generic hardware not counted

Posted Oct 27, 2007 20:46 UTC (Sat) by Richard_J_Neill (subscriber, #23093)
In reply to: generic hardware not counted by tialaramex
Parent article: Is Linux really losing market share to Windows? (Linux-Watch)

A better approximation would perhaps be calculable thus:

Total number of desktops = number of desktop CPUs sold  by intel + amd.
 (or, count motherboards).

Total number of Macs = number of machines sold by apple.

Total number of Windows machines = number that connect to windows update.

Total Linux = CPUs - (Macs + Windows).

That should probably give a decent-ish upper-bound estimate for Linux.

Chips and counts

Posted Oct 28, 2007 0:13 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

Total Linux = CPUs - (Macs + Windows).

That kind of approximation needs a lot of refinement: some machines sold by Apple contain Intel chips, and some of them run Linux (both with Intel and PowerPC chips).

After all chips are properly accounted for, only Microsoft can do the math: only they know how many machines connect to Windows Update. Even so, many machines are not connected to the internet, or have been decommissioned long ago. You have to estimate the percentages for each scenario, so it becomes grossly inaccurate even with Microsoft data. And even before *BSD fans come screaming at you.