3 reasons for Ubuntu being behind windows

Recently i thought quite a lot on this topic, that despite such huge advantages why is Ubuntu is strange word to most of my friends, even to such people who call themsleves software engineers.

1, Market when was the last time you saw a ad of HP saying "HP reccommends ubuntu x.xx" No, you havnt seen it. Despite being a FREE OS, despite being more secure, despite having no activation WGA and all still its M$ Windows Vista recommended and preinstalled. Yes, news of this and that company releasing preinstalled ubuntu always comes, but its not enough to touch windows monopoly. The truth is most people buy a PC for Music, Movies, Internet and office Applications. All these are completely and covered in a better fashion by ubuntu than windows.

Lets be very frank. Whenever i go to the wineHQ to see if my app will work or not, most of the times i feel as if i have reached a site that hasnt beeen modified for years! See that site! Its rusting! You cant expect a layman to go to this site before buying softwares! Layman wants it to run. He would be horrified to know that double clicking a EXE in ubuntu means nothing [wo WiNE] And then tell him to install what? WINE? Why not Beer, [thats *exactly * what i heard from my friend.

1. *.exe, Games

When you install ubuntu, you put all your games to trash, because *most* of the times, they just dont work. [well most people dont know this, since they never install ubuntu]. But people like me, have tpo remain to dual boot because of this. And dual booting requires shelling out money for Windows.

"To know Sweet, you need to taste the Sour" Well, this may seem odd. but this is true. there is wide spread software piracy. This means you get Windows without burning a hole in your pocket. That means, you never realise the promise of ubuntu, giving you a totally free software without charging a penny. Untill piracy stops and people go to markets and buy a 200$ windows and come back and install it and find there was something staring with U which was free and better, people wont just come out!

1. Piracy

Whats up people? What are your viewpoints on above?

I don't like to think of Ubuntu or any other Linux distro being "behind" Windows, as if it was a race or something. I prefer to think that Linux people are doing their own thing, regardless of whatever else is out there.

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I don't like to think of Ubuntu or any other Linux distro being "behind" Windows, as if it was a race or something. I prefer to think that Linux people are doing their own thing, regardless of whatever else is out there.

Hi Sealbhach. And +1

well you do have some certainly good points, thats why when people who want to try linux ask me, i tell them think of it like its a mac, the same windows software doesnt run but there are tons of alternatives. they usually grip it better that way, you have to remember that basically most of the population is computer illiterate. or if you worked tech support ever: everyone seems to be computer illiterate.

Add one more:- some of the companies does not support linux due to open source. example ACER till now i could not find a perfect driver to run the headphone connection.

bufsabre666 said: ... or if you worked tech support ever: everyone seems to be computer illiterate.

I used to work computer tech support. My favorite was when someone called and asked why their computer wont boot properly after they deleted the DOS directory.. They had just installed Windows 3.11 and figured they didn't need DOS on there anymore.. It took 10 minutes to explain it to him. I'm still not sure he fully understood.

For me, a .deb file works exactly the same as a .exe (for installing).

The only difficulty for me, is trying to figure out which is the executable file if I've downloaded an application as a tar.gz and extracted it to my /home folder.

.

1. *.exe, Games

Lets be very frank. Whenever i go to the wineHQ to see if my app will work or not, most of the times i feel as if i have reached a site that hasnt beeen modified for years! See that site! Its rusting! You cant expect a layman to go to this site before buying softwares! Layman wants it to run. He would be horrified to know that double clicking a EXE in ubuntu means nothing [wo WiNE] And then tell him to install what? WINE? Why not Beer, [thats exactly what i heard from my friend.

When you install ubuntu, you put all your games to trash, because *most* of the times, they just dont work. [well most people dont know this, since they never install ubuntu]. But people like me, have tpo remain to dual boot because of this. And dual booting requires shelling out money for Windows.

Oh, I can't run .tgz files on Windows, oh there must be something wrong with it, why can't I run my tgz and rpms in Windows?

Because it's a different OS

WINE is great and people update the application results on a regular basis. Works great for me, it's not my fault that the application you're trying to run is not very well supported.

Whats the solution?

Add to the application database so the WINE team know it doesn't work.

M$ Windows Vista

What's M$ Windows Vista? I know of Microsoft Windows Vista. Not M$.

smartygoldenfish said:

"HP reccommends ubuntu x.xx"

Why does no one say something like that you ask?

