More seriously, though, does anyone have administrative access to websites of general (and not computer-geek-specific) appeal? By counting user-agent strings matching browsers shipped with Slackware, and uniq'ing on ip address, and expressing it as a fraction of total unique visitors to such site, we should be able to get a rough idea of how many slackware desktops people are using to browse web pages. That'd be a fair start.

It'd involve logging user-agent id's, which I think apache-httpd defaults to *not* log these days.

Ahem....Since the SW can be freely copied and distributed, AND since most Linux users are unlikely to go to some central site and register, I submit that there is no practical way to know how many users there are.

But---what the heck: I'll try.....

World population = ~7B
% that use computers = 5-10%, so there are between 350M and 700M computer users
Assuming 3% use Linux, then there are 10 to 20 M Linux users
Much as they'd like you to believe otherwise, I doubt if Slackware users are more that 10% of the total.

Thus, the total number of Slackware users is maybe 1.5M..........prove me wrong...

Wish I had gone to linux years ago, but alas I was having too much fun gaming.
Now I have slack on an old laptop for study purposes and will install it on my gaming rig once I've got rid of a few games which I need to do a "little" bit more research on )
(btw I'm now focused on making games exclusively for linux - to promote it over that gross windows thing they (unbelievably dare) call an Operating System.)

I will install slack for my mum once I'm better aquanted with it - think I will get her a slack shirt too haha

There is this LiCo project: https://linuxcounter.net/ they are guesing over 61 milion linux users

Hi,

Not a true reflection. User-agent for FF can be set to anything regardless of running OS. I believe the agent can be set for other browsers as well. You would need to distribute the sample to get a fair representation. Your sample would not be a true representation. Except for the users that visit a singular site.

Look at LQ for example, what is the percentage of users agents that browse the Slackware forums or LQ wide. Your sample is most likely to be higher across LQ as compared to Microsoft.com. You would need to sample a broader audience to setup the base representation.

Interesting project but I believe you would be better off trying a sample with LinuxCounter since your scope would be Linux. Let me throw another variable in there: What about users that are using VM with Slackware Gnu/Linux as a Host and Clients are Microsoft or whatever. Or sample servers that are using Slackware?

Look at DistroWatch to start a potential sample. Even there you would not get a fair reflection. I really do not care for polls, statistics or probabilities when not performed by knowledgeable representatives or people who can interpret without bias. That is one reason for so many analyst bantering amongst each other. Look at the USA political polls today. That's one big joke.

desktop, mine
desktop, wife
netbook (now writing on)
fileserver/web/ftp-server
guestroom/media client
my old desktop

+ a few old ones I don't use at the moment

that's it....

Well, then let me happily join the counting process.

- Office: 1 server, 8 desktops.
- Local school: 2 servers, 20 desktops.
- Some clients in town with still-running Slackware installs as old as 10.2.
- Lots more to expect as soon as I've finished completely migrating my company's services from Debian and CentOS to Slackware.

1 desktop, one laptop, one home server, one virtual machine running a stock Slack on Slack -current and one virtual machine running Slack to host apache, etc on the office computer soon.

1 user, 4 computers:
1 desktop: Slackware64-current
2 laptops: Slackware64-current
1 netbook: Slackware64-current

If we all, not just slackware users, are diligent in posting our stats to linuxcounter.org, we may be able to get at some statistics that privide real Linux usage estimates.

So...ATM:
Total linux users registered: 133372
total machines registered: 94691
Users per machine 1.408
total machines with distro data: 6757
% machines with distro data: 7.14%
% machines running stackware (336 of 6757): 4.97%
estimate of total number of registered machines with slack: 4709
estimate of total slackware users: 6632 or 4.97% <--- no surprise there ;-)

LiCo estimates of all linux users: 61,528,012

Therefore total Slackware users worldwide: 3,059,555

Of course, this don't mean diddly squat given the selective data collection in LiCo. Perhaps build the linux counter script into each distro?

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I doubt LinuxCounter comes anywhere near a real estimation. Let me give you an example for that. Last year, the french police force migrated their 80.000 desktop computers from Windows XP to Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. I'd be curious to know how many of the tens of thousands french policemen who are now Linux users at their workplace even know about the existence of LinuxCounter.

Hi,
I agree a volunteer count would be nice. Otherwise;
Here I disagree. Close to being invasive when ever we have a mandated collection of personal data to show or register. Maybe allow the person to opt out but even then I think it could cause some to be very paranoid. I would not like to align registration or similarity to other major OS that already register in this way. Personal choice!

G'Day

I have the following:
2 workstations Slackware 13.37 (Mine and Wife)
2 Laptops Slackware 13.37 and Slackware -current
2 Servers Slackware 10.0 & Slackware 10.1
1 workstation Slackware 12.2 (86 yo father)
1 Workstation Slackware 12.1 (11 yo daughter)
3 Servers & 1 Workstation at work (Slackware 12.2)
I have also installed servers at Post Production houses, small businesses and homes all running Slackware 8.0 to 13.37.
I will be installing 2 new servers and 6 workstations at a school soon as well, hopefully Slackware 14.0.

Just turned off a Slackware 7 server last month as the power supply failed.

Regards, BG4.

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LQ should have a LIKE-button like Facebook for posts like yours.

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Just press the 'Helpful' YES button for the reply you find useful/helpful

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