Kubuntu Deployments: Woah! I didn't know this!

[mbohets]

You'd kind of expect a site like distrowatch to have higher linux numbers. It is, after all, geared toward Linux users. It would be a bad metric to gauge overall linux usage.

Distrowatch is not a good indicator for linux metrix because it attracts mainly linux users.
Google metrix would be much more representative

[GreyGeek]

Distrowatch is not a good indicator for linux metrix because it attracts mainly linux users.
Google metrix would be much more representative

Actually, my post #8 of the OS usage stats for Distrowatch shows that the number of visitors running Windows is about the same as those running Linux: 44.2 to 44.6%. In the past I've seen it 46% Windows to 43% Linux. More Windows visitors than Linux visitors is the norm, in my experience. Rarely have I seen it where Linux is more than a percentage point above Windows.

To me, it is obvious that Windows users are going to that site to check on the various types of Linux distros available to them. Linux users like myself go there to find out about a new distro they heard about or to locate its homepage.

[Simon]

The statisticians can juggle numbers however they like into their favor. That is to say "their bosses favor". I have worked with people who crunch numbers and the juggle the data into the facts they want to represent. Years ago a plant here in Windsor reported scrap rate of 5% but they recycled the flawed parts remelting the metal and created the 5% which seem high to me. Another example was a business college bragged a 90% employment rate for the students. Only the facts were less than 10% found jobs in their field 40% more reported they worked outside their field. Finally 10% reported they were still unemployed and what about the other 40%?? The college "assumed" they were employed because they didn't report to them.

Because of tweaks to my browser it reports I am running Windows NT on Mozzilla. Yet I am actually Linux on Chromium. So if some website gathers statistics by browser agent data it would be wrong.

[SteveRiley]

Only under order of popularity does it group all variants of Linux. If you look under "Breakdown per platform for Mac and Linux", it even lists individual distros. The 12% you highlighted is Android. It groups Android as a Linux variant. If you look at the individual GNU/Linux distors, they all get less than 1%. Android is -not- GNU/Linux. It's a Linux Kernel running a Java VM.

So it *IS* Linux. It's irrelevant [to me, anyway] what is run ON TOP of it, if it's still Linux at heart.

* On your Apple-based machines, what do you run? Mach or OS X?
* On your Microsoft-based machines, what do you run? NTOSkrnl or Windows?

One rarely distinguishes between the kernel and the user space on the above, because they are tightly integrated. The same isn't true for Linux-based distributions. We have to use more precise terminology to explain what's running on the hardware. Android-based devices run a Linux kernel, but lack almost everything else associated with a traditional Linux-based distribution: there's no X, no coreutils, no glibc, and a somewhat different security model. It's really a stretch to even think of Android as a distribution.