Linux share at record high.

[BuffaloX]

The stats from W3S (http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp) just arrived, and show an impressive 4.8% Linux market share.

I know I know, we can't trust that this is accurate, but none the less, this means that within a relatively large segment (web development), Linux has managed to grow.

I'm impressed that Linux is holding on to the gains of previous years, especially considering the generally positive response to Windows 7, and a stronger than ever alternative from Apple.

Linux market share is growing in a growing market. Total number of Internet users is now 1.8 billion. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

Even if we estimate Linux as low as 1% that's 18 million users, and that's not counting servers, clusters, render pools etc.

This is great news IMO. :D

[cj.surrusco]

Linux market share is growing in a growing market. Total number of Internet users is now 1.8 billion. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

Even if we estimate Linux as low as 1% that's 18 million users, and that's not counting servers, clusters, render pools etc.

Plus, Linux is deployed in a lot of places with no internet, from what I hear. This is definitely good news. Glad to see that the word is being spread.

[speedwell68]

Plus, Linux is deployed in a lot of places with no internet, from what I hear. This is definitely good news. Glad to see that the word is being spread.

Yes, I work for the local Park & Ride and all of our digital information signs use Linux.

[Redo]

Linux has come a long, long way since I started using it back in 2000. More users are realizing they don't have to be a slave to the proprietary give me your cash model just to hop on the internet and type a document or two.

[Stancel]

This is probably more accurate than the 1% figure for world Linux usage. 1% seems a little low.

[Phrea]

These results are actual users, or does it include servers?

[Old Marcus]

Actual users. If you want server usage, someone like Netcraft would be better for those results.

[Dustin2128]

I always thought it hovered at or around 1%! I'm fairly skeptical, doubt it's higher than 2 or 3% though, seeing as out of the people I know, I only know 2 who have ever heard of linux.

[Stancel]

How popular is Linux in China? That's what I'm thinking, when I say it's probably above 1%. Red Flag Linux is a Chinese Linux distro that looks like Windows XP, I read that it was being promoted by the Chinese government.

[BuffaloX]

This is probably more accurate than the 1% figure for world Linux usage. 1% seems a little low.


I always thought it hovered at or around 1%! I'm fairly skeptical, doubt it's higher than 2 or 3% though, seeing as out of the people I know, I only know 2 who have ever heard of linux.

The most pessimistic surveys are about 1% global, so I consider 1% the lower boundary, and 4.8% the upper.
8 months ago I did quite a lot of research on Linux desktop penetration, and came to the conclusion that very close to 2% was the real number.
If that number has increased to 2.2% we are at 40 million users now.

By desktop I mean Desktops/Laptops/Netbooks not servers or other kinds of special uses. I wouldn't have a clue on how to estimate that.

[BuffaloX]

How popular is Linux in China? That's what I'm thinking, when I say it's probably above 1%. Red Flag Linux is a Chinese Linux distro that looks like Windows XP, I read that it was being promoted by the Chinese government.

http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-CN-monthly-200906-201007

[aust77]

Awesome, glad to see Linux is coming along, however slowly but surely.


aust77

[Tibuda]

This stat come from W3Schools log files. I don't think a site about web development is a unbiased sample.

[JDShu]

The absolute value means very little. However, the long term trend of what the counters show can be interesting. For all the OS marketshare counters I know of, I think its undeniable that Linux has been increasing. Slow but steady pace.

[Simian Man]

The most pessimistic surveys are about 1% global, so I consider 1% the lower boundary, and 4.8% the upper.

Except that the 1% number comes from a reasonably well-balanced study and the 4.8% comes from a site that is geared specifically to developers. Our internal server is accessed by Linux machines 100% of the time; does that mean that everybody uses Linux?

I guarantee you that desktop Linux is well south of 2%.

[tgalati4]

Maybe 2010 is the "Linux Year on the Desktop."

[MasterNetra]

How popular is Linux in China? That's what I'm thinking, when I say it's probably above 1%. Red Flag Linux is a Chinese Linux distro that looks like Windows XP, I read that it was being promoted by the Chinese government.

