Ubuntu Continues to Grab Market Share

slasher writes "MadPenguin.org discusses the future of Ubuntu and confirms Ubuntu's growing market share in the Linux market. Author Matt Hartley writes, "Now, for the biggest question: do high numbers mean that Ubuntu is the best distribution out there? Some will argue that this is an impossible point to make, as each person has different needs from their distribution. But for the sake of this article, we will be considering the average user, not the Slackware crowd, who is obviously much more comfortable within a command line environment than mainstream users."

Comments

But I Thought That Was Pointless?

[Anonymous Coward]

But, two days ago you said this was pointless.

I'm so confused, I don't even know what to believe anymore!

My experience

[aldousd666]

I've had a much easier time getting my boss to look at it because when I install it, it just works... Also it's very nice play with dual boot for the skittish XP users is a good thing. They have it very well packaged, though that may be all it actually is, it's very nearly a deal closer with skeptics who hate command lines, but still should be learning linux for cost reasons. I have it on my host, and personally, I like it very much. (A quick vmware-server install allows for all of the windows one will ever need.)

My Opinion

[CastrTroy]

Personally, I've been using Mandriva/Mandrake for about 5 years, and I don't see anything that Ubuntu has that Mandrake didn't have 3 years ago. I'm not sure why Ubuntu is catching all this attention. Maybe I'm missing something really big, but I seriously don't see what makes Ubuntu so much better than Mandriva, or most other desktop oriented distros. I actually prefer Mandriva, because I find that the Admin tools are much better.

Re:My Opinion

[McDutchie]

I'm not sure why Ubuntu is catching all this attention.

Simple: Ubuntu has a charismatic millionaire behind it. That's really all there is to it. Marketing is everything.

Re:My Opinion

[zebslash]

Mandriva has always provided free updates...

Re:My Opinion

[Wylfing]

I'm foregoing modding you (it would have been +1 Insightful) in order to reply.

I used to be a Mandrake "subscriber." I paid my yearly dollars, because Mandrake was really the best distro out there that I had tried. Even when Fedora came around, I gave that a whirl and it wasn't up to the Mandrake level in my opinion.

It is true that Mandrake pioneered most of the user-friendliness that Ubuntu now capitalizes upon. However, in my time with Mandrake there was always something that didn't work right. It changed from release to release, but it was always something. Like they had 98% of everything nailed down, but that one thing just bugged me to death, because it would be something like, oh, printing. I frequently built custom kernels under Mandrake in order to get things to work, and even then there were often a few things that were broken beyond my ability to repair. Now when Ubuntu came around, I installed on a test machine (I do this often with new releases of distros I'm not using just to see how they fare). I was so happy -- there was nothing that didn't work, straight out of the box. No fiddling, no custom kernels. They had closed that last 2% of functionality. It was almost zero configuration for printing and wireless networking, two things that historically have been a problem.

So yes, Mandrake was (and is) a leader in making an easy-to-use desktop distribution. But Ubuntu blew the doors off with its "it just works" quality. That's why people love it, and that's why it's on all my desktops to this day.

Re:My Opinion

[Oldsmobile]

Simple: Ubuntu has a charismatic millionaire behind it. That's really all there is to it. Marketing is everything. No, you are simply wrong. I've been an off-and-on linux user for a few years now, but I've always gone back to XP due to never coming to grips with using the command line and hating it when you have get something to work it's a pain in the ass to get working.

Also installing programs was always so easy with XP and a pain with most linux distros.

Now with Ubuntu, I've for the VERY FIRST TIME ran into a distro that is in many respects better than XP! I'm astounded by how much better the usability is.

Not only that, but it's the first distro that's totally agreeable to the "don't click that, computer will explode" -crowd.

Re:My Opinion

[garcia]

Simple: Ubuntu has a charismatic millionaire behind it. That's really all there is to it. Marketing is everything

Uhh, no, it has to do with being called "Feisty Fawn". I mean, what's hotter than Bambi being naughty? ;-) (BTW, I've been a Debian user for 6 years and don't understand the hype either).

Re:My Opinion

[CastrTroy]

Maybe I just have different hardware or software needs, but for me, there is no 2% of stuff that doesn't work on Mandriva. For me, personally, it has always just worked. And considering only 2% isn't working, it's probably not that uncommon for people to not experience any problems with Mandriva. Also, Ubuntu might also have 2% of stuff not working, and you just haven't run into it. Like I said, the administration tools from Mandriva are much better, and maybe that's the "2%" of stuff that I don't like from Ubuntu. Also, saying that Ubuntu blew the doors off of Mandriva by filling in the last 2% is a little bit of an exaggeration. At most it is a minor improvemnt, and if you were already a happy Mandriva user, I don't think it would be worth switching over to Ubuntu.

