Questions about user experience are always too complicated because of there are a lot of elements to analyze but anyway of course it can be true that linux can be better in some aspects of user experience, for instance fast boots.
Hi Jim,
that is a very bold prediction.
I think the limited features approach is only one new feature for slow vista laptops.
If all distros would boot in 20 seconds (possible) it would be way better. The Linux Foundation should help everywhere it can to make that happen.
But all distros coming out this fall/winter don’t have all the Aoblin enhancements yet and so only the distros that will ship in spring/summer next year will be really fast booting.
Will that be enough to go from 1% to 95% in a few months?? You have to be very optimistic to say Yes.
OSX and Windows 7 will also improve I guess.
Maybe 2010 i’d say.
Good eye in identifying that emerging trend. I am into trends, and this one has all the markings of a long running trend in its early days. It will be fun to watch it unfold.
…and of course it can back-fire. The GUI will probably look (or refinagled to look) like a Vista rip-off so the user wouldn’t even know what benefits they’re seeing… Probably have an MS logo in the upper right corner of the screen next to an email icon.
Far too optimistic. I’ll be celebrating if Linux ever gets to 5% of Desktop computers, but that is not very likely.
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My Dell running sidux boots in under a minute to KDE, and my Eee 701 running Debian Sid boots to lxde in under 20 seconds. NO tweaks were done on my desktop, on the Eee a few things were tweaked. Why worry about wasting power if you can boot in under a minute?
[…] director of the Linux Foundation, has an interesting post recently about how it is possible that Linux will be shipping on more computers (desktops, laptops, etc., not servers) next year than Windows. It is a short and interesting […]
i just put my windows and fairly slow laptop in standby mode.
which is basically OFF,
hit the power up button, and started counting 1(one thousand) 2(one thaousand) i got to 7 (onethousand) and my laptop was fully up and running,
7 seconds, from power down (standby) to fully running. on a slow laptop !!
OS is Windows XP SP2.
6 IE’s running plus folders and sundry other junk.
7 seconds !! and you expect to gain market share with 5 second bootup,
i boot my MS machine once every so often, it does not crash, i would hope linux does not crash enough or require rebooting for that to be an issue.. worthy of note !!
Why should I need faster boot times? I am happy with 26 seconds booting OS X on my MacBook Pro, and I reboot it about once a month
Its nice to see Linux taking over Windows. I am always opposed to the monopoly culture of Microsoft and I hope someone puts a break
Cool but how is this “Linux ships on more desktops than Windows”? These are also Windows systems. So it would be correct to say that some windows systems will also come with a Linux preboot environment. Are you saying that the set of systems that ship with Linux only will be larger than the set of systems that will ship with Windows only? What about all the Macs that also run Windows?
[…] http://www.linux-foundation.org/weblogs/jzemlin/2008/10/29/linux-to-ship-on-more-desktops-than-windo… […]
Most users likely won’t even notice the feature. Let’s be realistic here.
El próximo año la mayoría de sobremesas vendrán con Linux [EN]…
El próximo año será el año de Linux en los sobremesa debido al deseado ansiado arranque rápido. Microsoft está perdiendo posiciones en ese aspecto y es ahí donde Linux tiene mucho que decir. Linux no sólo está posibilitando aplicaciones básic…
Let’s just hope that the changes and software these large Corps. make is free (speech) and not locked down like a sex-slave.
@darryl
yea great except that shutdown only works on some systems. I’ve tried it on 5 different laptops from 3 different manufacturers and it worked on 2 of those 5, and only 1 of 2 100% of the time. The other one crapped out after the 3rd attempt to boot up. As for regular PCs, about the same results with 10 different computers i’ve tried, all of which had XP SP2.
Hibernate didn’t provide much better results either. The longest running hibernate i’ve gotten is around 50 boots on my 2 currently active laptops, then for whatever reasons during startup, Windows tells me everything is corrupt and i can erase the hibernate data and reboot, or i can try again. It always locked up then and i had to do a power-button kill (5 seconds holding the power button to shut off).
I don’t think fast boot means much to most. However, I have a tendency to agree with you because Linux is FREE, now that my brother is huge indeed. When I get Ubuntu not only is the OS free but all kinds of applications as well…WOW!
