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Ummmm, it says over 2006 as a whole! Not over the last 7 days because the newest version of Open Suse just came out. LOL!
That's why I wrote that "OpenSUSE has been catching up with Ubuntu for some time now." If you change the data span you get the following results:
Last 12 months -- Ubuntu 2646, OpenSUSE 1972
Last 6 months -- Ubuntu 2469, OpenSUSE 2007
Last 3 months -- Ubuntu 2550, OpenSUSE 2360
Last 30 days -- Ubuntu 2293, OpenSUSE 2292
Last 7 days -- Ubuntu 2467, OpenSUSE 3375
Do you notice any trend here? ;-)
And no one is even talking about Windows here. We all know Winblows is number 1. Dang. LOL!
Still, it's kind of surprising that only 33.1% of DistroWatch visitors use Linux while 57.6% of them use Windows. Clearly these are people who are interested in Linux but a large majority of them still prefer to use Windows for some reason.
Is it the same with Google Trends and the Page Hits Counter? They obviously show what people are interested in but does this interest correlate with actual usage? It's these kind of problems that I was trying to point out.
That's why I wrote that "OpenSUSE has been catching up with Ubuntu for some time now." If you change the data span you get the following results:
Last 12 months -- Ubuntu 2646, OpenSUSE 1972
Last 6 months -- Ubuntu 2469, OpenSUSE 2007
Last 3 months -- Ubuntu 2550, OpenSUSE 2360
Last 30 days -- Ubuntu 2293, OpenSUSE 2292
Last 7 days -- Ubuntu 2467, OpenSUSE 3375
Do you notice any trend here?
As the previous poster said, of course it looks like a trend - 10.2 was just released a few days ago and is thus on the front page of distrowatch. This causes it to get hundreds more hits per day at present than it typically does (exactly the same thing happens when there is a new release of any distro). These extra hits are incorporated into all the different time spans that distrowatch records, but obviously they will have the biggest effect on the the shorter time spans.
Additionally, over the last few weeks development releases have been appearing on the front page, which also sends the hit count up on the shorter time spans.
Thus, if anything, it's surprising that SUSE's figures are actually lower over the last month than the last 3 months. This is presumably fallout from the Novell-MS deal.
So, I agree with the title of your original post.
Still, it's kind of surprising that only 33.1% of DistroWatch visitors use Linux while 57.6% of them use Windows. Clearly these are people who are interested in Linux but a large majority of them still prefer to use Windows for some reason.
Or maybe that 57.6% are Windows users looking to try out/switch to Linux and go to distrowatch for info, and the 33.1% are Linux users who care abot the ranking and/or are looking for a new distro? Presumably most Linux users (like all users of products they're satisfied with) don't actually care what other products are out there unless they need to change, e.g. because of unhappiness with the MS/Novell/SuSE thing.
"Still, it's kind of surprising that only 33.1% of DistroWatch visitors use Linux while 57.6% of them use Windows."
In my case, I rarely go to DistroWatch, but when I do, it's during my lunch break at work, in which case, I'm running XP. At home, however, I run Ubuntu 100% of the time.





Member since:
2005-11-10
Ummmm, it says over 2006 as a whole! Not over the last 7 days because the newest version of Open Suse just came out. LOL!
And no one is even talking about Windows here. We all know Winblows is number 1. Dang. LOL!