Slashdot Mirror
Linux Counter Hits 120,000
meni writes "The Linux Counter Project now has over 120,000 Linux users listed worldwide. And with their brand new AlphaServer machine, they're ready to get slashdotted. If you haven't registered yet, please go over there and do." Okay, I just tested it out. W-a-y faster than it was in the past. I'm registered, and you should be, too.
This is a redundant messag4e but I just want people to know how silly this registering linux thing is. I have been using linux for 2+ years and
every one that I know of in real life hasn't registerd it either. Like some one said their are
normally only 10 percent of the people that
own a product actually register it. I don't think
I have registerd for anything.
Their server isn't responding to pings.
When you install a smtp package one of the final options is 'send a local message from postmaster to root, send a test message to the linux counter project, dont do a test'
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
They should ask major (and minor) distros for a link on their webpage. Maybe even a prominent one. That could definately help.
Hi
Below is some more info about the linux-counter project. I hope you will find it interesting:
Perhaps... but then, I've been using linux as my primary platform for ~4 years now, and knew about the counter -- but each of the 3-4 times I've tried to register the thing's been inaccessible and I couldn't.
The site still seems to be down. Slashdot has struck again. Kinda makes you wonder how slashdot itself stays up and running...
an enlarged rectum?
as of 5:16pm, PST -- its down baby, its down.
SUCK IT
The number of digits is approximately .24*10^10, so 100,000 digits won't even bring you close.
I suppose you'll have some troubles working with integers this large, you'll need about 1GiB of RAM just to store one number of that size.
Even if every elementary particle in the known universe used Linux, there wouldn't be that many Linux users.
NetCraft counts over four million web servers running Apache.
I assume they count servers by IP address not by domain names right? I wonder how accurate this information is since a popular way to do virtual hosting is to assign multiple IP addresses to a single host. If there are a small number of people assigning whole sub-domains to a single machine these numbers could be an order of magnitude off.
-- Virtual Windows Project
OK, who will set up the win-users register site? Then if we assume that the percentages are equal and we'll get a better estimate of the actual number of Linux users, right?
-- From Denmark
300! is
:)
306057512216440636035370461297268629
388588804173576999416776741259476533
176716867465515291422477573349939147
888701726368864263907759003154226842
927906974559841225476930271954604008
012215776252176854255965356903506788
725264321896264299365204576448830388
909753943489625436053225980776521270
822437639449120128678675368305712293
681943649956460498166450227716500185
176546469340112226034729724066333258
583506870150169794168850353752137554
910289126407157154830282284937952636
580145235233156936482233436799254594
095276820608062232812387383880817049
600000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000
000
I have no idea what 300M! is
-- Virtual Windows Project
wow! by the time i wrote this message, the counter had already gone up 30,000 more!
It's good to see that so many Linux geeks are out there, and it's definately good to see the support that slashdot's users give to Linux.
and if you aren't registered - what are you waiting for? Lets show people just how many proponents there are!
---
According to http://www.statmarket.com/SM?c=Operating_System 0.25% of web hits were made with Linux as OS.
Not just a simple installer, which it seems that Loki has relatively provided in GPL form, but there needs to be a way so that people can cleanly remove an application installed with said installer without breaking anything else on the system. I guess this could be done with RPM, but I'm not particularly fond of the RPM package system because it cannot be used on a system that doesn't have the RPM software installed (read: Slackware, Stampede, etc etc -- my favorite distributions because they cut out the bullshit and let me edit settings in sanely organized files!)...
:)
Also, it'd be nice to have a console version of the installation/removal system for those who can't use X for one reason or another.
The installer could include an interface for optinally making the binaries from source, or whatever other steps that are out of the ordinary.
Something like "Setup" would be a script for compiling the interface(s) maybe, like the linux kernel has make menuconfig.
Such an application would be a great benefit for the community if it were GPL. >=)
It'd be like InstallShield, but done *better*.
People are still quoting Red Hat's 7M figure from over a year ago. The number of users will have *at least* doubled since then, and my finger-in-the-air estimate would be more like tripled or quadrupled. Red Hat, or someone else with the money, would be well advised to sample again and see how many we can find.
--
Xenu loves you!
Looks like the alpha server isn't answering right now:)
The number you get is WAY ahead of the count (some 40.000 at last measure)
D'oh. I remember reading this at the time. My apologies to all concerned.
Does anyone happen to know how many Windows users there are, or how many copies of Windows have been sold? Just curious for a comparison agaist the amount that The Linux Counter is guessing at for Linux users.
