After repeatedly suffering issues with scam apps making it onto the Snap Store, Canonical maker of Ubuntu Linux have now decided to manually look over submissions.
This thread is a good example of just how circlejerky and bubble like lemmy has become.
You are correct. Outside of the hard-core users and tech nerds, Ubuntu is massively popular. But you listen to this community, and you’d think the opposite.
Most of us do live in bubbles (not exclusive to lemmy or tech nerds). I first picked up Ubuntu in 2004. It was a massive leap forward at the time as Gnome was moving a lot faster than Debian stable and I was running Sid to keep up. I am genuinely surprised everytime I learn Ubuntu is still “popular” as they have made so many NIH misteps over the years (mir,upstart,unity,snap) and frustrated their users. I moved back to Debian years ago for server/dev as Ubuntu re-packaging wasn’t adding any value and once I was on another distro for desktop I lost all interest.
Ubuntu started off with some amazing community building. It felt more like a peoples distro than Canonicals for a time. I felt more invested in it in those days so I can relate to Ubuntu users but I also understand some of the criticism aimed at Canonical and their choices.
You are correct. Outside of the hard-core users and tech nerds, Ubuntu is massively popular. But you listen to this community, and you’d think the opposite.
So which part of the internet is Steam Hardware & Software Survey then?
The most popular Ubuntu version is at a whopping 5% of all Linux users.
Ubuntu went from the most popular desktop distribution to the most or at least one of the most popular container distributions, ie. for hard-core users and tech nerds. Meanwhile Steam Deck sold millions and I’m confident to say that a good chunk of the users have no idea what Steam Deck runs, let alone SteamOS being an Arch Linux derivative.
Very few linux installs include steam and this survey only represents a few thousand gamers. The only thing it shows is that steam users like steam os.
No, I’m not. Had you read my comments correctly, you’d know that I was stating repeatedly that Ubuntu is popular for containers but that’s is a completely different topic.
That’s not a meaningful comparison because it splits Ubuntu by version but all of Arch is a single category. We’d need to roll up the Ubuntu users for it to be apples to apples.
You don’t honestly believe that, right? Like you’re aware that the Steam hardware survey only includes Steam users that have it installed and choose to participate in the survey? There are way more computers and servers running Ubuntu than there are steam decks.
Context is computers dual booting Windows and Ubuntu, so obviously consumer hardware and not servers and also not multiple containers on one device. There are millions of Steam Decks sold already and Steam Deck is consumer hardware which means that there are millions of individual devices running SteamOS.
servers running Ubuntu
Sure there are hardcore users that run dozens of containers simultaneously and Ubuntu is quite a popular choice among those. Completely different topic from the one I’ve replied to, though.
Steam numbers are completely meaningless. There’s absolutely no way SteamOS outnumbers Ubuntu even if we limit this comparison to desktop installs. Ubuntu’s been around for a very long time and many of its users wouldn’t show up on Steam because they don’t game.
If you look at just my household, Ubuntu and its derivatives outnumber SteamOS by a factor of 7:1, not even counting numerous VMs and containers, or 3:1 if you’re just counting desktops, laptops and tablets. But if you look at my steam usage, Ubuntu hasn’t shown up there in over a year.
I probably spend 10x as much time on Ubuntu machines as I spend on my Steam Deck, but the Steam hardware survey would never surface that fact, nor is it intended to.
Sure, but it’s often a clearer way to explain why a statistic is misleading.
In this case, my anecdote shows an example of why the steam hardware survey is not, and was never intended to be, an accurate depiction of what distros people are using overall. Instead, it’s a depiction of what distros people are using for Steam, which is the point of the statement above mine.
Using anecdote instead of statistical data is a bad idea. But so is ignoring anecdotes simply because they’re anecdotes, as anecdotes are often one of the best ways to find limitations in statistical data.
As I’ve already explained to you elsewhere, that’s not how this works. You are the one who made the claim. The burden is on you to provide a good backing for said claim. When people asked for that backing, you provided something that does not back up that claim. It’s not on anyone else to provide an alternative claim, as that would be a variation of attempting to shift the burden of proof.
Personally, I’m not sure if good enough data to provide an answer to everyone’s satisfaction exists. But that doesn’t mean we get to shortcut the process by claiming that a data set means something it doesn’t. Some other data that one could theoretically provide that would be of similar quality to what you’ve provided (that is, decent quality data that measures something related but cannot be reasonably extrapolated to verify or falsify your claim) include:
Distro breakdowns from the Snap store (this would overrepresent distros with Snap preinstalled)
Distro breakdowns from Flathub (this would overrepresent distros with Flatpak preinstalled and flathub preconfigured)
Distro breakdowns from web statistics (this would underrepresent privacy-centric distros and hide the distro for people who, for example, use a flatpak of their browser)
As I’ve already explained to you elsewhere, that’s not how this works.