Re:My Opinion

[zebslash]

This is FUD. No need to download and install. urpmi --auto-select will do this for you, as much as apt-get can do it. Very soon you are going to say there is dependency hell with rpm, which has been solved for years with urpmi. And I know Ubuntu users for whom the update did not go as smoothly as you claim (just have a look on support forums).

Re:My Opinion

[greg_barton]

That's really all there is to it. Marketing is everything.

That's a load of horse hockey.

I started out using Mandrake, back in '98 or so. I wanted a distro that "just worked" and it was fine in that respect...until it wasn't. Once I was comfortable enough with linux I used Gentoo for a few years. Then it started crashing and burning, even on the "stable" configuration. After that, Ubuntu was the choice for a distro that "just worked," and it's served that purpose for me for the last few years. Marketing had nothing to do with my decision to use Ubuntu. Zippo. It has value on it's technical merits alone. Just because it's publicized and wrapped in a pretty package does not mean it's value is decreased. Marketing and technical merit are not mutually exclusive.

Re:My Opinion

[Just Some Guy]

Simple: Ubuntu has a charismatic millionaire behind it.

Umm, no. For a lot of us, Ubuntu has Debian behind it. It's like the pretty, desktop-oriented version of Debian for people who want relatively recent software without running "unstable". Should Ubuntu cease to exist today, I'll point my sources.list to debian.org and crossgrade back to the parent system.

I like Gentoo and Slackware and FreeBSD and OpenBSD, but Ubuntu is what I use when I want a Debian system with a little bit of polish. It really hit the sweet spot for a lot of people.

Re:My Opinion

[ancientt]

I'm posting this from a Mandriva install that shares a drive with a Gentoo install and used to be where I had an OpenBSD install. The other disk has CentOS on it and probably will have OpenSUSE shortly. I try new distros and new releases of old distros on a regular basis. I'll probably try Ubuntu again in a couple months.

Mandrake tried to do what Ubuntu does, but it tried to do it years and years before Ubuntu existed. It did a decent job of starting on the path toward a newbie friendly desktop Linux distribution. Unfortunately, it has had times where the entire system was unstable, where the hardware either didn't work as expected or didn't work at all. I don't recommend Mandriva because I don't trust it to stay as stable as it appears to be in it's current incarnation and also because I know that people have an easier time finding other users with similar questions and issues if they use Ubuntu.

I think that Ubuntu sits where it does in terms of popularity because it came on the scene at the right time with the right goal, make it easy and got the interest because it was new and shiny. It isn't at the top because it is necessarily better in terms of software or functionality, but it is the best in terms of community for the new Linux user right now and that is what sets it apart.

Is it the best distribution?

[the_humeister]

That's the question posed. Well, we only have to look at the market penetration of Windows to know that question is rather meaningless. Ubuntu is a good distribution. "Best distribution" is a bit presumptuous as people who would be interested in a Linux distribution have different needs.

Average user?

[siwelwerd]

What does average user even mean? For the average Windows user, I'd say Ubuntu would be the best for them without hesitation. For the average Linux user, the question becomes trickier. I don't know that there is a well-defined "average Linux user".

Yes, the best distribution.

[An Ominous Coward]

For this particular situation, yes, Ubuntu's popularity does mean it is the best distro. Ubuntu is the first Linux that's had "mass market" appeal, bringing in people from outside the *NIX world, due to its easy of install and use, but also for being "hot" at the right time: when Microsoft is trying to shove a slow, bloated, DRM-filled downgrade called Vista on its users.

So even if Ubuntu isn't ideal for all Linux users, it has the opportunity to greatly increase the Linux user population, bringing more and wider-ranged development to the OS, which will benefit us all regardless of our distro of choice.

This Just In: Ubuntu is Not Dying

[Tackhead]

It is now official. MadPenguin.org has confirmed: Ubuntu is not dying.

One more encouraging sign hit the already triumphant Ubuntu community when MadPenguin confirmed that Ubuntu market share has risen yet again, now up to to some number that would actually make this parody much easier to write had been cited in the fucking article.

Coming with a hotlink to a recent MadPenguin.org article which plainly states that Microsoft Does't Care About Destroying Linux, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. It's simply a matter of numbers, despite it being a sore spot with Fedora and SuSe users who've failed to get over it.

You don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin to predict Ubuntu's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Ubuntu has won the hearts of common users. In fact there won't be any future at all without Ubuntu because Ubuntu is not dying. Things are looking very good for Ubuntu. As many of us are already aware, Ubuntu continues to gain market share. Take a cold, hard look around.

Debian is the most endangered of them all, had a much slower development cycle than many of us would amit. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Fedora communicy relations issues only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Ubuntu is not dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

If there were any in TFA, I'd have talked about the number of users Ubuntu has, made a few wisecracks about Theo and FreeBSD, and compared the number of Ubuntu vs FreeBSD articles on Slashdot, divided by the number of modpoints used. So let's just skip that bit and call it as done. Throw me a frickin' bone here, I haven't even had my morning coffee yet.

