Desktop Linux Usage Statistics

Ahkorishaan writes "Desktoplinux.com has put up their December 2004 survey results. Debian has fallen from their top rank as preferred Linux distro, and newcomers Thunderbird and Firefox have an impressive showing in their respective genres."

Comments

One important detail...

[ThatGeek]

The survey was done on the web site's own readers. Unless we can assume that the readers represent the Linux community as a whole, this survey is largely useless.

Skewed results

[lakeland]

With so few entries, it looks like a single post to the (debian, yoper, sylpheed, whatever) mailing list would significantly skew the results in this test.

Our readers were quick to report a fishy smell, and a trip over to Yoper's homepage today turned up evidence of a well-intended but survey-busting tendency to encourage Yoper users to boost Yoper's standing in online polls.

We complain about Microsoft only surveying their customers and then claiming people think windows is as secure as linux but here we have (potentially) the same problem. Is yoper really the most popular distro, or just the most manipulative?

Ubuntu?

[poofyhairguy82]

I have to ask, where is Ubuntu? The article says the Debian spinoffs are not counted in Debian's totals and seeing as how Ubuntu the top distro on distrowatch it seems unlikely that is has such a small percentage of the desktop market as to not matter. I mean, it doesn't even have an option for Ubuntu in the poll. Distos like Peanut and Elx (which are fine distros by the way, but are less popular than Ubuntu) are on there for cripes sake... Debian's lost position could be due to the fact that Debian desktop users have gone to Ubuntu en mass, but this survey has no way to even try to figure that out.

Oh well, maybe it was good that they didn' include Ubuntu. We have enough nerd advertising as it is, it just bugs me that this survey totally misses one of the fastest growing distros in recent memory....take any results that miss such a large distro with a grain of salt...

Re:very un-scientific

[jesterzog]

This "study" really, is very unscientific and somewhat disturbing to a statistian like me.

I don't disagree. To its credit, however:

• The article never claims to be a "study". It claims to be a survey, which is essentially what it is even if it's not well conducted.
• The article is completely up-front about stating that the results should be taken with a grain of salt. The concerns are stated very clearly in the second paragraph of the article before any actual data is given, and are quite strongly repeated again, at the end. The text goes as far as asking readers for feedback about the survey's accuracy in the forum.

I think the greater danger is when data, such as this, gets picked up by the media in ways that are completely out of context. Most responsible people who I know are very cautious about stating limitations with data that they're presenting. That aside, I've repeatedly witnessed the very same people being cited out of context by overzealous and lazy media who want an attention-grabbing headline, and pick out whatever words or data that matches the story they've decided to tell.

If anyone's to blame for anything here, it would be the slashdot editors for presenting it as if it had some kind of authority. Even then, though, following the link from slashdot to the actual survey makes it pretty obvious... which is something that a lot of journalists in the real world won't even bother to provide.

Re:The problem with linux...

[Technician]

you participate in a communist scheme designed to prevent software professionals from being compensated for their work

Are you kidding? The software professionals get compensated regardless of what OS I choose. It's simply cheaper for me to buy a box and pay the professionals for the software that I don't use than to buy a box without paying the software professionals.

Now if only the professionals will produce software that won't run exploits as root, then I may consider using it. Why is IE and Outlook Express integrated to the manditory OS anyway?

Can you say Target?

Re:The problem with linux...

[gunnk]

Why are OE and IE integrated?

Back in 90's Microsoft became very concerned that Netscape's web browser could end up being the PLATFORM for which software would be written. If you wrote your software to run in a browswer window the underlying OS was no longer important. Microsoft needed to push Netscape over a cliff.

To do so, Microsoft introduced IE which they began shipping free of charge with every copy of Windows (and just about every other piece of software). Netscape felt they were abusing their monopoly position by doing this and therefore sued. The courts agreed and decreed: "Microsoft may not bundle IE with Windows".

Well Microsoft has never been one to let a legal ruling stop them. They went back to the developers mandated that IE be INTEGRATED with Windows Explorer. By making it a PORTION OF THE OS, they were no longer bundling. Suddenly they were legal again, but could keep behaving the same way.

So, there is no good technical reason for integrating your file system browser with your web browser (and plenty of reason not do), but there is every reason to do so from a "crush the competition" perspective.