Hardware 2.0

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes | November 24, 2011, 7:32am PST

Summary: Try to please everyone, and pretty soon you please no one.

Ubuntu, once king of the desktop Linux distributions, has slid into fourth place according to data made available by DistroWatch. On the flipside, the Mint distribution has enjoyed tremendous growth in popularity.

Pingdom has pulled together data going back to 2005 that charts the demise of Ubuntu and the rise to power of Mint, and it’s not a pretty sight for Ubuntu fans.

Taking the stats for the last 30 days and comparing them to the averages for 2010 show that Ubuntu’s popularity is down 47.2%, while Mint is up a whopping 105%. The following chart shows how Mint’s popularity has increased over the past 12 months:

Why?

The popular theory used to explain the decline is that Linux users don’t like the new Unity interface being made the default in version 11.04 (Natty Narwhal), which relegated the Gnome interface to being an option. ZDNet’s own Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols seems to agree with this theory, while Jason Perlow is overcome with rage whenever he uses it.

I don’t buy it, and for two reasons:

First off, it’s not that hard to disable Unity and go back to the classic UI. Linux users are smarter than the average bears and I don’t see then bailing on their favorite Linus distro because the UI options have changed. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t see the Linux faithful batting an eyelid over this.

Secondly, Ubuntu’s decline started a long time ago. It’s popularity has been in decline since 2005. Unity can’t have been influencing this back then because it wasn’t even a twinkle in the eye of the open source developers. While the popularity of Dedian, Fedora and openSUSE have all remained pretty constant (excluding openSUSE’s initial rise to popularity after it’s release in December of 2006), Mint has been on the increase and Ubuntu has been on a steady decline.

My explanation for Mint’s rise and Ubuntu’s decline isn’t exciting but i think it’s closer to the truth than the whole Unity business. Ubuntu got too popular and it tied to become all things to all Linux users. I’ve used both Ubuntu and Mint, and to me the Mint distro seems better suited to Linux fans (you know, the people who have been using Linux for years). Canonical Ubuntu have tried too hard over the years to make Ubuntu mainstream and appeal to the masses, and by going down this road have alienated its hardcore users. And now it’s paying the price.

Try to please everyone, and pretty soon you please no one.

I won’t be surprised when I find out that Ubuntu slid into fifth place … prepare yourself, this is likely to happen in the next couple of months.

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Ubuntu, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.

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Ca't say better then you - exactly the same situation

SorinN 24th Mar

.. true - small teams seems to have a lot better management. Mint have clear goals.

Canonical goals seems to be a little bit blurry ..their boss seems to push everything forward just because ..his problem is that he does not listen the strongest "vox populi" which in fact made Ubuntu big. Now he pay the price - with Mint - Ubuntu see a new life. It's still Ubuntu.

Another important thing not mentioned here is the dedicated developer mass outside Canonical which grant up to date builds for many important programs. You can get last - by minute update - in .DEB format at first. This is my reason for jumping to Mint - I get back my desktop but in the meantime I will be up to date with GIMP, Inkscape and so ...

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Ubuntu Decline

nkingcade 24th Nov

Adrian,

Where did you get the data used in this article? Sounds strangely like advertising. Users of Linux by their very nature are normally users of more than one distro. This is an experimental community, not a community of devoted hardliners. Be careful, you sound like you are advertising.

Neal

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Ubuntu has never being a popular distro

wackoae 24th Nov

@nkingcade Ubuntu's claims of numbers have always being based on downloads .... downloads that not always turn into actual users. Most Linux users don't like unstable crap .... and Ubuntu is the mother of instability.

The decline in users may be that people are no longer downloading it (ie: not wasting the time and bandwidth) compounded by the fact that hardly anybody likes the garbage of Unity.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

Lerianis10 Updated - 24th Nov

@wackoae

Mother of instability? What are you talking about? I've used Linux (tried it a few times, didn't like the small software library, went back to Windows 7) and that isn't why I dislike it nor did I see much of that.