I remember hearing at one point over 30% of laptops (or netbooks I forget which) purchased had some form of Linux. Can't remember the source though...

At any rate the US in general seems to be dragging its feet with linux but meh.

[chessnerd]

Statistics are fun!

Here is 2 years of Linux marketshare data. This site estimates it more near the traditional 1%, but notice that there are big boosts in May and less prominent, but still present, boosts in November.
http://www.netmarketshare.com/report.aspx?qprid=9&qpcustom=Linux&qptimeframe=M&qpsp=114&qpnp=25

I'm not saying that it has anything to do with the fact that Ubuntu puts out releases in late April and October, but that just might have something to do with it... ;)

[McRat]

How many people using something that is free is something very hard to gauge.

But ...

2 years ago, I still didn't know anyone personally who used a Mac. 5 years ago, I wasn't aware they were still making them. I would have guessed less than 1%, or about the same as Linux. Apple does record sales numbers, and they are much higher than 1%.

[sandyd]

The most pessimistic surveys are about 1% global, so I consider 1% the lower boundary, and 4.8% the upper.
8 months ago I did quite a lot of research on Linux desktop penetration, and came to the conclusion that very close to 2% was the real number.
If that number has increased to 2.2% we are at 40 million users now.

By desktop I mean Desktops/Laptops/Netbooks not servers or other kinds of special uses. I wouldn't have a clue on how to estimate that.
thats easy. Just get the savvis datacenter to scan all the connections that are being routed through it (it is a major datacenter, so a LOT of stuff pass through it on the way to the user's computer), and detect the OS of the server that is sending the data.

Or just get Level3/GlobalCrossing/Internap/Cogent to do it ;)

[Dayofswords]

i really doubt linux is that high, allow me to explain

the w3c site says

From the statistics below, collected from W3Schools' log-files over a period of five years...
linux tends to be used by people who know computers really well, or at least above average computer usage knowledge. they may know html, know of it and wish to know more, or looking around and stopped by the site as it's on a tech thing, html and such...
for other stats sites they go off of the toolbars.. counters

not trying to be pessimistic... but the teriible thing on OS stats is it very hard to get the right numbers on everyone

[ankit singh]

Its long way for linux to dominate desktops.Windows sells share has never dropped below 90%.

[Spr0k3t]

About a year ago, the release of 9.04 saw a major influx of over 40m unique IP addresses hitting the primary repos. The sample data was taken over four days, two prior and two after the release date. Shuttleworth talks about it in one of the IRC logs somewhere. That's just Ubuntu, and only information hitting one server. I have no doubts in my mind that the Linux share is higher than 3%.

On another note, I work as a freelance support tech to various companies who use Linux... about 40% of the computers are Ubuntu, but it's also the most preferred for the desktop systems of these small companies I help support. There are a few users who have no clue what operating system they are actually using, but they do all their work on Linux. One person even said "I thought apple computers came with the Safari browser".

So to note, there are people out there who use Linux every day as a primary office computer and don't even realize what they are using. I personally know just as many local Linux users as I know people who have iphones.

[murderslastcrow]

Just a note- out of the people I know well, over a dozen of them use Linux. So, if you go by the 'out of the people I know, I'm skeptical' mindset, I would say Linux marketshare is around 40 percent in my immediate observations. That's mainly because I'm good at showing it off as well as informing people of the benefits and the few small things Linux can't do just yet (not many).

There's no way to tell just how many users there are, but I've estimated in several instances based on distros that DO phone home and based on their popularity, we clearly have around the same amount as OS X. No official numbers, though, so people won't believe it even if 50 percent of consumers start using it.

[DoubleClicker]

Except that the 1% number comes from a reasonably well-balanced study and the 4.8% comes from a site that is geared specifically to developers. Our internal server is accessed by Linux machines 100% of the time; does that mean that everybody uses Linux?

I guarantee you that desktop Linux is well south of 2%.

