How many Ubuntu users are there?

[penguin007]

The forums have about 250,000 members, but obviously not every user is a forum member. In my little town there are 10 people I know of that are users, but I'm the only forum member. By that logic there should be 2.5 million Ubuntu users out there.

Can anybody come up with a reasonable guesstimate of Ubuntu users world wide? How many downloads / CD's distributed etc. etc.

[plb]

I believe Mark throughout some numbers a few weeks ago. Where he came up with them I dunno. Probably unique IPs on the servers. I think he said like 4 million?

[Spr0k3t]

I draw it up by the 10/80/10 rule. It's a good static number to use. It states 10% of the Linux population is vocal about their opinion, 10% want to remain anon, and 80% don't care either way. The number of users of Linux in general have been estimated into the ten millions, if you apply the percentages on a rough average of 15M with Ubuntu holding an interest of 22.6%, you're looking at well over 3M users at a global scale. Then again, I'm basing this off of some other numbers.

[aysiu]

Check out this thread:
Statistics on usage, growth, and Ubuntu success (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=354232&highlight=statistics+ubuntu+users)

[az]

I believe Mark throughout some numbers a few weeks ago. Where he came up with them I dunno. Probably unique IPs on the servers. I think he said like 4 million?

In an interview last year, he said the estimates were between 4 and 8 million and doubling every six months. He later said in another interview that it was very hard to get accurate statistics. He suggested looking at the frequency of the "Ubuntu" being used on google, in comparison to words like "windows" for estimates of Ubuntu's popularity.

It's not that big a challenge to get linux users to switch from one distro to another. If you offer what people want, and remain credible, and are accountable to the community around the project, people will come to you. The real challenge is getting non-linux users to switch to free and open software like Ubuntu.

[penguin007]

Thanks for the link, aysiu.

Interesting also to see how the trend is going on Google: (http://www.google.com/trends?q=Ubuntu)

http://www.google.com/trends?q=Ubuntu

Seems to be going up and up.

[matthinckley]

compare linux and ubuntu:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=linux%2C+ubuntu&ctab=2&geo=all&date=all

[karellen]

have no idea, what I do know is that I am one of them...:)

[lalakis85]

No idea, trying to persuade my friends first to use it

[Sunnz]

He suggested looking at the frequency of the "Ubuntu" being used on google, in comparison to words like "windows" for estimates of Ubuntu's popularity.Like this?

http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=ubuntu&word2=windows

http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=linux&word2=windows

http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=linux&word2=ubuntu