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Operating Systems Software Technology

What Is The Most Popular OS in the World? 215

Posted by timothy from the depends-how-you're-counting dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "If your answer is Windows, you're plain wrong. It's ITRON, a Japanese real-time OS kernel that can be customized for any small-scale embedded systems. According to LinuxInsider.com, it is used by more than 3 billion microprocessors found in mobile phones, digital cameras, CD players and many other electronic devices including even satellites. The article looks at the competition in this market, notably RTLinux, the real-time version of Linux, and T-Linux, an environment for running middleware. This last effort could lead to the eTRON chip, an encryption device that offers secure data transfer across wireless networks and the Internet. One thing is sure for this market: the future is definitively open-source. This overview contains more details and external references."
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What Is The Most Popular OS in the World? More

What Is The Most Popular OS in the World?

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  • Featured on SlashDot before (Score:5, Informative)

    by Mwongozi ( 176765 ) <slashthree.davidglover@org> on Sunday October 19, 2003 @09:48AM (#7253606) Homepage
    Here [slashdot.org] and here [slashdot.org].
    • What a moron moderator. Maybe he thinks this is K5 and he was trying to mod the STORY as REDUNDANT. First, there's a shortage of moderator points [slashdot.org], second, they get wasted.

      Anybody want to know what the perfect solution for dupes is (since my suggestion for re-categorizing outed dupes has not been considered)? Just filter all of Timothy's stories [slashdot.org]. I don't think he actually reads Slashdot.
    • "TRON embraced by MCP"

      PROGRAM TERMINATED

      Message for the OSS afficiondos out there:

      GREETINGS, PROGRAMMER!
      YOU HAVE BEEN RECRUITED BY THE FREE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION
      TO DEFEND THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER
      AGAINST BILL AND THE MICROSOFT ARMADA.
      GET READY! PREPARE FOR BLAST-OFF!

      We will fight them in the 'fridges, we will fight them in the microwaves, we will fight them in the sprinkler systems and the traffic lights! We will never surrender! (-:

    • I've tried very hard to locate actual sourcecode of TRON, be it ITRON, BTRON or whatever "tron".

      Despite being publicly termed "open-sourced", the sourcecode of TRON is actually very hard to find.

      Can anyone here please point out to us where we can get the source code of TRON, so at least we can see how they achieve their "small footprint" and their "real" RTOS position, versus somebody's claim that RTLinux isn't a "real" RTOS.

      Thank you !

  • Cute. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by echucker ( 570962 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @09:49AM (#7253611) Homepage
    Change the rules to suit the propaganda. When people are talking about OS', 99.44% of the time they're referring to PCs. Is it so hard to admit that Windows has huge marketshare simply because it's what has been put in front of the end user?

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @10:01AM (#7253671)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Yeah, but just think of all of the Windows users who don't know what OS they are using, even though its name is shown on the screen every time the turn on their computers.

      • Re:Cute. (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Clearly it's popular with companies producing embedded devices. Who said that "most popular" referred to popularity with end-users?
      • Yeah, but by that token, you could say that Linux is far more popular than windows simply because it gets more press than Windows does.

        Funny this should come up.
        In regard to Linux popularity. Even if it were the most used operating system in the world, how would we know? It's not like we can get an accurate count of how many Linux boxes there are. Attempting to count the number of downloads doesn't work because one download can run on a thousand machines. The number of linux boxes shipped is tiny compared
    • You're right, and that's the fatal flaw with the posted article.

      When people interact with a computer, they're interacting with the OS. In fact, it's the single most distinguishing feature to most users.

      When people interact with a microwave or iPod, they're interacting with the device. They don't care about its software; they just wanna nuke their burrito and play Britney Spears. They don't much care about the embedded software - if you swapped out the OS and added another, they'd might notice that somethi

      • Re:Cute. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by AsparagusChallenge ( 611475 )
        When people interact with a computer, they're interacting with the OS

        Actually the OS interacts with the programs; the programs interact then with people. People never interact with the OS.

