Google Trends recently updated their online “popularity” meter and Ubuntu remains the clear No1 Linux distro in terms of search trend. Fedora and Debian seem to be battling for the second position, while SuSE had a small “trend” loss in the 3rd place. Then, we find Gentoo, Mandriva, then Red Hat and Kubuntu. While this trend meter is not an official Linux distro market/mind share, it’s considered a pretty good approximation. Meanwhile, Fedora seems more strong in USA, while SuSE in Europe.
Ubuntu Continues to Ride the Linux Train
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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How is it an approximation of marketshare? If 10000 people search for “Ubuntu sucks”, that’ll boost their “marketshare” according to Google Trends, but it’s probably not reflective of much else.
While it does not give an accurate depiction of market share I think it does still have some relevance. I personally find myself searching for things I don’t like/have no interest in (searches like “ubuntu sucks”) significantly less than I search for things I do like/have a great interest in.
True, but the article says nothing about marketshare. “Marketshare” and popularity are different things.
However, I do think the term “mindshare” would be more appropriate than popularity in this case. Popularity implies that people are using the product, while mindshare only indicates they know and talk about it, regardless of whether it’s positively or negatively.
True, but the article says nothing about an accurate measure of marketshare. “Marketshare” and “popularity” are different things.
However, I do think the term “mindshare” would be more appropriate than popularity in this case. Popularity implies that people are using the product, while mindshare only indicates they know and talk about it, regardless of whether it’s positively or negatively.
You may be right, but I’ve never searched the net for something I think that sucks!!!
Who will anyway?
Well for example a lot of those people could be searching for “Ubuntu graphics problems”.
Well for example a lot of those people could be searching for “Ubuntu graphics problems”.
So, in this case, they are probably interested in making it work properly. So they are interested in ubuntu and probably using it. So, the statistics are right! Aren’t they?
I have been a Linux user for over six years having got through Caldera 2.2, RH 6 and Mandrake 8, 9 and 10.
I have been an Ubuntu user since Breezy and I am more than happy with Feisty as my sole home desktop on my Windows free system.
<blockquote>While this trend meter is not an official Linux market share among distros, it’s considered a pretty good approximation.</blockquote>
Well it shouldn’t be. You seem to be claiming that everyone who makes a google search for Ubuntu therefore must be using Ubuntu (and equivalently for other linux distributions), which is clearly nonsense.
Google Trends shows what people are searching for, nothing more.
You shouldn’t misquote – the text says “…Linux distro market/mind share…”
While I agree that there likely very little relevance to market share, I think it’s fair to say that it gives a good indication of the distro’s “mindshare” – specifically *because* Google Trends shows only what people are searching for.
I updated the article adding the word “mind”. In my previous article about the same thing over 6 months ago, I clearly talked about mindshare:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php/16681/Ubuntu-King-of-Distros-for-20…
It’s just that I forgot this time to call it as such. I knew I was missing something… Possibly because I do believe that the graph is pretty indicative of the market share as well. There is no denying that Ubuntu is the most popular distro worldwide today.
Edited 2007-08-04 22:10
Oops, my bad, I hadn’t seen the article before you updated it. To the original poster, sorry for accusing you of misquoting.
I’m not necessarily denying that Ubuntu is ‘the most popular distro worldwide today’ – I just don’t see any evidence for this based on the link provided. Personally, I would suspect Red Hat would be most popular, since it has probably millions of installations in the corporate world both on servers and on desktops.
I’d agree that Ubuntu is very likely the most popular distribution on hobbyists/linux enthusiasts systems right now (ie. people who read OSNews and Slashdot – but there’s a lot of corporate users of linux who’ve never even heard of you guys), and that it’s also quite possibly the most talked about distro, but I doubt the validity of Google Trends to tell us anything meaningful about this one way or the other.
For instance, Google Trends shows that searches for ‘linux’ have halved over the last three years, and I don’t believe for one minute that the market share (or the mind share) of linux has halved in that period, but by your logic that is exactly what we’d have to say.
Distrowatch also shows Ubuntu as the no.1 distribution, but again their figures aren’t applicable much beyond the world of open source fans (such as myself).
