Blogger and Linux advocate Robert Pogson reports that, according to StatCounter, pageviews from machines running Linux in Bahrain jumped from 2 percent to 16 percent in less than a week.
One wonders just what's going on there.
His other graph shows that for the last 3 years there has been an uptick in worldwide Linux usage each April; that increase sustains[1] for several months then drops to a level that is slightly higher than the numbers of the previous March and begins a gentle climb until April.
[1] He notes an uncharacteristic divot in the curve this May.
We previously discussed significant Linux usage in Finland and Uruguay. Finland: Torvalds' Homeland is using Linux to be Productive
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Blogger and Linux advocate Robert Pogson reports via one of his many charts that the usage rate for Linux in Finland didn't drop below 2.5 percent any time during the month of April.
When folks went to (work|school), the numbers jumped to over 10 percent (with the last reading shown being 16 percent, which rivals the numbers seen in Uruguay).
Those of you who have griped that you had to buy an approved calculating device because you (aren't|weren't) allowed to use your computers on exams should note the customized spin of Linux that the school system in Finland has for exams.
Blogger and Linux advocate Robert Pogson reports via one of his many charts that, according to StatCounter, the usage rate for Linux in Gibraltar has increased dramatically.
What is it about islands[sic] that allow them to plunge into FLOSS unlike most larger countries? Here's another. Gibraltar moved from almost nothing to ~16% GNU/Linux desktops this week. High school resumed last week. Further, FreeBSD is along for the ride.
FreeBSD (0.67%) and Chrome OS GNU/Linux (1.68%) peaked on September 21. GNU/Linux began to ramp up on September 20 and is still rising (16.41%). Even "Unknown" jumped to 0.67% on September 20 and reached 0.96% yesterday. It could be Gibraltar's schools have adopted FLOSS as affordable and robust. Nearby, Malta stood at 5.42% and Reunion stood at 6.71%.
Previous: Interesting Usage Statistics for Desktop Linux in Malta
Big Jump in Bahrain: Linux Now At 16 Percent
[Ed note: Gibraltar is not an island; it "is a British Overseas Territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean" with a population of about 30,000 people.]
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
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2015, @03:25AM
said all fourteen new users.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2015, @09:13PM
One in six camels have now been upgraded to Linux saddles. :)
In real life the shift might be a large corporate or govt dept moving to Linux and waving bye-bye to that other thing, er, whatsisname, nevermind.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2015, @03:37AM
Web crawlers? DDOS? Some popular localized mobile browser changed their default user agent (Android is technically linux)? Theres lots of ways for more things claiming to be Linux showing up. Maybe someone got one of their IP address blocks that uses lots of linux (A university?). Is there any evidence of a decrease in some other OS?
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Monday June 01 2015, @08:29AM
If one OS goes up, another/others have to go down.
However, this story must be nonsense almost by definition. OS usage changes are happening at a glacial pace therefore this observation cannot reflect true change but rather reflects sampling fluctuation/biased sampling.
Even though submissions are scarce these stories are simple noise themselves, please do not post them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2015, @12:20PM
Or maybe some site that was important for users in Bahrain did block out Linux users, causing people to fake their user agent as "Windows", and now reversed that policy, causing people to switch their reported user agent back to Linux.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 01 2015, @04:35AM
Maybe the Wahhabists heard that Linux is more secure, maybe they even know a few tricks that screws up US intelligence. So, they adopted Linux? I really have no idea, but we can speculate all day until someone presents some real data.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2015, @06:43AM
Yeah. The Middle East is one zone that Windows should remain. Or maybe that's what systemd is aiming to resolve.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2015, @08:13PM
> Maybe the Wahhabists heard that Linux is more secure, maybe they even know a few tricks that screws up US intelligence.
Bigot makes another unintentionally revealing post. He believes that 12% of computer users in Bahrain are terrorists. And spare me the "i didn't literally say terrorist" bullshit. Singling out wahhabis and spelling out us intellgience makes your intent crystal clear.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2015, @01:13PM
What about they just changed a bunch of proxies that they use to filter out (and rat out those people visiting it) shit they don't like to be ill-configured Linux boxen that happen to modify the USER_AGENT string to be the one of the proxy instead of the requesting party?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Monday June 01 2015, @03:45PM
Bahrain experienced unrest during the Arab Spring which is still ongoing. There were mass protests which lead to clashes with security resulting in many civilian and security casualties. Thousands were arrested and some of those arrested were tortured. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahraini_uprising_of_2011 [wikipedia.org]
Perhaps there is an uptake in Linux usage in order to circumvent government surveillance.