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The Secret Lives of Ubuntu and Debian Users
jammag points out a look at statistics from the Popularity Contest projects on Debian and Ubuntu. These projects track the download and upgrade habits of their respective distributions' users, revealing — no surprise here — that Ubuntu users are more likely to be newbies than Debian users. The numbers reveal, for instance, that 86 percent of Ubuntu machines use the proprietary NVidia driver, where only a mere sliver of Debian machines do. Likewise, Debian users are far more eclectic in their software choice, less likely to use any default options. The article concludes with a look at the limits of what conclusions can be drawn from statistics like these. "In general, Debian users seem more eclectic in their use of software than Ubuntu users, and less likely to use an application simply because it is included by default. Debian users also seem more likely to be concerned to maintain a free installation than Ubuntu users — a conclusion that is hardly surprising when you consider Debian's reputation for freedom, but is still interesting to see being supported by statistics. ... To what extent last week's figures are typical is uncertain. Very likely, studying the figures over a longer period would produce different results. Possibly, too, those who participate in the Popularity Contests are not typical users of either Ubuntu or Debian. "
Seriously, do you /really/ want to know what they do behind closed doors?
Because I certainly don't.
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I use ubuntu and love it. Some of us aren't worried about free as in whatever debates and more interested in usable *nix, and for that ubuntu is fantastic.
"GNOME is installed on 85% of Ubuntu installations and 50% of Debian installations, and has been used recently by 78% of Ubuntu users and 55% of Debian users."
Does this mean that they track per user rather than per box?
I'd also be interested in architectures, does Ubuntu support anywhere near the same range?
I'm a bit of a die-hard debian user because for me it works well and doesn't try to hide settings and operations like ubuntu sometimes does. This is one of the things that put me off windows and I don't like it replicated on Linux in the name of ease of use. I also realise this puts me firmly in the "geek that likes to tinker" category.
Using the proprietary nVidia driver makes you a "newbie"? When you consider that the open-source driver doesn't fully support a lot of modern cards (last I checked, everything from the 8-series on), and provides inferior performance to the proprietary one on most of the cards it does support, I'd have to wonder how you figure people who haven't yet replaced the included driver aren't the "newbies." Or perhaps it's buying nVidia cards that makes you a "newbie"? Real nerds use Intel GMA 900s!
In my firm we've used Debian for 10 years or so for all our servers. Clearly the choice of packages is a big part of keeping the systems clean and secure, and the most exotic hardware issues were with RAID disks.
Contrast that with my last desktop install where a fresh Kubuntu can't do better than 800x600 until the Nvidia drivers were activated.
The main advantage of Ubuntu is the speed which which it adapts to new hardware, but non-free drivers is part of the price to pay for that. (Another part is the instability in new versions.)
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These guys do the same stuff that everyone else does, except they do it with style because they use Linux.
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Since 2009 is the Year of the Linux Desktop (!), the number of Ubuntu users is probably going to continue to grow. While this is great, these statistics show that an Ubuntu user is not (yet) as useful to the community as a Debian user.
It would be good if statistics like this could be used to start grooming the next generation of contributors to these projects. Just because they're n00bs (and not necessarily programmers) doesn't mean they can't be useful in reporting bugs, testing new features, amending documentation, suggesting UI improvements and so on.
Knowing what activities people engage in will help decide where to aim appeals for help and how to improve and facilitate contributions at the first level. The larger this group of low level helpers, the greater the number who can be converted into more serious contributors.
I run Debian on my server and Ubuntu on my laptop. I have no need for NVidia drivers or a web browser for my server. I also use more manually installed software on my server as there is no default server software configuration that will meet anyone's needs, while the default Ubuntu installation serves most of my productivity needs.
I know when I install Debian, I don't even bother with any of the major metapackages. I just install a base system, and apt-get whatever I need. That way, I know everything that is on the machine, and it's all stuff I use. Of course, doing this in Ubuntu would defeat the whole point, which is to have a well managed set of applications preinstalled for you. So it seems obvious that Ubuntu users would use a lot more of the same software than Debian users.
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The relatively low number of Debian [Gnome] users is probably explained by the fact that [...] users are more likely to choose one of the dozens of alternative desktops.
No, it's probably explained by Debian's heavier use in reliability-focused server environments where a desktop is a waste of resources.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
> Debian users are far more eclectic in their software choice, less likely to use any default options.
When most of your experienced users think your default options are crap and refuse to use any of them, perhaps it is a good time to change those defaults, eh?
