Is Linux losing popularity?!

[sabriah]

When Ubuntu came it was a breath of fresh air. It brought many new Linux users. However, even as an ardent Debian user, I find the latest Google Trend curve for "Ubuntu" quite a bit disturbing - http://www.google.com/trends?q=ubuntu

What is happening?! From the graph it seems the positive Ubuntu effect (which is positive for all Linux users) is not only dying off, but also decreasing. What could be the reason? Is it a general trend for Linux? Brrr... Or is something else?

What could be going on?! Any speculation is valid as such!


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[droidhacker]

Actually, you can read that to mean the EXACT OPPOSITE. In other words, if people KNOW about it, they are LESS likely to perform a general google search for it.

[sabriah]

Actually, you can read that to mean the EXACT OPPOSITE. In other words, if people KNOW about it, they are LESS likely to perform a general google search for it.

Yes, that is what I first though of too. However, we are nowhere near the saturation point for that to have happened. Not in the same ballpark, by far.

Look at

* iPhone (hardware) - http://www.google.com/trends?q=iPhone

* Photoshop (software)

http://www.google.com/trends?q=Photoshop&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

*Android (OS) http://www.google.com/trends?q=Andro...ate=all&sort=0

I am not saying that Linux i going away, just that the general awareness (hype) may be slowing down. Maybe that is good, in one sense, sort of - to get rid of unfounded hype.

But, since there are new developers entering the market every day, perhaps with a different mindset than 30+ developers have, I think this is worrying. They may think of Linux as that complicated geek layer underneath Android...

[kraftman]

According to this it's not:

http://www.webupd8.org/2010/07/linux-market-share-at-record-high.html

[sabriah]

According to this it's not:

http://www.webupd8.org/2010/07/linux...cord-high.html

But, that is w3schools.com which is described at http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/w3schools.com as "Includes collection of web building tutorials.".

Their audience appears to be highly more likely to use Linux than other parts of society. I think Google Trends is more neutral in that respect, even if actual web server logs are the way to go. It would be nice to see those of http://www.ebay.com/ or some other non-techie neutral site. The Alexa Audience Demographics make it look fairly neutral (http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ebay.com).

On the other hand, there is always www.top500.org if these numbers mskr you feel a bit down.

[sabriah]

On the other hand, there is always www.top500.org if these numbers mskr you feel a bit down.

http://www.top500.org/stats/list/35/osfam

OS	N	Share	Rmax Sum	Rpeak Sum	Processors

Linux	455	_91.00 %	27162011	41989385	3774451
Windows	__5	__1.00 %	__412590	__509350	__59072
Unix	_22	__4.40 %	_1479895	_1891787	_118930
BSD 	__1	__0.20 %	__122400	__131072	___1280
Mixed	_17	__3.40 %	_3257787	_3948902	1177728
Totals	500	100.00 %	32434684	48470496	5131461

Sorry for the ugly formatting, but I don't know how to make proper tables.

Unfortunately, these aren't the desktop numbers.

[Jazz]

Yeah, and programming itself is loosing popularity too. Some day people shall stop writing software, it will just emerge from the internet.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=programming

Actually, trends mean that Internet became accessible and popular. More consumers ? more consumer product search request.

[devius]

Nooooooo!!! The Master System is also loosing popularity :'(

http://www.google.com/trends?q=master+system

On the other hand Meego is gaining popularity exponentialy:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=meego

[droidhacker]

On the other hand Meego is gaining popularity exponentialy:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=meego

.... only because of its association with "mobile" and "intel" and SOOOO MANY people are suffering with poulsbo and need the drivers that intel *HOPEFULLY* will eventually provide for meego.

[devius]

Interestingly "Windows" and "Mac OSX" are also loosing popularity, but "Android" (as meego before) is also increasing in popularity exponentialy. So the fact that linux is loosing popularity is probably just a small part of the bigger trend of desktop computing loosing popularity against all things mobile related.