Linux DIst Ranking And Market Share - LXF101

[vh-bil]

-=January 2008=-

Rank - Dist - %Market Share

#1 - Ubuntu - 31.30
#2 - Debian - 9.00
#3 - OpenSUSE - 7.40
#4 - PCLinuxOS - 6.10
#5 - Fedora - 3.80
#6 - Mandriva - 3.50
#7 - Linux Mint - 3.40
#8 - MEPIS- 1.40
#9 - FreeBSD - 0.80
#10 - Kubuntu - 0.70
#11 - CentOS - 0.40
#12 - Zenwalk - 0.40
#13 - RedHat - 0.30
#14 - Pardus - 0.20
#15 - Solaris - 0.20
#16 - Elive - 0.20

[bucky]

Distrowatch hits per day

Rank Distribution H.P.D*
1 Ubuntu 2235
2 PCLinuxOS 2187
3 openSUSE 1527
4 Mint 1329
5 Fedora 1322
6 Sabayon 922
7 Mandriva 922
8 Debian 833
9 Damn Small 677
10 MEPIS 657
11 FreeBSD 595
12 CentOS 546
13 Kubuntu 479
14 Puppy 478
15 Dreamlinux 466
16 Slackware 465
17 Zenwalk 452
18 Gentoo 438
19 Arch 391
20 KNOPPIX 378

[questio verum]

-=January 2008=-

Rank - Dist - %Market Share

#1 - Ubuntu - 31.30
#2 - Debian - 9.00
#3 - OpenSUSE - 7.40
#4 - PCLinuxOS - 6.10
#5 - Fedora - 3.80
#6 - Mandriva - 3.50
#7 - Linux Mint - 3.40
#8 - MEPIS- 1.40
#9 - FreeBSD - 0.80
#10 - Kubuntu - 0.70
#11 - CentOS - 0.40
#12 - Zenwalk - 0.40
#13 - RedHat - 0.30
#14 - Pardus - 0.20
#15 - Solaris - 0.20
#16 - Elive - 0.20

I'm curious... where do these figures come from? Do they represent proposed global market share, or just the UK? If you accepted these numbers as real and legitimate, they would illustrate one thing... Debian and Red Hat branches are very popular. Gentoo doesn't even get a minute of play on this list. It does a little better on the other (Distrowatch HPD short list).

Breakdown by branch:

Debian branch
#1 - Ubuntu - 31.30
#2 - Debian - 9.00
#7 - Linux Mint - 3.40
#8 - MEPIS- 1.40
#10 - Kubuntu - 0.70
#16 - Elive - 0.20

Red Hat branch
#4 - PCLinuxOS - 6.10
#5 - Fedora - 3.80
#6 - Mandriva - 3.50
#11 - CentOS - 0.40
#13 - RedHat - 0.30

Slackware branch
#12 - Zenwalk - 0.40

Unique distro
#3 - OpenSUSE - 7.40

Unique distro
#14 - Pardus - 0.20

OS'es not based on linux kernel
#9 - FreeBSD - 0.80
#15 - Solaris - 0.20



Now, the last thing I want to do is fuel some stupid argument over distros, but I'm curious why these two branches, along with OpenSUSE, would hold so much greater market share than other branches. I'm thinking it must have something to do with focus on improved user experience.

I'm not a linux über-geek. I'm just a user and a fan. My first experience with with linux was in 1993, with a copy of Yggdrasil I purchased from a university bookstore. It drove me crazy. Never did get it properly installed. But the whole experience sparked a fascination. That scenario with Yggdrasil was subsequently played out with a handful of other earlier distros. Not a single install took. Then came RH5. It installed, but was not noob-friendly. Then, a short while later, I bought & installed SuSE Office Desktop. Here I found a distro that worked and was user-friendly enough for me to poke around in. It even let me install and run MS Office 2K (which impressed the s*** out of me) Then finally, my experience last year with Ubuntu turned out to be the one that took. A distro polished and user-friendly enough for me to cut the strings and say goodbye to windows.

Now that I've embraced linux as my OS of preference, I look back fondly at the road that brought me here, and I can chuckle about those 'bumps in the road'. I can see just how organic the whole open-source movement is, and how each new release or distro actually inspires the next wave of improvement and innovation. I can also see that without the dedication and perseverance of the entire *nix and open-source community, computing would be a much more boring and much less fulfilling experience. It's really started to grow on me. I'm feeling kind of inspired here. I'm not sure yet what I want to do, or what I can bring of value to the open source community. But I want to give back something.

qv

[vh-bil]

The figures I had up there where from Linux Format. January 2008 Issue, The Distrowatch figures are interesting.