Cool to know that's where they are pulling their package ratings info. This has been tremendously useful in my family - I just tell the wife "I dunno, install the one with the most stars and see how it works for you." I'll have to install the Popularity Contest package so I can add to their data, even though I don't subscribe to idea of having a "contest" at all.
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[...] Ubuntu users are more likely to be newbies than Debian users. The numbers reveal, for instance, that 86 percent of Ubuntu machines use the proprietary NVidia driver, where only a mere sliver of Debian machines do.
How does that classify a user as a newbie instead of just someone interested in playing games through WINE, or someone interested in graphics performance?
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Regular people just want their computers to fucking work.
It's also why Apple keeps selling computers.
If you can't understand that, then you're clueless.
Using the NVidia driver gives me more freedom, not less. It gives me the freedom to run 3d apps, while the open source driver gives me no extra freedom as I have zero intention of fiddling with its source code.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
The numbers on the official NVidia driver must be skewed. When using Debian, I've found it far easier to download the installer from nvidia.com rather than through apt-get, which would bypass the whole Popularity Contest project, I think.
All modern desktop distros are as functional and easy to use as Ubuntu. We have moved past the days of dicking about with autoconf and makefiles for hours just to get X11 to start up. Ubuntu is not really special; the Ubuntu team just got lucky, because Mandriva was on the verge of collapse right at the time when Ubuntu was getting started, so they rushed in to fill the void of "easy desktop linux." Fedora also works out of the box now (and yes, before someone gives me an Ubuntu-worked-Fedora-didn't story, I have plenty of stories of Ubuntu not working when Fedora did; so what?), Mandriva is back on its feet, OpenSUSE is less of a pain, etc. Seriously, why do people focus on Ubuntu?
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And I've installed Ubuntu precisely _because_ it has pretty much everything pre-installed...
I find this "research" about as surprising as any investigation where you'd find that people who own a truck often need to transport stuff, and people who in stead own a smaller vehicle often also don't transport a lot of goodies. (We need to exclude Americans from this comparison).
*Yays* for preinstalled programs, and for the packagemanager with its limited options but ease of use :)
Having used primarily Debian at home for years, I installed Ubuntu a couple of days ago (a switch from Windows, as I tend to run side-by-side but lost the use of one PC about a year ago).
Ubuntu dropped me right into a nice desktop with zero configuration, then asked me if I wanted to install the nvidia driver.
I seem to remember that every time I installed Debian, it left me on the console or failed to start X despite trying, after asking a bunch of configuration questions. I usually ended up doing everything by hand and installing only what I wanted, because whenever I asked for "the defaults" they just didnt work. Debian certainly never asked me to install the Nvidia driver- the only way to do so would be to go get it myself. Lack of a working 3d driver is why I was on Windows for so long, and I only went back to Linux because I was sick of trying to get cygwin to do what I wanted.
Now I'm in Linux, with 3d and sound working perfectly. It only dropped me to console once (and once is enough to mean I'd never recommend it for ANYONE). Using default options for nearly everything. Tablet still doesn't work correctly, I've yet to meet a Linux where it does, but I can live without pressure sensitivity for a week or so.
In short: people don't use defaults in debian because they are broken and suck. People use proprietary software in Ubuntu because they're given the option.
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> Possibly, too, those who participate in the Popularity Contests are not typical users of either Ubuntu or Debian.
I don't know about Debian, but the Popularity Contest (listed in the Software Sources window as 'Submit statistical information') is turned off by default in Ubuntu, and I don't expect many people turn it on given people's wish for privacy. So indeed, I don't think the results will be from typical users.
The only reason they need the RJ45 to get wireless working is because they need to download the drivers, can't ship them on CD.
If they didn't have to download them, I'm certain wireless would pop up right from the start.
at least these people can have secret lives
Nullius in verba
I think this is more a reflection of computer users, or even people, than Ubuntu users. People that know and understand Linux, use Linux. I have used a variety of distributions, but I am pretty happy with Ubuntu. I have used Ubuntu exclusively for only a few years now, but I can still see where I am far behind in my understanding of many things based on the forums I visit. Ubuntu irc had been a fun place I would go to get help, and often spend some time helping others. It was very civilized, though there were a lot of new people. Years later, now, it might be hard to distinguish from 4chan or Barrens chat. I don't go there any more AT ALL.
But honestly, I think this is just what happens when popularity increases with anything. I remember when the majority of people on the Internet (if you would really call it that) were between intelligent and highly intelligent individuals discussing a wide range of topic (though usually leaning towards the nerdy side) in a civilized manner.
Going from telnet to web browsing changed everything! The number of people online was approaching a million! The number of servers you could connect to or 'sites' you could now 'browse to' was skyrocketing! People starting making their own web sites and hosting forums at home, and there were just tons of people all excited to be involved in this new medium, despite the fact they had no idea what they were doing.