I think they having network problems... you cant even ping the host, nor traceroute.. says !H.. :)
this is not a "normal" slashdotted behavior.
-- Philipp Lopaur
I can see that their site is back up now. Seems like they've recovered from the initial /. effect...
I can't seem to access it. oh well I'll try later.
maybe irrelevant to the topic, but i guess 2/3 of slashdotters are hard-core linux users.
My guess would be that jsut slashdoters could accoutn for a fair chunk of those registered
=)
--
Heh;)
...
I was just thinking "excitement," not factorials
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
It took some digging around, but I finally found some price information on the AlphaServer 800 (I really wish companies wouldn't be so coy about their prices... (no, I do not want to fill in a form so that you're sales people can call me back). Anyway, it looks like it's around $7000 (as of January). But the specs are 500Mhz, 64Mb, and a 4.3 Gb drive. If you want it configured with some real memory I would guess it's going to be an extra $1500 for 256Mb.
Press release, prices of AlphaServers
Maybe I'm confused, but isn't this still kind-of pricey? Compare that to these guys, who've got a 256Mb alpha machine with a 9Gb drive listed for less that $3000:
SWT Digital Alpha Linux System
Or course, this is technically a "workstation" rather than a "server". But I don't understand what exactly it is that you get when you ask for server hardware, except a ten grand price tag.
I had a program that dealt with large integers (I restricted it 100 places, but it's possible to edit it). One of the assignment questions was to implement a factorial routine, and calculate large factorials. Should see what 300,000,000! is (need to expand that to what, 100,000 digits?)
There it is also possible that my experiences with the Linux counter were not unique. I first registered about 7 years ago, but when I looked for my name 12 months ago I was not on the list! Neither was the name of my neighbor, who also registered 7 years ago.
Oh, I would never suggest forcing participation.
I was thinking of things along the lines of:
- A message saying that it exists (This is one of the emails to root that Slackware automatically installs)
- A client program to make it easy to register which could be integrated into the system's install/configuration tools (eg: a menu in YaST or Linuxconf)
I agree that forcing it would be a very bad thing.
Or even better, when Redhat sets the default homepage for netscape (I don't know if this happens) to redhat.com, they could probably have a form to sign into the counter on their page.
Actually, this is a very good idea.
It's the easiest to implement for sure.
SuSE sets the default homepage to www.suse.de and I would imagine Red Hat does the same.
I registered a couple of years back and my name isn't on the list for whatever reason. And it appears very few of our Philly LUG member are there as well.
Slashdot is VERY good at finding out where the bugs are - this was a kernel bug, I think.
:)
i just installed linux the other day on an old 486 to crash around with, then i read this article, how apropriate. Anyways, speaking of slashdot finding the bugs, the graphs are kinda creepy following the posting of the article, exponetial(sp?) growth almost
--- installing slack with floppies which have a 50% fail rate != fun
Ever notice how you never see the same users year after year but users seem to move in and out of Linux as they're challenged by different problems. At any given time I'd say 120,000 is an accurate count not of installations and back room routers but of the people actually using it.
I'm wondering if anyone has started a counter to measure not users, but companies/machines/the like that run linux? I would expect there to be more business users than personal users, since *n*x systems seem the most palatable to people when used for larger multi-user systems.
Just my 2 x 10^-2 dollars worth.
It's really just a plot to find out which of us actually use linux. You don't know what they'll do with this information. When a fascist totalitarian regime meant to oppress our resistance (read: Microsoft Fascism v2.0) comes about, will those who have registered be forced to wear penguin armbands and relocate to getto camps with only 9600 baud access?
You really should ask yourselves these things.
(ps, it's a joke)
Michael Chisari
What am I missing here?
/. and quickly unsubscribe? Or is this another example of "new math" at work?
I just visited the site and it said:
"At Sat Oct 23 16:30:03 1999 GMT, there are
119921 users."
Did people read the message on
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
every time I register, I get a message saying that an email addy is required--of course I had already put one in, but i asks again regardless!
oh well I will have to try later!
Slackware: old school feel, new school gear.
I guesstimate that between 0.2% and 5% of all Linux users have registered with the Linux Counter. So the total number of Linux users is probably between 2,396,400 and 59,910,000 people.
Apart from the use of the appalling word 'guesstimate', my only reservation is the calculation of percentages; I'd suspect that the percentage of linux users is slightly higher than the given ceiling of 5%. Linux users are a different breed to Windows users; the majority have at least some inclinations towards zealotry/active advocacy. I'd say that it's more likely that 10% have registered. The number of linux users worldwide is left as an exercise for the reader.