No the 1% figure is from a source that is very windows centric, it is far from representative of a well balanced cross section. If you know anything about statistical analysis, you would know that the data set needs to be data set needs to be a representative sample of the the whole population. if I took a survey of support for gay marriage in San Francisco, California, it would look much different than if I took it in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The best source for a neutral data set would be the usage logs from google, but they are not available. However, Wikipedia would be a reasonably representative sample of the entire internet, and their data is available.

Their data is as follows:

Windows 3,233,130 86.53%
Mac OS X 254,100 6.80%
Linux 67,070 1.80%
iPhone 59,828 1.60%
BlackBerry 15,267 0.41%
Symbian 6,974 0.19%
iPad 3,921 0.10%
DoCoMo 498 0.01%
SunOS 375 0.01%
FreeBSD 309 0.01%
OpenBSD 33 0.00%
Total 3,736,217 100%

This however needs to be adjusted for UserAgent spoofing. I don't have a reasonable data set for this, but given that more than 80% of the Linux Users I know spoof their UA string, I would guess that 10% would be a good conservative estimate. This would bring the total market share to about 2% all -users.

[JDShu]

The best source for a neutral data set would be the usage logs from google, but they are not available. However, Wikipedia would be a reasonably representative sample of the entire internet, and their data is available.


I mostly agree, although its possible that Linux users use Wikipedia more than others.

[prodigy_]

Even Microsoft internal analysis shows that Linux share is close to that of MacOS X.

[madjr]

record high here too:
http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php




all the distros are getting better but...

i think it's ubuntu's fault for the sudden increase :D

[Old Marcus]

I mostly agree, although its possible that Linux users use Wikipedia more than others.

I don't know about that, I know plenty of students who use it, and not a single one on Linux. :P

[Khakilang]

Just imagine I am one of the 1.8% who have switch to Linux and also contribute to the Linux market share. Still I am promoting Linux to my tech friend and keep up with the trend.

[Merk42]

Maybe 2010 is the "Linux Year on the Desktop."

the year of "Linux on the Desktop" will be the same year as "Advertisements for Linux on the Desktop"

[JDShu]

I don't know about that, I know plenty of students who use it, and not a single one on Linux. :P

haha I just think that it would be a reasonable assumption that the average Linux user uses wiki more than the average Windows user, if only because they're both quite geeky.

[BuffaloX]

The best source for a neutral data set would be the usage logs from google, but they are not available. However, Wikipedia would be a reasonably representative sample of the entire internet, and their data is available.

This however needs to be adjusted for UserAgent spoofing. I don't have a reasonable data set for this, but given that more than 80% of the Linux Users I know spoof their UA string, I would guess that 10% would be a good conservative estimate. This would bring the total market share to about 2% all -users.

Very interesting statistic, that I will add to my pool, but there is a problem:
I suspect Wikipedia is not used equally much in different regions of the world, is there any breakdown on languages or regions?

I especially suspect Asian countries to be behind in Linux uptake. The often reported stories about Linux popularity in India and China has no backup in any numbers I can find.

Asia has almost half of the worlds Internet users.

[murderslastcrow]

I have to reassert that, based on my surroundings, the majority of Ubuntu users are people who use it for its simplicity and reliability, not because they're geeks.

You can't assume just because you don't show it to average users in a way that they would adopt it and you don't see many Linux users that aren't geeks, that most Linux users are geeks. Just as much as I can't say that because I help a lot of average users find Ubuntu that the majority of them are average consumers.

Outside of solid numbers, all of these arguments are trivial and based on a very near-sighted bias.

The simple fact is that Canonical has stated several amounts of known users that are over the 10 million mark, Fedora actually tracks users and has over 20 million, and Ubuntu gets a lot more attention than Fedora, so it's safe to assume it has more than 20 million. So, that's at least 40 million, even if all the other distros are just people pretending to use it or develop it while using Ubuntu or Fedora.

40 million users out of a little over a billion computer users worldwide. That's 4.1 percent.

So, from the only numbers we can really count on in any degree, we have at least 4.1 percent market share collectively. If there are more Ubuntu users than Fedora users which is likely, and more than a million users of distros other distributions which is also fairly likely since SUSE actually sells their product to consumers, I believe, then it's likely more than 4.1 percent.

