I have installed Ubuntu 12.04 on a laptop for fun and am impressed by how far Linux has come since I last touched it 10 years ago. The Unity Desktop is quite mature, and comes with a nice suite of word processing, media and Internet programs. Given that all this is *free* I don't understand why more people don't switch from M$! I guess it's what people are used to? These days you never need to see a terminal unless you need to do more advanced stuff.

 

I am now d/ling the XP demo (after getting past the ia32-lib "gotcha") and will see how it goes. I also need to try and install the latest NVidia drivers on the web site to the laptop. If all goes to plan I will then install Ubuntu + XP10 on a USB 3 external hard drive and have some fun.

Oh yeah, I got a rather old netbook which I bought for 200€ on sale when I got it, which is reeaally slow. It came with windows xp but even that is so slow that doing anything on it is rather impossible. I tried to get lubuntu on it, was all set to install but for some reason i couldn't get the netbook to boot from flash drive. I could choose flash drive as 1st boot priority, but when it was about to launch the boot froze and only option to get past it was to set the OS hard drive as 1st boot option. So I gave up. But yeah for pure internet usage i believe Linux would be a great option for the tech-savvy.

Oh yeah, I got a rather old netbook which I bought for 200€ on sale when I got it, which is reeaally slow. It came with windows xp but even that is so slow that doing anything on it is rather impossible. I tried to get lubuntu on it, was all set to install but for some reason i couldn't get the netbook to boot from flash drive. I could choose flash drive as 1st boot priority, but when it was about to launch the boot froze and only option to get past it was to set the OS hard drive as 1st boot option. So I gave up. But yeah for pure internet usage i believe Linux would be a great option for the tech-savvy.

 

 

Did you use YUMI or LILI / Unetbootin ?

That's a very old number. Personally, I don't think that it's still far behind Mac anymore.

My guess is rather that it will overtake Mac users in the next 3-5 years.

 

Hi Mike/Scrat,

 

This number is as new as within the last 14 days. Hardly old at all, and comes straight from Laminar. Whether they will or do publish this number publicly is not something I follow, but we continue to monitor the user level across all platforms. X-Plane 10/the installer util has some great reporting tools built in, and sadly, 2% is where Linux stands at this time.

Did you use YUMI or LILI / Unetbootin ?

I tried to install Lubuntu, so i followed the help guide steps on their site. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStickQuick

Second gotcha: X-Plane cannot find the OpenAL libraries! This line fixed it (thank you Google):

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libopenal.so.1.12.854 /usr/lib/libopenal.so.0

As the OpenAL library naming convention is not standardised, you have to create a link so X-Plane can find it (it's looking for "libopenal.so.0").

 

Now I've got XP10 running in Ubuntu there's one more caveat I've discovered; there's no speech systhesis for ATC. Now while this is probably a blessing right now, if LR soon improve the ATC to a useable level it will be a shame not to have the voices.

I tried to install Lubuntu, so i followed the help guide steps on their site. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStickQuick

 

use YUMI or LILI

 

 

That's a very old number. Personally, I don't think that it's still far behind Mac anymore.
My guess is rather that it will overtake Mac users in the next 3-5 years.

 

And to follow on my 2% remark, I now see Ben has posted such stats: http://developer.x-plane.com/2014/01/x-plane-platform-breakdown/

And to follow on my 2% remark, I now see Ben has posted such stats: http://developer.x-plane.com/2014/01/x-plane-platform-breakdown/

Interesting, and not entirely surprising for Linux - I would have thought around the 2-5% mark.

 

Although, 1 week worth of stats @ the end of December & only including Global 10.21+ and not users of previous versions/region versions is not something I would call reliable/"quality" statistics . I would expect there is quite a difference (in all platforms) especially as the last week of the year is often a downtime for a lot of users of many platforms, servies.

 

I would be interested to see data that is spread across a longer timeframe, outside of the christmas period.

Although, 1 week worth of stats @ the end of December is not something I would call reliable . I would expect there is quite a difference (in all platforms) especially as the last week of the year is often a downtime for a lot of users of many platforms & many services .

 

Conrad,

 

I disagree with this. It's actually a time when many have time off, after Christmas, and money to spend. It is also our most profitable time at X-Aviation. The stats are almost directly inline with what we have seen when we did offer more Linux products. Even if I gave benefit of the doubt and said 5%, it's not enough to justify from an ROI perspective.

 

It's just what it is, and with a data pool as large as Ben is giving, it's more than enough to gauge active user stats (people who even have an interest in buying add-ons).

 

And, before you try and argue this point any further, I'll let you know that MORE people logged on and used X-Plane over that holiday timespan than did over something as recent as Jan. 12-19, where Linux users totaled 1.9%.