In fact, come to think of it, I NEVER had Ubuntu crash on me or even hard lockup.

Of course, that same thing is true with Windows 7 and Windows 8 Dev. Preview.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

jgm@... 24th Nov

@wackoae Again, the ultimate source of the data is Distrowatch.com's page hits for the various distros. It doesn't measure users, but it does measure popularity, which should be correlated.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

Jimster480 25th Nov

@wackoae Ubuntu is not the mother of instability. Most linux users are not super gurus (although there is a decent percent of them). Most people want to install an OS and have it work. Why do you think Gentoo and Arch have such low marketshare? because nobody wants to deal with that crap.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

root12 25th Nov

@nkingcade
His source is people visiting the website Distrowatch. As a result his research is flawed and very misleading. As an example. I have been using Ubuntu almost every day for the last two years and I have not visited Distrowatch at all (but previously I used to). Ubuntu is increasingly being aimed at users who are not interested in visiting sites like Distrowatch.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

jgm@... 25th Nov

@root12 Why would someone using Linux not be interested in visiting a site about Linux? What kind of users are these?

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

water-man 28th Nov

@jgm
Is every user using windows visiting a windows site every day? Of course not! Why can Linux geeks not accept that there is a fair amount of users that actually USE their computers for daily work? Not everybody likes to install yet another distro every other day.
I evaluated some distro's 3 years ago, choose for Ubuntu and have been using it since. However: I'm not totally satisfied with 11.10. That is not because of Unity, which works pretty well, but because of loss of performance and increased power (heat) usage.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

jgm@... 28th Nov

@water-man
>Is every user using windows visiting a windows site every day?

ZD-Net depends on it! happy

But that's a straw-man; root12 said Ubuntu is aimed at people who are "not interested in visiting sites", not not interested in visiting them every day.

> Of course not! Why can Linux geeks not accept that there is a fair
>amount of users that actually USE their computers for daily work? Not
>everybody likes to install yet another distro every other day.

I don't install yet another distro every other day; I use my computer 8+ hours every day for real work. I use one distro and have since I began using Linux full time in July of 2010. The only place I ever install other distros is in a virtual machine, and even then only if it's something exotic and special - a minimal distro for flash drives, a penetration-testing toolkit, a home server in a box, etc. - something really compelling to check out.

That said, I certainly check out distrowatch every week - they have a round-up of what's going on in the world of Linux. Information on new kernel releases, upcoming changes to distros, future release dates, a podcast, interviews with people behind major projects like Firefox or GNOME, etc. I use OpenSUSE so every week I also check their HTML "newsletter" with information on features in progress for the next version, command line tutorials for newbies, the top-voted requested features, new feature requests, a round-up of the latest bug/security fixes, a review of kernel/desktop changes, the most interesting posts on the forum that week, what's going on behind the scenes - such as right now community elections are coming up, etc. I also watch the Linux Action Show podcast each week and have discovered a lot of great Linux programs through their software "pick of the week" and learned about things like connecting remotely to your PC and making hard drive snapshots, things I didn't know how to do before but have become quite useful since.
My point was I don't understand why root12 would hold in scorn someone checking out information like that or what kind of user he was referring to who wouldn't care to ever want to learn anything about Linux or Linux software or care what's going on in the world of Linux. The more you use it for real work, the more you'd think someone would want to keep up-to-date on news... I can just imagine someone upgrading their Ubuntu Gnome desktop and encountering Unity by surprise, or some other Gnome 2.x desktop and learning that their distro has switch to Gnome 3 and being plunged into it with no heads-up. I use Linux on a laptop too; thanks to Linux sites I knew that certain current kernel versions increase power usage because of some systems' improperly implemented BIOS and the boot parameter to work around that. I learned that there were issues some people had importing their older Kmail messages into KMail2 so I've held off on upgrading until those are ironed out or I duplicate my setup in a virtual machine first and test to be sure everything will go smoothly. It's BECAUSE I need this computer working that I feel a need to keep informed about what's going on with my distro and Linux in general.

