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posted by janrinok on Monday October 19 2015, @05:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the upward-trend dept.

With another of his graphs derived from StatCounter data, blogger and Linux advocate Robert Pogson reports

It was only a few years ago that the sycophants of M$ were trumpeting that */Linux was struggling to reach ~1% share of the desktop anywhere. Many of those were in USA.

Well, the chickens have come home to roost in The Year Of The Linux Desktop. */Linux has ~5% share. Are we there yet? Nope. FLOSS is still going places and growing stronger every year. Classical GNU/Linux grew rapidly until mid-year when Android/Unknown and Chrome OS took up slack. It's all good.

I would have said "He who laughs last laughs best" but, hey, it's his blog.
...and remembering how Chromebooks dominated the sales figures last Christmas, I can't wait to see how the SteamBox sales go this Christmas.

Previous: Given the Choice for Christmas 2014, Consumers Chose Linux
Big Jump in Bahrain: Linux Now At 16 Percent


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 19 2015, @08:02PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 19 2015, @08:02PM (#251993)

    Don't the StatCounter-type companies use JavaScript to collect their data?
    The stereotype is that the average Linux user is more savvy and uses blocking add-ons.
    As such, he is less likely to be counted in their surveys.

    Another well-worn notion is that those sites used for collecting the data are also less likely to be visited by Linux users.

    -- gewg_

  • (Score: 2) by tibman on Monday October 19 2015, @08:50PM

    by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 19 2015, @08:50PM (#252024)

    It's very easy to do without javascript even. Your browser sends a string as part of its request that helps identify itself, its version, and host os. Two ways to verify this: 1) visit http://www.useragentstring.com/ [useragentstring.com] or 2) press F12 to bring up your dev tools. Switch to the network tab. Open any soylent page. Click on one of the many many requests sent out. There should be a headers section as part of your request. In the list of request headers you'll find one called User-Agent. That contains enough information to identify your OS.

    Typically tracking sites will put an icon (facebook and friends) or a 1x1 pixel image somewhere on the page. Obviously if you have a custom user-agent then this wouldn't work. But most people use the stock string, which is perfectly fine.

    --
    SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
  • (Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Monday October 19 2015, @11:27PM

    by BasilBrush (3994) on Monday October 19 2015, @11:27PM (#252098)

    The stereotype is that the average Linux user is more savvy

    This is perhaps what Linux users believe. Part of the religion perhaps.

    As to the main topic, go to the source data, and the numbers don't add up. Linux is around 1.6%, Chrome about 0.7% and unknown (which is being claimed for Linux without justification is about 0.7%. That comes to about 3%.

    --
    Hurrah! Quoting works now!
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by deimtee on Monday October 19 2015, @11:41PM

      by deimtee (3272) on Monday October 19 2015, @11:41PM (#252109) Journal

      I'm running linux. However, my useragent usually says I'm on a Mac.
      Amazing how many sites, especially .gov sites, refuse to work under linux, but work fine if you lie about it.

      --
      If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.