I think people vastly underestimate Linux's marketshare on the desktop, since they really have no other choice. If not everyone's using it, then certainly almost no one's using it.

Speculations have very little value here. Let's just suffice to say that there ARE users, and there are MANY of them.

Outside of this, the software is exceptional despite the given user base. Even if we only had a million users, the software is good enough for everyone else. The only thing holding it back is a few niche software providers like Adobe and the fact that no one has a clear presence to point to, even with Ubuntu being sold on DELL's website. We need VISIBILITY. Once we have that, the rest will follow.

Without it, we'll be playing the numbers game well after Linux gets 50 percent market share. And, to be honest, I hope that the market remains diversified; Even if that means it's only diversified between different package formats and distro features. XD

[DoubleClicker]

haha I just think that it would be a reasonable assumption that the average Linux user uses wiki more than the average Windows user, if only because they're both quite geeky.

I would beg to differ. Wikipedia has far more articles on pop culture, than it does on science and technology. And for every view that, "Polywell", "Fractal", or "Richard Stallman" gets, "Harry Potter", "Miley Cyrus" and "Grey's Anatomy" gets hundreds. I see no reason to assume that Linux users, make up a higher percentage of wikipedia views than there actual percent of computer users.


Very interesting statistic, that I will add to my pool, but there is a problem:
I suspect Wikipedia is not used equally much in different regions of the world, is there any breakdown on languages or regions?

I especially suspect Asian countries to be behind in Linux uptake. The often reported stories about Linux popularity in India and China has no backup in any numbers I can find.

Asia has almost half of the worlds Internet users.

You could spend some time looking around http://stats.wikimedia.org/ you probably will find what you're looking for.




The simple fact is that Canonical has stated several amounts of known users that are over the 10 million mark, Fedora actually tracks users and has over 20 million, and Ubuntu gets a lot more attention than Fedora, so it's safe to assume it has more than 20 million. So, that's at least 40 million, even if all the other distros are just people pretending to use it or develop it while using Ubuntu or Fedora.

40 million users out of a little over a billion computer users worldwide. That's 4.1 percent.

So, from the only numbers we can really count on in any degree, we have at least 4.1 percent market share collectively. If there are more Ubuntu users than Fedora users which is likely, and more than a million users of distros other distributions which is also fairly likely since SUSE actually sells their product to consumers, I believe, then it's likely more than 4.1 percent.


Where did you get that 1 billion users figure from? http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm has the stats are over 1.8 billion.

If you consider that the figures on http://distrowatch.com/ are pretty much proportional to the distribution user base, then Fedora's 20 Million represents about 4.8% of all linux users. That would suggest that there are over 400 million Linux users.

Of course that is an unsubstantiated theory, so even if we concluded, that Fedora represented 15% of all Desktop Linux installations, that would be no less than 130 million Linux Users. Given a total of1.8 billion users, 7.2% would be Linux users.

[murderslastcrow]

Ah, I guess the last time I looked there were little over 1 billion. Must've been a few years back. So yeah, none of these claims are substantial, but it's pretty obvious that we at least have a few tens of millions. It'd be nice to see how many computers DELL has sold with Ubuntu on them.

Oh, and this obviously doesn't count all the Android users out there. Again, when we focus on these figures, we seem to miss the point. I think we can all agree that there are many more Linux users today than there were a year ago.

[tgalati4]

My household is 89% linux and 10% mac. Results don't add to 100% due to rounding.

And that is really the only statistic that matters.

[lostinxlation]

The IP addresses accessing the website don't tell how many unique users are accessing. DHCP can give you different addresses on every session.

[DoubleClicker]

The IP addresses accessing the website don't tell how many unique users are accessing. DHCP can give you different addresses on every session.
Back when most people used dial-up, that was a major concern, but with always on connections, it is rare for someone to get a change in IP address. Most ISPs today have a longer expiration cycle, so even if your computer was down for a couple of days you will likely get the same IP address.