The class of user root12 is describing, who never wants to know or learn or even think about things again after installing sounds like the class of Windows user who never applies software updates - and we all have at least one friend/relative who falls into that camp. I don't think that's a group we want to court or encourage to continue in that mindset.

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Combination of UI and core

ImRaptor 24th Nov

I honestly believe that the decline is a combination of a couple of factors.
First off with the UI: Sure it can be disabled, but when I am installing a new distro and I am going to use Gnome anyway why would I bother with Ubuntu when other distros give me what I want out of the gate? The interface put an annoyance I didn't need with Linux.
Second is the core dependencies: I am finding the Ubunutu has removed, renamed, and rolled a lot of packages in to their own little scheme, which is starting to result in programs being setup for Ubuntu only and is causing time to find out dependency names across installs. This is the bigger annoyance I have with the newer Ubuntu, but in combination with the first I have written them off for now as a distro.

I'll also go on to say I don't really understand you explanation as to the decline.
"Ubuntu got too popular and it tied to become all things to all Linux users." Sounds like you're calling Linux users hipsters. Your explanation doesn't really address any actual reason people are moving away from it other than it was trying to become popular, at least from what I can tell.

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I thought power of Linux was tweaking

adacosta38 24th Nov

@ImRaptor If its one of the things Linux users like to complain about Windows, its too easy and basic and ready to use.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

AsifHussain1 28th Dec

@adacosta38 no, just the pitfalls of it, mainly security. Unlike the fanboys that like to bash the competition, I find it easier to let everyone use what works for them, if all computer users did that we'd have a much better community in tech. Plus cross platform program versions of everything.heck maybe even all OSes running the same core to let everything run seamlessly from one to another (Linux-unix core, WIndows-unix core, and Mac OS-unix core is what I am meaning. I realize windows is not that way now).

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

root12 24th Nov

@ImRaptor
The article is crap. I still use and like Ubuntu everyday, but I have not visited Distrowatch for over a year. I think really think proves that maybe more Ubuntu users are not interested Distrowatch.

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Well

timiteh 24th Nov

If Canonical was serious with making Ubuntu mainstream then i think that there would already be at least some Ubuntu preloaded PC sold by now.
You can't expect an O.S to become mainstream nowadays if it doesn't come preloaded with some kind of hardware.
Though, it is not too late, i think that if Canonical manage to design and sell some kind of UbuntuBooks they could end being way more popular than ChromeBooks.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

jgm@... 24th Nov

@timiteh There have been Ubuntu netbooks sold, and stores in China are selling PCs now with Ubuntu preinstalled, complete with Ubuntu displays and everything.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

root12 24th Nov

@jgm@...
More Ubuntu users are not interested in Distrowatch than the others.

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I beg to differ

Rabid Howler Monkey Updated - 24th Nov

From the article:
"Canonical Ubuntu have tried too hard over the years to make Ubuntu mainstream and appeal to the masses, and by going down this road have alienated its hard-core users.

Mark Shuttleworth is interested in turning Ubuntu into a profitable business via his company, Canonical Ltd. He knows that there is no possibility for this if he sticks with the "Linux faithful" and "hard-core users" for the desktop and mobile. (Psst! These aren't the users making Android such a success.) His interest is creating a distro that he hopes ordinary users, what you refer to as "the masses", will move towards. In other words, it's not a mistake, it's a business strategy.