The other thing is I have a pet peeve with people always quoting percentages of use. In the US Apple/OSX has maybe 5-8%, in the rest of the world though, closer to zero. In the developing world is where Linux will take over first, it already is. The only thing keeping Windows in the saddle currently is readily available pirate warez where ever you travel.
This article is actually pretty sad, if you consider the lame niche application Linux needs to look to in order to be ‘competitive’ .. 99% of Mac users don’t shut down their computers, it awakes from sleep mode in 2 seconds, so why would you need a pre-boot crippled piece of some OS to do stuff?
“with Phoenix charging a monthly subscription fee to the software.”
LOLOOLLOOLOLLOLOLOOLLOOLOL
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I’m not going to ask “is this possible,” because I bet it is. More like, “Here’s a thought.” Instead of having a linux-on-a-chip that has basic features, why not have it be the kernel, boot loader, and other boot files for a full Linux OS. Once it boots, it uses the hard drive for all the programs, /home, and all that other good stuff. So you use the chip to fast boot into what is your primary OS. That’s my thought.
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How about if Windows loaded up in tiny bite size layers? The first layer would be the kind that we see with current instant on OSes. It would provide email, pictures, music and a lite browser perhaps. Then the second layer would launch as soon as you tried to load something that needed it (it will somehow be apparent to you that 1: it will need to do that and 2: that’s what it’s doing) as it will take 10 to 30 seconds to load that second layer. The second layer would provide the next step up. Perhaps it would support vpn technology and full browser support, and some lite file management. The third layer would probably load the rest of what you need. Perhaps these higher layers could load in the background the longer you sit at the lower layers (without slowing down what the user is doing - dont you hate when you sign into windows and see the start menu but 10 things still have to load into the tray before the OS is usable?).
This is how I’d like to see instant on OSes work. I have some reservations about these things unless they are part of the main OS.
Maybe Windows 7 will do this? Or perhaps it’ll be the windows after that…
Altering your startup orders linux kernel booting in 20 sec is doable. 15 to 10 sec is when you start hitting the hard wall of hard drive read speeds.
Get bootchart and see where need tweaking. 5 second starts with high performing hard drive is possible but some patches need to get mainline.
The eee pc I have boots in 30 seconds into the full KDE desktop. Still have to use windows for work though
Not even close to reality. Yes some motherboards will offer instant on version of Linux. But it will not be a full version. Sure, the Mini notebooks have become very popular. But a recent article I read also showed a much higher return/refund rate for those running Linux.
It shows that the general public is not capable or willing to learn Linux.
It is why Linux is still barely showing up on the radar screen.
It is certainly a OS that allows manufactures to keep prices down.
But at what expense of function and compatibility?? Linux is facing the same fate that Apple faced for years. Compatibility in a Windows world.
We all know what Apple did to make this less of a problem.
Linux needs to find its way into products not dominated by Windows.
Hopefully this has started with the likes of cell phones.
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[…] Windows or the Mac. That is right, I said next year. What is driving this? Two words: fast boot.read more | digg story Filled under: Uncategorized | You can follow any responses to this entry through the […]
Actually, only one netbook manufacturer (MSI) has reported high return rates for their badly-implemented Linux-based MSI Wind netbooks — and this appears to be because they used an inappropriate version of Linux, and made no adjustments to configure the OS to suit their hardware.
Other manufacturers (eg Asus Eee, Acer Aspire) explicitly deny having MSI’s bad results, and have not only had excellent results, but have found that the Linux models are more popular than the Windows versions — to the point that though Asus manufactures equal numbers of Linux and Windows Eeee-PC netbooks, the Linux versions sell out while the Windows versions remain unsold on the store shelves.
[…] a bold prediction that Linux would outship Windows in 2009, as discussed in Desktop Linux and on Zemlin’s blog. Obviously, this is not a safe claim, but it could be more realistic than you might […]
[…] DR1s program forleden om penge-besparelser ved overgang til fri og åben software vidner vel om at tiden er ved at være moden og en del IT folk skal på omskoling i de kommende år. Eller er det ren ønsketænkning når lederen af Linux Foundation forudser at 2009 bliver året hvor Linux indtager desktoppen? […]
[…] Linux to Ship on More Desktops than Windows For those that decry the constant prediction of the “year of the Linux desktop” I am happy to say that next year Linux may actually ship on more desktops than Windows or the Mac. That is right, I said next year. What is driving this? Two words: fast boot. […]
@John Scott:
GNU/Linux has been usable by the general public for many years now. I know. I have been introducing it to students for 8 years. No student in all those years has had any particular problems with GNU/Linux. Last year, I even had two classes of Grade One students use GNU/Linux. They did tend to get lost in the GUI at first, so I gave them a modified desktop environment similar to the netbooks and they had no more problems. Children in Grade Two and up rarely had any problem.
