Linux Is Regaining Netbook Market Share Quickly
Submitted by srlinuxx on Sat, 12/05/2009 - 19:22
Back in May I wrote an article titled Linux To Regain 50% Netbook Market Share after such predictions were made by Stephen Lim of Linpus Technologies and ABI Research. Mr. Lim saw Linux pulling even with Windows on netbooks by next year while ABI Research saw it happening by 2013. Both saw netbooks powered by ARM processors as the main reason that Linux would rebound.
Most of the comments I received ranged from skeptical to incredulous. Even those who support and advocate for Linux on the desktop largely believed that Microsoft would retain market dominance. Here we are six months later and the promised ARM powered netbooks have not arrived in any quantity as of yet. The Intel Atom processor is currently used in 90% of netbooks according to ABI Research while ARM processors only account for 4% of the market at present.
Despite this ABI Research published some new data last month and the results may surprise you. They place the 2009 market share for Linux on netbooks at 32% with 11 million units preloaded with Linux shipping this year.
atom has to run tiny Linux, Opera cloud computing ? A8 fails ?
Atom has heat problems? Can not run bloated operating systems with too many logic statements at 8% duty cycle??
ARM A8 version has incompatible branch prediction feature; has trouble running conventional Microsoft branch prediction software? Has to run only i386 Linux operating system, avoiding any branch prediction 32 bit software?
All this has not been ironed out, because computer manufacturers are mostly doing cpu demo circuits, which need software changes that factories did not understand?
Recent netbooks had bios changes to lower cpu frequencies(stepping to 777 Mhz, half the speed at half the heat?) to combat heat problems, may succeed for Microsoft operating systems and some Linux distros. Some ASUS netbooks had flashed new bios(777 instead of 1100) and run much cooler(36-46C?).
Did not know this...
This is good information to have. I was considering buying either an Ion/Atom powered or AMD/ATi powered dual core 12" netbook next Spring sometime to gain some freedom around the house with. I know using the term 'netbook' is a little liberal with those specs, but it's still a low power CPU under $500.
As far as the article is concerned, I'm not sure of any means of measuring Linux penetration. I mean, when I get one, I'll probably be getting the Windows version and wiping it and putting Linux on it or getting one with a 250GB HDD and putting both on it.