Interesting website; Looks like RH does better in the US than anywhere else, no doubt because of the business model and the desire for US companies to have something "official".

I asked Google about Linux. The results made today are slightly different from these made one year ago when Royal Pingdom checked “Linux popularity across the globe”. In August 2008 Linux was most popular in India, Cuba, Russia, Czech Republic and Indonesia. Now it’s most popular in Cuba, India, Russia, Czech Republic and Lesotho (followed by Bangladesh, Indonesia, Taiwan, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka).

The most popular distributions are now:

Ubuntu
SUSE
Fedora
Debian

First on that list Ubuntu is twice as popular as second on the list SUSE.

The interest increases the most in case of:

Ubuntu
Mandriva
CentOS
Puppy

For comparison here’s the list published by DistroWatch:

Ubuntu
Fedora
Mint
openSUSE
Mandriva
Debian
Puppy

I wonder why interest with Linux falls over the time so dramatically – from about 100 at the beginning of 2004 to about 25 at the end of 2009. My presumption is: maybe people are more conscious now than were in 2004 and instead of asking generally about “Linux” ask more precisely about “Ubuntu”, “Linux Mint”, “CentOS”, “Puppy Linux” etc.

I compared the mentioned above results concerning Linux (most popular in Cuba, India, Russian Federation, Czech Republic and Lesotho followed by Bangladesh, Indonesia, Taiwan, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka) with Windows (most popular in Papua New Guinea, Congo, India, Malawi and Haiti followed by Guinea, Sierra Leone, Russian Federation, Cuba and Sri Lanka) as well as Mac OS (most popular in Russian Federation, Switzerland, United States, Cambodia and Singapore followed by France, Madagascar, Germany, Canada and Hong Kong).

Looking at these results it seems that computing – especially with Windows and Linux – is most popular in Second and Third World. It’s contradictory to the common sense. At the moment I have no idea how to explain that phenomenon or mistake.

The UK shows as shades of pale blue as if nobody's very interested in any distro at all.

Hi, Alexvader

I didn't say that owners of powerful machines can't use Linux. On the contrary I meant that owners of weak machines have simple choice: obsolete Windows 95 or economical Linux OS with simple window manager.

Someone who has a powerful machine don't have to worry about resources such as disk space, memory size or processor speed. He or she can install and use everything. A few operating systems? Huge desktop environments? Fancy Compiz with Cube plugin? Separate wallpaper on each desktop? Why not!

Someone who has a weak machine thinks twice before he or she will decide to put some wallpaper on the desktop. In fact someone who has a weak machine thinks and learns a lot.

This is the difference between possibility and necessity. If you have a powerful machine you can use it in economical way. If you have weak machine you have to use it in economical way.

I used the term ``hacker'' in general meaning. So I meant ``white hats'', ``black hats'' and ``wannabe hackers'' (all those ``crackers'', ``script kiddies'' etc.). In fact it isn't bad to be wannabe if someone learns. Each wannabe hacker can become hacker but only a few will become. That's the whole truth.

i just saw the website. am embarrassed to see India's position/contribution.

Interesting article. Ubuntu is on top in Norway, and that isn't surprising as it tends to get a lot of attention in the news here. (Tech-news). I actually think slackware is doing pretty well, considering it's (basically) one man project (But with great help from his team! Thanks yet again).

My old man wanted a computer at his work for the employees to use for simple browsing and word processing. I had an old computer at home, but it was a P2 333MHz and 1GB ram, so it was old and lazy. I installed slackware and autologin to fluxbox with a custom menu with firefox, openoffice and shutdown. He is really happy with the computer, and the people to. It's running smooth and stable and easy to use

@Dinithion:

Linux Mint is also the most popular in Norway followed by Indonesia. It agrees with your statement that ``it tends to get a lot of attention in the news here''.

I'm Brazilian and my second wife's parents are from Indonesia (born there) with Chinese relatives. We have a little smart boy who likes to play with Compiz and his Naruto themed desktop. I'm afraid he will grow a '1337' hacker =]

Nice info, thanks for sharing. But this is all based on "search terms", they should base this on no. of downloads instead. It's like distrowatch all over again.

Hi Shylock

You mean tosay that Distrowatch info is not accurate... ? maybe not... but where can I find info based on download numbers...?

Alex

Distrowatch info is totally based on HPD. Hits per day, that is the number of users searching the name of a particular distribution on that site. That's it. No wonder ubuntu is at no.1 always. It has over 10 million users according to canonical. On second thought, statistics based on no. of downloads can only be found if the distribution chooses to disclose it. Many distribution will suffer due to this, like Arch and gentoo [for their rolling release system], Slackware and Debian [for their more conservative release system]. Naturally either way Ubuntu and Fedora will still be at the top. Hence I don't think it's a fair way to judge no. of users either. Only way is through an open online survey.

The term "hacker" is probably well defined above network security.

Wikipedia gathers all the meanings of the word hacker that I mentioned above.

I thought about it an I have some idea. In the First World people have more money and more ways to spend them. In the Third World there is little money and just a few ways to spend them. Computers can substitute this lacking. With the computer you can use illegal copies of Windows and applications or you can use open source Linux or BSD systems and programs, you can download and watch movies, you can download and listen to the music, you can watch TV, you can listen to the radio etc. So you don't have to pay for nothing except for the machine. You don't have to go to cinema. You don't have to go to the concerts. You don't have to own TV, DVD, Hi-Fi and radio. In the First World computers are mainly for learning and work. In the Third World computers are all in one machines -- real culture centers.

It's only my presumption but it explains the phenomenon of the popularity of computing in the Second and the Third World.

***

At the end I asked Google about FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD. The results are particularly interesting for FreeBSD. It's especially popular in Russia and former Soviet Republics: Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Armenia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Uzbekistan.

Hi all

In countries dominated by the so-called first world countries, particularly in the case of Brazil (my country)people who have computers are:

1)People who have money to spend and they represent a very small portion of the total population of the country. Here consider that not all actually use computers and watch use
Windows (even here there are many who use illegal copies of windows).

2)The part that have some money to live. They have no old computers, and most of them do not use old computers. Here also prevails in your Windows much, but illegal copies.
The vast majority use the computer in its most basic functions, (click and it happens) ... if the expected happens, get lost... No education (school) for those people ...

3)People who survive. These are the majority!
They definitely do not have or use computers!

4)The local government waved to the use of Linux but in practice is not the case.

Translation for english portuques made in

http://translate.google.com.br/#

regards
afreitascs