GNU/Linux is wildly popular outside the USA. Brazil and Russia both provide it in schools nationwide. The fastest growing markets in China and India are very sensitive to price and the netbooks are maxed out by production limits. By next year production of netbooks with GNU/Linux will be doubled again. Saying it isn’t so does not change the facts. GNU/Linux is mainstream. The web stats tend to over-emphasize the USA. For example, some of them have 30% of hits from the USA and only 2% from China although China has more surfers. Apple’s SEC units-shipped numbers show they are at 3% of PCs when the web stats say 8%.
The netbook and the re-emerging thin client all run better with GNU/Linux than with that other OS and are growing at a great rate while the desktop is stagnant and the netbook is shipping at 5 to 10% of the rate of notebooks depending on region.
Even Dell has begun to advertise the netbook with GNU/Linux because they can see growth there. Acer did and Dell has to match them. Schools, young mobile folks and folks buying their first PC are all likely to prefer a netbook and GNU/Linux comes with a lower price and it works. The market is deciding that the old way of doing things does not work for everyone. Even business folks who are used to lugging 4kg notebooks around are beginning to appreciate the 1kg netbook. Get over it.
Well, finally Linux finds a way into the desktop and notebook market ‘in mass’. My XP takes very long to boot every time I added a new application. It is really annoying. The idea of instant switching between Windows and Linux is a great feature. If it is a basic feature for all desktop and notebook shipped, it helps. But, there is a potential show-stopper here, “Phoenix charging a monthly subscription fee to the software”, it is potentially deter user to stay away from the dual boot. A small one-off charge is more attractive than recurring cost.
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You _have_ to be joking. Windows users are already known to have been living with many other crappy features in their machines for years, why would now boot time make any difference?
This is so lame, believing a single and basic physical parameter like boot time could make all the difference in the world. It’s just like claiming that a certain notebook would beat an opponent because it runs colder. “Oh, the new Dell machines are 2 Celcius degrees colder than the HP, they will conquer the market now.”
Even if that would make the difference, I would say it would be for the wrong reason. Like if anyone had switched to Windows XP because the default wallpaper (the one with the Teletubbies house) is prettier, or switched to Apple machines just because of the number of buttons in the mouse. It’s too little, IMHO.
Hmmm actually, you didn’t mean Linux as the main OS in the machine, but as the system that will run in things like a parallel ARM processor in the machine, giving access to just a few functions. I can certainly believe in that… This article is being quoted in a very equivocated way.
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More Linux than Windows on Notebooks in 2009?…
InformationWeek reported Friday that Linux will be on more PCs next year than Windows will. Pointing to a blog post by Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin, writer Antone Gonsalves notes, however, that Linux won’t necessarily be the….
Little note on Windows coming out of hibernate in 7 seconds. Linux embedded using same stunt have got under 3 secound. Linux kernel altered to boot it self in 1 second. 100 meg per second read speed memory and threaded reactivation of the hibernate.
Hibernate sounds like a good idea until you wake up sooner or latter you will have to do a real reboot. 2 seconds longer than linux hibernate is quite impressive.
Standby where everything is still in ram Linux fire up time is 2 seconds on the embedded altered kernel. So 7 seconds is poor effect. Restore from standby is rerun hardware activations. Same as hibernate at some point you have to do a real reboot. Neither works forever.
Big thing you are critically missing is 5 to 15 seconds is doable for a complete hardware change start up if X11 in Linux gets sorted out. Pull windows harddrive out and drop it in a new machine blue screens of death come. Even the worst for Linux you can still enter text mode. Worst for windows safe mode does not even start.
This is one place were maintaining Linux boxes rules. Swapping from Nvidia to ATI under Linux and the like is a pain. Luckly if you stay to the same video card all works.
Of course it pays to be Linux compatible hardware and cpu type compatible. There is hardware out there for all OS’s that they don’t like.
