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Linux rises as a Supercomputer Operating System, but faces hurdles in the Desktop

In Nov 1997, 99.2% of the top 500 supercomputers in the world ran Unix.
9 years afterwards, It's market share has been eroded by Linux which now runs on 73.5% of the top 500 supercomputers.

In 1998 Linux made it's debut in the Top500 List, an authoritative list of the top 500 supercomputers in the world.
After 1998, it took Linux 7 years to break the magical 50% mark. As of November 2004, it ran on 60.2% of the top 500 supercomputers, in 2006 it nearly reached the 75% mark. I believe that Linux will go all the way to completely take over Unix's user base. Both OS's run on about 94.4% of the top 500 supercomputers.

The rise of Linux has come largely at the cost of Unix. Which is discernible from the fact that both operating systems are very similar in nature, and they both are operated the same way, thus the cost of switching is minimal. Linux is an open source, stable, secure, multi-user and multitasking operating system all these factors make it ideal for a supercomputer. Supercomputer manufacturers can modify the kernel source to suite their hardware. The kernel is monolithic but has elements of microkernels in that it allows kernel modules, which make kernel development very simple.

Contrasting open source Linux with closed source Unix leads to a major observation: A lot of money is flowing into Linux these days, and Linux has a large active community which contributes to it, enhancing and making the OS better. Whereas the money flowing into Unix is stagnant. After the commercialization of Unix, the operating system has been largely in decline, I expect the decline to continue and see it as irreversible. All these factors conspired to erode Unix market share in the supercomputing world.

Linux has made remarkable progress from a hobbyists project in 1991, to the leading OS in supercomputers and server systems. Linux also has made inroads into the embedded market. Motorola has been very successful marketing Linux based smartphones, like the e680i which I personally use, and have no regrets about buying it.

One area where Linux lacks is the desktop market. Which of course Microsoft rules. There are many things which conspired to make Linux entry into the Desktop difficult! For starters: Weak GUI(KDE is great, but in my opinion increasingly getting bloated), focus on command-line based user interface(no matter how good the GUI is you always have to go back to the command-line at some stage), difficulty of managing and installing Open source software (dependency hell! Gentoo's emerge, yum, conary do a great job at resolving that). But two hurdles I think have been overlooked, that is software piracy and lack of support for Open Source! The most natural user base of an Open Source operating system would be in the Third World. Countries which can not pay for basic amenities for their populations hardly can be expected to purchase proprietary software from multi-billion dollar companies. So open source software provides them a platform with which they can compete with the developed nations. However if I look around in my own country, Pakistan, I hardly see any Linux deployments around. The Government uses MS software in its offices, businesses use MS software, the people use MS software at their homes! MS Office is taught has part of the curriculum at high school. Most of the software is of course pirated, costing about half a dollar per CD (Windows is 1 CD). Because of software piracy MS Windows and related software are ubiquitous in Pakistan. Software Piracy helps proprietary software companies more than it hurts them! Precisely it makes people dependant on their technology! No-one I know is even considering of switching to Linux because they see Windows everywhere around them, they believe using Linux would put them at a disadvantage, so they better stick to Windows, no matter how many virii they get!

Not long ago I had an instructor at university, who was a senior officer in the Pakistan Armed Forces, he happened to be the director of the Army's directorate which was responsible for the IT policy. He was a complete "Microsoft Guy". He never considered any software solution which was not from Microsoft! I once had a discussion about why his directorate was making the Army dependent on Microsoft software, and not take up the initiative of making them "independent" by indigenously customizing open source software to suit their purposes. He replied this was impossible in the current scenario! There are no companies in Pakistan which provide support for Open Source software, and the Army required heavy-duty support, which to them was only being provided by Microsoft. Indeed in Pakistan there are virtually no companies which provide support for open source software. Most universities in Pakistan are busy at churning out software professionals which are adept at Microsoft technologies, and open source figures low on their curriculum. With no support companies it is very unlikely that any enterprise will take the risk to switch to Linux.