The "Linux faithful" and "hard-core users" can either use Kubuntu, Xubuntu or Lubuntu (there is still choice underneath the Canonical umbrella) or they can move to an entirely different distro such as the main edition of Linux Mint, which is a derivative of Ubuntu. Or Debian, from which Ubuntu itself is derived.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

jgm@... 24th Nov

@Rabid Howler Monkey It is a mistake. As Eric Raymond once put it when dissecting the Microsoft Halloween memos, Microsoft (now Ubuntu) are designing with input from the most ignorant users (attempting mass-market appeal) while Linux typically takes its input from its smartest users. Linus Torvalds once said of the Gnome desktop that there's nothing wrong with designing for simplicity, but there is something wrong with designing *only* for simplicity. My take on these two ideas is that as users progress in knowledge a for-the-masses OS becomes less and less suited for them as time wears on. With an OS designed for its smartest users, the user experience gets better and better as the user learns more and time wears on. You're gaining initial market share, but you ultimately lose it by going the lowest-common-denominator route.

The article also doesn't address that Shuttleworth made statements not in the spirit of Linux, such as "this is not a democracy" when he moved the window controls to the left side of the window - a la OS X, which he appears to be attempting to duplicate. He also made Banshee the Ubuntu default music player, then initially edited the code so that commissions from online music sales made through Banshee would no longer go to the Gnome desktop foundation but to Canonical instead, followed by a big dust-up with the Banhee people. Additionally a former Ubuntu developer came out and explained how they're mostly paid by the number of features that make it into a release, so most developers (including him) rushed features into releases before they were ready for economic reasons and then would take another one or two releases to make these features actually usable. The joke has also spawned among Linux users "What's the difference between an AOL user and an Ubuntu user? Ten years." Finally, Canonical has been repeatedly assailed by other Linux developers for contributing miniscule amounts of code upstream compared to other distros and Linux contributing companies. It's the combination of Unity/chasing of the tablet market and consumer touch devices, unpolished releases, a focus on profit (which doesn't sit well with some Linux advocates), the anti-Linux-spirit "not a democracy" and lack of code contribution, and the "Linux For Dummies" reputation its engendered that have combined to lower its popularity over the last few years. Ubuntu users are realizing that they don't need to go to "Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu" or anything else that ends in buntu to gain a good Linux experience, and that in fact they can find knowledgeable, friendly userbases, distros that ARE democracies, distros that contribute freely to others and release stable releases with sane, well-tested technology advances. On this week's Linux Action Show the hosts declared that it's now between Mint and OpenSUSE for which distro will be leading the way in the future.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

root12 24th Nov

@jgm@...
"..leading the way in the future" What kind of future? The future that is only available for Linux freaks. Ubuntu is not aiming for these kind of users and this clear. But you don't like that.

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Are you serious?

JOB83 Updated - 24th Nov

@jgm@... You sound like an incredibly typical linux fanboy, or worse. You think that Ubuntu will get anywhere just by sticking with the linux tinkerers? I, for one, appreciate Canonical's efforts to make Ubuntu mainstream, although I believe that they need better marketing mechanisms. I have a vested interest in seeing Ubuntu get a sizable marketshare as I wouldn't have to worry about lack of compatibility of a few softwares, not to metion companies availing their products for Ubuntu. Then I wouldn't have to worry about issues like visiting a website that supports Internet Explorer only (could you believe that?) or those few softwares that happen to support windows only.

As for Unity, though I can understand the 'dumbed down' feel of it, I also do understand the strategy of getting new average users to like it and hence Ubuntu, although I think that Unity has some improvements to make before it becomes a UI truly noticeable by the masses.

However, although I agree with Canonical about popularizing Ubuntu to the masses in principle, I think that they need to admit that whatever marketing schemes they're using is not working and need to remake them. 7 years since Ubuntu came out and it's still no more than a fringe market (half of a 1% or so linux market share). They're talking about bringing Ubuntu to smartphones on 2014. They're saying that they've got a market to participate in, but judging from the recent history of smartphones' growth I think they need to admit that there will be a challenge then.

I love the fact that ordinary people have contributed to open source, and I would contribute in anyway I could, but undermining one's effort to bring this wonderful creation to the masses is not something I would roll with.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

CobraA1 25th Nov

@jgm@...

"With an OS designed for its smartest users, the user experience gets better and better as the user learns more and time wears on."

Not necessarily. Even smart people tend to miss the forest through the trees. They hyper-focus on details and forget to see the big picture.