[…] Microsoft. It’s Linux, which is using faster boot times and netbooks to inch its way toward mainstream desktop deployment, according to Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin, who has another good post […]
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[…] http://www.linux-foundation.org/weblogs/jzemlin/2008/10/29/linux-to-ship-on-more-desktops-than-windo… […]
[…] read more | digg story […]
[…] am Linux “fast boot”; coming to Windows laptops The Linux Foundation’s Jim Zemlin provides an interesting twist on the most cutting-edge Windows machines from Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and others: they’re all […]
I wonder if it really matters if Linux is included as the fastboot option… will people know it’s Linux? Will it be something they are therefore curious about? I can see this leading to an organic takeover… or being a dismal failure, even if it becomes popular, because nobody cares unless it’s the main OS.
I’m sure Microsoft will steal this idea too and call it…. wait for it…..
INNOVATION
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I have 2 “laptops”, a Dell Inspiron 9100 and a Xandros Asus EeePc 701. The uses of my 2 machines overlap somewhat for basic web surfing and email, but I mostly use the the Eeepc for its fast-booting portability when I want to fire-off a quick email message or VOIP phone call and I use the dual-booting Linux/XP Inspiron when I need a bigger hard drive space and more CPU horsepower to use Google Earth. The two machines share a USB wireless broadband modem or an ethernet connection, when available.
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[…] ???????????? ?????????????? ??????????? Linux Foundation, ??????????, ??? Linux ????? ??? ????? ??? ? ????? ?????????? ???? […]
What are you guys smoking? Powerful stuff indeed. Oh, right, you’re just pulling crap out of your ass to get nice headlines and media attention.
That it’s fine, but I also remind you that is the reason why people don’t take you freetards seriously. You are the clowns of the software industry.
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All I can think is that, with all the areas where Microsoft’s product base is crumbling, they have had more than a decade to do something to fix it. They could have tackled fast-boot, scalability etc a long time ago but didn’t. The next area where they will collapse is in their pricing. With increasingly cheaper hardware platforms, the cost ratio between any windows version and the rest of the hardware is staggering. It is just impossible for them to want to let go the mighty profit margins that they have become used to - in the days when there was less competition. And again, we will say, they had plenty of time to do something about it. Eventually Microsoft’s “our way or the highway” attitude will be what really kills them.
Nice dream. Still a lot of gamers for PC. They won’t adopt any kind of Linux until Linux has full windows PC game support. Wine is not the answer, nor Cedega. Linux programmers need to be talking to nVidia and AMD about pursuing the next OpenGL and stop bowing to DirectX pressure from Microsoft. nVidia and AMD hold the true upperhand. How can Microsoft display its OS if there is no graphics chipset to support them? nVidia and AMD would have to start thinking that way.
I just tried DreamLinux v3.2 and v3.5 RC4 (broken ethernet), it was easy to use, save for the fact it wouldn’t auto-mount my secondary NTFS SATA drive like Intrepid-Ibex did. But that’s another problem with Linux distributions. Inconsistency across the board.
[…] Linux Foundation’s executive director, Jim Zemlin, pondered the idea that next year Linux may ship on more desktops tha…. He cites a New York Times article on PC manufacturers reducing boot times with utilities such as […]
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I am a windows fan for so many years, but last year my friend introduced Linux Mint to me and I was so amazed with it’s capability.., since then I’ve never used windows in my personal computer unless someone send me a windows file that can’t be open in linux, then it’s time for me to power on my virtual machine where the super slow windows xp was installed. http://www.linuxmint.com/
Interesting article, it’s amazing what you can do with a little Linux magic. Microsoft will of course do whatever they can to prevent this by creating their own thing. It would be a bit like how Linux on netbooks will soon die a sudden death with the convenient revival of XP for such machines. Oh, and not to mention Microsoft seem to be slowly nudging their way into the OLPC project. It is encouraging to see Linux making huge leaps and bounds in this way and other ways. Who knows, one day it may well happen and we’ll actually have a real choice in what we can run on our next shiney new computer.
[…] Time For Sure! By Dave Every year, the geeks declare ‘Year of the Linux Desktop‘. So often, in fact, that’s it’s become a running gag. In fact, Apple has […]
It just goes to show that you can’t polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter.
More Linux than Windows on Notebooks in 2009?…
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[…] to be a quick-boot option? Check out some of Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin’s thoughts, which I think help put this potential in […]
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