Are people loosing interest in Linux?

[swoll1980]

I was on Distro Watch earlier today and compared the 2007 hpd to the 2008, and they are down about 10-15% all the way down the line from last year. Are people bored with it? Was this a bad year for Linux? Are people just content with the distro they have, and aren't interested in newer, or different software. What do you think?

edit. it was also brought to my attention that google trends shows the same 10% decline in searches for Linux, and Linux distros, so the trend is not localized to just distrowatch

[loell]

or maybe people just lost their interest at distrowatch. ;)

[earthpigg]

maybe the popular distros are getting stable enough that people aren't looking to try different distros as much?

[MeTylerDurden]

The road to change is long and winding. I have talked to a secretary who uses windows and they say they have the office package thingy and wouldn't know about office programs on Linux


c'mon baby light my fire, try and set the night on FiRe

[nightmare0]

I think that Linux needs a Publicity Agent or something, many of my computer literate friends have never heard of Linux or have heard little. I think that once lots of people hear about it the more people will want it. I just had a friend who has just started hating windows now that he has seen linux! So, no. I don't think people are losing interest. I think that it is that they never hear about it!

Well, thats my view...

[frangourou]

I was on Distro Watch earlier today and compared the 2007 hpd to the 2008, and they are down about 10-15% all the way down the line from last year. Are people bored with it? Was this a bad year for Linux? Are people just content with the distro they have, and aren't interested in newer, or different software. What do you think?
I do not know if people ar loosing interest in Linux, I for one, have just -and I mean just- joined Linux. Yet I find it very strenuous to have to look for those drivers or other bits to make the hardware work. And when I finf those drivers on various forums, I have to understand the lingo AND the procedure to download via the command lines. It is fastedious, and not everyone is into this sort of things. It is as if one bought a car and had to find where to get th alternator, the headlights and how to fit them in..
Unfortunately not everyone realises that if this situation is such it is BECAUSE of the monopoly that the other 'cannot name' mob has on all soft and hardware.
jm

[swoll1980]

or maybe people just lost their interest at distrowatch. ;)

I would have to believe that the hpd at Distrowatch is an accurate barometer of at least the of interest of people shopping around for new distros as an average.

[dusted]

I think that Linux has finally reached the stage where it works and people are content with what they have. Also with the advent of Wubi being included in 8.04, it means people can share Linux alot easier and install under the radar kinda thing. Take me for example, I've upgrade every time since Ubuntu started, but with 8.04 it has all that I need and works like a charm, more stable then Windows XP so I've been passing it around and letting people try it.

[itsStephen]

I don't think people are losing interest in it, it's actually getting good.

I've recently built a Linux computer (using Kubuntu 8.10) and I have to say that it is so much better than the last time I used Linux back in late 06.

[elmer_42]

It'll be interesting to watch what happens next year. If there is a similar decline it may mean that people are not switching distros as often as they once were.

[swoll1980]

I don't think people are losing interest in it, it's actually getting good.

I've recently built a Linux computer (using Kubuntu 8.10) and I have to say that it is so much better than the last time I used Linux back in late 06.

There's no doubt that it gets better every year, which is why I found it odd that there was a decline in the amount of hits

[loell]

I would have to believe that the hpd at Distrowatch is an accurate barometer of at least the of interest of people shopping around for new distros as an average.

I didn't know distrowatch when i first installed a distro, i'm leaning my case as similar to many others. though i have to admit that there is still no statistical data to support this.

I think the stage where you visit distrowatch frequently are the stages where you want to be adventurous and wanna try distro hoping, as such i wouldn't consider that, as stage of the average new user.

and there was a time where ubuntu was dependent on distrowatch's publishing prowess to thrust its popularity. but it became way bigger that a great number of linux/ubuntu flock doesn't follow the site anymore.
perhaps this could be the reason?

hint.. (curse Digg.com for this! :D)

[-grubby]

I think people lost interest in Distrowatch

[swoll1980]

I think people lost interest in Distrowatch

Well that's the obvious. The question is why. Why would people suddenly loose interest in distrowatch? The hits went up steadily every year since 2002. Why in 2008 did they suddenly start declining? I made a correlation to the decline in the interest of distro shopping, but why? That is the question.