By contrast, Netcrafts’ website rankings place Debian, Red Hat, SLES, Gentoo and FreeBSD ahead of Ubuntu – and who’s to say that these figures are any less representative of the true installed base of these OS’s?
I think that used to be true. I’ve been seeing more and more interest in Ubuntu in the corporate world. My company is generally a windows and solaris house, but we’ve been seeing more of our unix users using ubuntu. I was extremely surprised to see Ubuntu installed on at least five machines. Our windows admins have also have started testing Ubuntu. I started using Ubuntu sine the first release and I used be a fedora user, I haven’t looked back and I tell and install Ubuntu for anyone I know.
Netcraft reflects the past. DistroWatch and Google Trends predicts the future.
“For instance, Google Trends shows that searches for ‘linux’ have halved over the last three years”
I think there’s another explanation to that. With the amount of online documentation and specialized packages for Ubuntu, I find myself almost exclusively using ubuntu instead of linux as a keyword.
I only use “linux” for the 0.001% of the time where an Ubuntu user didn’t write the answer online or didn’t compile a package itself.
Actually, I’m using “feisty” most of the time
I agree here. i usually type the error or problem followed by the Ubuntu version I’m using. The reason why is because you are more likely to get answers this way as the community is pretty damn big and almost any issue has been raised at least once. That’s another reason Ubuntu is so popular, the community is big and for the most part very helpful. Other communities in distro land are usually full of people who are not as tolerant of newbs as Ubuntu is.
Why the bashing ? Is it really that necessary? How is it clearly nonsense ? Perhaps you would like to explain. The purpose of such posts is foster discussion so please , at the very least ,give your reasons. I dunno how this became a post on osnews, but that’s not the issue, right here.
Back to the article and previous like posts, this IS what people are “searching for” and not an indicator of market/mindshare as some pointed out then what is it ? What DOES it indicate …. 😉 it would be nice if people first answered those obvious questions first ,
When it comes to improving your popularity, you can’t do much better than making a user-friendly Live CD with an equally easy-to-use HD installer and very little overlap in included software, plus an installer wizard for importing Windows settings and files. And then giving away free copies of it.
Mandriva One is very similar in nature (but not quite as polished, IMO). I’d also like to see openSUSE’s 1-CD Install project (http://en.opensuse.org/1_CD_install) boot into a complete Live CD with the installer there. It’d be nice to see this in other distros too; I think it’s a very neat and convenient technique that gives the user a chance to test the OS and install it afterwards without needing to insert another CD.
Free mail-in CDs are good (I just registered for a 64-bit CD from Canonical a week ago, just too see if it’ll work better this time around. Dual-booting, though).
They should probably try out a lifetime paid subscription to the latest official x.10 CDs/DVDs released. Has any Linux distro tried that out yet?
Edited 2007-08-04 22:35
We’ve had flavor of the year distributions before, but Ubuntu seems to be a different animal. Distributions get popular because they bring something new to the table. Most of the time they set a new standard for ease of use. Gentoo is a notable exception. They’re breakthroughs, but that doesn’t mean they’re built to last.
It’s hard to distill Ubuntu into a single breakthrough. But if I had to, it would be that Ubuntu shows that a distribution doesn’t have to be either community oriented or commercially viable. It can be both without sacrificing either. Instead of denying your community free-beer access to the flagship product, why not make your community the flagship and produce one level of product for everybody?
Fedora is struggling to come to grips with its identity amidst an increasingly subtle relationship with Red Hat. openSUSE is divesting of Novell’s ham-handed management software if not their ham-handed corporate strategies. Meanwhile, Ubuntu offers a strong community, a thriving platform, design wins galore, and most importantly, a clear sense of direction.
Plus a mega-millionaire humanitarian visionary that finally brings to the Linux community a brand of leadership that evokes the charisma and passion of Bill and Steve without the greed and arrogance. Someone who can woo the Michael Dells of the world in ways that Linus or Richard can’t and Szulik or Hovsepian won’t.
The commercial Linux market is young, vibrant, and full of promise. But it’s dominated by companies that reek of mid-life crisis. Ubuntu is young, vibrant, and full of promise. It also has a certain Peter Pan spirit of populism, community, and a determination not to grow up like the others. And with plenty of no-strings private funding, it doesn’t have to.
