Apple, Google, Microsoft, and the future of computing

[Blazkowicz]

But if you count all devices that have a processor, we see that the vast majority has no operating system whatsoever (tiny microcontrollers). Of all the devices that do have one, by far the vast majority uses an Unix derivate, most likely a custom Linux. Most of those are invisible. They're inside random electronics.

I'm not so sure about that, they often and by a great deal use a proprietary OS like VxWorks or QNX instead. Or something else entirely.
You say you might want Bluetooth, USB etc. but you can as well use a lighter simpler OS to get the stacks, no need for luxuries such as two megabytes of RAM and multitasking support.
Just saying Linux runs 90% of embedded (or some vague amount like "vast majority"), even considering only the embedded applications that run an OS, is dubious to me. It's something I've only ever read on Slashdot.


I also don't really agree that Android does something for me. It's all proprietary beyond the kernel and is like Windows RT, same kernel as desktop Windows, everything different and incompatible. The one positive thing I can think of is Ubuntu is writing a display server that can use Android drivers, so you will be able to run desktop linux on more ARM/mobile devices or run it better, one year from now.

 

[OldReverend]

I'm not sure frank. I have 4 xbox 360s , 3 desktops running windows 8 , a htpc running windows 8 , two surface pros running windows 8 and two phones running android currently.

If the xbox one works as a media center I will transition 4 xbox 360s to windows 8 type machines and my two android phones will most likely be windows 8 phones at the time of my next upgrade.

If anything I think the other OS's are becoming irrelvent again after having a few years in the sun

Gulp.

And all I want is just a bigger house.

Shows how much I've been out of touch with this hobby after all these years...

 

[betan]

Linux won web servers, embedded systems including android based devices, but on desktop it has a long way to go at least for traditional Linux desktop OS.

Isn't Microsoft using some network stack from linux? so it wins too.

Microsoft used BSD TCP/IP stack for a while, though IIRC it's just a few (possibly obsolete) utilities nowadays.

 

[Blazkowicz]

The utilities are quite useful : ping, traceroute and ftp.
I learnt networking with them on Windows 98 (automatic discovery of network shares doesn't work.. let's ping the machine before mucking with the settings! alright, it's working, let's try accessing \\192.168.0.1\stuff)

During the great Internet Explorer security debacle, I even used ftp a few times to download Firefox without using Internet Explorer.

 

[firelink]

I do backend development right now and recently switched to Manjaro (a flavor of Arch-Linux) to help speed up my production.

I have an Android phone, an Android tablet, and a Windows PC. So I guess, even though I have majority Android devices, I have 3 devices based on Linux. So I guess Linux wins with me?