Linux Marketshare - care to take a guess?

[Mazza558]

I had too much time on my hands this afternoon, so I decided to take a guesstimate of the number of desktop Linux PCs in the world.

I took the average of 4 averages of average latest usage from THIS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_desktop_operating_systems) page (look at the summary table - I ignored the w3 data as it's biased towards web developers). This turned out to be about 0.665% of PCs running Linux.

I then looked at the latest guesstimate of the amount of desktop PCs used worldwide (this includes laptops), which is 822,150,000.

I get a final number of Linux Desktop PCs (between summer-winter '07 or so) at approximately:

8,276,539

Probably way off, but hey.

[tylerspaska]

Novell estimates there are 30 million linux users.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cldeHjFig_c

[Mazza558]

Novell estimates there are 30 million linux users.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cldeHjFig_c

Well, I was only off by about 22 million, so not bad :)

[bonzodog]

I saw a statistic pulled from the ubuntu repos last year, that just over 2 million unique ubuntu machines were requesting updates from them.

Using software repos is a pretty good way of gauging linux usage now. I think that novells figures include a lot of server only installs.

[Extreme Coder]

I saw a statistic pulled from the ubuntu repos last year, that just over 2 million unique ubuntu machines were requesting updates from them.

Using software repos is a pretty good way of gauging linux usage now. I think that novells figures include a lot of server only installs.
And there are people who don't use Ubuntu or Novell stuff.

[aysiu]

And there are people who don't have or don't use an internet connection.

[chucky chuckaluck]

less than 1%, is it not?

[aysiu]

less than 1%, is it not?
Based on...?

[Het Irv]

If it is not, then it is close. I have conflicting thoughts about market share, I want it to increase so that we get more programs, I just don't want more stupid users complianing because their .exe's won't work.

[chucky chuckaluck]

Based on...?

it's a guess. of the first two hundred people i know, only two of them have heard of linux and neither one uses it. i'm sure samples vary.

[qazwsx]

If it is not, then it is close. I have conflicting thoughts about market share, I want it to increase so that we get more programs, I just don't want more stupid users complianing because their .exe's won't work.


More software :confused: ;) I have already too many programs installed. For example three Office suites, three MPlayer frontends, two desktop environments, two xine frontends, several window managers etc :) :lolflag:

My guess 24561412

[Het Irv]

ahh that would be true, I was talking about quality games and professional software, sometime open source stuff is good, but not always.

[madjr]

Novell estimates there are 30 million linux users.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cldeHjFig_c

WOW LINUX SHARE IS UP

3.8% !!

RECORD HIGH!


http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

It has never been this high !!

thanks to all specially eeePC, xandros, Ubuntu, Dell, Fedora, Suse, everex, gnome, kde, etc !!

[liquidfunk]

My guess is not enough.

[retrow]

thanks to all specially eeePC, xandros, Ubuntu, Dell, Fedora, Suse, everex, gnome, kde, etc !!A part of me thinks that Dell introduced Ubuntu and other distros based machines to increase their reputation among opensource community. But if you look at the pricing of those laptops/desktops, they are way overpriced compared to their Windows counterparts for the same hardware configuration. You are left with getting a preloaded WIndows laptop which you later wipe clean to install Linux.

[Het Irv]

The Vista numbers seem low to me, I thought It was more widely deployed by now.

[Mazza558]

WOW LINUX SHARE IS UP

3.8% !!

RECORD HIGH!


http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

It has never been this high !!

thanks to all specially eeePC, xandros, Ubuntu, Dell, Fedora, Suse, everex, gnome, kde, etc !!

Nope, that's wrong. It's only stats for visitors to w3c's own website, and so is heavily biased towards web devs / designers.

[madjr]

A part of me thinks that Dell introduced Ubuntu and other distros based machines to increase their reputation among opensource community. But if you look at the pricing of those laptops/desktops, they are way overpriced compared to their Windows counterparts for the same hardware configuration. You are left with getting a preloaded WIndows laptop which you later wipe clean to install Linux.

yes, their prices for the ubuntu laptop could b way better (specially guarantee)
http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/10076558/Guarantee_for_Ubuntu_Laptops_WAY_more_EXPENSIVE_th an_windows


but at least you get a full compatible laptop (even modem works)

anyway when you format windows and install ubuntu, linux marketshare still goes up :)

[Ebuntor]

Nope, that's wrong. It's only stats for visitors to w3c's own website, and so is heavily biased towards web devs / designers.