All major surveys show that Ubuntu has steadily risen in market share. Ubuntu is very healthy and its long term survival prospects are very good. If Ubuntu is to triumph at all it will be over Vista itself. Ubuntu continues to grow. Nothing short of a disaster could kill it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Ubuntu is alive.

I've Switched

[J3M]

I've completely switched to Ubuntu at home. For the most part, it has been relatively painless. My wife has had a few printing issues. I had to spend some time getting the wireless to work in our Dell laptop and I had to tweak our ATI card settings in xorg.conf manually to get a good resolution.

Other than those minor things, it has just worked.

I use our main PC as a studio PC. It has a M-Audio 1010LT card which worked, but it took me some time to get the recording issues sorted out. JACK has a slight learning curve as did Ardour, but no more so than Adobe Audition did on XP. I've been rather pleased with the free available software for studio use.

I've even used GIMP a few times to edit some photos. While I had to hunt around a bit looking for the feature I wanted, I haven't run into anything it can't do that I need. Photoshop was always overkill for me anyway.

My experiment at home to run Ubuntu on our laptop has turned into a complete conversion and I'm not looking back. I talk it up to anyone who'll listen.

Re:Slackware crowd?

[Otter Escaping North]

This is kind of confusing to me that the excluded the 'Slackware crowd's preferences. If there exist Linux distros that the 'Slackware crowd' prefers (not rhetorical - I really am not aware of Linux user preferences), then isn't there scope for improving the user interface of these distros to make them more accessible to the common user and trump Ubuntu?

Being an Ubuntu user who is also part of the "Slackware crowd" (you insensitive clod!), I think there's also a danger in running too far with the notion that a particular distro suits a particular number of users. I am but one user with multiple tasks to perform; I don't have requirements - my tasks do. I use Slackware on my servers, because I have evaluated it to be the best tool for the jobs I need the platform to do. I use Ubuntu on my desktop workstations because I think it is the best tool for those jobs.

I understand the need for simplification when doing an article like this, and maybe that's why the author just wanted to start by moving pains-in-the-ass like me off the table and stick with ye-average-joes who have perhaps one PC that they use. It drastically limits the complexity of the issue; but it inexorably limits the relevance of the article at the same time.

Re:Power users love extra work?

[Aladrin]

Yes, 'an'.

http://www.ubuntu.com/aboutus/faq

How do you pronounce Ubuntu?
Ubuntu, an African word from Zulu and Xhosa, is pronounced "oo-BOON-too".

Before a vowel sound, you use 'an' instead of 'a'.

Anyhow, doesn't matter cuz Kubuntu is better. ;)

I used Debian (long ago) and then more recently Slackware. When Kubuntu Dapper came out, I switched to that and never looked back. It had everything that Slackware did, but the ease of 'apt-get install x' for almost all the software I wanted. Slackware worked well and all, but any time I wanted to install something, I was expected to configure and make it, or download a slackware package from some third-party site that had stuff that worked about 2/3 of the time. (My definition of not-working includes compiles that leave out options that are pretty necessary as well as just plain broken.)

2 versions later, I can't imagine using another OS as my primary OS. There are drawbacks, like proprietary drivers for the major video cards, and lacking the fancy interface of certain fruit-oriented OS's, but I'm more efficient on Kubuntu than any other OS I've used.

Re:http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2007/June/os.ph

[smchris]

We were right! OS/2 can compete with Windows 95!

If we just hang in there, we'll overtake them yet!

Why I use Ubuntu

[loconet]

I've been using Linux for about 8 years (desktops and servers) and have tried numerous distributions (Redhat, SuSe, Mandrake/Mandriva, Slackware) as a desktop OS. As far as the desktop goes, here are some things off the top of my head that Ubuntu offers me that other distros did not at the time of my experience with them (which may have been several years ago).

#1: No nonsense software manager. Ubuntu's Add/remove programs system just works. No dependency nightmare, rarely the need for command line, no need to compile/mock around with make files (although I'm comfortable with the process) but if there is the need, the option is there. Don't need to signup to get updates, it just works.
- All of my hardware works. ATI card, LCD (minimum tweak needed to get native res), ipod, firewire card, cellphone through USB, digi cams, cd/dvd writers, etc, etc.
- Relative cutting edge and stable software versions, I don't remember the last time I had x/gnome crash on me.
- Great software selection through their reps.
- Sane directory structure/menus setup.
- Excellent community support / forums.
- Ease of installation (although most distros offered this as well)

Never been happier with a Linux desktop.

