Hi,

two things widely used but often overlooked: shell and terminal emulator.

Evo2.

I think that was in the choice awards polls, I don't remember the exact titles to those specific ones but here are some links from searching 'choice awards...' ;)
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...rs-4175448592/
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...5/#post4991118

Wrong link for that second one should be: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post5004925
sorry.

Hi,

yeah I'll concede that terminal emulator has been done before, but I'm pretty sure shell hasn't. Another idea: terminal multiplexer.

Evo2.

How many times each day do you yell at your computer?
How many mice have you squashed?

(Yes. I have anger issues.:))

How about a poll for what percent of your time is spent using a Linux box over the last year?
It would be interesting to see if the numbers go up each year.

Or how about a poll to see why people chose Linux over Windows?
for example:

1-Purchase cost
2-Maintenance cost
3-Stability
4-Virus, malware, spyware, etc
5-Software add-ons
6-Ability to run on old hardware
7-Ability to run on low power h/w
8-Speed/performance is superior
9-All of the above

What shell do you like best? I started a poll:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ux-4175496470/

The trouble with "Which is the Best X?" type polls is they tend to be "Popularity contests" rather than evaluations of which is the best.

Let's take a "Which is the Best Distro?" poll for example.

I have used Ubuntu, Gentoo, Arch, Debian, Redhat, Mandrake, OpenEmbedded and Embdebian.

My vote for Ubuntu tells you nothing about Mint for example.

My mentioning Mandrake is meaningless, I haven't used it in years, I'm not even sure it is still active.

I'd vote Ubuntu, but I'd _never_ use Ubuntu in an embedded environment, I'd use OpenEmbedded.

I'd vote Ubuntu, but Debian would make a strong second place for me. Again lost in a simple "pick one poll".

ie. Polling needs to become quite a bit more sophisticated taking into account these problems.

True but polls are just numbers what would you suggest,,, maybe "eating pudding" :D or a discussion beneath?

To be fair, none of the official LQ polls to date have really been of the nature of "Which is the Best X" (unlike the Members Choice Awards). The topics have been:

* What Was Your First Linux Distro?
* In What Year Did You Start Using Linux?
* Which Linux Architecture Do You Use?
* Does Your Primary Linux Desktop Have An HDD or SSD?
HDD
* How Did You Get Into Linux and Open Source? (although this one was open answer and not poll form)

That said, we're open to all suggestions so it's possible a future poll will suffer from the issue you bring up.

--jeremy

I guess the polling infrastructure would have to get a bit more fancy.

Something along the lines of
"Of the varieties of X you have looked at enough within the last year to have an informed opinion of... mark your preference love,like,meh,dislike,hate and mark your knowledge of the package... "used more than 20 times, used 10-20 times, use 1-9 times, read the blurb".


And then add ability rank by some sort of weighted index.

I'd like to know how many FOSS users are using or want to use open source hardware and what they'd use it for, and what FOSS they'd use on it to meet those ends.

I'd like to see a poll about the usage of databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Firebird, NoSQL-DBs...

I would like to see polls on the best hardware for linux compatibility.
Best graphics cards
Best wireless PCI cards
Best printer
etc

I like Pastychomper's suggestions:
Most desired new OS feature?
Favourite new feature/discovery in the last n years?

And, thank you, szboardstretcher, for your accurate observation -
"Seemingly anybody with a pulse is who Fox News hires."

This poll was recently done in the 2013 LQ MCAs: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ar-4175488206/

--jeremy