Ubuntu is here to stay, and I don’t see it budging from the top of the popularity lists over the next few years.
Edited 2007-08-05 01:12
Again, Butters, well said.
Without a doubt, Ubuntu is our star child at the mo. Sure, you could argue that your fav distro is superior for X reason(s), but does that take anything away from the current Ubuntu drive?
Personally, although I no longer use Ubuntu, I am glad that a Linux distro is getting this much attention. It is nice to see that ‘alternative’ operating systems, or operating systems as a whole, are interesting allot more people than I expected. After all, is not the realization of an alternative the first step towards choice and therefor, in this case, freedom?
Lets hope so 🙂
Wow, I really like your post and I think that you’ve hit it on the head. Ubuntu has a kind of young upstart old scholl feel to it. Kind of like when Apple and MS were first getting started, where the leaders were passionate and charismatic and the community rallied behind the them.
Good post butters.
I would say that what ubuntus breakthrough was a polished, minimalist debian that made no attempt to be anything other then a desktop os. I had used debian several times in the past, and would typically end up with something like ubuntu after a few hours of downloading and configuring. With ubuntu, you get a great starting point right OOTB, and since it is built on debian it is incredibly easy to build from there.
The identity to be a base distribution that uses cutting edge technologies using only Free and Open Source codes for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (and its many variants) and One Laptop Per Child’s Sugar. The real problem is the misinterpretation from many people and most IT medias who failed to understand Red Hat/Fedora actions that greatly benefits the whole Linux community.
Fortunately, most distribution developers understood and didn’t care much about popularity as long they keep sharing the ideas and contribute for each others.
Edited 2007-08-05 07:57
Damn, that was a good post! Wish I’d said that…
It’s interesting that Slackware and Debian, the distributions that are more under the radar so to speak, prove to be more vibrant than the current enterprise leaders.
The fact that they have mostly kept true to their roots makes them better to base a derivative off than any of the enterprise distributions that want to be everything to everyone, emulating the ways of the number one software vendor.
I have been creating a distribution based on Slackware since 2005 with many software packages added or recompiled and it’s been a far better experience than I have ever had with Red Hat or SUSE. Now I have ported it to MIPS and am starting a SPARC port and possibly IA-64 and POWER versions in the future.
As you say the Linux distribution market is very young and nothing has been decided yet. I appreciate that Ubuntu is very much focused on the desktop and trying to improve the overall experience for beginners and advanced users alike.
Nowadays when I think of Linux I only thing of these two distributions and their foremost derivatives and the others can take their ball home and bring it back when it is significantly improved.
On the ‘one cd’ bandwagon; Indiana/Solaris will be available in such a form as well.
More selection, more choice and more competition – it all benefits the consumer in the end.
I’m pleased to see that the “Microsoft Cuts Deal With Novell To Support Suse Linux” event didn’t help Suse. OTOH, it didn’t seem to push it down any faster.
So maybe we can say that Linux users tend to ignore Microsoft’s schemes.
“””
I’m pleased to see that the “Microsoft Cuts Deal With Novell To Support Suse Linux” event didn’t help Suse. OTOH, it didn’t seem to push it down any faster.
“””
I’m not sure what you are talking about. Whatever Google Trends is measuring, Suse has definitely taken a dive on it, for whatever reason, this year.
And as long as that support (or mindshare, or whatever) was thrown behind other distros, I can’t see their decline as a particularly bad thing for the OSS world.
I think google Trends has quite a lot to do with market share.
If you are a Ubuntu user/developper/reseller, naturally, you spend time googling things like “ubuntu and ati”, “ubuntu and nvidia”,… etc.
You also spend fewer time googling “suse ….” “fedora…..”
As a mandriva user (& customer) , I “google” a lot more for mandriva than for any other distro.
regards,
glyj
Not that I know anything about this stuff, but could it be possible that the Google stats are based on browser identification = OS identification?
[off topic] You are very pretty Eugenia (compliment)[/off topic]
Edited 2007-08-04 22:43
Not that I know anything about this stuff, but could it be possible that the Google stats are based on browser identification = OS identification?
Google Trends’ dataset is not the browser or operating systems they use for visiting Google.com, but the keywords they use while searching.
To pick out technicalities but i agree abnut ubuntu being a pretty easy os to use.