If we go by Novell's estimate of 30 million Linux users and your esstimate of the amount of Desktop PC's used worldwide, 822,150,000.
822,150,000 / 100% * 3.8% = 31.241.700

That makes about 31 million Linux users, so W3C's 3.8% seems correct (assuming Novell's estimate and your estimate are correct as well). Besides most Linux users are very technical people so I wouldn't be surprised if most of them actually are devs and/or designers that visit the W3C site.

[Ultra Magnus]

I heard that the ubuntu had 10 million users, or that could have been 10 million unique ip addresses, not really sure

[smoker]

whatever the true figure, i think it is indisputable that the number is rising year by year!

[fela]

i wonder when it'll get over 1%, and when people'll start coding viruses for linux...

the sad truth is that we all want Linux to grow as a desktop OS (and that IS happening fast), but as it does, there'll always be more and more malware. Oh well, you can't have everything...lol

[Paqman]

whatever the true figure, i think it is indisputable that the number is rising year by year!

According to some counts, it's doubled every year for the last two years. Ubuntu has been particularly good at raising the visibility of Linux. I also think all the Compiz videos on Youtube have had a huge effect.

I know a lot more people who are trying (or thinking about trying) Linux right now.

[keykero]

20 million dual-booters...

[madjr]

20 million dual-booters...

am fine with dual-booters


i myself am a triple booter: Ubuntu hardy beta, linuxmint 4 and win XP :) (hmm or maybe this's considered just dual-boot..)


anyway who cares what you boot to, could be BSD, Haiku, windows, mac, etc... as long as your primary OS is open source and most likely starts with an U :)

[HermanAB]

The total number of Linux devices, including embedded and cell phones is of course a lot more and IBM marketing estimated it at 2 billion. My own estimate based on data from linuxdevices.com is 1.5 billion. Whichever - it makes Linux the most popular OS by a very wide margin even though desktops are only drop in the bucket.

[fatality_uk]

It's been over 1% for a while!!
My guesstimate is about 2.25%
The total number of PC's is now at 1BILLION approx ergo the Linux num PC's =
22,500,000

[Mazza558]

whatever the true figure, i think it is indisputable that the number is rising year by year!

The real question is, will this rise be able to match the number of PCs in total (which is obviously increasing very rapidly). It's all relative. What happens if 10 million new Windows PCs come into use somewhere? This'll skew the data somewhat.

[toupeiro]

I hate going by unique IP addresses because there aren't many ISP's out there today that are going to be cool enough to give you a static IP unless you want to pay the $$$ for it.

This is one area that I wish linux distros would introduce some completely voluntary, free, and quick registration. Even if your name is COMPLETELY anonymous, you can send your hostid as a unique identifier. Your system hostid stays the same even if you are rebuilding your computer because its based on your system hardware.

I would register every new instance of linux I build just to help give some real numbers to work with. IP's change like the weather.

[klange]

Unique IPs also don't work because one family will all share the same IP. What if they all use Linux? It could be 1 or 2, or 5, or even 10 people, but it's all one IP. What someone needs to do is reset the counter site and "super advertise" it to all Linux users in such a way that everyone using Linux would want to go and submit to the counter (you'd also want some sort of security measure to protect against doubles, etc.)

[retrow]

IP's change like the weather.Wait until some pseudoscientists start chiming in with their mantra that IP change is a myth :guitar:

[smoker]

The real question is, will this rise be able to match the number of PCs in total (which is obviously increasing very rapidly). It's all relative. What happens if 10 million new Windows PCs come into use somewhere? This'll skew the data somewhat.

when the price of a half decent pc was thousands of dollars, the price of a windows licence on top was pretty negligible. the price of decent hardware is so much cheaper now that the cost of putting windows on a half decent machine is a far greater percentage of the total cost.

with the advent, and rapid sales of, eg, the eeepc, and others coming on the market, it would practically double the cost of the machine to put windows on it (even if those machines could run windows well!).

there are only two ways this will play out, or perhaps a bit of both - adoption of linux is going to take off in a vast way, or microsoft will have to drastically cut the price of their operating systems to retain market share.

i think linux uptake is on an upward spiral:lolflag:

[jetpeach]

a few thoughts on posts in this thread:

about dell not pricing their linux pc competitively enough: even _if_ dells linux machines are not priced as low as the MS ones, they still deserve major props. and when i bought my inspiron 1420n, it was _definitely_ cheaper than any of the windows counterparts. i shopped a lot and was able to use the regular dell coupons for the linux machine, so got a better price than the windows ones... and the bottom line, whatever the reason dell did it (e.g., just to increase their reputation with linux users) they still deserve props since they are actually caring about the linux community and its opinion (so many companies make no effort at all...)