I've had the same IP, for the entire time, that I've used Comcast.

[Crunchy the Headcrab]

I always thought it hovered at or around 1%! I'm fairly skeptical, doubt it's higher than 2 or 3% though, seeing as out of the people I know, I only know 2 who have ever heard of linux.

I've got 50% just including my siblings and myself (6), though basing it off of how many people you know who use Linux, is a pretty weak standard.

[JDShu]

The IP addresses accessing the website don't tell how many unique users are accessing. DHCP can give you different addresses on every session.

This is actually irrelevant. As long as the same proportions of Linux and Windows users use dynamic and static IPs (a very reasonable assumption.. there is no reason why Linux users would prefer one ISP over another) then the percentages are not affected.

[WinterRain]

I always thought it hovered at or around 1%! I'm fairly skeptical, doubt it's higher than 2 or 3% though, seeing as out of the people I know, I only know 2 who have ever heard of linux.
That's a weak argument. What about the people who know 20 linux users? I personally know 6 users.

[alexan]

Canonical should release a UME version (Ubuntu Messed Edition): a special edition of Ubuntu which simulate the life circle of a common windows XP sp1 installation.
Progressively by time in time install trojan, malaware, spyware, viruses, adware, dialer and all this kind of stuff faking the "internet presence" of tons linux installations.

Then you'll see Linux share match the Windows XP/SP1 one (which actually should be "the same" of windows 7) ;)

[murderslastcrow]

If the percentages are the same, that means that Linux isn't losing any market share to Windows, but it's in fact climbing steadily as time progresses.

Maybe this is what they mean when they say Linux scales well, OH LA, WHAT A PUN! But seriously now, About 50 percent of the people I spend considerable time with use Linux, and many people switched in my college classes from watching me use it. Also, I know many people who I began describing Linux to, but were too doubtful or busy to try it. They all said they really wanted it, though. Thing is, many of these people didn't even see it- if they did they'd probably have begged for it.

Serously, no matter how good it is, when people see compiz or KDE 4 they just start foaming from the mouth.

[lostinxlation]

Back when most people used dial-up, that was a major concern, but with always on connections, it is rare for someone to get a change in IP address. Most ISPs today have a longer expiration cycle, so even if your computer was down for a couple of days you will likely get the same IP address.

I've had the same IP, for the entire time, that I've used Comcast.
OK, makes sense.

[v1ad]

also what many don't take into consideration, and probably in the stats also. is the volume of linux servers that is out there for society. that poll was for personal computers by the look of it.

[kevin11951]

also what many don't take into consideration, and probably in the stats also. is the volume of linux servers that is out there for society. that poll was for personal computers by the look of it.

What? :confused:

[HermanAB]

Why are people concerned about market share? It doesn't matter at all. Nobody makes any money out of Linux 'market share'.

In any case, there are a lot more Linux systems out there than any other OS (mostly routers and cell phones). Each year, about 350 million new Linux devices are built. MS Windows is only the market leader in a small and unimportant market segment called 'desktop computing'. Linux is the leader in everything else.

IBM marketing estimated the Linux installed base at 2.2 billion a few years ago. I can't imagine what it is now, but a simple way to calculate it is to look at the sales of embedded processors and cell phones and multiply by 5 years.

[murderslastcrow]

HermanAB, that's a good perspective to have. I think it's great if as many people as use desktop computers can find and make use of Linux as possible, but there is one more thing to note- market share doesn't say anything for the quality of a product.

Take Microsoft Windows for example. Need I even explain?

Although this thread is about the market share, I'd agree that it's ultimately a pointless debate until it comes to a commercial vendor trying to see if he'll make money supporting Linux. Other than that, it's just a pat on the back.

[rudihawk]

I always thought it hovered at or around 1%! I'm fairly skeptical, doubt it's higher than 2 or 3% though, seeing as out of the people I know, I only know 2 who have ever heard of linux.

I know 2 people who actually use linux. (Apart from me)

[JDShu]

Why are people concerned about market share? It doesn't matter at all. Nobody makes any money out of Linux 'market share'.