Well to tell you the truth... These are advertisements. Dell is forced to have this Vista advertisement because of business deals. So even when you buy Ubuntu computers from them they still have that "Dell recommends Vista".

But why are more people using Windows?

That is because there are more people using windows. If everyone would use Ubuntu there would become worse problems in Windows than you are having, as they dont have Wine like we do.

I believe that Ubuntu is ahead of Windows. It's just so much more high tech! You can download all your applications by just looking through a friendly package manager that gives you descriptions and more(I can already see video previews or screenshots in the future). Windows still has that cd analogy, where you buy software on a cd and then install it(which is well, not that high tech but Windows is improving on this). I have to agree 100% with the games, which is the only reason I dual boot and it's annoying to have an 80 gb out of 250 allocated to an OS that I only use for gaming! Good points mate.

smartygoldenfish said:

Lets be very frank. Whenever i go to the wineHQ to see if my app will work or not, most of the times i feel as if i have reached a site that hasnt beeen modified for years! See that site! Its rusting! You cant expect a layman to go to this site before buying softwares! Layman wants it to run. He would be horrified to know that double clicking a EXE in ubuntu means nothing [wo WiNE] And then tell him to install what? WINE? Why not Beer, [thats *exactly * what i heard from my friend.

1. *.exe, Games

almost every day someone says the same thing because they lack a very basic but fundamental knowledge about computers. this statement is complete non-sense. if an application is written and compiled for windows than you are supposed to run it on windows. wine has a different status among all these. it's 3rd party application and is not affiliated with linux kernel or something so you can't say linux sucks because wine doesn't run windows applications. it's like saying "I hate windows because my word processor does not play video files".

I really don't understand the problem here. Even a baby can do this. Go to a software market. pick up the software package. look at the back. if it writes "windows" in the recommended system section DON'T BUY IT!

The way I see it, games made for Windows were never meant to run on Linux. It just happens that some brilliant guys thought that it's still possible to run Windows applications (and not just games) on a GNU/Linux environment and hence the project Wine.

Personally, I still play games made for Windows on Windows.

i do not think piracy is not stopping linux at all. linux has nothing to do wtih pirates. i just think about when the preinstalled systems on laptops are getting really linux focused which i see a trend in the people are going to find out that they are FREE to do what they want. i also think that they in time will learn to love that freedom and most will stop pirating since they know that there are also nice things in the world such as free doftware and cute penguins and when it hits them that there really is no need to copy stuff illegally and do something that is in fact crimanl then they will in time also staret to think more about right or wrong. i have never ever copied anyting illeagly and i am registered coda member so i do not like if i have written a song and someone just steal it. if i wrote a piece of software which i would like to be good at i would give it away with out a doubt. songs just cost a lot more to produce than i can afford so its not a problem i have its a ideal . but i think linux helps prevent pirates there is no need to copy an .exe to run on a free platform is there?

EdThaSlayer said: I believe that Ubuntu is ahead of Windows. It's just so much more high tech!

Yes...its a *perception*, a *viewpoint.* But the "behind" term coined by me, was not of technological, but popularity, ease of use, gaming and all.

cb951303 said: almost every day someone says the same thing because they lack a very basic but fundamental knowledge about computers. this statement is complete non-sense. if an application is written and compiled for windows than you are supposed to run it on windows. wine has a different status among all these. it's 3rd party application and is not affiliated with linux kernel or something so you can't say linux sucks because wine doesn't run windows applications. it's like saying "I hate windows because my word processor does not play video files".

I really don't understand the problem here. Even a baby can do this. Go to a software market. pick up the software package. look at the back. if it writes "windows" in the recommended system section DON'T BUY IT!

let me explain you the problem sir. When i go to the market and see a game and if i adopt your strategy then i will come back, without a game.. Yes, it true that NFS is written for windows and expecting it to run it on linux is completely wrong, but see, its people like you and me can make it run, with bronze rating, silver or gold, otherwise the Dual Boot and its windows licensing and all. Ubuntu is Linux for Human Beings and as far as i remember correctly, i am a human. and i like playig games. i love them. At one point of time, Ubuntu will have to be a all in one OS. Simply because its a OS, it must be versatile. Yes, developers of games must release there Linux Versions of games, but for that ubuntu needs to prove its something that consumers want. Wine is a great thing. but i see it potenetially more greater thing. It must be improved. Long Live ubuntu

EdThaSlayer said: I believe that Ubuntu is ahead of Windows. It's just so much more high tech!

