Linux adoption

Organizations that have moved to using Linux for their operating system

Linux adoption is the adoption of Linux computer operating systems (OS) by households, nonprofit organizations, businesses, and governments. Many factors have resulted in the expanded use of Linux systems by traditional desktop users as well as operators of server systems, including the desire to minimize software costs, increase network security and support for open source philosophical principles. In recent years several governments, at various levels, have enacted policies shifting state owned computers to Linux from proprietary software regimes. In August 2010, Jeffrey Hammond, principal analyst at Forrester Research, declared, "Linux has crossed the chasm to mainstream adoption," a statement attested by the large number of enterprises that had transitioned to Linux during the late 2000s recession. In a company survey completed in the third quarter of 2009, 48% of surveyed companies reported using an open source operating system. The Linux Foundation regularly releases publications regarding the Linux kernel, Linux OS distributions, and related themes. One such publication, "Linux Adoption Trends: A Survey of Enterprise End Users," is freely available upon registration. Traditionally, the term Linux adoption refers to adoption of a Linux OS made for "desktop" computers, the original intended use (or adoption on servers, that is essentially the same form of OS). Adoption of that form on personal computers is still low relatively, while adoption of the Android operating system is very high. The term Linux adoption, often overlooks that operating system or other uses such as in ChromeOS that also use the Linux kernel (but have almost nothing else in common, not even the name – Linux – usually applied; while Android is the most popular variant – in fact the most popular operating system in the world).

Outside of traditional web services, Linux powers many of the biggest Internet properties (e. g., Google, Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Twitter or Yahoo! ).

Linux is used on desktop computers, servers and supercomputers, as well as a wide range of devices.

The greatest barrier to Linux desktop adoption is probably that few desktop PCs come with it from the factory. A. Y. Siu asserted in 2006 that most people use Windows simply because most PCs come with Windows pre installed; they didn't choose it. Linux has much lower market penetration because in most cases users have to install it themselves, a task that is beyond the capabilities of many PC users: "Most users won’t even use Windows restore CDs, let alone install Windows from scratch. Why would they install an unfamiliar operating system on their computers?" that although Linux was originally conceived as a desktop system, that has been the only market where it has not flourished. He suggested that the key reason that keeps Linux from getting a substantial presence in the desktop market is that the average desktop user does not want to install an operating system, so getting manufacturers to sell computers with Linux pre installed would be the missing piece to fulfill the vision of Linux in the desktop market. He added that Chromebooks, by shipping with the Linux based ChromeOS, could provide the key turning point in such a transition, much like Android allowed Linux to spread in the mobile space. In an openSUSE survey conducted in 2007, 69.5% of respondents said they dual booted a Microsoft Windows operating system in addition to a Linux operating system. In early 2007 Bill Whyman, an analyst at Precursor Advisors, noted that "there still isn't a compelling alternative to the Microsoft infrastructure on the desktop." Application support, the quality of peripheral support, and end user support were at one time seen as the biggest obstacles to desktop Linux adoption. According to a 2006 survey by The Linux Foundation, these factors were seen as a "major obstacle" for 56%, 49%, and 33% of respondents respectively at that time.

In 2008, Gartner analysts predicted that mobile devices like Netbooks with Linux could potentially break the dominance of Microsoft's Windows as operating system provider, as the netbook concept focuses on OS agnostic applications built as Web applications and browsing. Until 2008 the netbook market was dominated by Linux powered devices; this changed in 2009 after Windows XP became available as option. One of the reasons given was that many customers returned Linux based netbooks as they were still expecting a Windows like environment, despite the netbook vision: a web surfing and web application device.

In 2011, Google introduced the Chromebook, a thin client running the Linux based ChromeOS, with the ability to use web applications and remote desktop in to other computers running Windows, Mac OS X, a traditional Linux distribution or ChromeOS, using Chrome Remote Desktop. In 2012 Google and Samsung introduced the first version of the Chromebox, a small form factor desktop equivalent to the Chromebook. By 2013, Chromebooks had captured 20–25% of the sub $300 US laptop market.