It just occurred to me to check out my own registration; I was number 109251 when I registered on 24th February this year. According to the pretty graph, 110000 was reached in (approximately) July/august.
And if linux is taking off geometically as the graph here would seem to suggest, then there should have been considerably more than 10,000 in the last six months.
IANA statistician, but something looks dodgy. I'm not implying that microsoftian tactics were used, but it does seem a little sloppy; elucidation would be appreciated from anyone who's involved.
Its a good idea - its an attempt to try and get a count of who and what is out there - always a hard thing to do.
I hope they do produce some good figures. The machines listing will be interesting.
Except what happened to their server? PING counter.li.org (195.139.236.73): 56 data bytes --- counter.li.org ping statistics --- 40 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss
If there are 120,000 people who actually bothered to sign up, the real number is probably more like 1,200,000+ (not counting servers/routers,etc.)
;-)
Offtopic: What is this pathological need people seem to have to post first? Judging from the number of people who always send their 'I'm first', off topic posts, I'd say parents need to monitor their kids better
Back on topic: Does it really matter how many people are running Linux? I can see -some- value in it, but people seem far too concerned with 'market share'. A free OS shouldn't care about market share, as long as developers are coding for the OS (which they are).
Ok, back to some more mudane activities, like brewing beer (homebrew beer for homebrewed OS'es!).
Looks like their new alpha server still can't handle the /. effect.
Just because you just found this cool new toy Rob. Do we get some sorta cool prize? I know I use Linux, my friends know it. Why does the rest of the world?
When all the slashdot readers who has registerd is pressing refresh on counter.li.org, then the site has to come down... Just look at what U've done now...
I had first found it while going through www.linux.org. But you're right. Hardly anyone advertises it, and it doesn't have a really easy to guess at URL. They need a URL like www.linuxcounter.com or something similar.
Pardon me for paraphrasing Clinton's first term election slogan, but if we want commercial applications like major game developers (did I hear anyone say Fireaxis?) to port their games to Linux, we need to have a big enough market to encourage them to do so. I have personally harassed the BioWare people (Baldur's Gate) to port to Linux (which they will be doing next year) by making my mantra "Linux Good, Bill Bad!" There is room in the OSL universe for commercial code in the same way that "The Blair Witch Project" is not going to kill off Hollywood in the next half hour. I would like Linux to become the primary OS for gaming companies to develop new code - and it may happen sooner than we might expect if we can get a simpler install and a straightforward GUI for the majority of users not looking for a powerful command line. The Linux Counter encourages ports now and primary coding later for gaming companies.
If you take a look at the graphs of their server load, you can actually pinpoint the exact moment that this article was posted on Slashdot. It's really quite remarkable how powerful that is. I haven't been having any trouble with their server though, as some people have noticed.
I'm concerned about the security of the submitted data, especially the one about me and my machines running linux /etc/passwd file?
Is it necessary for them to know how many entries are in the
Well they've gone to 150,000 people registered as of 4:00PM 23rd Oct. Never underestimate the power of /.
Coz
Well, I know absolute numbers proof nothing (I mean, look at the /. polls *grin*), but I do find it interesting that Linux seems to be a largely Europaen affair. :-)
You can't really compare those numbers, but take a look at these stats instead, they're corrected for population size. (There are countries the size of L.A. in Europe..
Some of you I am sure have alway's wondered, "exactly what kind of stress does the slashdot effect have on a server?" Well, this is a good chance for you to find out. Just look at the numbers of visitors per hour, for the last 3 days. Wow, now that jump from under 100, to over 1,000 (This was at about 1:15) is a huge jump. It is also interesting to note the number of slashdot users that registered. I am sure this will be a record day for the number of registrations at the Linux Counter. Actually a good thing.
:)
We at Shalshdot have put put behind the reigns of a very powerful beast, and I don't think we can contain it. Actually, I think that is kind of cool.
Note to self: Beware of slashdot effect
"I couldn't give him (Bill Gates) advice in business and he couldn't give me advice in technology." Linus Torvalds
It is updated often. But some entries, are invalid. We delete those entries. And then we never reassign number of deleted entry. Shortly - number you received is yours and only yours. It is your ID and it has nothing to do with number of people registered.
Maybe someone should start a "Non Microsoft" counter, so people who recieved copies of Windows with their computers but don`t use them can register. The figure can then be subtracted from M$`s official figures, and even things out a bit...
Once again, the far reaching hands of /. have dropped another server to its knees. Kudos to the admins at /. that can keep their site up, no matter how great a number of hits their site recieves.