Yes...its a *perception*, a *viewpoint.* But the "behind" term coined by me, was not of technological, but popularity, ease of use, gaming and all.

cb951303 said: almost every day someone says the same thing because they lack a very basic but fundamental knowledge about computers. this statement is complete non-sense. if an application is written and compiled for windows than you are supposed to run it on windows. wine has a different status among all these. it's 3rd party application and is not affiliated with linux kernel or something so you can't say linux sucks because wine doesn't run windows applications. it's like saying "I hate windows because my word processor does not play video files".

I really don't understand the problem here. Even a baby can do this. Go to a software market. pick up the software package. look at the back. if it writes "windows" in the recommended system section DON'T BUY IT!

let me explain you the problem sir. When i go to the market and see a game and if i adopt your strategy then i will come back, without a game.. Yes, it true that NFS is written for windows and expecting it to run it on linux is completely wrong, but see, its people like you and me can make it run, with bronze rating, silver or gold, otherwise the Dual Boot and its windows licensing and all. Ubuntu is Linux for Human Beings and as far as i remember correctly, i am a human. and i like playig games. i love them. At one point of time, Ubuntu will have to be a all in one OS. Simply because its a OS, it must be versatile. Yes, developers of games must release there Linux Versions of games, but for that ubuntu needs to prove its something that consumers want. Wine is a great thing. but i see it potenetially more greater thing. It must be improved. Long Live ubuntu

All those reasons are the effects of simple economics. If 90% of PCs had Ubuntu, all PCs would be advertised as "Ubuntu-compatible" and all PC games would be made for Ubuntu. But if Ubuntu cost $10000, (almost) no-one would use it.

Look at the recent Firefox example: Microsoft thought they'd achieved a monopoly after beating Netscape, but along comes a replacement that has definite advantages, and over time some people make the change. And now hardly any websites still don't work with Firefox.

If Linux in general makes advances, more people will use it, and that in turn gives more incentive for advancement.

Competition is the only way to get cumulative improvement.

:)

smartygoldenfish said:

let me explain you the problem sir. When i go to the market and see a game and if i adopt your strategy then i will come back, without a game.

that's what you should do. buying the game and then complaining about how it doesn't work in wine (which is again a *3rd party* application) is only like buying a blue ray film knowing that it won't work with your dvd player. How bad you want to make it work won't change anything... you can't blame wine or ubuntu for this. it wouldn't be fair.

One thing for sure Microsoft did well was compatibility with eeeeeverything. Linux has made great leaps towards hardware compatibility, but at my school I had many people try it, but they scrapped it because their models of wifi cards were either not supported or were a pain in the butt to get working. Things should be easy and straightforward if you want the general population to like it.

smartygoldenfish said: Recently i thought quite a lot on this topic, that despite such huge advantages why is Ubuntu is strange word to most of my friends, even to such people who call themsleves software engineers.

1, Market when was the last time you saw a ad of HP saying "HP reccommends ubuntu x.xx" No, you havnt seen it. Despite being a FREE OS, despite being more secure, despite having no activation WGA and all still its M$ Windows Vista recommended and preinstalled. Yes, news of this and that company releasing preinstalled ubuntu always comes, but its not enough to touch windows monopoly. The truth is most people buy a PC for Music, Movies, Internet and office Applications. All these are completely and covered in a better fashion by ubuntu than windows.

Lets be very frank. Whenever i go to the wineHQ to see if my app will work or not, most of the times i feel as if i have reached a site that hasnt beeen modified for years! See that site! Its rusting! You cant expect a layman to go to this site before buying softwares! Layman wants it to run. He would be horrified to know that double clicking a EXE in ubuntu means nothing [wo WiNE] And then tell him to install what? WINE? Why not Beer, [thats *exactly * what i heard from my friend.

1. *.exe, Games

When you install ubuntu, you put all your games to trash, because *most* of the times, they just dont work. [well most people dont know this, since they never install ubuntu]. But people like me, have tpo remain to dual boot because of this. And dual booting requires shelling out money for Windows.

