How Hardware Companies Determine Their Linux Base

[phoronix]

Phoronix: How Hardware Companies Determine Their Linux Base

Landing in the Phoronix e-mail inbox last night was a question by a reader asking how hardware vendors determine the operating systems used by their customers and their respective market-share since there isn't anything to "phone home" and report usage statistics. In other words, this reader had just purchased four desktop processors and he was wondering how to inform AMD that he's a Linux user. This is in hopes of going towards their Linux tally and eventually increasing their Linux level of support...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=OTM4MQ

[Fixxer_Linux]

How about adding a feature directly in kernel that send to a central common database a count.
Each running kernel would therefore send his count and we would know within a month how many running kernel around the world.

Ok, this is utopia because :
older kernel wouldn't have this option
what information exactly sending : count of processors ? uptime ? how many times is it used ? is it a server or a desktop ?
Last problem, and worst of all : who will ever let such a feature be included in the kernel ? I guess no-one. It's linux. Not Apple, Microsoft or Google !


But sometimes Big Brother would help...

[Chewi]

Isn't this what all these surveys we're asked to fill out are for?

[elanthis]

How about adding a feature directly in kernel that send to a central common database a count.
Each running kernel would therefore send his count and we would know within a month how many running kernel around the world.

Except that doesn't mean anything.

Nobody gives two shits about how many Linux machines there are in use. The real question is: how many people are going to _pay money_ for improved support by _buying new hardware_.

You've got a Linux machine with an NVIDIA GPU in it now. Nobody cares. Unless you're saying that you'll go out and buy a new GTX 560 if NVIDIA releases FOSS drivers, you are entirely irrelevant in every possible way to NVIDIA.

So the question is not "how many people run Linux." The question is "how many people will buy new video cards if and only if Linux support is improved." Note that that is entirely different than "how many people will buy a new card for their Linux machine eventually no matter what."

[edvin]

How about adding a feature directly in kernel that send to a central common database a count.
Each running kernel would therefore send his count and we would know within a month how many running kernel around the world.

Ok, this is utopia because :
older kernel wouldn't have this option
what information exactly sending : count of processors ? uptime ? how many times is it used ? is it a server or a desktop ?
Last problem, and worst of all : who will ever let such a feature be included in the kernel ? I guess no-one. It's linux. Not Apple, Microsoft or Google !


But sometimes Big Brother would help...

SMOLT partially achieves that I think.

[RealNC]

Except that doesn't mean anything.

Nobody gives two shits about how many Linux machines there are in use. The real question is: how many people are going to _pay money_ for improved support by _buying new hardware_.

You've got a Linux machine with an NVIDIA GPU in it now. Nobody cares. Unless you're saying that you'll go out and buy a new GTX 560 if NVIDIA releases FOSS drivers, you are entirely irrelevant in every possible way to NVIDIA.

So the question is not "how many people run Linux." The question is "how many people will buy new video cards if and only if Linux support is improved." Note that that is entirely different than "how many people will buy a new card for their Linux machine eventually no matter what."

How's that different from Windows?

[RealNC]

SMOLT partially achieves that I think.

Can't see how. It's about packages used, not hardware.

[deanjo]

Can't see how. It's about packages used, not hardware.

Smolt also reports the hardware present in the system. (In a very poor manner however).

[Kivada]

How about adding a feature directly in kernel that send to a central common database a count.
Each running kernel would therefore send his count and we would know within a month how many running kernel around the world.

At most you'd only want to send the LSHW data, not much they can do with that but tell what you're running with no personal information revealed.

Nobody gives two shits about how many Linux machines there are in use. The real question is: how many people are going to _pay money_ for improved support by _buying new hardware_.

You've got a Linux machine with an NVIDIA GPU in it now. Nobody cares. Unless you're saying that you'll go out and buy a new GTX 560 if NVIDIA releases FOSS drivers, you are entirely irrelevant in every possible way to NVIDIA.

No, the only way to get Nvidia to notice is to beat them over the head by purchasing AMD hardware because on their lack of OSS support. Don't get distracted by the VDPAU cookie.

[deanjo]

No, the only way to get Nvidia to notice is to beat them over the head by purchasing AMD hardware because on their lack of OSS support. Don't get distracted by the VDPAU cookie.

Can you show me one such example where that has worked?