Note: The term "mobile devices" in the computing context refers to cellphones and tablets; , the term does not include regular laptops, despite the fact that they have always been designed to be mobile. Android, which is based on Linux and is open source, is the most popular mobile platform. During the second quarter of 2013, 79.3% of smartphones sold worldwide were running Android. Android tablets are also available.

Firefox OS was another open source Linux based mobile operating system, which has now been discontinued. Nokia previously produced some phones running a variant of Linux (e. g. the Nokia N900), but in 2013, Nokia's handset division was bought by Microsoft.

Smartphones are gradually replacing these kinds of embedded devices, but they still exist. An example are the Portable media players. Some of the OEM firmware is Linux based. A community driven fully free and open source project is Rockbox. In vehicle infotainment hardware usually involves some kind of display, either built into the Dashboard or additional displays. The GENIVI Alliance, now called COVESA (Connected Vehicle Systems Alliance), works on a Linux based open platform to run the IVI. It may have an interface to some values delivered by the Engine control unit but is albeit completely separate system. There will be a special variant of Tizen for IVI, different for the Tizen for smartphones in several regards.

Linux is often used in various single or multi purpose computer appliances and embedded systems. Customer premises equipment are a group of devices that are embedded and have no graphical user interface in the common sense. Some are remotely operated via Secure Shell or via some Web based user interface running on some lightweight web server software. Most of the OEM firmware is based on the Linux kernel and other free and open source software, e. g. Das U Boot and Busybox. There are also a couple of community driven projects, e. g. OpenWrt. Smaller scale embedded network attached storage devices are also mostly Linux driven.

Linux became popular in the Internet server market particularly due to the LAMP software bundle. In September 2008 Steve Ballmer (Microsoft CEO) claimed 60% of servers run Linux and 40% run Windows Server. According to IDC's report covering Q2 2013, Linux was up to 23.2% of worldwide server revenue although this does compensate for the potential price disparity between Linux and non Linux servers. In May 2014, W3Techs estimated that 67.5% of the top 10 million (according to Alexa) websites run some form of Unix, and Linux is used by at least 57.2% of all those websites which use Unix.

There are various freely available implementations of LDAP servers.

Free routing software available for Linux includes BIRD, B. A. T. M. A. N., FRRouting, Quagga and XORP. Whether on Customer premises equipment, on personal computer or server hardware, the mainline Linux kernel or an adapted highly optimized Linux kernel is capable of doing routing at rates that are limited by the hardware bus throughput.

Linux is the most popular operating system among supercomputers due to the general advantages and benefits of free and open source software, like superior performance, flexibility, speed and lower costs. In November 2008 Linux held an 87.8 percent share of the world's top 500 supercomputers. Since June 2018, every computer on the TOP500 list ran some version of Linux. In January 2010, Weiwu Hu, chief architect of the Loongson family of CPUs at the Institute of Computing Technology, which is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, confirmed that the new Dawning 6000 supercomputer will use Chinese made Loongson processors and will run Linux as its operating system. The most recent supercomputer the organization built, the Dawning 5000a, which was first run in 2008, used AMD chips and ran Windows HPC Server 2008.

Dell announced it would begin shipping Ubuntu based computers to Canada and Latin America. Dell began shipping systems with Ubuntu pre installed in China. Acer launched the Linux based Acer Aspire One. In June 2008, the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT), a bulk computer buyer for students in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, decided to switch entirely to supplying Linux after Microsoft attempted to use its monopoly position to sell the organization Windows bundled with Microsoft Office. ELCOT declined the offer stating "Any such bundling could result in serious exploitation of the consumer." In August 2008, IBM cited market disillusionment with Microsoft Vista in announcing a new partnership arrangement with Red Hat, Novell and Canonical to offer "Microsoft free" personal computers with IBM application software, including Lotus Notes and Lotus Symphony.

