Slashdot Mirror
Linux On the Desktop: 0.24 Percent?
Canyon Rat writes: "According to this story, less than a quarter of a percent of desktop users have adopted Linux. The survey was based on web surfers so it may be accurate." Anne Onymus adds a link to an
interesting reaction over at lowendmac.com.
I think we can all start from the premise that these statistics are:
a) flawed
b) backward looking
What would be more interesting is some insight into where browsing is headed. For example, there will be some sites which will attract mobile traffic much more readily than others - traffic updates, or train running info, or today's tube (as in London Underground) breakdown. Then we are going to see amounts of traffic from appliances such as set-top boxes.
But then I suppose "We produce rubbish statistics" won't be as headline grabbing as "You Linux folks are all losers".
Dunstan
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
The stat that 0.24% of desktop users use Linux came from 125,000 disparate, largely general purpose websites (i.e. not "WindowsUserFanatics" or "BillGatesFanBoys": Indeed there are extremely few sites that are geared to specifically Windows users): Comparing these general stats against the stats against a technologically biased site is absolutely absurd. And if only fanatics and fanboys use Linux, well then they've proven their point about Linux' low acceptance right there...
The stats from LowEndMac claiming a higher %age of Linux users is probably bias, since it's a techy web site about low end Macs, probably the best techy thing to do with a low end Mac is to install Linux on it. (They even have a special Linux page.)
The stats from WebSideStory is based on the stats from 125000 sites, and so is arguably more realistic.
Windows (all versions): 93 %
Macintosh: 4%
Linux: 1%
Other: 4%
Detailed figures on browsers and operating systems on their site. I think Google can be considered quite representative, not?
(posted with Konqueror / Linux)
That is a good point. If I can't get a page to render or work right in Opera, I'm likely to just go somewhere else.
Also, Opera has an "identify as IE" option. It could be that some Opera Linux users are just telling Opera to ID as IE so pages written by braindead idiots won't say things like "Update to a modern browser, fool".
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
I run a supermarket chain's website, in the Washington D.C. / Baltimore / Northern VA corridor. I tend to think my site logs are very representative of the general public, more than, say, here. .14% of total users to my site.
We get about 5,000 users per day on the site, and the logs for November show Linux as being
It is sobering to see how much the Microsoft browsers have really taken over on the internet. One thing that does make me rest a litte easier about it though is the Mozilla project, and how AOL basicly forces people to use their gecko-based browser instead of IE, so the web is not in too much immediate danger of falling into a MSIE-only club.
Personally I recently switched to Opera (and I'm hardly anti-Microsoft and have been branded a Redmond operative on here countless times) as my primary browser, and I'm extremely pleased: It does what I want quickly and efficiently, and it has lots of little innovations and features (like mouse gestures) that really are brilliant.
http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2001/December/os.p hp shows Linux below even Windows 3.x and WebTV
The problem is, browsers in Linux must masquerade as IE on MS/Apple in order to be allowed to render content.
I exclusively surf from Linux desktops (I don't do Windows at all), but I have all my ID strings changed to indicate that I'm running IE on NT because many sites won't allow access to non-IE browsers and/or non MS/Apple OSes.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
15 28778 1.40% Mozilla/3.01 (compatible;)
Ok, #12 says it is Mac, and #15 doesn't say at all.
It's probably junkbuster, which screws up the user-agent field with some obscure old stuff.
websidestory.com and statmarket.com are basing their statistics on their web tracking technology through the use of advertising. The problem is, they use web bugs (see here, here, and here) to accomplish this. Windows users typically do not take actions to inhibit these web bugs, but Linux, BSD, and even many other Unix users do. There's software out there to help, too. Those who do block these web bugs, or all the hitbox.com sites, as I do, won't ever be counted.
Statistics based on web bugs should never be counted to determine platform penetration. Instead, actual HTML loads from a wide variety of real sites should be used, and the distribution variations show, too. I'm sure Slashdot gets more Linux and BSD just because of what it is.
Find out what other sites that /.ers visit, then get platform stats from those sites, and only for their main page HTML hits (not for images or ads or anything else). Then check the variation of that.
I had to go remove them from 6 different blocks in my network to just to view the linked page.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist/zeitgeist-no v.html has it.
http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html
isn't a permanent link, maybe that would explain discrepancy.
If you need text styles to communicate then you don't have a message.
I'd say that a Linux user is much more apt/able to turn off Javascript in their browser than an IE user.
You can never equivocate too much.
In debian, X is really hard to install..
apt-get install x-window-system
There are even programs for X that will let you do that via clicking little buttons.
Very hard.
I suppose mandrake is slightly different:
rpm -i XFree86-*.rpm