I hope those at the 'top' read Techrepublics article Attention Mark Shuttleworth http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/op...22&tag=nl.e101

Worth considering I would think particularly as Linux has faced a bit of blasting here and there about its market share of OS's recently. I have to agree with Jack Wallen Ubuntu just gets better and better and I cannot believe that it still has only 1% of the OS on desktops. Maybe because its free people are wary. Perhaps we should be asked to give a donation to a worthy charity every time we upgrade. I, for one would gladly donate a cup of coffee or more - much more Linux is worth it.

"With Ubuntu 10.10 the world is getting one of the most flexible, versatile, stable, and
down-right enjoyable operating systems to date" - yeah this is a part of a marketing the article
is about.

iirc, market share it generally based on sales. Since few, if any, people buy linux preinstalled then the figures and skewed towards the others, namely Windows and MacOS.

I'm still wondering why people think Ubuntu is so great, or why it keeps getting so much press. I guess the popularity of the 'For Idiots' book series might explain why Ubuntu is so popular, but that is just a guess.

"Canonical (and all creators of Linux distributions) could create the epitome of operating systems, the perfect environment for the desktop, but if they do not engage in some marketing, the only ones that will use it are those who already do. How in the world is Linux to gain ground using that model? It won’t. This is not a youtube video that can go viral in a matter of seconds. This is an operating system that people have to willingly choose and take the time to install - or purchase a machine that has the OS pre-loaded."

Wasn't this happening on Dell and they stopped doing that?..I'm sure Microsoft stopped that just like they stopped compaq's from offering Netscape.

I think you can buy a Linux distro preinstalled on systems. The problem is that they are all small-time businesses or niche markets that your average user won't bother looking at.