And then AOL came along, and Geocities. Soon everyone had a web page for their cat, and flame wars seemed to be the thing in every chat room. It was just like the parlor times a million! This was about the time I stopped going into chat rooms at all, because it was just intolerable.
But eventually we got slashdot, google, ebay, wikipedia, archieve.org, eff, findlaw, loc.gov, youtube, hulu, piratebay, thinkfree, change.gov and so many others both recently and over the years.
I miss the days when every person I knew that had a computer had taken it apart and put it back together many times, they all had some minimal programming skill, and nerdy groups of people would be going around to business or telling our non-nerd friends "you could do that so much better if you had a COMPUTER!", to which they would reply, "that stuff is for nerds, I am doing just fine with my typewriter". "There's nothing I can do with a computer I can't do on my typewriter", and "computers just make it more complicated and expensive".
There was no convincing them. You would try to explain, but they wouldn't listen.
Then one day they would come you you and be all like "Hey, guess what? I got one of those Pentium things! Isn't that cool!" and all you could do is smile and sigh. And after that, it was the endless phone calls for little things that you didn't mind, because it was exactly what you had been pushing for in the first place. But sometimes it made you wonder.
Soon, the round table discussions over new technologies in the library were replaced with sheep-dip seminars (thank you Andy Hunt), row after row of zombies watching someone explain what a mouse was for, and how to put things in the trash. Soon you had all these 'experts' saying that they knew more about computers than anyone because they had taken a class. Oh, the humanity...
So what a surprise that after all these years, we are still seeing the same type of revolution. Yes, I miss the 'Internet' when it was between 10,000 and 100,000 users, but those times are gone, and in the big picture, the new even more nerdy stuff is worth it.
They say that Linux userbase / marketshare (or whatever way Microsoft feels like measuring it one day to the next) is about 1%, but it is easy to see it is the top 1%. Maybe it is just me, but I don't see an even distribution be user base as a whole of computer experts between exclusive Linux users and exclusive Windows users. It is the same one percent 20+ years ago trying to get people to use computers because it was the futu
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And we wonder why Linux can't seem to make inroads onto the desktop, when the headline and no small number of posters here are not at all subtle about looking down their noses at anyone who isn't dedicated enough to an ideology to intentionally cripple their machine's 3D performance.
Face facts: 95% of people who use X do not and never will care about the ideology behind X for all X in Software. If you insist on demeaning them or inconveniencing them with your ideology, they won't use your software. I'm going to go play a 3D game that's not a slideshow now...
Many Debian users like to tweak their systems just for fun, not because it's useful. They like the feeling of control when they know everything that's installed. They like the feeling of understanding how everything fits in their systems. And that's good. It's fun and you learn a lot.
But these things about "ubuntu hiding things" just mean that some of them are becoming obsolete. They miss the times when Linux was simple: kernel, userland, X server, applications. All clearly separated, all easy to grasp. With all these "new" things like udev, hal, upstart ("how do they dare to remove /etc/inittab?!?!?") ... they feel they're losing control. They no longer know everything. So the first reaction is refusal: Ubuntu must be bad.
Ubuntu is great. I've used Debian for more than ten years, and I'm still using that for work. I love it: it works and it's rock solid (usually). It's well thought and sysadmin-friendly. I was a (bad) debian developer. But Ubuntu is good too. It works. And it's still Debian. All Debian goodies are there.
And if many people are switching to Ubuntu, if the level of Ubuntu users is not so "elite" like Debian users, that's a good sign. It's new blood.
We complain for years and years saying that Linux can be used by "normal users" (when, let's face it, we were pretty far from it), and now that it's becoming true, we are fearful of losing our aura of eliteness. We attack the ones that are achieving it because they're not "pure enough". What a band of jerks we are. How much insecurity lies in the bottom of the Linux community?
We can't live in our ivory tower of perfect freedom and simplicity forever. Get out a bit and talk to real people. Ubuntu is Debian for real people.
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Lots of mandatory desktop packages you have to download from sources other than the official Debian repositories. I'd be curious to know how they register on the popularity contest.
In my experience there are Debian admins and Ubuntu users - hence explaining why more Ubuntu users use proprietary drivers and why Debian admins tend to avoid default groups of packages, choosing only the ones they need.
"The numbers reveal, for instance, that 86 percent of Ubuntu machines use the proprietary NVidia driver, where only a mere sliver of Debian machines do." What do most people use for a server? Debian workstation? Ubuntu. Servers don't need fancy graphics no need for nvidia binary!