on more linux users meaning more viruses/malware: even if linux had the same marketshare as windows right now, viruses & malware would not exist to the degree they do on windows because the way programs are installed is so fundamentally different. think about what a .DEB file can do to your system-all the files it installs are tracked by the package manager (allowing a clean uninstall, unlike windows where uninstallers can and frequently do leave tons of files behind), .DEB cannot overwrite system files windows severe warning messages (so no overwriting critical files to add backdoors, like in windows), and most significantly the vast majority of programs can and will be installed through trusted repositories. viruses and malware on windows are caused not just by it having the largest marketshare, but because windows is fundamentally flawed in its security approach (.exe's are simply way too powerful and can pretty much kill a system completely, with no method to remove what they've done after they are installed). this is not to say there won't be some viruses on linux if it has the largest marketshare in the future, it is just that the problems will never be as bad.

[aysiu]

think about what a .DEB file can do to your system-all the files it installs are tracked by the package manager (allowing a clean uninstall, unlike windows where uninstallers can and frequently do leave tons of files behind), .DEB cannot overwrite system files windows severe warning messages (so no overwriting critical files to add backdoors, like in windows), and most significantly the vast majority of programs can and will be installed through trusted repositories. viruses and malware on windows are caused not just by it having the largest marketshare, but because windows is fundamentally flawed in its security approach (.exe's are simply way too powerful and can pretty much kill a system completely, with no method to remove what they've done after they are installed) .deb files can and do overwrite system files. When you install a .deb file, you do so with root privileges and thus give it free reign over your system.

Social engineering is not platform-specific. If someone has malicious intent and you are tricked into installing her program on your system, your system is compromised, no matter how well your system is designed, security-wise.

[Paqman]

Social engineering is not platform-specific.

Couldn't agree more. Linux itself offers some protection against malware, but at the end of the day the weak point in the system is the user.

[steveneddy]

... if you look at the pricing of those laptops/desktops, they are way overpriced compared to their Windows counterparts for the same hardware configuration.

I never look at PC's with Windows installed because if I wanted the OS that plays games, I would use it.

IMHO, Windows is nothing but a toy. It's lack of dependability, stability and reliability leave the average user wanting something more, but don't know where to look.

I always price Linux machines and never look at the toys beside them. I know that it costs more for Linux, but you always pay more for a better product.

I have bought Linux pre-installed on my laptop and will do so again soon.

If your machine crashed all the time, had a bad reputation of loosing data due to automatic restarts and frustratingly annoying "features", I would expect the company to discount the PC drastically. But on the other hand, if the machine is known to be reliable with superb stability and relaibility records, people will pay slightly more for the better quality product.

My .02

[klange]

Wait until some pseudoscientists start chiming in with their mantra that IP change is a myth :guitar:
It is a myth. I've had the same IP for years. Google's IP doesn't change. This site's IP doesn't change. All you crackpots with your crazy theories. IP Change... pff... What's next? Climate change? Ha!

[PrimoTurbo]

A lot of the stats are servers.

[fourthofjuly]

i would be more interested in how many SATISFIED linux users there are?

everyone can have one or two issues, even Windows users. but a lot of people INTERESTED in getting started with Linux, start using "FRUSTRATING" word too often and eventually quit...!!!

not that i am dissatisfied, but maybe we can have a satisfaction survey poll over here?

regards,

devang.

[aysiu]

not that i am dissatisfied, but maybe we can have a satisfaction survey poll over here? You wouldn't get accurate results.

The people who stick around here long enough to answer a poll are more likely to be satisfied than those who got frustrated and just left.

I'm not sure it's the interesting a statistic anyway. After all, most Windows users I know aren't satisfied Windows users, but they feel they're stuck with Windows, regardless, so they are Windows users (happy or not).

[nutz]

Lets not forget that Linux basically runs the internet in one form or another. Everything from the servers that power your favorite website to the routers and switches that connect you to them.

[fourthofjuly]

that's true...

[Mazza558]

I doubt the stats I used included servers, as the stats were based on the number of hits to websites - servers aren't really used to browse the web, just host it.

[nutz]

I doubt the stats I used included servers, as the stats were based on the number of hits to websites - servers aren't really used to browse the web, just host it.

I was just trying to point out that Microsoft's dominance is purely limited to desktop operating systems. Elsewhere in the computing world they barely have a foothold.

Microsoft advocates are quick to dismiss Linux when talking about end users but they take on a much more serious tone when you mention midrange, infrastructure or server aspects of computing. Because they know they are the underdog in those areas.

[Het Irv]

How is sever 2008 being recieved in the real world? I haven't seen much on it other that it came out.