The big picture is this: People want to hop onto a computer, hop onto an app and get work done, and get off.

They do NOT want to tweak their special effects in Compiz.

They do NOT want to control the exact position of every button and widget.

They do NOT want to tinker around in the command line.

They do NOT want to write scripts.

They do NOT want to spend time looking for an app in a super-customized desktop.

They want to get on, get stuff done, and get off. That's it. That's all that an OS really needs to provide. Everything else is extra baggage.

"The article also doesn't address that Shuttleworth made statements not in the spirit of Linux, such as 'this is not a democracy'"

Well, the democracy says they like Windows and Mac OS right now.

Maybe part of the problem with Linux is that it's not really a democracy. Most projects aren't run by the people, they're run by devs who decide they're more important than the people, and even though it's technically "open source" the truth is that very few people actually have the skills to modify the source, and the top devs have the right to refuse patches they don't want or like.

While Windows and Mac OS don't have open source, they do have customers who pay real money and have real purse string power.

If everybody refuses to buy Windows, Microsoft goes bankrupt.

If everybody refuses to download Linux, the Linux devs don't give a rat's ass.

Frankly, the democracy in Microsoft is more powerful than the democracy in Linux. That's the difference.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

guzz46 25th Nov

@CobraA1

"The big picture is this: People want to hop onto a computer, hop onto an app and get work done, and get off"

Well with no antivirus software to maintain and none of the windows maintenance it sounds like Linux is just what they need.

"If everybody refuses to buy Windows, Microsoft goes bankrupt"

Says who? why do you think M$ are so interested in patents? so they can make money from projects that aren't their own, like Android.

"If everybody refuses to download Linux, the Linux devs don't give a rat's ass."

You are probably right, because unlike M$ most of them aren't in it for the money, Linux is made by the people for the people, not made by a corporation for profit.

"Frankly, the democracy in Microsoft is more powerful than the democracy in Linux. That's the difference"

M$ isn't a democracy its a dictatorship... you get what M$ gives you and thats thats.

"Maybe part of the problem with Linux is that it's not really a democracy. Most projects aren't run by the people, they're run by devs who decide they're more important than the people"

That sounds like the definition of a democracy to me, eg... a country isn't run by the people, its run by politicians who decide they're more important than the people.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

jgm@... 25th Nov

@root12 Leading the way in regards to the future directions of desktop Linux. What Ubuntu is aiming for now are tablets, a metaphor which does not work very well on the desktop and is alienating a lot of users. In addition, we're into the second generation now of people growing up with computers. The population that knows nothing about computers and needs something ultra-simple is constantly dwindling; today toddlers are already using mice and playing with iPads. Dumbing things down is chasing a constantly shrinking market... even if you do catch some, most will eventually learn enough to want to do more, which was Torvalds' point. That's where designing only for simplicity bites you. Torvalds made this statement after Gnome took a simple feature he used out (redefining the right mouse button to do something other than bring up a system menu) for "simplicity". He checked, and their development list had several other features under discussion to be removed to make things "simpler". He realized removing all features from a system makes it easier to use but less useful in general.

As many users who have moved on from Ubuntu know, trying to do something outside of Ubuntu's training wheels is actually more difficult than in other distros. Those who want to do more than the basics then tend to explore other distros and find something more powerful and flexible.

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CobraA1, I must admit that you stated that most eloquently.

Mister Spock 25th Nov

@jgm@...
Maybe part of the problem with Linux is that it's not really a democracy. Most projects aren't run by the people, they're run by devs who decide they're more important than the people

I do agree with you on that.
plain

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guzz46, How do you expect anyone

Mister Spock 25th Nov

@guzz46
to take your argument seriouslly when it is written with an obvious bias against Microsoft, with your repeated use of the $ in MS?

CobraA1 makes a clear and accurate assesment of what he preceives as Ubuntu's problems, while you use your response to beltitle Microsoft with inuendos not backed up by any facts, while never really addressing the issues brought up by CobraA1 and others.

