“The openSUSE survey results are now online. The survey was live for almost 3 months and more than 27000 user participated. Thank you all for your participation. With your input we all are able to make openSUSE better and better.” Here [.pdf] are the detailed results.
KDE comes out in front by i wide margin despite Novells attempts to make SUSE more focused towards Gnome in the last years, i think Novell would be smarter trying to leverage this.
Does anyone know how many employees Novell have in the kde and gnome departments after they let some kde developers go a year back or so?
Other than that there wasn’t really anything newsworth there.
This is because SuSE was traditionally a KDE distro and so all the OpenSuSE users who replied to that survey are naturally favoring KDE. In fact, I find the shown Gnome percentage high — when you take into account the kind of voters who voted in that survey.
It’s sad to see that only 2% of women use SuSE though. I am sure the numbers are similar for Fedora/Ubuntu too.
It’s sad to see that only 2% of women use SuSE though. I am sure the numbers are similar for Fedora/Ubuntu too.
I can’t say I was entirely surprised, but this was by far the most overwhelming statistic reported in this survey. I seem to remember some articles on OSNews about this very issue, but I’m not sure I buy into the stock theories that attempt to explain this phenomenon. I’m not convinced that women are significantly less likely than men to feel comfortable in a meritocratic community. If anything, I’ve found in my academic and corporate experiences that female peers tend to be assertive and very performance-oriented.
As a computer engineering student, the male/female ratio was really high in many of my classes, about 80/20. But if anything, it seemed that the ratio of female students with Linux prominently installed on their laptops might have been higher than for the guys. This might not have been the best conversation starter, but it wasn’t the worst, either 😉
It seems pretty simple to me. There is one primary type of person who would be voting in that survey.
There are way more male nerds than female nerds.
I think we need to look at how this statistic was collected. It was not a survey among computer users, Linux users or even SuSE users, it was a survey among people how visited a certain Linux website in a three month period. While I know several women who use Linux to various degrees I don’t know any who actively self identify is Linux users and who actively and regularly follow Linux development and visit related web sites.
So while there many be more that 2% women Linux users there probably aren’t more than 2% women Linux geeks.
I remember SuSE quoting 75% of their users used KDE back in the days before the takeover. These figures show they have not converted anyone to gnome despite their efforts. If anything, more are using KDE now than before. It was KDE that made SuSE what it was, a company that made them want to buy it. Why try to fix what isn’t broken?
the way People are leaving Novel, the OpenSuse Project will be all but Broken unless someone takes it over
Do you have no idea how large companies work? Employees come, employees go. Please don’t pretend like a lot of people have left for any reason.
openSUSE has a crazy amount of developers and a really solid team.
openSUSE is not “pushing for GNOME over KDE” in any way. On install, users get the choice. The Enterprise products prefer GNOME; that has nothing to do with openSUSE.
The fact that the enterprise products default to Gnome has everything to do with Novell pushing Gnome,despite the well-known fact that potential and actual Novell users prefer KDE.
Why? Because many users only move to the enterprise distribution after trying OpenSuse at home. When they do, they will find out that Novell is making a mockery out of them by only putting serious work into the Gnome side of SLED, when in fact they overwhelmingly prefer KDE as the survery clearly shows.
Gnome is a top-down project. KDE is a bottom-up one. You decide which one is healthier and which one truly represents the views and spirit of the opensource community.
Why? Because many users only move to the enterprise distribution after trying OpenSuse at home.
Quite true actually. I know that was true of me, and true of many others who’ve now gone on to spend quite a bit of money on so called enterprise products.
This is because SuSE was traditionally a KDE distro and so all the OpenSuSE users who replied to that survey are naturally favoring KDE.
I’m not entirely sure what you’re trying to say there. All you’re saying is that 70% of the users who replied said they used KDE, even now that there is no default desktop environment in OpenSuse. The selection in the install is left blank for you to choose.
…when you take into account the kind of voters who voted in that survey.
I’m not entirely sure what that means, and similar comments always pop up when surveys of this kind happen. 70% of the people who responded to the survey and who use OpenSuse (presumably, because many people said they used other systems in the survey) use KDE. There’s no hidden message there.
No, it just proves that many KDE users use OpenSuSE.
Just like if you surveyed RedHat Enterprise Linux or Fedora Core users, you would probably find more GNOME users than KDE users.
In addition, note that roughly 5% of users identified themselves as basic knowledge. The majority of users indicated they were very experienced and liked configuring things themselves. KDE fits users like that better obviously.
Whereas I am a very experienced user, but I change very few settings, and prefer using GNOME.
No, it just proves that many KDE users use OpenSuSE.
And? Given the fact that Gnome is much more of an equal citizen in the OpenSuse world now, and given the fact that there is no default desktop environment now, the original poster is correct to wonder why Novell have taken the direction they have given that OpenSuse is a feeder project. I know of many SLES users who’ve looked at SLES 9 and then SLES 10 and asked “What the hell happened there?”