So you say…
You are the one who made the claim. The burden is on you to provide a good backing for said claim.
I have no burden to provide anything but I did anyway out of courtesy, you and your friends just refuse that out of gut feeling.
Personally, I’m not sure if good enough data to provide an answer to everyone’s satisfaction exists.
So there is, according to your own words, absolutely no credible evidence that Ubuntu is popular on desktops at all. So everybody here claiming how popular Ubuntu is, is making claims without backing them up. Funny how your fervor isn’t with them and their “burden to provide a good backing for said claim”. Seems you are not that objective about that matter.
Fact is, Steam is widely used by “regular” people (which this sub-thread is about) and therefore the best statistic there is about distribution usage outside the “techie sphere”.
So you are “not sure if good enough data to provide an answer to everyone’s satisfaction exists” that Ubuntu is popular and the statistic that exists says it isn’t that popular among non-techie users. Good that we have this settled now!
That should be possible by changing the repos, shouldnt it? I will try this in a VM.
Downgrading will be harder than rebasing from Ubuntu LTS to Debian Sid for example. But at the same time I imagine its easier to downgrade from Sid to Stable on the same Distro.
I use it because a class wanted me to either use it in a VM or use WSL but WSL didn’t work and I figured it was easier to set up a dual boot than setting up a VM since I’ve installed Linux quite a few times.
They’re currently number 6 on DistroWatch’s Last 6 Months. So people are at least still interested in it.
The DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics are a light-hearted way of measuring interest in 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 was accessed each day, nothing more.
They simply show the number of times a distribution page on DistroWatch was accessed each day, nothing more.
Which can be manipulated by scripting or setting the browser’s home page to the DistroWatch page of a distribution. No way in hell is MX Linux actually popular.
People still use Ubuntu?
One of the top most used distros probably
This thread is a good example of just how circlejerky and bubble like lemmy has become.
You are correct. Outside of the hard-core users and tech nerds, Ubuntu is massively popular. But you listen to this community, and you’d think the opposite.
Most of us do live in bubbles (not exclusive to lemmy or tech nerds). I first picked up Ubuntu in 2004. It was a massive leap forward at the time as Gnome was moving a lot faster than Debian stable and I was running Sid to keep up. I am genuinely surprised everytime I learn Ubuntu is still “popular” as they have made so many NIH misteps over the years (mir,upstart,unity,snap) and frustrated their users. I moved back to Debian years ago for server/dev as Ubuntu re-packaging wasn’t adding any value and once I was on another distro for desktop I lost all interest.
Ubuntu started off with some amazing community building. It felt more like a peoples distro than Canonicals for a time. I felt more invested in it in those days so I can relate to Ubuntu users but I also understand some of the criticism aimed at Canonical and their choices.
True. I’ve always felt more at home in Ubuntu and its derivatives. Debian is quite nice too.
So which part of the internet is Steam Hardware & Software Survey then?
The most popular Ubuntu version is at a whopping 5% of all Linux users.
Ubuntu went from the most popular desktop distribution to the most or at least one of the most popular container distributions, ie. for hard-core users and tech nerds. Meanwhile Steam Deck sold millions and I’m confident to say that a good chunk of the users have no idea what Steam Deck runs, let alone SteamOS being an Arch Linux derivative.
Very few linux installs include steam and this survey only represents a few thousand gamers. The only thing it shows is that steam users like steam os.
Millions of sold Steam Deck units run Linux and default to Steam. It’s easily the most popular personal computing device running GNU/Linux out there.
So regular users, “outside of the hard-core users and tech nerds”.
i wonder how many old thinkpads are still running linux… Honestly, it’s possible some arbitrary single model may still outnumber steam decks.
I think you’re forgetting about AWS, GCP, Azure.
No, I’m not. Had you read my comments correctly, you’d know that I was stating repeatedly that Ubuntu is popular for containers but that’s is a completely different topic.
That’s not a meaningful comparison because it splits Ubuntu by version but all of Arch is a single category. We’d need to roll up the Ubuntu users for it to be apples to apples.
Like Windows, Ubuntu is installed by default on many computers. In my university, all the computers have a dual boot Ubuntu Windows.