Browser: MOT-A-6E/00.03 UP.Browser/7.0.2.2.c.1.108 (GUI) MMP/2.0 UP.Link/5.1.2.16
Marketshare comparisions are useless at this point because 0.75% (desktop) is being divided amonst 400+ Linux distributions.
In the most extreme monopoly case, Ubuntu may own 1/4 of Linux desktop marketshare or 0.1875% overall.
Not exactly exciting.
IMO, Linux has about 2% of the desktop market. Which would give Ubuntu possibly about 0.5%. Not bad really, as it translates to about 5+ million users.
The marketshare figures appear differently here:
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=5&qpcustom=Linux
However in practice Linux’s qaulity and usability on the desktop is quite the contrary to it’s present marketshare figures.
From my observation, Linux on the desktop is merely a few paces behind Windows in terms of friendliness and ease of configuration, both of which are incredible accomplishments for a once truely geek OS.
If those things were taken into account, Linux would be at around 40% marketshare while OS X and Windows would account for the other 60%.
Marketshare based on website vists is flawed.
I won’t point out the obvious problem with this. Although the fact that the figures fluctuate in the Millions should give you some indication of the problem. Is it 7Million or 70Million
Whats interesting about Ubuntu is *not* its Marketshare but more about its target Market. Ubuntu has *more* than perhaps any other company before, focused on the Desktop, and is being successful at it. In particularly Microsoft Users wanting a more satisfying computer experience. You can see Red Hat is trying to get back in the game.
The thing is GNU is not all that different between Distributions so what its made up by is almost irrelevant…now if you were talking KDE vs Gnome Marketshare or even Grub vs Lilo you would have a point. I’m interested but still not overwhelmed.
The only thing that *you* can draw from the demographic that visit *those* sites is that 100% more of users use Linux each year. Although thats not particularly helpful.
The bottom line is Ubuntu is finding itself as the Market leader in Windows *Desktop* refugees not the Computer Literate, and they are liking what they find because GNU is pretty good, and this can be attributed to the Mozilla foundation and Sun for Firefox and OpenOffice as much as anything (and the thousands of other smaller companies / individuals), good for them, and like the rest of GNU will continue to evolve every 6 months while Vista 2006 looks the tired legacy OS it is. Its good that Ubuntu broke the mold.
What I would like to see *next* is Ubuntu turning *users* into *Money*. The kernel is already heavily funded through overwhelming success in both the server and embedded Market, and *many* traditional GNU companies have turned there back on the desktop(look at Red Hats turnaround). It would be nice to see the same kind of Cashflow and Company interest for the Desktop.
Edited 2007-08-05 00:54
It’s a very good thing that Ubuntu made GNU/Linux accessible and a real possibility when Red Hat had given up on the desktop, OpenSUSE had installation and performance problems and Mandrake had suffered from a decrease in popularity and use even after the merger with Conectiva.
Regarding Red Hat wanting to get back into the desktop game in my opinion they failed and it will take considerable time to catch up to the current competition.
I’d take Slackware, Solaris or BSD over it any day of the week. Sun has more focus on the desktop than Red Hat and hopefully with Nexenta and project Indiana Solaris can attract more users in the future.
Fedora is not and will never be a contender for a stable, fast and functional ‘just works’ desktop. But I have to say that it doesn’t aim to be that. It’s just a snapshot of the cutting edge of GNU/Linux, nothing more and nothing less.
The reasonably stable Red Hat desktop died when RH9 was end-of-lifed. Everything after that has been too embarrassing to put to words, nice for play and bad for work unless you’re only using only one or a few applications and then you could call it an appliance.
All in all I am more confident that Canonical can pull this thing off building from a reasonably stable Debian base than any of the major enterprise Linux vendors that show a lack of passion and direction on the desktop at a time when the outcry for alternatives could be heard resonating everywhere.
And windows is a quantum leap behind OSX. So…
if the metric is friendlyness and ease of configuration, I would put it at 80% to OSX and windows and iinux would account for the other 20%
but this whole thing is an incredably rhetorical discussion, because neither quality seems to effect marketshare very much.
You can’t derive accurate market share numbers from web stats. This is especially true for small percentages.
