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posted by martyb on Saturday July 14 2018, @08:24AM   Printer-friendly
from the more-pea-seas dept.

PC sales are growing for the first time in six years

Shipments of PCs are definitely growing, for the first time in six years. Market research firms Gartner and IDC both agree that the PC market grew in the second quarter of 2018, with IDC claiming an increase of 2.7 percent and Gartner recording a more modest 1.4 percent of growth. IDC first revealed the PC market was starting to flatten and show potential growth last year, but both Gartner and IDC track PC shipments differently.

IDC's data crucially includes Chromebooks and excludes Windows tablets including devices with a detachable keyboard like the Surface Pro. Gartner counts Windows-based tablets as PCs and excludes Chromebooks or any non-Windows-based tablets. Chromebooks appeared to be powering some PC growth last year, but now that Gartner is tracking overall growth it's clear this is also from regular Windows PCs or Macs, and not just from Android tablets or Chromebooks. This is the first year-over-year PC shipment growth since the first quarter of 2012.

Also at TechCrunch.


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    • (Score: 2) by Farkus888 on Sunday July 15 2018, @05:54AM

      by Farkus888 (5159) on Sunday July 15 2018, @05:54AM (#707496)

      I'm still on a Nexus 6p. All I want is naked Android, a headphone jack and timely updates. Apparently that is more expensive than my problems with my current phone mean to me. I have a spare for parts and fear the day I won't be able to keep this running.

  • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday July 14 2018, @10:26PM (5 children)

    by darkfeline (1030) on Saturday July 14 2018, @10:26PM (#707358) Homepage

    > IDC’s data crucially includes Chromebooks

    Yes, that is very crucial. If Chromebooks were excluded, I suspect PC sales decreased instead of increased. Chromebooks are really an attractive product for the average consumer, and they have completely taken over schools. The next generation is going to grow up familiar with Chromebooks over traditional PCs.

    Since Chromebooks come with Linux VMs now, I suppose it's strictly speaking an improvement.

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    • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Sunday July 15 2018, @01:40PM (4 children)

      by Pino P (4721) on Sunday July 15 2018, @01:40PM (#707596) Journal

      Since Chromebooks come with Linux VMs now, I suppose it's strictly speaking an improvement.

      By "Linux VM", I'm assuming you're referring to Crostini. Now I have a few questions before I buy a Chromebook:

      1. "Crostini Update: Linux Apps Show Up In Chrome OS Settings" by Gabriel Brangers [chromeunboxed.com] claims that on two different Chromebook models, "the container failed to launch", presumably because they weren't a Pixelbook. In the 11 weeks since the article was written, has Crostini been fixed to work on all Chromebooks in stores today?
      2. Is it GNU (Coreutils, Bash, GNU Make, GCC) or a non-GNU environment (such as one built around BusyBox)?
      3. Only terminal or also X11?
      4. I regularly use some applications that are shipped as Win32 executables for use in Windows and Wine. These include FCEUX (debugging version), FamiTracker, and BGB. Does Wine work on Crostini?
      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday July 15 2018, @08:09PM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday July 15 2018, @08:09PM (#707700) Journal

        https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/05/09/1424242 [soylentnews.org]

        https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/06/21/1554222 [soylentnews.org]

        This week, Acer's Chromebook Flip C101 joined the short list of Chromebooks that will offer Linux support later this year.

        I was under the impression that this would not be happening so fast and would be limited to high-end Chromebooks for a while. Unlike Android support that was rolled out pretty widely (not to my landfill-tier Chromebook though).

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      • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday July 16 2018, @12:07AM (2 children)

        by darkfeline (1030) on Monday July 16 2018, @12:07AM (#707748) Homepage

        1. Crostini isn't supported on all models. I don't have a list handy and that list will change (grow) quickly. The last number I saw was "over twenty". You want a newer/beefier model because Crostini doesn't magically make a cheap machine capable of running a heavy Linux workload, especially not in a VM
        2. The default/supported image is Ubuntu.
        3. There is X11 integration with the Chrome OS windows manager and app system (e.g., desktop entries get automagically turned into Chrome OS apps). I don't think you can actually start a regular X server; you can think of it like how X support in Wayland works, the X clients talk to the Chrome OS display server.
        4. Insofar as it works on Ubuntu in a VM.

        It's helpful to keep the context of Crostini in mind. It's basically to allow Google engineers to develop on Chrome OS. Thus, whatever features make sense in that context are going to be top priority, assuming they haven't been implemented yet.

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        • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday July 17 2018, @04:03PM (1 child)

          by Pino P (4721) on Tuesday July 17 2018, @04:03PM (#708379) Journal

          You want a newer/beefier model because Crostini doesn't magically make a cheap machine capable of running a heavy Linux workload, especially not in a VM

          For seven years, I did fairly lightweight programming in Xubuntu (Ubuntu with Xfce instead of Unity) on a Dell Inspiron mini 1012 netbook with an Atom N450 CPU (1 core, 2 threads) and 1 GB of RAM. Would Crostini be even slower than that?

          • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday July 17 2018, @06:31PM

            by darkfeline (1030) on Tuesday July 17 2018, @06:31PM (#708456) Homepage

            That should be fine. Compiling enterprise-sized C++ would be a pain though.

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