Comments on: Explosion of Interest in GNU/Linux at Distrowatch.com http://mrpogson.com/2012/10/07/explosion-of-interest-in-gnulinux-at-distrowatch-com/ One man. Closing, all the windows. Mon, 20 May 2013 20:31:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Robert Pogson http://mrpogson.com/2012/10/07/explosion-of-interest-in-gnulinux-at-distrowatch-com/#comment-99475 Robert Pogson Tue, 09 Oct 2012 19:10:43 +0000 http://mrpogson.com/?p=14851#comment-99475 “a lot more data from a lot more sources” does nothing to answer the fundamental question of usage. Only a scientific survey will come close to satisfying that and web stats are nothing scientific. There’s no control of the web sites, the languages or subject matter and no way to overcome NAT without peeking at MAC addresses. Even that is unlikely to be reliable enough because of proxies/firewalls etc. I do plan to set up a “honeypot” of IT-neutral stuff on the web to collect some webstats with a known unbiased website. I will publish the results in a year or so after the data has been collected and analyzed.

]]> By: twitter http://mrpogson.com/2012/10/07/explosion-of-interest-in-gnulinux-at-distrowatch-com/#comment-99466 twitter Tue, 09 Oct 2012 18:01:04 +0000 http://mrpogson.com/?p=14851#comment-99466 Looking at the trends for the year, I see an increased and broadened interest for the year. The top ranking distro, mint, lost about 20% but all the other top 20 gained 10 to 20% when comparing yearly vs monthly averages. For the 800 hits lost by mint, there are about 2,000 gained for the next 19 most popular distros. Outside of the top 20, the changes per distro are noisier, but the sums should be reliable for the top 100 and these show a rise of about 3% from 40,200 to 41,400 between 1 year and one month averages.

I happen to think a large number of distributions is healthy, as long as they each have something special to offer users.

]]> By: Yonah http://mrpogson.com/2012/10/07/explosion-of-interest-in-gnulinux-at-distrowatch-com/#comment-99459 Yonah Tue, 09 Oct 2012 16:54:14 +0000 http://mrpogson.com/?p=14851#comment-99459 Hmm…

“light-hearted way of measuring the popularity of Linux distributions”

“should not be used to measure the market share of distributions”

“…nothing more.”

Seems you’re doing something you’ve been told you shouldn’t do. You need a lot more data from a lot more sources before you can make a “definite” declaration.

]]> By: kozmcrae http://mrpogson.com/2012/10/07/explosion-of-interest-in-gnulinux-at-distrowatch-com/#comment-99392 kozmcrae Mon, 08 Oct 2012 23:35:21 +0000 http://mrpogson.com/?p=14851#comment-99392 Crow wrote:

“On the other hand, could the total of hits show people general interest in Linux?”

When people first get interested in Linux they often visit DistroWatch and similar sites. That is what I did before I downloaded and installed my first copy of Linux. An increase in traffic on DistroWatch definitely means an increase in interest in Linux. It most likely also means an increase in Linux users.

]]> By: Robert Pogson http://mrpogson.com/2012/10/07/explosion-of-interest-in-gnulinux-at-distrowatch-com/#comment-99382 Robert Pogson Mon, 08 Oct 2012 20:44:17 +0000 http://mrpogson.com/?p=14851#comment-99382 The explanatory notes from Distrowatch:
“The DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics have attracted plenty of attention and feedback over the years. Originally, each distribution-specific page was pure HTML with a third-party counter at the bottom to monitor interest of visitors. In May 2004 the site switched from publicly viewable third-party counters to internal counters. This was prompted by a continuous abuse of the counters by a handful of undisciplined individuals who had confused DistroWatch with a poll station. The counters are no longer displayed on the individual distributions pages, but all visits are logged. Only one hit per IP address per day is counted.

The DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics are a light-hearted way of measuring the popularity of Linux distributions and other free operating systems among the visitors of this website. They correlate neither to usage nor to quality and should not be used to measure the market share of distributions. They simply show the number of times a distribution page on DistroWatch.com was accessed each day, nothing more.”

]]> By: Crow http://mrpogson.com/2012/10/07/explosion-of-interest-in-gnulinux-at-distrowatch-com/#comment-99342 Crow Mon, 08 Oct 2012 17:43:35 +0000 http://mrpogson.com/?p=14851#comment-99342 Mr. Pogdson, I use to read your publications with interest and maybe you can tell me what do you think about this.
To this moment I don’t understand what the numbers at Distrowatch means: is not the number of users, is not the preference for a distro, is not the use of a distro. It seems to me that it means curiosity about a distro which is easy to promote using some hype and a frequent release cycle.
On the other hand, could the total of hits show people general interest in Linux? have you seen changes over the months/years?
Thank you for your time
I think the data could have a better use than the confrontation between distros.

]]> By: That Exploit Guy http://mrpogson.com/2012/10/07/explosion-of-interest-in-gnulinux-at-distrowatch-com/#comment-99317 That Exploit Guy Mon, 08 Oct 2012 15:41:43 +0000 http://mrpogson.com/?p=14851#comment-99317 @Robert Pogson

‘Of course there is. A lot of distros are getting a lot more hits per day this week than last month. How else can you describe the data? The whole point is that the average has changed dramatically.’

By the same logic, I could also say that Americans generally care more/less about the weather than ever before (depending on which slice of the data you look at), except that would obviously be an absurd conclusion to draw.

TEG’s observations are only correct for statistical variation. This is a real shift, not a variation. SQRT(1000) is about 32. That’s 3%. We see a 20% shift.

Ugh… Try again.

]]> By: Robert Pogson http://mrpogson.com/2012/10/07/explosion-of-interest-in-gnulinux-at-distrowatch-com/#comment-99309 Robert Pogson Mon, 08 Oct 2012 14:23:41 +0000 http://mrpogson.com/?p=14851#comment-99309 NetApplications is seeing something similar:

week of September 30, 2012, USA GNU/Linux =1.91%

month of September 2012, USA GNU/Linux= 1.59%

What big roll-out of GNU/Linux happened last month?

NetApps:
California, September, 8.81%
week of September 30, 10.46%

Yipee! It’s Mountain View, CA which went from 10% for September to 52% for the week of September 30. Did Google expand? Did a neighbour take up GNU/Linux?

]]> By: Robert Pogson http://mrpogson.com/2012/10/07/explosion-of-interest-in-gnulinux-at-distrowatch-com/#comment-99308 Robert Pogson Mon, 08 Oct 2012 14:15:20 +0000 http://mrpogson.com/?p=14851#comment-99308 TEG wrote, “Without knowing at least how those 30 data points are distributed, there is simply no way to draw any of that conclusion you have put in your post.”

Of course there is. A lot of distros are getting a lot more hits per day this week than last month. How else can you describe the data? The whole point is that the average has changed dramatically.

TEG’s observations are only correct for statistical variation. This is a real shift, not a variation. SQRT(1000) is about 32. That’s 3%. We see a 20% shift, like Debian GNU/Linux going from 1300 to 1600. So, TEG is comparing apples and oranges or raising straw men, again…

]]> By: MK http://mrpogson.com/2012/10/07/explosion-of-interest-in-gnulinux-at-distrowatch-com/#comment-99301 MK Mon, 08 Oct 2012 13:24:33 +0000 http://mrpogson.com/?p=14851#comment-99301 October/November and April/May are release seasons, and so, naturally, interest is up and clicks are up, in other words, it’s business as usual. Does it tell us anything at all about the rapid growth of interest? I think not.

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