This question comes up every time a thread like this appears. First to get it out of the way, when we say market share, we of course mean the approximate percentages of users who use each OS, not the sales volumes.

There is a direct benefit for us to having a higher Linux market share. Hardware and software companies have a more incentive to create products for Linux. This translates to more drivers available to Linux, for example, or more commercial grade software available to us.

On a more idealistic level, desktop OS is dominated by Microsoft. This is not completely bad, because it allows a common standard for developers. Instead of trying to make their software work for a hundreds of OS' they can reach a majority of users on just Windows. In the end though, its a monopoly, and this harms users. It would be better for Linux (or some other free OS) to become the standard.

[bruno9779]

I always thought it hovered at or around 1%! I'm fairly skeptical, doubt it's higher than 2 or 3% though, seeing as out of the people I know, I only know 2 who have ever heard of linux.

That speaks of you entourage, not of Linux.

In my hometown, (a tiny village on the Alps) no one I know has ever heard of linux. In my workplace, almost everyone has, also if only 5 out of 50 have installed it ever.

[murderslastcrow]

So we all agree that although you don't know a lot of people who use Linux, and even though I do know tons of people who use Linux, none of this is a true representation of the actual percentage of users, and shouldn't be taken to seriously indicate the amount of users?

Man, sometimes I just have to laugh at the unwarranted pessimism I come across in this community.

[MCVenom]

So we all agree that although you don't know a lot of people who use Linux, and even though I do know tons of people who use Linux, none of this is a true representation of the actual percentage of users, and shouldn't be taken to seriously indicate the amount of users?

Man, sometimes I just have to laugh at the unwarranted pessimism I come across in this community.
Pessimism... there's a lot of it around here sometimes :P

Oh and as an off hand comment so to speak, I believe your current bean count (333) is somewhat lucky in Japan :P

[Dustin2128]

That's a weak argument. What about the people who know 20 linux users? I personally know 6 users.

I'm not saying that the overall market share is like that; I don't live in a particularly technologically literate area. Its just that it's hard to believe that I should know 5 linux users when I know none. It just makes me skeptical.

[amauk]

to put another spin on this
The w3schools figure for Linux in June 2010 is the same %age figure for Mac June 2008

Linux usage share only 2 years behind Macs usage share?

Overly simplistic, I know
OSX come pre-installed, plus there's the (self-generated) cool factor of macs
but hey...

[Dustin2128]

to put another spin on this
The w3schools figure for Linux in June 2010 is the same %age figure for Mac June 2008

Linux usage share only 2 years behind Macs usage share?

Overly simplistic, I know
OSX come pre-installed, plus there's the (self-generated) cool factor of macs
but hey...
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/extrapolating.png

[BuffaloX]

-snip- However, Wikipedia would be a reasonably representative sample of the entire internet, and their data is available.

Their data is as follows:

Linux 67,070 1.80%


-snip-

The new numbers have come out, Linux is now at 1.88%.
That's almost a 5% increase in just one month. :shock:

http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm

I mentioned earlier that I suspect Wikipedia to be significantly tilted towards English speakers, and that seems to be the case:

http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOrigins.htm

So it's not a very good global stat, but we don't have similar data from any of the other stats, so how global they are is completely unknown, they may be even worse.

[Dustin2128]

The new numbers have come out, Linux is now at 1.88%.
That's almost a 5% increase in just one month. :shock:

http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm

I mentioned earlier that I suspect Wikipedia to be significantly tilted towards English speakers, and that seems to be the case:

http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOrigins.htm

So it's not a very good global stat, but we don't have similar data from any of the other stats, so how global they are is completely unknown, they may be even worse.

Hm, that's interesting, I would've thought BSD higher than 0.01. I'm highly satisfied that linux is at 1.8% though.

[murderslastcrow]

Lol, nice example Dustin.

Let's also take into account that, until recently, if you talked about being a Linux user, people basically ignored you because they didn't understand you, or thought you were being ultra-geeky. So a lot of people haven't been comfortable talking about the fact that they're a Linux user- you may know quite a few without having a clue. Also, many people have tried it out casually to revamp an old computer or something, and don't use it primarily.