"To know Sweet, you need to taste the Sour" Well, this may seem odd. but this is true. there is wide spread software piracy. This means you get Windows without burning a hole in your pocket. That means, you never realise the promise of ubuntu, giving you a totally free software without charging a penny. Untill piracy stops and people go to markets and buy a 200$ windows and come back and install it and find there was something staring with U which was free and better, people wont just come out!

1. Piracy

Whats up people? What are your viewpoints on above?

Dude Piracy has ALWAYS been around. Its never going to go away regardless what you use or say... I take that back. It should go away when we stop using currency (money) but until then no.

it's ahead because it is what most people grew up on and what ships on most computers. most people haven't even heard of ubuntu. if you where to show them i am sure many would switch in a heartbeat

smartygoldenfish said:

let me explain you the problem sir. When i go to the market and see a game and if i adopt your strategy then i will come back, without a game.. Yes, it true that NFS is written for windows and expecting it to run it on linux is completely wrong, but see, its people like you and me can make it run, with bronze rating, silver or gold, otherwise the Dual Boot and its windows licensing and all. Ubuntu is Linux for Human Beings and as far as i remember correctly, i am a human. and i like playig games. i love them. At one point of time, Ubuntu will have to be a all in one OS. Simply because its a OS, it must be versatile. Yes, developers of games must release there Linux Versions of games, but for that ubuntu needs to prove its something that consumers want. Wine is a great thing. but i see it potenetially more greater thing. It must be improved. Long Live ubuntu For that to happen, game developers need to write for Linux. Expecting programs designed for one OS to run on another is madness. It's a true miracle that WINE works as well as it does.

MasterNetra said: Dude Piracy has ALWAYS been around. Its never going to go away regardless what you use or say... I take that back. It should go away when we stop using currency (money) but until then no.

piracy is bad and it must end. its known that almost all ms products [except vista] got counterfieted in <24 hrs of release. This shows that consumers may never actually feel the "Freedom"

sportscrazed2 said: it's ahead because it is what most people grew up on and what ships on most computers. most people haven't even heard of ubuntu. if you where to show them i am sure many would switch in a heartbeat

True. Absolutely True.

@O.P.:

Let us be *plain*: there is *no* solidarity amongst the Linux developer community, nor is there solidarity amongst the Linux user community (which, unlike on *any* other platform, these two groups share a *significant* overlap.) Without solidarity, you *will not* get much of a consensus of opinion on nearly *anything*.

About all that you can hope for amongst the super-majority of the Linux community (and even then, it's *still not 100%*) is for us to agree we like a free-as-in-liberty environment, and that free-as-in-beer at the same time isn't too bad, *either*.

Don't get me wrong, I would *love* to see Linux displace Windows as a desktop OS. And, it's not that *that* is a pipe dream. The chinks in Microsoft's armor have become both large enough *and* sufficiently numerous in quantity that even "normal" Windows users -- as well as various companies and organizations -- *are taking cognizance of this fact*. As an example, at the college I'm about to attend, while all the campus computers are running Windows as their OS, *Firefox* and not IE is the standard web browser, with all the necessary back-end components built to accommodate that fact. It may be a bit premature to say that Microsoft is crumbling and will "fall apart next Tuesday", but *right now*, Microsoft is in the slow transition *from* continuing their success because they are a dominant force *to* continuing their success *due to inertia*.

Perhaps one of the biggest factors to which I can point, on a purely personal level, as to why *I* don't really care whether "everyone switches to Linux" is the understanding (and acceptance thereof) that not everyone on this planet should even *use* a computer, much less *own* one. As far as Windows is concerned, it will be providing a public service if it fly-papers all the idiots out there and keeps them out of our hair.

Speaking as someone who started out as a computer enthusiast in the era *of* the computer enthusiast (and watched the slow-but-steady transition of the computer landscape into a trendy, commercial and commoditized one), I would just as soon not have to watch that happen to Linux.

Just my 2¢.

cmay said: i do not think piracy is not stopping linux at all. linux has nothing to do wtih pirates. The double-negative in your sentence is confusing me as to your actual meaning.

If you believe piracy has no effect on Linux adoption, I'd urge you to listen to what Bill Gates has to say on the matter.