[geogur]

i use linux (for years) and only just now have visted distrowatch only to see what you are talking about . that was the first and probably the last time i go to that site . i have not lost interest in linux just that site. linux lives in many places .

[chucky chuckaluck]

a couple of well placed cases of tendonitis is enough to skew the distrowatch stats. are there as many new distros this year as there were last year?

[handy]

I've been watching the increase in numbers using these forums for 3 years, & I really don't think that there is a loss of interest in Linux, quite the opposite actually.

Distrowatch is not a valid measurement, its figures just give a very general indication, Linux usage due to the nature of its licensing is probably impossible (at least so far) to get a truly accurate figure on.

[namegame]

Well that's the obvious. The question is why. Why would people suddenly loose interest in distrowatch? The hits went up steadily every year since 2002. Why in 2008 did they suddenly start declining? I made a correlation to the decline in the interest of distro shopping, but why? That is the question.

WARNING: This was a topic of a flame-war a few months back.

I remember a heated discussion about the maintainer of Distrowatch a few months back.

The Maintainer refused to list Ubuntu SE (Satanic Edition) as one of the Linux Distributions.

Because of this, many people said they had lost respect for the website. If I remember correctly Ubuntu SE fufilled all of the requirements to be listed on Distrowatch. But the maintainer made a biased decision and decided to not list it.

This created quite an uproar about the freedoms of Linux. Many claimed they wouldn't go to the site again because of it's blatant disregard for "Linux Freedom" because the maintainer allowed Ubuntu CE and Ubuntu ME, christian edition and muslim edition, respectively, but refused to list Ubuntu SE.

[grotto]

DistroWatch has had an awful lot of bad publicity lately about selectivity choosing which distros get listed. Especially on social web sites and Linux forums. As well, people abuse the rankings by inflating the amounts of hits a distro gets.

Most new users have never even heard of the site. It is solely used by people who already use Linux and those that are try to advertise their distro.

The site is useless; badly managed and poorly done. All of it is contributing to its popularity diminishing. I don't think it is indicative of Linux's popularity.

[swoll1980]

WARNING: This was a topic of a flame-war a few months back.

I remember a heated discussion about the maintainer of Distrowatch a few months back.

The Maintainer refused to list Ubuntu SE (Satanic Edition) as one of the Linux Distributions.

Because of this, many people said they had lost respect for the website. If I remember correctly Ubuntu SE fufilled all of the requirements to be listed on Distrowatch. But the maintainer made a biased decision and decided to not list it.

This created quite an uproar about the freedoms of Linux. Many claimed they wouldn't go to the site again because of it's blatant disregard for "Linux Freedom" because the maintainer allowed Ubuntu CE and Ubuntu ME, christian edition and muslim edition, respectively, but refused to list Ubuntu SE.

Perhaps that explains it all. I remember that incident, but had never considered it as a possibility.

[inobe]

interest is gaining on a daily basis.

this site for example' you will notice two thousand plus members online and thirteen thousand guests:lolflag:

its not logical to assume everything will go backwards.


linux will attract those that do not play games on pc's.

it is capturing attention from your novice user up to the average guru.

its spreading like wild fire, in fact' within the last few years it has been out of control.

personally' that web site everyone is talking about' i probably been there twice in two years, when there i was quickly bored and had to search for more exciting places.

i believe within five to ten years linux will have converted at least 50% of windows and mac users, it is so very obvious .

[joninkrakow]

I was on Distro Watch earlier today and compared the 2007 hpd to the 2008, and they are down about 10-15% all the way down the line from last year. Are people bored with it? Was this a bad year for Linux? Are people just content with the distro they have, and aren't interested in newer, or different software. What do you think?