And please eleborate how Microsoft is a dictatorship: I look around and see so many items in this world that are sold as is, you take what you are given, no custom orders excepted.
plain

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

guzz46 25th Nov

@Mister Spock

"How do you expect anyone to take your argument seriouslly when it is written with an obvious bias against Microsoft, with your repeated use of the $ in MS?"

Well thats up to them, but you don't need to use a symbol to have an obvious bias against something... as evident in CobraA1's post.

"CobraA1 makes a clear and accurate assesment of what he preceives as Ubuntu's problems, while you use your response to beltitle Microsoft with inuendos not backed up by any facts, while never really addressing the issues brought up by CobraA1 and others."

And I made clear and accurate assesments of what I percieve to be wrong about his perceptions, and what facts am I wrong about anyway? certainly not about windows being made by a corporation for profit, oh and by the way CobraA1's opinions aren't backed up by any facts.

How is M$ a dictatorship? well tell me how many M$ projects are run by the people? (as CobraA1 puts it) they are run by a corporation who decides they're more important than the people (as CobraA1 puts it) that doesn't sound like a democracy to me.

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Its not ture

n69 24th Nov

Ubuntu is an OS for future not an OS from Past. And again unity is an UI for future not an UI from past. Ubuntu always has best ideas and other company copy ubuntu ideas like iCloud a copy from U1.
sorry for my english

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

root12 24th Nov

@n69
Thank you.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

regsrini Updated - 24th Nov

AKH, have you considered that the numbers on distrowatch could be about the number of hits, rather than the number of actual downloads? If so, Linux Mint could be high on popularity, but might not have beaten Ubuntu in actual number of users. There are quite a few posts on Techmeme referencing the Pingdom post, but nobody seems to have raised this point.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

AsifHussain1 24th Nov

@regsrini

Completely agree, Distrowatch isn't really the best way to measure statistics for popularity. Personally, I think the interest from Blogs, comments etc. has led to more people clicking on the Mint link to find out more about it.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

lepoete73 Updated - 24th Nov

Funny how Ubuntu started its decline before I even knew it existed. I first heard of it for their 6.06 Dapper Drake release which was wonderful, I still dream of the wallpaper with the tree that was the default...

Ubuntu started to go downhill for me when they started to copy some Mac looks, like putting the X to close the window on the left instead of right (sure easy to change with themes but no other themes were as beautiful as the default but with the buttons on the right.)

They stopped existing for me with Unity. I downloaded it, installed, tried, uninstalled and reinstalled LTS 10.04...

Also hats up to the netbook remix they did with 10.04, love it on my Aspire One.

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Kubuntu is now positioned in the right place at the right time.

Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate 24th Nov

I've been sampling various Distros for about a month and when I was done, I reached the following solution: Ubuntu + KDE = Kubuntu

For Folks like me, KDE is the antidote to Unity/Gnome3 and supplies 100% of Gnome 2.32 functionality and on top of that gives a better UI and richer feature set with KWin Plasma technology.

I had stayed away from KDE since the transition from 3.5.x to 4. KDE 4 was initially unstable feature-incomplete, but now after some two years of continual refinement has become the UI leader just at the right time when refugees are in search of a replacement for Unity/Gnome3 which are both effectively regressions.

I'll be camped in KDE for as long as they don't radicalize the current Desktop framework. It is now that I have sampled it much better than 3.5.x ever was.

And I was 'happiest' using KDE before I switched to Gnome when 4 came out.

Happy Days are back Folks. And if your Distro isn't running KDE, chances are you can bolt it on. With Linux Mint 11, you can do:

$sudo apt-get install kde-standard

The issue I see with Linux Mint 12 is that the Gnome3 with Gnome2 extensions as tested simply don't cut it. Clem has a fine Distro in the form of 11, but the survival of Mint depends on someone furthering development of Gnome2. Clem has undertaken to fork Gnome2 to 'Mate'. That is a work in progress that probably won't bear fruit for at least another 6-12 months.