        Which lead us to: the OS with W is not really "popular" (in the sense of "Accepted by or prevalent among the people in general"), but user level applications built upon it are; with your "they just wanna nuke their burrito" you're completely right just in the same sense. ITRON can then be the "most popular" for the peop

        • Re:Cute. (Score:4, Informative)

          by tambo ( 310170 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @12:48PM (#7254408)
          Actually the OS interacts with the programs; the programs interact then with people. People never interact with the OS.

          From a CS perspective, you're correct - the OS is designed to manage resources and send program requests down to the microkernel/ISA level.

          But from the contemporary perspective, the OS is a much richer bundle. Technically, using the Start Menu, manipulating files and folders on your desktop, and navigating folders in Explorer = interactions with a "program"; so are printer daemons/print queues, network interfaces, and the Control Panel. Even cutting-and-pasting is technically interacting with the clipboard "program". But these programs are so tightly bound to the OS that it's difficult to imagine a workable modern OS without them. Ask any user on the street, even sophisticated ones, what "program" they're using in these cases, and they'll all say "Windows" (or OS/X, or whatever OS they're running.)

          If by "popular" you mean prolific, as does the author, then sure, ITRON and other embedded OS's are clear winners. But if by "popular" you mean user-recognizable - even software to which users may have developed an affinity - then I think Windows is still the OS of choice worldwide.

          (Note: I'm clearly not a Microsoft shill - a search on my username will reveal posts/responses uniformly bashing Microsoft for a dozen justified reasons.)

          - David Stein
          • I mean, lots of people know who hitler is, but that dosn't make him "popular" :P

            Lots of people use windows and hate it. From memories of constant crashes in the 3.11/98 days to the constant security holes today windows users have lots of reasons to lothe the OS.

            I use windows because I'm a lazy bastard. I Recently switched to Mozilla when some Spyware got installed on my machine during a normal web-surfing session. I don't know if I accidentally clicked "yes" on something I should have, but who knows.
          • You keep using that word -- I do not think it means, what you think it means.
      • I am sure the author would apologize for informing people that there is more to OSes than what is on a PC. It just goes to show how cautious you have to be when logging on to AOL and surfing the net. Careful, you might soon end up learning that the internet and the world wide web are not one in the same.
      • "When people interact with a microwave or iPod, they're interacting with the device. They don't care about its software; they just wanna nuke their burrito and play Britney Spears."

        Right. Let's hope that by the time all our devices are linked together transparently we are no longer using operating systems that will accidentally play their burrito and nuke Britney Spears.

    • Change the rules to suit the propaganda. When people are talking about OS', 99.44% of the time they're referring to PCs. Is it so hard to admit that Windows has huge marketshare simply because it's what has been put in front of the end user?

      Uh, it looks like you said this in reply to the original post and I feel to see the propoganda either for or against any of the OS developers. Neither the slashdot or the articles promote ITRON or bash Windows.

      I for one, had not knowledge of what is running on thes

    • And 99.44% of the people referring pa PC's is referring to IBM PC's - which actually is not quite the same.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • 'most popular'? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by m0rphin3 ( 461197 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @09:53AM (#7253630)
    Is something 'most popular' when people don't even know it exists? Or if there even is a choice?

    It's like saying water is the 'most popular soft-drink' in the world..
    • By the same argument, is Windows the most popular PC operating system? Most people didn't choose to use it, it was put in front of them. But pretty much anyone who uses Linux made a choice to use it, any many more of the people who use MacOS made a choice than did Windows users.

  • ITRON belief (Score:3, Funny)

    by jackb_guppy ( 204733 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @09:53AM (#7253634)
    Does it believe in the USER?

    And now there is eTRON is coming... Looks like he has been incorporated in the MCP!