From Gates, Buffett a bit bearish (2 July, 1998): > Gates shed some light on his own hard-nosed business philosophy. &#8220;Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don&#8217;t pay for the software,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They&#8217;ll get sort of addicted, and then we&#8217;ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.&#8221; from How Microsoft conquered China (17 July, 2007):> Today Gates openly concedes that tolerating piracy turned out to be Microsoft&#8217;s best long-term strategy. That&#8217;s why Windows is used on an estimated 90% of China&#8217;s 120 million PCs. &#8220;It&#8217;s easier for our software to compete with Linux when there&#8217;s piracy than when there&#8217;s not,&#8221; Gates says.

CholericKoala said: One thing for sure Microsoft did well was compatibility with eeeeeverything. Linux has made great leaps towards hardware compatibility, but at my school I had many people try it, but they scrapped it because their models of wifi cards were either not supported or were a pain in the butt to get working. Microsoft didn't write all the drivers that make third-party hardware work with Windows. The hardware manufacturers write those Windows drivers. If they wrote equally good Linux ones or opened up their driver specs, you'd see that support in Linux, too.

What Microsoft did was bully its way into a virtual monopoly, so it would it be foolhardy for any hardware manufacturer *not* to make Windows drivers.

smartygoldenfish said:

let me explain you the problem sir. When i go to the market and see a game and if i adopt your strategy then i will come back, without a game.. Yeah, and that's exactly what my wife did when she switched from Windows to Mac. Are you saying Macs aren't for human beings either? She didn't have that big a problem with it. She just switched to console games full-time.

aysiu said: The double-negative in your sentence is confusing me as to your actual meaning.

If you believe piracy has no effect on Linux adoption, I'd urge you to listen to what Bill Gates has to say on the matter.

From Gates, Buffett a bit bearish (2 July, 1998): from How Microsoft conquered China (17 July, 2007):

Microsoft didn't write all the drivers that make third-party hardware work with Windows. The hardware manufacturers write those Windows drivers. If they wrote equally good Linux ones or opened up their driver specs, you'd see that support in Linux, too.

What Microsoft did was bully its way into a virtual monopoly, so it would it be foolhardy for any hardware manufacturer *not* to make Windows drivers.

Yeah, and that's exactly what my wife did when she switched from Windows to Mac. Are you saying Macs aren't for human beings either? She didn't have that big a problem with it. She just switched to console games full-time.

First your wife is a human, but a rich human that can afford first a Mac and then a console. Other humans who dont belong to your wife's group get a pc for word, powerpoint, excel and NFS MW and Music and Movies..you know secret behind Computer's sucess in homes..its an AIO..it can do *almost everything.*

And for piracy Thats what i wanted to say, logically, positive growth of piracy will lead to negative growth of Linux. perhaps that *may* be the reason for low number of chinese members in Ubuntu Forums...:)

Right. People who buy Windows gaming rigs have no money to spend. Uh-huh.

aysiu said: Right. People who buy Windows gaming rigs have no money to spend. Uh-huh.

sarcastic!!

d

bp1509 said:

The game makers can very easily make linux ports of their games. Blame them. I disagree. Developing a client for a different OS can be quite challenging.

Look at EVE: Online for example, they have a linux client, which is absolutely horrendous in my opinion, but most linux users that play EVE tend to use the windows client in WINE.

Obviously, it's not that easy to make linux ports.

smartygoldenfish said: sarcastic!!

Scanning the thread, Commander.

[IMG]http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/5908/blinkingsarcasmtricordeyr1.gif[/IMG]

Confirmed, definite traces of sarcasm present.

Hello there,

My opinion is that ubuntu (And linux, in the same sense) are lagging behind for something very hard to solve:

great troubles with hardware recognition and setup

This is, by far, the greatest barrier for a great OS like ubuntu. I have tried myself many times to switch into linux, but got really disappointed when I had to stay a whole day reading through the forums to set up a printer, a webcam, or even an ATI graphic card.

I know that by now many issues have been fixed, but I am certain that with the last version of ubuntu (I tried recently), my internet doesnt work straight away (and I need to do miracles to get it working), nor my sound card, nor the graphic card. (my laptop is 2 years old, and the hardware is not that strange at all).

I really hope this will be completely solved someday, and that things just work "plug and play", a concept that windos is keeping for its own...

That day I will devote as a only-linux follower for sure...

Awale said: Hello there,

My opinion is that ubuntu (And linux, in the same sense) are lagging behind for something very hard to solve:

great troubles with hardware recognition and setup

This is, by far, the greatest barrier for a great OS like ubuntu. I have tried myself many times to switch into linux, but got really disappointed when I had to stay a whole day reading through the forums to set up a printer, a webcam, or even an ATI graphic card.