Conrad,

 

I disagree with this. It's actually a time when many have time off, after Christmas, and money to spend. It is also our most profitable time at X-Aviation. The stats are almost directly inline with what we have seen when we did offer more Linux products. Even if I gave benefit of the doubt and said 5%, it's not enough to justify from an ROI perspective.

 

It's just what it is, and with a data pool as large as Ben is giving, it's more than enough to gauge active user stats (people who even have an interest in buying add-ons).

 

And, before you try and argue this point any further, I'll let you know that MORE people logged on and used X-Plane over that holiday timespan than did over something as recent as Jan. 12-19, where Linux users totaled 1.9%.

I'm not trying to argue anything - i'm not getting involved in the Linux & payware debate.

 

I'm just pointing out that a snapshot of a downtime week, probably isn't fully representitive of all platforms. Most companies define their active users on a monthly basis - very few on a weekly basis (with such a small snapshot of just 1 version+, minus other versions, especially around Christmas - seems weird. But, ok!

 

Anyway - back on Topic.

 

Linux can present interesting problems, but generally I prefer it as a platform for X-Plane & future gaming, especially with Steam.

 

C

I'm just pointing out that a snapshot of a downtime week, probably isn't fully representitive of all platforms. Most companies define their active users on a monthly basis - very few on a weekly basis, especially around Christmas.

 

And this is why I gave you another statistic as recent as a week ago, not around this alleged "downtime" which actually is a huge uptime in our market.

 

We're dealing with simple percentage points here. The objective was not to see how many active users are present on a fixed number level (i.e. 24,000 active users), but on a PERCENTAGE level, where if over a month more people use the software, the balance of additional people is likely to balance out to the same exact percentage values +/- a point. The weekly stats are consistent enough to show just that.

I'm having a hard enough time switching from my I-Phone to Android. At my age, maybe I'll loose interest in the requirement of being a computer tech, just to run a flightsim. Maybe I'll just stick to R/C, that I've come back to after 20 years. At least an aileron and elevator still connect to servos like they did before. :smile:

Well,

 

honestly the main aim of having started this thread is that I really think the future, in terms of civil flight simulation, is in products like X-Plane, LM P3dV2 and Flight Gear.

 

I would like to be able to use X-plane 10 / 11... in Linux, because I have decided to go Linux at home.

 

I started working in IT around September 1982, in Unix, and Unix, in many different flavors, is what I mainly use at work, mostly in command line and with some fancy apps for Geophysics / Atmosphere modelling.

 

When I started using flight simulators, Windows entered my user life. I can't say I don't like Windows, and actually, I am a fan of Windows 7, and didn't like Windows 8 that much... But, less time available in my life - more on this in a few days - have forced me to concentrate more on my work, even when I am at home during weekend, etc...

 

I have decided, after trying different recent Linux distros, that Ubuntu was going to be my choice. I look forward for being able to install X-Plane 10.30 on it, and I even look forward for the day market tendencies allow developers like X-Avitiaon to consider Linux again to support their products, but I can PERFECTLY understand their decision - it's still a small market, and it's good to have them with us, because, truth being said, X-Plane 10 has gained a lot from SMP, UMP, Goran's and Steve's creations, etc... and I guess the upcoming upgrades to all of their products will certainly even justify having a side install, on that Windowze partition, to run X-Aviation and other products without Linux support.

 

I still use Windows for DCS World, IL2 Bos and ELITE.

 

I guess I am going to become a fanatic of Aerowinx PSX when this get's released, and, just as happened with PS1, it'll take me away from the other sims for quite a while when it get's released. PSX is a Java-based sim, so, it'll be cross-platform, more than any other sim we know presently. But Hardy Heinlin has already stated that if one really depends on the out-of-windshield views, then X-Plane and FSX can be used for scenery browsing :-)

 

So, while I am moving to Linux ( actually writing this post from my laptop already Ubuntued... ) I will keep Windows for those reasons. As far as X-Plane is concerned, I decided to run it in Linux only, at least for now... I liked the performance, and even think my Geeforce GTX 650 Ti "reacted" better to the OpenGL drivers available for this platform, and made X-plane 10 look smoother and crispier than it did in Windows ( can be lover's eyes... ).

 

Should LR drop Linux support, I may reconsider... but most probably Flight Gear 3 will be the start of a new  era for me in terms of generic civil flight simulation. Yes it can't compare, but yes it needs our support, and deserves it, just as Linux, for beeing what they are - the contributions of many programmers who offer time and brain to their causes, for no money in return!

@Jcomm,

 

 

Cool man. Avoid using the Unity in Ubuntu I just hate it.