In the meantime, if you are feeling left in the 'lurch', install KDE as I chose to do.
You won't regret it.

Kubuntu Linux. The safest operating system on the Planet.

I stake my reputation on it.

Thanks Adrian.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

Alan Smithie 24th Nov

@Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate

kubuntu is looking quite good and stable these days, worth sticking on a laptop but OpenSuse is still king of the Desktop KDE.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

luch3 24th Nov

@Dietrich T. Schmitz

I used to be a fan of KDE 3.5, but I gave it a try again after the Unity mess, and I find it to be still very glitchy and slow, unfortunately. Their widgets system is too bloated imho. I thus have chosen LXDE (Lubuntu), which is basic but also very stable and light.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why

Rabid Howler Monkey 25th Nov

@Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate wrote:
"Kubuntu Linux. The safest operating system on the Planet.

The safest desktop operating system is the one used by the least number of people. In this case, it would surely be NetBSD or OpenBSD. A plus for the OpenBSD project is its great emphasis on out-of-the-box security:

http://www.openbsd.org/security.html

However, I speak from experience when I say that OpenBSD is challenging to install, configure and maintain, including patching the kernel and X.Org. OpenBSD is, surely, a geek's paradise.

A more accessible, user-friendly BSD exists in PC-BSD, which is based on FreeBSD. I have also used PC-BSD and heartily recommend it to those that are curious.

A very interesting BSD variant is the experimental, Debian GNU/kFreeBSD project:

http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/
"Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is a port that consists of GNU userland using the GNU C library on top of FreeBSD's kernel, coupled with the regular Debian package set.

I am currently running a virtualized GNU/kFreeBSD server running MySQL. So far, so good, and I must say that apt is far more user-friendly than FreeBSDs' ports. And I don't mind the pf firewall either. As for Debian GNU/kFreeBSD on the desktop, I just might give it a spin it this weekend. Stay tuned ...

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Keep me posted over on G+

Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate 25th Nov

@Rabid Howler Monkey Thanks

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I agree mostly

Michael Kelly 25th Nov

@Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate

However that nepomuk/strigi/akonadi crap is still a mess. It never works out of the box, and configuring it practically takes a PhD. The first thing I do is disable all of that when I install KDE. But of course that means I have to search the old fashioned way, which prevents my system from being a truly modern system.

But other than that I do enjoy working in a KDE environment.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

rsambuca 24th Nov

The Distrowatch stats are only for site visits to their distro information pages. Not exactly the best measure for assessing the actual usage of a distro.

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It doesn't help

Joe_Raby 24th Nov

....that the once biggest PC maker in the world has dropped it, and now they slid to the number 3 position.

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poor linux

adholt 24th Nov

Linux has great promise on tablets and phones because people don't know or care whats running the device only that it works. On the Desktop its different. The names of the distros sound weird and there are just too many options. Who really wants to use an OS made from different pieces versus one thats intact and works? The Linux community has ruined Linux' chance at being a desktop champion for the masses because they don't want to let Linux go. Linux is the Holy Grail and makes some feel superior to other OS users. The truth is Fragmentation does not equate to popularity. As a consumer I am glad the techies don't control device versions of Linux.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

lm_a_dope Updated - 24th Nov

well Jason Perlow I quit using Ubuntu because of unity
instead I use Mint, Kubuntu and Lubuntu

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

The Rifleman Updated - 24th Nov

Mandriva Linux RC-2 does the larger menu well. Rather than full screen it's a large window style and is easy for those with a keyboard and mouse on a desktop to use as well. Not having touch or having touch anytime soon, I am also sure it will work great with touch as well.

Metro (Win-8), Gnome-3 and Unity are horrible because they are full desktop environments and not menus as they are expected to be. If Metro, Gnome-3, and Unity could be more like the KDE Menu In Mandriva Linux RC-2, I think the lack of current acceptance wouldn't be so great. At the very least, the Mandriva Linux KDE Menu makes for a more reasonable transition to the full desktop menu experience and it doesn't need so much graphics capability so it doesn't have a fall-back since none is required. That's good news!