  • Most used DOES NOT equate to most popular here (Score:5, Insightful)

    by segmond ( 34052 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @09:54AM (#7253640)
    ...because the users are ignorant of the underlying OS, thus tron is not the most popular OS but the most widely deployed OS. With that said, this is a duplicate article from the past, and I am sick of slashdot insulting our intelligence with stupid sensational headlines.
  • > This last effort could lead to the eTRON chip

    etron in French means shit.

    reading the article is more funny now, isn't it ?
  • How many times do we have to beat the Itron horse?

    Ya..its the most common.. ya.. its opensource.. ya he got screwd my microsoft... bla bla bla

    But we have heard this before, many times...

  • RTLinux limitations (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gatzke ( 2977 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @09:59AM (#7253660) Homepage Journal
    Did anyone read the part about RTLinux limitations:

    "RTLinux switches tasks in milliseconds, while ITRON switches tasks in microseconds," he said. "RTLinux' footprint is measured in megabytes; ITRON is measured in kilobytes."

    Funny to see someone call a Linux version bloated and slow...
  • This may be OT, but I guess it all boils down to how you define popular. If you consider popular as "regarded with great favor, approval, or affection especially by the general public", then this rather obscure OS is not the answer, but neither is Windoze, 'cause most people don't usually make this choice, it just comes with their computers, by default. If, however, you take Webster's 6th definition ("Prevailing among the people; epidemic; as, a popular disease. [Obs.] --Johnson."), then... :)
  • Just because something is installed on a device, then mass manufactured does not equate to the status of most popular. Most installed, most used, etc... yes. Most Popular, no.

    Just trying to keep it clear.
  • ..not when the engineer choose it for them.
  • TRON is obviously the most populous in terms of all electronic devices there are. In terms of PCs, which is what OS typically refers to, Windows would be the most populous, but in terms of popularity that could go two ways. If you are defining popularity as "suited to the means of the majority" or "frequently encountered or widely accepted" that would obviously be Windows. But, if you define popularity as "commonly liked or approved" that would be Linux for the simple reason that the Linux community is m

  • Is it an OS? (Score:5, Informative)

    by pe1chl ( 90186 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @10:28AM (#7253779)
    According to the ITRON page linked, it is an operating system specification, not an operating system.

    That would make it a competitor of Posix, instead of Linux.
  • Perhaps it's time for us to Boycott this iTron and deem it the evil OS of the mobile world. Guess it doens't matter... if Microsoft has its way, iTron will go the way of Netscape, Word Perfect, and my favorite, OS/2.
  • More importantly, this isn't a popularity contest. Anyone who thinks open source will win out hasn't be put to task by our corporate overlords and their flying monkey politicians.
  • The TOPPERS/JSP kernel [toppers.jp] (in Japanese) is open source and is an implementation of the iTRON kernel. But iTRON will not be free or open source.

  • Popular != total number deployed... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Popular is something that's widely favoured, based on choice. While you could argue ITRON is popular amongst developers and vendors as an embedded OS, it certainly isn't the OS of choice for consumers who aren't all going out in droves demanding ITRON-powered phones.

    So, ITRON, the OS with the biggest market share (based on device numbers not revenue) in the world.

  • Linux and TRON don't really play in the same space. You can embed Linux only so far...

    It'd be much more interesting if they'd brought in a comparison with eCos which is the natural alternative to TRON at a deeply embedded level.

    http://sources.redhat.com/ecos/

    Interestingly enough eCos has a TRON API implementation too.

  • Doesn't it also turn out that some sort of ARM chip is the most widely used CPU... by like several scale factors?

    Of course I think this is all moot. It isn't like anyone is going to stick ITRON on their x86 and word process.
    • Actually, I think some of the older chips like the z80 or 8088 might still be the most sold CPU.

      My Comp Architecture prof came up with some numbers, and 8 bit CPUs have almost 90% of the market (or something insanely high, anyway). IIRC, 32 bit processors are well under 1%.