Haha in mine they have Ubuntu stickers on them but no Ubuntu to be found.
SteamOS is installed on more computers, though.
You don’t honestly believe that, right? Like you’re aware that the Steam hardware survey only includes Steam users that have it installed and choose to participate in the survey? There are way more computers and servers running Ubuntu than there are steam decks.
Context is computers dual booting Windows and Ubuntu, so obviously consumer hardware and not servers and also not multiple containers on one device. There are millions of Steam Decks sold already and Steam Deck is consumer hardware which means that there are millions of individual devices running SteamOS.
Sure there are hardcore users that run dozens of containers simultaneously and Ubuntu is quite a popular choice among those. Completely different topic from the one I’ve replied to, though.
Steam numbers are completely meaningless. There’s absolutely no way SteamOS outnumbers Ubuntu even if we limit this comparison to desktop installs. Ubuntu’s been around for a very long time and many of its users wouldn’t show up on Steam because they don’t game.
If you look at just my household, Ubuntu and its derivatives outnumber SteamOS by a factor of 7:1, not even counting numerous VMs and containers, or 3:1 if you’re just counting desktops, laptops and tablets. But if you look at my steam usage, Ubuntu hasn’t shown up there in over a year.
I probably spend 10x as much time on Ubuntu machines as I spend on my Steam Deck, but the Steam hardware survey would never surface that fact, nor is it intended to.
No, I won’t because anecdotal evidence is no statistic.
Sure, but it’s often a clearer way to explain why a statistic is misleading.
In this case, my anecdote shows an example of why the steam hardware survey is not, and was never intended to be, an accurate depiction of what distros people are using overall. Instead, it’s a depiction of what distros people are using for Steam, which is the point of the statement above mine.
Using anecdote instead of statistical data is a bad idea. But so is ignoring anecdotes simply because they’re anecdotes, as anecdotes are often one of the best ways to find limitations in statistical data.
No, they are an actual statistic, whereas you deniers just have gut feeling and literally nothing else.
[citation needed]
I don’t know if millions is as big a number you think it is
[Citation Needed]
Irrelevant Citation
Provide a better one or keep quiet.
As I’ve already explained to you elsewhere, that’s not how this works. You are the one who made the claim. The burden is on you to provide a good backing for said claim. When people asked for that backing, you provided something that does not back up that claim. It’s not on anyone else to provide an alternative claim, as that would be a variation of attempting to shift the burden of proof.
Personally, I’m not sure if good enough data to provide an answer to everyone’s satisfaction exists. But that doesn’t mean we get to shortcut the process by claiming that a data set means something it doesn’t. Some other data that one could theoretically provide that would be of similar quality to what you’ve provided (that is, decent quality data that measures something related but cannot be reasonably extrapolated to verify or falsify your claim) include:
So you say…
I have no burden to provide anything but I did anyway out of courtesy, you and your friends just refuse that out of gut feeling.
So there is, according to your own words, absolutely no credible evidence that Ubuntu is popular on desktops at all. So everybody here claiming how popular Ubuntu is, is making claims without backing them up. Funny how your fervor isn’t with them and their “burden to provide a good backing for said claim”. Seems you are not that objective about that matter.
Fact is, Steam is widely used by “regular” people (which this sub-thread is about) and therefore the best statistic there is about distribution usage outside the “techie sphere”.
So you are “not sure if good enough data to provide an answer to everyone’s satisfaction exists” that Ubuntu is popular and the statistic that exists says it isn’t that popular among non-techie users. Good that we have this settled now!
I do
why?
Still in the process of moving my server from Ubuntu to Debian.
That should be possible by changing the repos, shouldnt it? I will try this in a VM.
Downgrading will be harder than rebasing from Ubuntu LTS to Debian Sid for example. But at the same time I imagine its easier to downgrade from Sid to Stable on the same Distro.
It works for me, and my tinkering times are behind me.
I use it because a class wanted me to either use it in a VM or use WSL but WSL didn’t work and I figured it was easier to set up a dual boot than setting up a VM since I’ve installed Linux quite a few times.
Yes, just not the people who hang out on Linux communities on federated social media.
They’re currently number 6 on DistroWatch’s Last 6 Months. So people are at least still interested in it.
Which can be manipulated by scripting or setting the browser’s home page to the DistroWatch page of a distribution. No way in hell is MX Linux actually popular.
DistroWatch is extremely weird. Who actually uses MXLinux and all these obscure Distros?
Found the Arch user.
Did you just assume my distro?
For the record, I use Debian
Touch grass