In your opinion? A number pulled from thin air or what?
I did say in my opinion, didn’t I?
Well, Ubuntu had over 8 million users at the end of last year according to a Dec/2006 interview with Mark Shuttleworth.
Given the successful release of 7.04 and Ubuntu’s always rising popularity (as evidenced by the linked article), I’d say 10 millions users is a very conservative bet to make right now.
These number are very hard to measure but your guess seems way too pessimistic.
Edited 2007-08-05 04:04
“Well, Ubuntu had over 8 million users at the end of last year according to a Dec/2006 interview with Mark Shuttleworth.”
Oh, well, there’s a clearly non-biased source. =)
8million is a pretty conservative estimation. Even so, lets remember, there are millions of computers – 8million is on the low end given that not every installation is registered or OS bought.
In my opinion, it’s 20%, which translates to more than 50 million users. My cousin, though, swears that it’s only .2%, which would make it roughly .5 million users.
Numbers based on “opinions” are worse than useless. It’s like when some SF writer in the ’40s concluded that there must be billions of worlds with intelligent life, when, in fact, we can’t even be sure about our own.
All sarcasm aside, I think we can be pretty sure that our world harbours life intelligent enough to allow you to post your opinion on a shared electronic forum.
As it has been pointed out (and argued time and time again on this site and others), you *can’t* derive accurate market share statistics from web stats, for a variety of reasons. (Hint: if you use Konqueror, you won’t even register as a Linux user…)
I think the 2% figure (established by IDC a couple of years back) is still more reliable than what any web counter will tell you.
Not a long time ago there was an article that mentioned
that aprox 300-400+ new users were joining the Ubuntu forums. That is a lot!!! Maybe this numbers are correct!
But…who cares? It is linux, anyway!
-2501
Xubuntu user
I really wonder now how many users are visiting osnews.com .
-2501
I use Ubuntu at work right along side my Windows PC and I use Ubuntu LTS for a VMware Server host.
So you can count me as one.
great! we have another Ubuntu user visiting osnews.com!
-2501
happy Xubuntu user
that I am a proud Ubuntu user. I’ve tried Fedora, Suse, Mandriva, and countless other small Linux and BSD distros, but I always come back to Ubuntu. I’m not a Linux pro, but Ubuntu has always been the easiest to use for me. Second to Ubuntu, for me, has been openSuse.
I have to agree with other though in saying that every point Ubuntu (or any other distro) gets in either mind share or market share is a point for Linux as a whole. That is a good thing.
Why is PCLinuxOS #1 on Distrowatch but last one on Google Trends?
http://google.com/trends?q=ubuntu%2C+fedora%2C+suse%2C+…
Not that distrowatch stats mean anything, but PCLinuxOS is not #1 there. It’s #2. Again, these stats mean absolutely nothing. I work in an industry where 2/3 of everyone I deal with runs Linux, and I’ve yet to see one PCLinuxOS install. I’ve also seen about 3 times as many Fedora installs as Ubuntu.
He probably chose a different timespan.
PCLOS is #1 for 7 days to 3 months.
Anyway, I think both, distrowatch and google stats capture the growth of the userbase rather than its current value.
When somebody tells me about an exiting new distribution (and I have enough spare time on my hands) I do the following:
– visit the homepage, search it on distrowatch and wikipedia
If I like what I’ve found, I might install it.
During the first few weeks after install I use Google.
After that I know how to do what I need to do and don’t need to google all that often.
This suggests that
– distrowatch numbers indicate the _growth_ of interest
– Google stats indicate the number of _new_ installs multiplied with the (perceived) difficulty of the distribution.
The easier the distribution, the less I have to google because things justWork.
I hardly ever google for PCLOS because most things work.
PCLOS rules distrowatch because a lot of people find it interesting.
Ubuntu rules Google stats because it ships free discs and has commercial backing and support, leading to more installs.
Makes me wonder where PCLOS would be now if they had shipped free discs from day one…
No, I don’t want to start a flamewar 🙂
I currently have PCLOS, Kubuntu and Debian installed and I like them all, though I tend to use PCLOS >90% of the time…
Interesting result if you pick pclinuxos,puppy and any 3 low ranking distrowatch distros
http://google.com/trends?q=pclinuxos%2Cpuppy%2Cpioneer%…
pclinuxos is flatline and & puppy next lowest.