      Of course, when you consider that for every (pentium/athlon/whatever) CPU sold, a typical PC comes with sometimes dozens of other CPUs these days, and that's just the PC market... add in a few billion embedded devices and it all adds up
  • Does anyone think for a second that this article would have been posted on /.?

    Umm, doubtful. /bias lives on!
  • Yep, MS has there hand extended to embrace TRON..... [google.com]

    And I believe I read a slashdot posted article where the US suppressed the evolution of TRON...... I'm sure MS is very grateful....
  • Pretty much any Japanese electronic musical instrument maker has used TRON. Yamaha keyboards run it, or derivatives of it, I've been told. That will change now though, with Yamaha's recent announcement that they'll be using Linux.

    I've followed TRON since I was a kid hacker in the early 80's, and have watched its use in the industry with eager anticipation of the day it becomes more widely known about in the tech sector.

    When Linux came into existence (I've been a Linux user since *day one* of its existence
    • 1. It's iTRON not eTRON. Read the Japanese version (and if you're really familiar with iTRON, I'm sure you'll be able to)

      2. iTRON is not free or open source. It's derivative JSP/TOPPERS Kernel is.

      Dear oh dear. Is it really this easy to get mod points on ./ these days?
  • fix the post title, man...
    most used os, perhaps, popular, no.
    popular denotes that the end user might have some choice in the matter, as far as deciding the OS to be used. prolific because a manufacturer predetermined for the end user.

    windows might be a pretty popular, but that's mostly because OEM's don't always have a choice of which operating system they can bundle... 90% of the worlds computers are using some redmond derivative operating system, but once again, probably not always by end user choice...

  • "Popular" (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    popular ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ppy-lr)
    adj.

    1. Widely liked or appreciated: a popular resort.
    2. Liked by acquaintances; sought after for company: "Beware of over-great pleasure in being popular or even beloved" (Margaret Fuller).
    3. Of, representing, or carried on by the people at large: the popular vote.
    4. Fit for, adapted to, or reflecting the taste of the people at large: popular entertainment; popular science.
    5. Accepted by or prevalent among the people in general: a popular mis
  • 3 billion? So what? Linux as an embedded OS has only gained popularity in the last few years. What about all the other embedded RTOS's and OS's that have been around for years? They undoubtedly hold much more share.
  • I don't see any screenshots on that website... *looks around*

    /sarcasm>

  • What is the most popular post on Slashdot? (Score:3, Informative)

    by hankaholic ( 32239 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @01:16PM (#7254567)
    Timothy [monkey.org] writes "If your answer is Unique Stories, you're plain wrong. It's DUPES, a Canadian method of post generation that can be customized for any large-scale media systems. According to a popular geek news site [slashdot.org], it is used by more than 300 story submissions each year. The article looks at the competition in this market, notably Michael, known for not even reading submissions before posting to the homepage. This last effort could lead to the eDUPE method, an encryption method that offers secure post submission across wireless networks and the Internet. One thing is sure for this market: the future is definitively open-source. This overview [slashdot.org] contains more details and external references.
  • The Free competitors to iTRON are not RTLinux (and RTNetBSD) as the article (half fails to) point out. The competitors are eCos and RTEMS. The latter is clearly the more mature, but the former is arguably more modern in design. ECos hasn't the penetration that iTRON has achieved, but RTEMS is everywhere, and is equally invisible.
  • ..on my web site the most popular OS is one called "Unknown" which is used by 55.24% of visitors!

    http://www.muttsnutts.com/html/stats.php

    I'd be using it myself, but I'm waiting for Unknown 2 which has working USB support :)

  • By far the most popular OS choice is "none", beating out all other OS choices more than 10 to 1.

    Sure there are a lot of phones, but there are a lot more VCRs, microwave ovens, toasters, printers, fax machines, street lights...
    The majority of the worlds electronic equipment runs on an embedded PC and has custom designed software written in the worlds most popular computer language - assembly.

    -- this is not a .sig

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