But as you add zeros, it gets more and more attractive. 30! 300! 300,000,000!
given that "!" is the symbol for the factorial function 30! = 30*29*28*27*...*3*2*1 = A VERY BIG NUMBER
so 300,000,000! users is awfully big. There won't be enough human on Earth or in the Universe to allow so much users so I guess that aliens are using Linux too.
;-)
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
I just retired machine 353 (sniff), a 486 I had loaded SLS 1.02 onto at a client site in May 1993, among others.
Everybody should check their machine records and delete any you've lost to some other OS or just lost track of.
I wonder what's the oldest active box...
But U have to put the address on both fields for e-mail. (Read da fucking manual...)
Chorizo
I know maybe a couple of hundred people that use Linux as their primary system, including first and second-hand friends, acquaintances, and contacts. Of those, I am aware of only two that have registered with the Linux Counter. That doesn't mean that none of the rest have done so, but it does mean that it's not the done thing to register and let it be known that you have done so.
Extrapolating from this personal experience, I'd say that while the error margins on any estimate of total Linux population must necessarily be very large, the ballpark figure is probably massively underestimated.
Under a million and over 50 million would be unreasonable, but anywhere in between is not unreasonable at all. And remember that estimates of Microsoft usage count the number of licensed copies, so to be even-handed one ought to count all the released distros that each Linux user has obtained, ie. often a whole lot of them.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
For unrelated reasons I looked at the counter yesterday. It's very interesting; does anyone know who the single Linux user in the Wallis and Futuna Islands is? (Down at the bottom of the country list...) I can tell that person signed up earlier this year, and that they've elected to be private.
(I'm not picking on that person except that I happened to notice a 'one person per island listing' and that island sure looks nice right about now! I've yet to visit French Polynesia. Why not say hello to fellow Linux users in exotic locales?)
You can find out a scarey amount of info about people there. I'm glad that my listing (happy user since 1994!) is private. Most folk are letting a scarey amount of info about themselves be visible. Look at your town ...
PING counter.li.org (195.139.236.73): 56 data bytes
--- counter.li.org ping statistics ---
31 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss........i'll hafta check later
go and ask your doctor about the side-effects from being /.ed...
... I've been unable to connect to their web server twice now. Sheesh, you guys should've known that it'll take more than one new server to hold back the slashdot effect. ;)
You know what to do with the HELLO. ...
Help create an open-source world
Looks like it twas slashdotted eh? ;-)
- USA: 30742
- Germany: 9131
- Canada: 5089
- UK: 4972
- France: 4724
- Brazil: 4509
- Sweden: 3982
- NL: 3273
- Spain: 3262
- Korea: 3123
Runner-ups:Finland: 2899
Australia: 2806
Norway: 2710
Denmark: 2633
Well, I know absolute numbers proof nothing (I mean, look at the /. polls *grin*), but I do find it interesting that Linux seems to be a largely Europaen affair.
Another interesting - IMO - thing to note is that Japan is surprisingly weak represented (some 800 registered users), whereas Korea (South) is very strong (only Asian country in the Top Ten). Anyone ideas why?
Just my 2c
Regards
--
"Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."
It gets even more exciting when you add exclamation marks...
--
David Watters, that one with the hair.
Many of you seem to keep asking why in the world this matters. I actually asked that the second I saw this article. Then I thought about it. M$ and other comapanies get to show the media and companies all the time on how many users they have. Linux has never been able to do that. It has always been a guesstimate. Why are the numbers important? Because it gives companies more of a reason to want to support something. If a company like Borland can look at the numbers and say, "Wow, that is 10 million potential customers." then they can make the decision to start writing stuff for Linux without having to have a somewhat biased survey to see if they should. CEO's trust numbers. They don't trust speculation.
AFAIK, Slackware is the only major distrib that encourages people to participate in the counter project.
I've installed RH, SuSE, Debian, Mandrake, and Caldera and have gotten no such message.
Considering the number of Slackware installations compared to the bigger guys, and the fact that not all Slackware users have registered (I registered years ago when it first started) I think I know of one reason that number is so ridiculously low.
Imagine if Red Hat had a message in there at the end of the install.
Hmmm, what about a "counter server" that lets a client program to add/change information about a user? How about integrating that into the installer?
The participation rate would greatly increase.
I would like to see a true cound of the amount
of Linux users, but I can see no way in which
we can get a close number by doing this. Perhaps
the distrubutions can put a note in their installation process saying that out of curiousity sake, go to the Linux Counter and register themselves/machines so we can get a more accurate count of the amount of Linux Users out there.
Streiff
Come see my website.
http://come.to/streiff