Why I chose Ubuntu

[AntonDevious]

I've been in the computer industry for 20+ years. I've pretty much used every flavor of Unix and several different linux distros. Needless to say I'm in the "command line friendly" crowd. I enjoy tinkering with thing and yet I chose Ubuntu. My main job, day today needs solid email, web browsing and office apps world. So as long as I have a good text editor for code, and those apps, I'm happy. Fedora was too much work. I had to think about it as I'm trying to do my job. It was bloated, way too much stuff running, different tools trying to update/install software that didn't work together (update manager - yum - rpm), one could run while the other was running and hose your database, etc. I need to reinstall the OS and after 4 hours and 5 CD's of Fedora I was quite unhappy. So the next time I installed, it was one disk, 30 minutes, minimal bloat and I've never had my software package management fail to work together. With Ubuntu, I don't have to think about the OS and the apps. I can think about my work. And there is still plenty of tinker room with Ubuntu!

There's no "one size fits all" distro

[bzipitidoo]

Obviously. And Ubuntu is no exception to that. On old PCs that have less than 256M RAM, you can't use the standard Ubuntu live/install CD. Laptops have always been a little behind desktops, making it even harder to find a suitable distro for an old laptop. If one of the brags of Linux is that old hardware isn't left out in the cold, many of the distros make that untrue by building for Pentium IIs at a minimum. Embedded is even harder-- there are few enough options that you can be pretty much stuck heavily modifying and compiling some sort of Gentoo style distro, or even making up a distro yourself. A 386 with 4M of RAM isn't a usable computer anymore, but it's not because it can't do useful work, it's because software has become so much more demanding. I used to surf the Internet on just such a 386, with Netscape 3 running in X.

I've been trying distro after distro, trying to find something lightweight and full featured not just because I have old computers, but also because I like fast response times. Slackware derivatives seem most promising, so have tried Zenwalk, Vector, and Slackware itself. Also tried Xubuntu. Next on my list of distros to try is KateOS.

Someone asked why Mandriva wasn't more popular. In 2 words, nagging and blinders. Mandriva by default points a lot of things to various nag messages, like the default browser homepage. Lot of the help functions launch a browser which, guess what? Loads up another part of the Mandriva web site with both a) nagging, and b) blinders, as in a search function that searches only Mandriva's stuff. Once you get tired of not finding answers there, you forget their help functions, and try your luck with a real search engine, or the Howtos from linux.org, or (gasp) the docs from the homepage of whatever generic app you're trying to use.

Re:I just can't wait

[wolf08]

Unless I'm horribly mistaken, I'm pretty sure that Gutsy Gibbon is NOT a LTS release.

from https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-ann ounce/2007-April/000276.html

"Gutsy will not be an LTS (Long Term Support) release, but it will nonetheless see a lot of server work and be useful for fast-moving server deployments. "

Re:I just can't wait

[kebes]

The next release will be interesting to see. Being a LTS version...

Small correction: The next release will be 7.10 (Gusty Gibbon, October 2007). However the next "Long Term Support" (LTS) release, according to this page, will be "Feisty+2", or the release after Gusty. This release will probably be in April 2008.

I agree with everything you said, however. I use the LTS edition for servers that need to be stable, and use the latest version for desktops. The Long Term Support is long enough that you can be confident with it (and easily upgrade to the next LTS when it comes along). Upgrading Ubuntu (e.g. from Edgy to Feisty) has always been painless in my experience. (Yes, YMMV.)

I'm very pleased with the speed (and predictability) of the Ubuntu release schedule, and with the quality of what gets put out.

Dude

[Das Auge]

Dude, you know that Bambi is a guy, right? ;)

What does Ubuntu have that Mandrake doesn't?

[metamatic]

You won't like the answer, but it's in TFA.

It's more that Mandriva has something Ubuntu doesn't, something that drives people away. RPM-based distributions are not popular with users. That's because in spite of band-aids like Yum, the user experience for RPM still sucks.

Lots of people have been saying so for years, but the denial in the RPM camp is amazing.

windows "skin"

[mclarenfan]

I think ease-of-use is what made Ubuntu distro with mass-appeal. A friend of mine was using my laptop for a day, and asked me where I got the "skin" for windows from. I know he did not try to install anything, and used it primarily for browsing, but still it speaks volumes of Ubuntu's ease-of-use.

Re:AMD64 support

[scharkalvin]

Debian and Ubuntu have compatibility binaries available to support running x86 binaries,
but these are NOT installed by default. There are ways to run various x86 binaries on
both Debian and Ubuntu, and you can search the Ubuntu forums for this.
BTW, Gentoo is similar to Debian in being a 'true 64' bit, but in Gentoo the compatibility
libraries are found in a more logical directory tree structure. In all three distro's
a bit of shell script skulldugery is required to launch a 32 bit binary in a 64 bit world.

tags

[StarKruzr]

How the hell did someone coordinate enough users to tag this article with "matthartleyisagobshite?"