In January 2009, the New York Times stated: "More than 10 million people are estimated to run Ubuntu today". In mid 2009, Asus, as part of its It's better with Windows campaign, stopped offering Linux, for which they received strong criticism. The company claimed that competition from other netbook makers drove them to offer only Windows XP. Writing in May 2010 Computerworld columnist Steven J. Vaughan Nichols said "I'm sure that the real reason is Microsoft has pressured Asus into abandoning Linux. On ASUS' site, you'll now see the slogan 'ASUS recommends Windows 7' proudly shown. Never mind that, while Windows 7 is a good operating system, Windows 7 is awful on netbooks." In May 2009, Fedora developer Jef Spaleta estimated on the basis of IP addresses of update downloads and statistics from the voluntary user hardware registration service Smolt that there are 16 million Fedora systems in use. No effort was made to estimate how much the Fedora installed base overlaps with other Linux distributions (enthusiasts installing many distributions on the same system). In June 2009, ZDNet reported "Worldwide, there are 13 million active Ubuntu users with use growing faster than any other distribution."

In April 2010, Chris Kenyon, vice president for OEM at Canonical Ltd., estimated that there were 12 million Ubuntu users. In June 2010, a Quebec Superior Court Judge Denis Jacques ruled that the provincial government broke the law when it spent Cdn$720,000, starting in the fall of 2006 to migrate 800 government workstations to Microsoft Windows Vista and Office 2007 without carrying out a "serious and documented search" for alternatives. The search for alternatives was legally required for any expenditures over Cdn$25,000. The court case was brought by Savoir Faire Linux, a small Montreal based company that had hoped to bid Linux software to replace the government's aging Windows XP. The judge dismissed the government's contention that Microsoft software was chosen because employees were already familiar with Windows and that switching to a different operating system would have cost more. In October 2010, a statistics company stated that Android, Google's version of Linux for smartphones (and tablets), had become the most popular operating system among new buyers.

In November 2012, Top500. org's November 2012 list has all Top 10 Supercomputers as running a distribution of Linux as their Operating System.

In February 2013, Dice and the Linux Foundation released a survey that showed Linux skills in high demand among employers. Valve announces its Linux based SteamOS for video game consoles. Supercomputers, Japan's bullet trains, traffic control, Toyota IVI, NYSE, CERN, FAA air traffic control, nuclear submarines and top websites all use Linux. In December 2013, the city of Munich announced that it successfully migrated 12,000 of its 15,000 computers to LiMux Linux and that the savings in 2013 alone were about 10 million euros.

In September 2014, the Italian city of Turin, the capital of Piedmont, decided to switch to Linux. In October 2014, the city of Gummersbach announced that their IT infrastructure now is based on 300 thin clients and 6 servers that run SuSe Linux. June 2014, France's National Gendarmerie has completed the migration of 65,000 to Linux "GendBuntu". In November 2014 Purism was founded as an OEM Linux manufacturer.

In November 2017, all 500 of the world's top supercomputers ran Linux.

In April 2018, Microsoft announced Azure Sphere, a Linux based operating system for Internet of Things applications. In May 2018, pre orders began for Atari VCS, a gaming console that is powered by the Linux kernel.

In May 2019, Microsoft announced Windows Subsystem for Linux 2, which will rely on a pre installed Linux kernel built by Microsoft. This marks the first time that the Linux kernel has shipped with a Microsoft operating system. In May 2019, South Korea announced that it was looking to migrate its major government systems to Linux, due to the pending end of support for Windows 7.

In June 2020, Lenovo announced Linux certification for ThinkPad and ThinkStation portfolio products.

In January 2021, the government of the Argentinian province of Misiones announced that it had developed GobMis GNU/Linux [es], a distribution based on the Devuan operating system, specially designed for government offices. In February 2021 Linux was first used on Mars when NASA's Perseverance rover landed on 18 February.

In late February 2022, Steam Deck was released, which runs SteamOS 3.0, which is in turn based on Arch Linux.