I can't speak for others, but in my case, I have chosen Ubuntu and Puppy. When I was looking for a distro for my Pismo and Dell laptop, I spent a lot of time on DW. Now, however, I use Puppy on my Dell, and stuck with OSX on my Pismo, and use Ubuntu on my Wind. No need to go back to Distro Watch. I'm satisfied. :-)

-Jon

[namegame]

i believe within five to ten years linux will have converted at least 50% of windows and mac users, it is so very obvious .

I highly doubt this, if that happens Linux will hold 50% of the market share. (Link: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=8)

Distrowatch data is highly subjective. I work with Linux "gurus" that know Linux inside and out, however, as they are in the corporate world, to them only Redhat and SuSE exist. One of our network architects is a huge promoter of using Redhat servers, however, she didn't even know what Fedora was when I showed it to her.

Users that have found their perfect OS, whether it be Server/Desktop/whatever have little need to know the "Top 100 Linux distributions."

[wispygalaxy]

As the popularity of netbooks rises, you will see more Linux users. I know a lot of people who want to try Linux but they are afraid of installing it. Netbooks are perfect because they are cheap and have Linux already installed on them.

[inobe]

linux will not have the shares' no on that, i mean you could purchase support !

how would something take shares if its unaccounted for ?

though it would make the server part a bit more popular

[mentallaxative]

Some more statistics to think about:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=distrowatch
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=distrowatch.com&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

[swoll1980]

I highly doubt this, if that happens Linux will hold 50% of the market share. (Link: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=8)

Distrowatch data is highly subjective. I work with Linux "gurus" that know Linux inside and out, however, as they are in the corporate world, to them only Redhat and SuSE exist. One of our network architects is a huge promoter of using Redhat servers, however, she didn't even know what Fedora was when I showed it to her.

Users that have found their perfect OS, whether it be Server/Desktop/whatever have little need to know the "Top 100 Linux distributions."

I understand the subjectivity of it (if that's even a word) but it all operates under the laws of averages. If 8000 people go to distrowatch every day and 2500 choose Ubuntu, chances are that if you expanded to 80,000 25,000 would choose Ubuntu and so on. So as an average I would have to believe it's pretty accurate, but if a large group of people suddenly stopped going there it would seem as though people had lost some interest even though it was caused by a political stand, not by a decline in Linux enthusiast.

[swoll1980]

Some more statistics to think about:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=distrowatch
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=distrowatch.com&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

If you look at those trends, searches for linux, and linux distro have gone down about the same 10% as the distro watch hits. Which would prove that there is a correlation between the two.

[handy]

If you look at those trends, searches for linux, and linux distro have gone down about the same 10% as the distro watch hits. Which would prove that there is a correlation between the two.

See if someone can find any evidence that there are less people interested in Linux distro's, which does not fit in the anecdotal category which is all we have seen thus far?

I think that real verifiable evidence does not exist.

[swoll1980]

See if someone can find any evidence that there are less people interested in Linux distro's, which does not fit in the anecdotal category which is all we have seen thus far?

I think that real verifiable evidence does not exist.

nothing just a decline in the the amount of people actively searching for linux distros on the internet. The question is what is your opinion of why this is happening. Everybody is so worried about being defensive they're not answering the question. It was easy to dismiss distrowatch but google shows the exact same decline. Without saying "well it's not happening" it is obvious that less people are searching for linux distros, so why?

[inobe]

the site isn't needed, much of what is happening is by word of mouth.

every distro downloaded could get shared with up to twenty people, the person that downloaded the iso posses the information.

i don't believe a newbie would go venturing on sites like that to be honest.

[swoll1980]

the site isn't needed, much of what is happening is by word of mouth.

every distro downloaded could get shared with up to twenty people, the person that downloaded the iso posses the information.

i don't believe a newbie would go venturing on sites like that to be honest.

google trends(in case you missed it on the last page) shows the same 10% decline in searches for linux and linux distros, so this trend isn't localized to just a specialty web site, but also to the worlds largest search engine. An increase in word of mouth, and sharing could explain some of it. These are the answers I'm looking for, but you would think that these new "word of mouth" users would inevitably start searching for linux and linux distros as well. Just doesn't make sense

[halovivek]

now people are looking at stable distros and they dont want to try new distros. they want to use the distros which is quite long atleast for 3- 4 years. They are looking just powerful to windows and should have quite equal to get look and feel. so there is down in distros.