Just like if you surveyed RedHat Enterprise Linux or Fedora Core users, you would probably find more GNOME users than KDE users.
You’d have to do a similar survey, but I think you’d be surprised. KDE support in Fedora and Red Hat is actually quite good these days, and I doubt whether you’d see a proportion like that in the OpenSuse survey.
In addition, note that roughly 5% of users identified themselves as basic knowledge.
Does that mean Linux is not attracting people with more basic IT knowledge? Does that mean that Gnome’s ‘focus’ on these users (or what they think they are), given that they make up a small percentage of people actually using desktop Linux, is actually wrong?
The majority of users indicated they were very experienced and liked configuring things themselves. KDE fits users like that better obviously.
So what? Everyone at some point finds the need to configure something, basic user or not, and when they do they want a GUI to do it. This is not a special kind of user we’re talking about here. Whenever a survey comes out like this an awful lot of comments such as the above are made that don’t really mean anything. The fact is, the figures are what they are.
Novell made GNOME default on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. That has nothing to do with openSUSE.
As for KDE developers, yes, openSUSE employ more people to work on KDE than any other company (possibly tied with Trolltech), but to see a list of most of them see http://opensuse.org/KDE_Team …and that “KDE developers let go” was…one artist. So
.
There is also plenty of newsworthy stuff in the article. These type of surveys are never taken by that many people; it’s one of the largest (if not the largest) Linux distribution surveys ever. Just because you’re not interested in the results, it’s not to say that they’re not incredibly important. Read blogs from planetkde for example to see the interest.
KDE comes out in front by i wide margin despite Novells attempts to make SUSE more focused towards Gnome in the last years
No, it just proves that many KDE users use OpenSuSE.
How are you contradicting mariux in any way (as you seem to think you are doing by starting your reply with ‘no’)? KDE comes out in front and many KDE users use OpenSuse are not contradictory at all, as you are implying. If many KDE users use OpenSuse, of course KDE comes out in front and I have no idea why someone would argue that point.
His point stands: OpenSuse users prefer KDE despite Novell pushing Gnome. Suse being traditionally KDE and attracting KDE users may be why, sure, but doesn’t make the conclusion reached less valid. On the contrary it lends it more force. Novell has moved Suse away from is previous focus, and the majority of the users still prefer KDE anyway, for the obvious reason you point out.
No. Novell is not “pushing GNOME” anywhere but on SLED. KDE _and_ GNOME are both being pushed on openSUSE, and they still have by far the largest KDE Development team in comparison to any other distribution.
I wouldn’t take too much out of these survey results. It’s very high level and doesn’t show any real data mining here.
As a single basic example, question 17 asks about how often do you update SUSE via software updates. The results would suggest the vast majority of people do, and as a group this is collectively accurate. The problem is that it doesn’t break it down with demographics, interface, version of SUSE, usage environment and more.
This is very important because it can help define the reasons behind why people answered this question, arguably, with a very positive result. Is there a particular age bracket that is updating more than another? If or if not, why? Is there something about the way it’s done that causes a particular set of users to not use it, or conversely do use it? Is there a particular version of SUSE that can be tied to low updates and if so, for what reason? What can be learnt by what’s different between versions and any difference in update activity?
I really don’t mean to put this survey down because if the data is isolated to individual users then there is a high likelihood that some serious data mining could be done to extract useful, meaningful results that can take SUSE forward.
It’d be very valuable if the raw data from this survey is released, less the personally identifiable data (i.e. name, email address, etc) in a common electronic format so the data mining community could get to work on it.
I have to give kudos to Open SuSE on this and I took part in the survey being an IT Professional myself.
I am currently starting to work on some of the projects so I am sure it will improve greatly.
Kudos to Novell for investing heavily in SUSE!
http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/07/05/04/2147259.shtml
hate to be a OpenSuse user
I don’t know why Robert Love left, but people leave companies all the time after a few years. They just feel it’s time to move on. It could just be another round of lay-offs like Novell always does and Robert decided to go now rather than put up with it, maybe their desktop investment isn’t working out as they had hoped, maybe the management stinks (wouldn’t surprise me), change of scene….. Who knows?
There’s no covert political climate around that event that I can see like there was with some other resignations like Chris Stone, Alan Nugent, Hubert Mantel (he’s back apparently), Chris Schlaeger, Jeremy Allison etc. The worrying thing is, they’re all good people Novell can ill afford to lose at this time.
but it was strange that Gnome became the default choice on an install!
GNOME is not the default on openSUSE.
So he resigns nobody likes a person who QUITS because they can’t handle the heat.
Boo hoo, he quit goes to show Novell and SUSE did not need him I am sure there are thousands of more qualified people to take his old position.
You got to love it, who said tech jobs were going away!!!
Long live SUSE!
i used to use kde but converted by ubuntu to gnome, to me kde has too many options on each screen which makes it look ugly.
generally i prefer the cleaner approach (aesthetically) by gnome.