I know that by now many issues have been fixed, but I am certain that with the last version of ubuntu (I tried recently), my internet doesnt work straight away (and I need to do miracles to get it working), nor my sound card, nor the graphic card. (my laptop is 2 years old, and the hardware is not that strange at all).

I really hope this will be completely solved someday, and that things just work "plug and play", a concept that windows is keeping for its own...

That day I will devote as a only-linux follower for sure...

They have not been fixed. Many printers esp. the popular combo printer's don''t work with Linux or only partially work after extensive work arounds.

Wireless cards are still a huge problem and ones that used to work now don't or require work arounds like ndiswrapper when they used to work without it.

ATI card esp the new ones and even Nvidia cards that used to work are now a problem to get working on Intrepid. Many video cards are not working at their proper resolution or proper frequency without extensive work arounds and edits.

Mice only two buttons work out of the box and so does the scroll wheel and it takes more work arounds and edits to get the other buttons working.

Keyboards with special buttons for volume and brightness etc require more edits and work arounds to get working.

dude linux has never been about gaining marketshare. hell it was created by a college student and given out for free to everyone.

smartygoldenfish said: First your wife is a human, but a rich human that can afford first a Mac and then a console. Other humans who dont belong to your wife's group get a pc for word, powerpoint, excel and NFS MW and Music and Movies..you know secret behind Computer's sucess in homes..its an AIO..it can do *almost everything.*

Sorry, the NFS games after HP2 are just to... punky. I still enjoy II through HP2, though. :)

I'm working on an AIO distro. When I say "all in one", I mean "go way over the top all in one". 3D modelling, photo editing, web development, video editing (kinda), music editing, audio editing, office, database, finance, font creation, WINE, email, IM, packet sniffer, network mapper, DVDs, music, video, the whole 9 yards. I mean ALL IN ONE. I'm working on LFS right now, so a stable release should come sometime in 2009. Unfortunately, I'm looking at a LiveDVD-only release. Including all that stuff is just too much to fit on a single CD. But, hey, it beats Mac OS X's two non-live installation DVDs. :)

Sealbhach said: I don't like to think of Ubuntu or any other Linux distro being "behind" Windows, as if it was a race or something. I prefer to think that Linux people are doing their own thing, regardless of whatever else is out there.

Another +1.

I don't care or want Ubuntu (or Linux in general) to have the market that Microsoft products do. More market means more *trouble*, and I prefer having my trouble be contained to changing my desktop theme and maintaining my servers, not avoiding malware, spyware, and virii. HP and others may not "recommend" Linux, but it is an offering, and that is enough for me, as Linux is, IMO, about choice.

1. Market

I would estimate that 1/3 to 1/2 of the threads about Windows vs. Ubuntu around here mention this topic at *least* once. IMO, this is not an issue. Download Wine from the official site or the Ubuntu repository, install it, try your programs. The Wine website is at least as good, if not better than, half the torrent sites and such available. If a user can find pirated copies of their games, they can figure out the Wine AppDB.

1. .EXEs and Games

You may be able to, illegally, get Windows or other products designed for it without "burning a hole in your pocket". But, it is illegal and is bad practice, as many to most of the pirated copies will have some issue, intentionally malicious or otherwise. It is not going to stop anytime soon, if ever, because as long as there is something out there to exploit, it will be exploited. If people get tired of the cycle, they have the *choice* to switch to Linux.

1. Piracy

Just my two (or I guess, three) cents. Cheers!

sportscrazed2 said: dude linux has never been about gaining marketshare. hell it was created by a college student and given out for free to everyone.

http://catb.org/esr/writings/world-domination/world-domination-201.html#id247954

n the 1990s Linus Torvalds used to give a talk called World Domination 101 on the early steps he believed Linux would need to take to achieve "world domination — fast" [1]. We've made a lot of progress since then, but Linux desktop market share remains stuck below 5%, which is too low to garner support from hardware vendors in some critical areas like graphics and wireless hardware, and too small a political base from which to effectively oppose software patents, hardware DRM, and other horrors. For those within the Linux community, World Domination 201 is about how to take advantage of an opportunity to go the rest of the way. For those outside it, this is a warning of what's coming if we fail.