Linked by Eugenia Loli on Sat 9th Dec 2006 23:03 UTC
According to Google Trends, but also according to Distrowatch, our own statistics here at OSNews and overall sense of the industry during 2006, Ubuntu has a big leap in mind share ahead of its competition (please note that we don't dare to say "market share", although we are pretty confident that it's the most used Linux desktop out there today). The second Fedora has a very small edge ahead of SuSe (while in US is a clear second), while Debian is following fourth. Mandrake+Mandriva (add both names on Google Trends and then sum the results) is clearly way below the previous four distros, but a clear 5th nonetheless. Last year Ubuntu was only a bit ahead of the other distros worldwide, but 2006 seems to have skyrocketed the distribution in the people's minds and computers.
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RE[4]: Lies, damned lies, and statistics
by da_Chicken on Sun 10th Dec 2006 15:51
in reply to "RE[3]: Lies, damned lies, and statistics"
Member since:2006-01-01
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.
Are you suggesting that only OpenSUSE gets advantage from its frequent releases but Ubuntu doesn't get any advantage from its frequent releases at all? That's clearly an invalid argument.
Ubuntu 6.10 was released in 2006/10/26 and the latest development release came out in 2006/12/06. And there were lots of development releases, betas and release candidates for Ubuntu 6.10. All those releases must have lifted Ubuntu's page hits score on short time spans.
Still, the gap between Ubuntu and OpenSUSE has become smaller and smaller in the course of 2006. This long term trend is quite obvious and that's why it's no surprise that OpenSUSE is currently much more popular than Ubuntu.
However, I agree with you that OpenSUSE would be even more popular than it currently is if there wasn't that unfortunate Novell-Microsoft deal. But also Ubuntu screwed things up when they had big problems with the Dapper to Edgy upgrades. And then Ubuntu alienated some long-term users by saying that they're going to install binary graphics drivers automatically, without asking users first. And then Shuttleworth went poaching for OpenSUSE developers -- that definitely showed poor taste and alienated some more users from Ubuntu.
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 22:01 UTC
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The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"More News »
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2005-09-25
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.