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Ubuntu Claims 12 Million Users — Before Lucid

Posted by timothy on from the or-is-that-a-lucid-dream dept.

darthcamaro writes "It's always a challenge to try and figure out how many users a particular Linux distro has — but Canonical is now providing a new figure for Ubuntu that is 50 percent more than what they were claiming just 18 months ago. 'We have no phone home or registration process, so it's always a guesstimate. But based on the same methodology that we came up with for the 2008 number, our present belief is that it's somewhere north of 12 million users at the moment,' Chris Kenyon, vice president for OEM at Canonical, told InternetNews.com. Just in case you were wondering, Fedora still claims more — actually almost double, at 24 million."

7 of 360 comments (clear)

  1. Some guesstimate? by w0mprat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have many problems with these numbers, how many of those are dual boot systems with Windows? I have three machines like that. I'm not sure of any reliable way to differentiate dedicated stand alone desktops. Ubuntu is the kind of thing I muck around with alot, people such as myself drag up the stats if they are trying to work it out from downloads, respository use stats.

    On the upside the total number of machines that have at least one linux distro on them must be rather higher than typical market share stats suggest.

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    1. Re:Some guesstimate? by grege1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What about all the machine bought with Windows that gets wiped and Ubuntu installed. Microsoft still counts them.

  2. Virtualization by cameronl · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I bet it's that guy next door with 12 million computers!

    It's a lot easier to have 12 million than it used to be.

  3. Re:Can't they just ping the server... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... a few times to at least get some data to work with? If you're doing something like canonical is doing you think they'd want metrics.

    And, if they had installed some phone-home pingy-thing, they'd be pilloried in the town square by people screaming about that when it came to light, and they'd be decried as violating people's privacy. Geeks on Slashdot frothing at the mouth and wielding torches, cats living with dogs, that kinda stuff.

    (And, before I get modded flamebait ... that's also half of the amusement of being here. =)

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  4. Re:Sadly by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sure, if your attackers will never try to crack any of your users' passwords...

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  5. Re:Sadly by rugatero · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sure, if your attackers will never try to crack any of your users' passwords...

    A username could be anything, but root is always root. Disabling the root password means a cracker needs to take the additional step of identifying a valid user account to target. Not a particularly large step, perhaps, but a step nonetheless.

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  6. Re:Sadly by dudpixel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I tried Ubuntu, But I just can't.

    I wanted to install my favorite niche physics package. I couldn't even figure out how to set the files to 777 through the GUI, I had to 'sudo chmod' them.

    Oh and no 'su'? really? I mean 'sudo bash' isn't that hard but jeez I don't know if this is more secure, but it sure is harder to use. I think I'll install centos before going back to fedora.

    you can tell ubuntu is getting pretty good when the trolls have to try this hard to criticize it.

    or did I miss a whoosh somewhere?

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