Is google really comparing these words in any linux context ? as ubuntu, fedora atleast have other contexts
LOL, your comparison is highly biased, as:
– PCLinuxOS belongs exclusively to Linux while…
– Puppy can be searched by some one who searches dog pics
– Pioneer can be searched by some one who wants to my an MP3 player
Same for “devil” and “scientific”, all are generic words searched by people who don’t have a clue what Linux is.
Linux Continues to Ride the Ubuntu Train?
;p
Market share is definately different to mind share but to get Market share, mind share is the first step.
I have tried over the years a multitude of different Linux distros and for me, Ubuntu is the right mix of ease of use and providing what I want for an OS desktop.
Problems I have found with the likes of the large Linux distros like Redhat and Suse is that they provide way too much choice from the start. Choice is a good thing but many want just the functional basics and then to be able to experiment with choices when they are comfortable with the initial OS experience. This is where Ubuntu has hit the nail on the head.
If you take a look at Ubuntu vs Windows Vista, Ubuntu once again became a more popular search term then Windows Vista:
http://google.com/trends?q=ubuntu%2C+windows+vista&ctab=0&geo=a…
Over time, I’m sure Windows Vista will surpass it again, but that doesn’t look good that it went back below Ubuntu’s ongoing popularity after the release.
Windows XP still kills them both, as far as mindshare, although its on a steady decline.
http://google.com/trends?q=ubuntu%2Cwindows+2003%2C+windows…
This really is a sign that Ubuntu really is making good progress on mindshare and getting the word out. I look forward to see how Shuttleworth continues to bring Linux to new levels.
“If I have been able to see farther, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants”. – Isaac Newton
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RedHatContributions
http://sources.redhat.com/projects.html
http://www.redhat.com/truthhappens/leadership/osdevelopment/
http://et.redhat.com/page/Main_Page
http://lwn.net/Articles/222773/
…
🙂
What next? Microsoft Continues to Ride the PC Train. Though I hope to see the day, when such news wouldn’t look strange to nobody:)
Is not strong in europe, Germany and it’s neighbour Austria only which makes sense, since it’s a German produced distro. Debian is strongest in Europe.
Don’t forget
http://popcon.debian.org/
and
http://popcon.ubuntu.com/
Then, we find Gentoo, Mandriva, then Red Hat and Kubuntu.
? I don’t get it. If you try tro break up the figures by changing the search terms, it seems obvious that “Ubuntu” in fact includes “Kubuntu”.
Which is quite alright – most people, apart from those who have decided to use KDE instead of Gnome, just don’t care since it’s the same basic distro.
The figures also seem to indicate that you should add “Mandrake” to “Mandriva”.
It’s simple as that. I’m a Linux and FreeBSD user for a long time now (along with Windows for games mostly).
I started my Linux “ventures” with some old Suse 6 or such, which was simply unusable (I think all distros were back then). Later I tried Mandrake 8, which was the first semi-stable thing. KDE still crashed, but it worked, and I had to do minimal tweaking to get the basics up. Mandrake 9 and 10 were pretty cool, I consider them first true workable Desktop Linux I tried. I even remember when a cable company guy installing new cable net was shocked to see Mandrake just detect the connection and pick up (he even asked me for the url
).
Then I started experimenting with more “hardcore” stuff like Arch or FreeBSD. Eventually I went to Ubuntu and am there since (with one switch to FreeBSD for a short time).
The difference between Ubuntu and all the other distros (and freeBSD too), is that Ubuntu:
a) “just works” (99% of apps you get simply work)
b) “just works after updates too” (see freeBSD, and I mean not “read UPDATING and pray”…)
c) has fast and binary package manager which doesn’t screw up
d) has not got bloated software installed by default (1 install CD should be enough, and IS)
e) has simple enough access to “needed” things like flash or java
f) has simple automatic “sane defaults” and doesn’t need you to screw in configs too much (a bit here and there is ok, and good to have sometimes)
g) has “right” update cycle so you get new stable versions of software without waiting too long
h) *personal reason* uses gnome and a simple config scheme, which I find more attractive than KDE’s all in one “search for 2 hours” center (but sadly gnome is getting one too)
If we skip “h”, many distros get multiple of those points right, but I don’t know any which has them ALL. For example, IMHO Mandriva/Mandrake has most of those points except the bloat. Also older Mandrakes I had sometimes screwed dependencies (RPMs sucked back then). Arch is nice, fast and small, but you need to screw around in configs manually too much. Red hat or Fedora are too bloated as well. FreeBSD doesn’t have recent enough binary packages, and their ports are simply horrible (see the extempore with python 2.5 update, or the X11 move).
