Comments on: Ubuntu: Just how popular is it?

By: Luke

Luke — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:47:23 +0000

Just found this on digg, Ubuntu is the most well known distro after maybe redhat

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:18:50 +0000

The most helpful marker would be the number of discreet computers accessing the ubuntu repositories over a short span of time (2-4 weeks), which would catch people who only update occasionally, without double-counting folks who have reinstalled (maybe changing the identification of their computer).

I don’t know if any distros really make this possible, since it is a potential privacy breach.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 13:37:36 +0000

STOP! Hammer time!

By: Old School Hacker

Old School Hacker — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 04:56:44 +0000

Parachute pants were popular, but still quite lame.
I’ve tried several versions of Bloatbuntu, and I have yet to be impressed.

By: maarten kooiker

maarten kooiker — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 15:23:09 +0000

Nice statistics. It is indeed hard to draw conclusions, but alltogether these numbers say something about the popularity of the different distro’s! (though this does not imply correlations with quality, look for example at the popularity of the distro called windows…..)

By: Landor

Landor — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 01:42:05 +0000

I agree with 14 & 15. The easiest way to discern a distro’s popularity is updates. Of course this depends on two factors, A) the distro in question has an update system, B) the person using said distro has an internet connection. I think it’s fairly accurate since most distros that do have an automatic update system have it set to connect with the server to look for updates automatically, regardless if the person chooses to update or not. This would show “at least” that x-amount of people used said distro at least once.

Keep your stick on the ice…

Landor

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 00:26:56 +0000

Comparing google trends with the word ‘windows’ is misleading. Most windows are made of glass.

By: David

David — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:54:56 +0000

Well it seems to me the best way to calculate usage is with the patch/update downloads. Again not totally accurate as I guess some people won’t keep there machines patched, but I tend to think it would be about the most accurate way we have. just my 2 cents worth.

By: ubuntu user

ubuntu user — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:51:24 +0000

Ubuntu provides automatic software updates, which should theoretically provide a good estimate of how many people are using their OS regularly. I don’t know if that’s how they got their numbers, but it makes sense to me. There’s also a package you can install to allow them to use your package list to help determine package popularity, if you want them to do that.

By: grigio

grigio — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:46:38 +0000

I did a similar experiment looking at some statistics of websites and a/emule
http://grigio.org/quanti_sono_utenti_linux_statistiche_ottobre

Normal Linux users are lesser than 1%, but among “techie” users, Linux beat Mac.