[swoll1980]

now people are looking at stable distros and they dont want to try new distros. they want to use the distros which is quite long atleast for 3- 4 years. They are looking just powerful to windows and should have quite equal to get look and feel. so there is down in distros.

This was one of my theories, and seems likely because I fall into that category. I used to be a distro hopper, because this didn't work, or I want x feature, but the Ubuntu distro has become everything that I wanted in a Linux distro I have not even thought of switching since 8.04, but I still go to distrowatch to keep up on new linux apps, and technologies. Does this mean that Linux has officially arrived?

[handy]

nothing just a decline in the the amount of people actively searching for linux distros on the internet. The question is what is your opinion of why this is happening. Everybody is so worried about being defensive they're not answering the question. It was easy to dismiss distrowatch but google shows the exact same decline. Without saying "well it's not happening" it is obvious that less people are searching for linux distros, so why?

Many users may have Bookmarks now, & just go straight to the distro' sites they are keeping an eye on.

I know that is what I do.

Your thread's question is are people loosing interest in Linux?

I have seen no evidence of this, quite the contrary.

[mentallaxative]

If you look at those trends, searches for linux, and linux distro have gone down about the same 10% as the distro watch hits. Which would prove that there is a correlation between the two.

As with all statistics, you have to be very careful with how you interpret them.... you know, correlation does not equal causation.

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=5&q=linux&cmpt=q

That's Google Trends Insights, with Linux as the keyword for the category of Computer & Electronics.

If you click on "Growth Relative to Category", you will see that interest in the C&E category has also been dropping together with Linux.

A far more vigorous approach would be to identify all relevant factors that could influence Google search hits for Linux and partial them out, eg. the current economic crisis, computer sales, general interest in open source, dissatisfaction with other operating systems. The residuals will then tell you whether interest unique to Linux has been going down.

You really need more concrete data than a visual inspection to make such a conclusion. That's just the research methods/statistics part of my brain doing the thinking. :)

[frankleeee]

If you look at those trends, searches for linux, and linux distro have gone down about the same 10% as the distro watch hits. Which would prove that there is a correlation between the two.

Correlation does not equal causation. I had never even heard of Distrowatch, but I notice first of all that they charge for things you can get for free, that would certainly make a difference to me.

[etdsbastar]

Please Dont mind but

Just make a poll on any forum of your choice reagarding the interest of linux and other distros.

You will definitely get the perfect answer.

Bye...

[kikoman]

Because they look for ubuntu?
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=5&q=ubuntu&cmpt=q

[inobe]

google trends(in case you missed it on the last page) shows the same 10% decline in searches for linux and linux distros, so this trend isn't localized to just a specialty web site, but also to the worlds largest search engine. An increase in word of mouth, and sharing could explain some of it. These are the answers I'm looking for, but you would think that these new "word of mouth" users would inevitably start searching for linux and linux distros as well. Just doesn't make sense

regardless of search engines and web sites, a friend introduced me to linux, as a former wind-os user' the thought of using anything else didn't even cross my mind.

all those hits that have been revealed to you are simply a minority of advanced users trying to find something to do.

example: most distro's i know of are very low maintenance, they require little to no effort keeping them running well' thus you become bored quickly and must search additional distro's to pass the time.

when ya begin to wonder about programming languages' its time to find something different, a new toy:lolflag:

[notwen]

Interest in Linux does not relate to the amount of hits per day(legitimate or not) at distrowatch. =]

[gs.linxusr08]

I think that people are afraid to change from Windows to a open source OS, with windows they know what they are getting into.

People seem to gravitate to familiar things, this is why when Vista was completely screwed up they went to Mac OSX the next big name brand.

Their are so many distributions and flavors of Linux its mind-blowing.