I’m writing all this because I see a lot of “ubuntu is crap” kind of talk, but with no apparent reason. I’m not a “fanboy” of any distro. In fact, I think that FreeBSD kernel and base system is SO much better (in design terms, and clarity) than any Linux, but Linux packaging systems and software availability is too up front (and some drivers too).
So if you have good reasons why Ubuntu is NOT a good desktop distro, I am all ears, otherwise, just openly admit envy?
Edited 2007-08-05 09:25
I think large part of the numbers do not show mindsare/popularity, but rather different needs.
Since distributions like Mandriva, Suse and in a lesser way Fedora/RedHat has extensive GUI configuration tools, while Ubuntu does not. This naturally leeds to Ubuntu users more often needing to search to find guides and HOWTOs, while users of other distributions has what they need avalible with a few clicks in the configuration tools.
Edited 2007-08-05 09:39
They are comparing distros with almost 15 years out… vs. a 3 years old distro and is beating all of them on popularity, it should have a reason, don’t you think?
I don’t understand why this Ubuntu hype. For a windows user, KDE is more intuitive than gnome and therefore KDE-based distribuitions would be more easy to adapt.
Yes, there is kubuntu but it is seen as second importance for Canonical. Kubuntu also has no powerful GUI-based “control panel” like Mandriva, PCLinuxOS or OpenSuse and therefor I cannot understand why people say that *buntu is more user-friendly than Mandriva, PCLinuxOS or OpenSuse. These are in my opinion the best general -purpose distributions for any ex-windows user adicted to system configuration using GUI and no knowledge of linux shell and commands.
Not every one wants a windows clone. I moved to fedora years back and now Ubuntu because they are using Gnome as default. The simplicity of the interface draws a lot of people, its easy to use and for the most part looks uncluttered compared to KDE.
KDE4 is coming out and they have addressed some of these issues, but I fear that they are just reiterating what they have already done. Not much has changed, in terms of usability that would make me switch at this point even though its only in beta. The widgets look great and look less busy which is what drew people to gnome in the first place. When you look at a screenshot it looks clean and efficient. Is this true? Well, that is subjective. I happen to think so and its primarily why I use gnome and don’t use windows at all anymore since I got my MBP in June.
Heard a geek on a video pronounce Ubuntu as YOU-BOON-TOO. Is
this correct? That’s funny as hell.
Let’s face it, Ubuntu,Fedora,Suse,Debian,and Mandriva are all very
good distros, but they just are’nt the best. What is obvious now, and
will be even more so as the weeks go by, is TEXSTAR RULES.
As some one living in Southern Africa
U-BUN-TOO
U as in urgent not urine
BUN think northern English prunciation
Could be worse and have a click! anyway
“Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu”
A person is a person with people
It’s pronounced ooh-boon-too.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2bV4MVMrN-g
I am glad that we can draw some sort of correlation between installations and Google Trends. After I discovered the genius of this person, I decided to do my own research and come up with more marketshare figures. I did a quick marketshare analysis of Ubuntu, Mac OS X, and Windows XP and the results were simply astonishing. Going by the analysis report, it seems that Ubuntu is on about ten times more computers than the MacOS. It also seems somewhere along the line, Ubuntu has grown to be installed on at least 500 million computers (based on 800 million estimated number of Windows users reported by Microsoft.) Heck, somewhere along the line in early 2007, Ubuntu overtook Windows XP as the number one OS on the planet. It was short-lived as Microsoft was able to pull ahead again, but was miraculous still. Even though Ubuntu remains number two, at around 500 million desktop users, I would really suggest hardware manufacturers and third party application developers (I’m looking at you Adobe) really take a look at supplying better support out of the box for Linux, specifically Ubuntu. 40% of the market is a lot of market to just throw away. BTW, if you can’t tell, I am being sarcastic and showing how stupid and meaningless Google Trends is. What happened to the good all days when people where trying to predict distribution popularity by Distrowatch (because I know PCLinuxOS, Sabayon, Mepis, etc. are soooo very popular.)
i find that it’s awesome that a Linux distro is getting so much attention. and i think it’s a step in the right direction for Linux altogether. I use Ubuntu. It’s my first distro, so i can’t list off why its better than any other distro, and if i could i wouldn’t. I just like that Linux is going from a ‘just for geeks’ system to more than that.