Also, Metro, Gnome-3, and Unity all suffer a severe lack of customization. I hate the black themes. I want something more cheerful. I want to customize fonts and themes without having to stand on my head to figure out how to do it! I hope there is a way as I have not found it yet in either of the three mentioned at the start of this paragraph. It's always been easy to make these customizations and now!, either you can't or you have to search so long and hard to find the customization controls that you are loosing loyal fans. Not that Metro has a huge following yet. However, since it is much like Gnome-3 and Unity, I doubt it ever will. Especially if the Metro disgust I've seen On-Line is any indication of how it will land on final resting place in a production Win O.S.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

Chris Kenyon Updated - 24th Nov

Hang on. Distrowatch counts the number of people who look at a single webpage. It is not a measure of popularity, downloads or users. The graphs show you the number of people looking at a single webpage.

Other distros have overtaken Ubuntu before. PCLinuxOS overtook Ubuntu a couple of years ago on Distrowatch for several months and now sits at no 11 on the distrowatch list.

Distrowatch is used by Linux users to understand what components a particular distro is shipping - well know distros like Fedora, Ubuntu and Debian will always be under-represented on Distrowatch.

Now to the issue of some Ubuntu users not liking the new UI direction. There are people who do not like the new UI..... it is new. That some users would decide to use other UIs on Ubuntu is inevitable and it is no surprise that a distro like Linux Mint offering an older UI on top of Ubuntu is picking up some attention.

Going forward Ubuntu continues to lead in terms of commercial / corporate Linux adoption, OEM adoption (Canonical has pubclically stated 10+ million PC pre-installs this year) and taking GNU Linux on to form factors that represent the future of computing - Tablets, Phones and TVs.

Canonical has a vision for computing and is investing in new user interfaces, touch, new hardware partnerships ..... it is not suprising that we are causing ruffles in some quarters.

If you want a measure of usage there are much better data points. Wikipedia, as an example, publish which OS's access their web properties every day:

- http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm

Ubuntu appears to be about 17x more popular than the next most popular distribution which is Fedora which is just ahead of Suse.

There are plently of other distros identified in WikiMedia's data including Arch, Gentoo, Debian, Redhat, Gentoo, Mandriva and Linux Mint. If you want a more accurate measure of popularity, it would be useful to look at more accurate data-points.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

AsifHussain1 24th Nov

@Chris Kenyon

Well said.

I also find it quite interesing that Android is the Linux variant with the most traffic.

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No Vendor Lock-In!

ldo17 24th Nov

This shows how easy it is to switch between desktop Linux distros. They basically offer you the same software anyway, the differences mainly coming from the packaging, system configuration conventions, and of course the community.

By contrast, consider something as simple as upgrading from Microsoft Works to Microsoft Office. Two proprietary products from the same proprietary vendor, so you'd think they would be compatible? But no. Be prepared for a world of heartache and hurt as the conversion mangles your documents out of all recognition.

This doesn't happen in the Linux world. Switch distros, and all the work you've already done can come along with you, intact.

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Yeah thats a huge problem

otaddy 24th Nov

@ldo17 Been using Windows and Office for years. No problems.

Ok, I agree MS does some stupid things, but anyone who has serious work to do knows to avoid Works and go right to Office.

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RE: Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why?

AsifHussain1 25th Nov

@otaddy

Completely agree.

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You greatly exagerate the ease at which it is to switch.

Mister Spock 25th Nov

@ldo17
If Linux is a easy as you claim, why do you feel the need to be untruthful when speaking about it?
plain

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Re: No Vendor Lock-In!

ldo17 25th Nov

@Mister Spock "Untruthful" about what? It really is that easy to switch distros--I've done it several times, for myself and for clients. And you really can take all your documents with you.

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