Just as we can't suggest there are too many users, it would be sad to suggest there are less users due merely to pessimism. Like I've said before, there are lots of Linux users. The proportions aren't quite as important as the fact that we're loud, and there are lots of us.

Hopefully someday we come up with a way to find the number of users, and everyone's on board with it. I think even just one release anonymously polling unique machine IDs without storing that specific information, only the numbers, would be adequate. It just seems no one wants to know for some reason.

"Invisible Linux," if you will.

[phaed]

There are a few users who have no clue what operating system they are actually using, but they do all their work on Linux.

haha, that's like my parents. 4 years ago their computer got infected by a bunch of viruses, so I installed Ubuntu. As long as it had a web browser so they could check their email and shop, they were satisfied. A few months ago I mentioned to my mother that I needed to stop by to update Linux, and she said "What is Linux?" :-)

[donmiguel]

i dont know.. would wikipedia be biased? maybe by the "open"-thinking spirit thingy.

but you might just trust wikipedia statistics, since you can go look up from geeky tech things that we like to look up until to where a tv spot celibrity has been born.

enjoy

http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm

[NCLI]

i dont know.. would wikipedia be biased? maybe by the "open"-thinking spirit thingy.

but you might just trust wikipedia statistics, since you can go look up from geeky tech things that we like to look up until to where a tv spot celibrity has been born.

enjoy

http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm

I just wish Google would release their stats...

[handy]

I rub shoulders with a broad range of people & only 2 of them use a distro. Both members of the same family, that I put onto Linux roughly 5 years ago. (They are the only ones I ever would poke Linux at & it was due to the son being a really talented nerd who would very quickly learn to do all of the maintenance -> I don't do support anymore.)

From personal experience I don't think that Linux on the desktop is anywhere near 2%.

But what do I know, I'm only speaking from my small experiential, localised statistical sample.

I don't know what is happening in China, Russia & India. Linux stuff IS happening there.

When we start talking about statistics & we don't know what half of the worlds population is up to re. the statistical subject then we don't truly know what the genuine figures are.

How can we make an informed judgement when we don't know all of the facts?

[MisterGaribaldi]

Hmm... Well...

AFAIK, Linux achieved dominance in the server space (whether or not it's a majority) a while ago, and has held onto that by virtue of being solid, stable, and economical. There's lots of places still running Windows Server, and there are still plenty of Microsoft-heads, but Linux has had a very solid rep as a server platform for a while and so that's had quite an effect.

When I think of "platform dominance" or "platform share" I generally think about installed desktop OSs, not server OSs, since server "head count" only really matters to groups which write and/or support server-specific products.

In that regard, Apple is still ahead of Linux, and unless they do really stupid things long enough, it's likely to remain well ahead of Linux for the foreseeable future.

As others have said on here, however, dominance is now starting to transition over to mobile devices, and in that area at least -- thanks to Google -- Linux is becoming the dominant platform.

[handy]

@MisterGaribaldi: I agree with you as far as the Linux server space & its likely dominance in that realm is concerned, but I think the topic of this thread is basically in regards to the amount of Linux desktop penetration.

As I mentioned previously, we just don't know the numbers. Half of the world's population is dramatically increasing its use of desktop Linux, & they don't feed us (the Western public) data on the subject, that I'm aware of anyway.

If anyone does know where we can somewhat useful statistics on the subject there are certainly very many of us who are interested in perusing them.

[rg4w]

Why are people concerned about market share? It doesn't matter at all. Nobody makes any money out of Linux 'market share'.
Read "Crossing the Chasm" and "The Tipping Point".
Every computing professional who prefers Linux has a dog in this race.

[handy]

Read "Crossing the Chasm" and "The Tipping Point".
Every computing professional who prefers Linux has a dog in this race.

You have said nothing except that ALL Linux professionals are gamblers who like to bet on dogs & that there is apparently a dog race they are all involved in which is documented in at least the two books you referenced only the titles of.

?