Have we geeked out so much and compare everything so much that we will eventually divide the Linux community? Then again, i can understand the envy of those who use another desktop linux because their fave OS isn’t getting attention. But i think even then you should still at least give due props to Ubuntu and not pick it apart.
Ubuntu is Linux.
Ubuntu is getting attention.
Which Equals, Attention for Linux.
Which eventually means attention for you and i regardless of what Linus OS we use.
That was well said.
I used Ubuntu for 6 months, after using a couple others including straight debian and mepis, then switched to PClinuxOS after kubuntu. Ubuntu was only user-friendly if your hardware and system is perfectly and auto detected and setup. CLI is not freindly for new linux users, and should not be needed to know. I used ubuntu and kubuntu for about 6mos, and these two posts made points I related to.
“Since distributions like Mandriva, Suse and in a lesser way Fedora/RedHat has extensive GUI configuration tools, while Ubuntu does not. This naturally leeds to Ubuntu users more often needing to search to find guides and HOWTOs, while users of other distributions has what they need avalible with a few clicks in the configuration tools.”
“Yes, there is kubuntu but it is seen as second importance for Canonical. Kubuntu also has no powerful GUI-based “control panel” like Mandriva, PCLinuxOS or OpenSuse and therefor I cannot understand why people say that *buntu is more user-friendly than Mandriva, PCLinuxOS or OpenSuse. These are in my opinion the best general -purpose distributions for any ex-windows user adicted to system configuration using GUI and no knowledge of linux shell and commands.”
Having to go to the command line or hand edit config files for changing x-config or doing other system tasks is unprofessional, and an unreasonable waste of time. Having to use cli and read alot of irc and forum posts is not something non geeks want to do, even power users want things done fast without a huge learning curve. Suse gets this close with yast, although it is very slow and sometimes crashes. Mandriva control center is the best imo, fast, easy to find what you need, and stable.
So Mandy and PClinuxOS win here. If ubuntu gets a decent control center someday, it could be taken seriously, and I would try it again. Otherwise it furthers the stereotype of linux and cli use being common. They also need more effort on the KDE side, or just give up on having an official Kubuntu, because it is not even close to the polish and stablity of regular Ubuntu. Not to mention I will never use Gnome.
Benefits of Ubuntu I see, making linux a bigger player, its huge friendly community, the backing of a rich benefactor, the cool logo and name, and the philosophy.
Another note, please someone work towards more unified standardization in linux distros, so developers can compile software that will work on all linux, ditto for drivers. This is the only way linux will compete with MS and OSX, unless a battle ensues and we end up with one or two dominant linux that sucks up most of the non specialized desktop users (evo by natural selection approach).
ciao
I disagree that the CLI is somehow evil. And we aren’t even really talking about the CLI in most cases.
gui tools that force you to know where to click are much less useful than a readable and well commented .conf file. IMHO One of the delightful things about getting more than ankle deep into linux is realizing that the intimidating configuration stuff is located in a text file and not in some horrible data structure like windows registry, and that if you change a setting that does bad things you can just go back and set it the way it was.
some similarity should be seen: used vs downloaded (most of linux distros are downloaded).
Mepis, Sabayon, PClinuxOS have 0 zero hits on google meter while being scored high on distrowatch.
Debian is clearly second (not fighting with fedora) which is really strange: such conservative distro targeting server market rather than desktop ranking so high.
These differences simply point out to the fact that all these “high” numbers are contained within 2% of total desktop user share so all within statistically possible error variations.
In other words these results look like utter crap (both google counter and distrowatch)
Personally I am using Arch so at least low numbers are low numbers irrelevant of the counter…