Ubuntu publish 18.04 user statistics

[xenopeek]

Ubuntu published the user statistics gathered from 18.04: https://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/statistics

Some interesting tidbits.

• Less than 2% are using 32 bit, which doesn't come as a surprise given that support for that is waning across hardware (like Nvidia) and software (like Google Chrome) and most CPUs are 64 bit. Given such numbers it would surprise me if there would be case for Linux Mint 20 (due mid 2020) to still have a 32 bit release to be honest.
• One in five installs was manual partitioning; much higher than I would have guessed.
• Half the systems had no more than 4 GiB RAM and was on a single- or dual-core processor. Lot of low-end systems, also if you look as resolutions.

[Pierre]

the assumption would be, that the Linux.Mint.Project would have similar statistics as well.

but there is some oddities like - No Users in North America ?
- according to that World Map, anyway.

it does seem that most folks are re-cycling their machine, based on those lower hardware spec's.

[altair4]

Curious Where are Ubuntu users? map.

It appears that only Tony in Topeka in the USA and Mary in Montreal in Canada use Ubuntu. Yet if you go to the Read On link at the bottom it says the opposite.

[gm10]

The numbers aren't all that useful unfortunately because while they tracked VM and physical installs, they didn't separate them in the stats.

Nevertheless, what I found interesting where the only 3.65% of installs with full disk encryption. I would have expected more considering the many installs on mobile devices (from my own experience, unfortunately no numbers for that, either).

[thx-1138]

...compare Ubuntu users over the world with 4 months ago : https://blog.ubuntu.com/2018/06/22/a-fi ... op-metrics

[xenopeek]

No Users in North America ?

Bit weird that. Probably somehow because of: "Location is derived from the user setting the timezone and location in the installer and not from an identifiable IP address."

[gm10]

They got NA users, just the map on the entry page is messed up.

[Pierre]

and yet this is what on the Ubuntu Site - - there is Nothing above Mexico ?
- - can't be too bad - as Australia is shown as an Ubuntu Users Area

[gm10]

and yet this is what on the Ubuntu Site - - there is Nothing above Mexico ?
- - can't be too bad - as Australia is shown as an Ubuntu Users Area

Mine is from the Ubuntu site, too, but from after the fold (click "Read on"). They messed that front page one up. Or maybe both of them, because the Russian and Asian circles are much too small. Important explanation to go with it though:

This data is based on the timezone selected at installation and not on IP address geo-coding. We do not store IP address. The US has the biggest concentration, but this could be skewed by people using the defaults during installation. Brazil, India, China and Russia are also big users of Ubuntu and we have users literally all over the globe in every country!

[xenopeek]

"read more" goes to the 22 June 2018 article that thx-1138 linked above.

Is today's new statistics page comprised of 4 month old data?

[Pierre]

Yeah - - their Read On - says:

""This data is based on the timezone selected at installation and not on IP address geo-coding. We do not store IP address. The USA has the biggest concentration, but this could be skewed by people using the defaults during installation. Brazil, India, China and Russia are also big users of Ubuntu and we have users literally all over the globe in every country!""

anyway - would there any relevant statistics that would be valid for the LinuxMint Project ?.
https://community.linuxmint.com/country/all
is the only one that I'm aware of ..

[thx-1138]

...i would think that the June data are 'relatively' correct (within a margin of error - considering the timezone detection vs ip logging...).
'More representative' maybe would be a better term.
Because the newer graph is almost like they run imagemagick with the -negate option...

[gm10]

"read more" goes to the 22 June 2018 article that thx-1138 linked above.

Is today's new statistics page comprised of 4 month old data?

Good question actually, I didn't find a date on the page you linked, so that's new then and different data? In that case my next best guess is that for the new map they automatically generated it based on the first country matching each time zone in their data. I mean it's not just North America missing, all the other continents are like that as well.

[BigEasy]

[*]Half the systems had no more than 4 GiB RAM and was on a single- or dual-core processor. Lot of low-end systems, also if you look as resolutions.

Not surprise. I always told that audience of desktop Linux is old thech people with no money for modern hardware or paid OS, or having hardware not supported by Linux.

[thx-1138]

............................
It appears that only Tony in Topeka in the USA and Mary in Montreal in Canada use Ubuntu.

According to Canonical's todays' publication of stats:

- hi, i'm Tony from Topeka, USA.

• btw, i use arch

[michael louwe]

Less than 2% are using 32 bit, which doesn't come as a surprise given that support for that is waning across hardware (like Nvidia) and software (like Google Chrome) and most CPUs are 64 bit. Given such numbers it would surprise me if there would be case for Linux Mint 20 (due mid 2020) to still have a 32 bit release to be honest.

.
Only Ubuntu 18.04.x 64bit ISO is available for download, ie no 32bit. Those 2% still using 32bit Ubuntu 18.04 were remnants/"refugees" who inplace-upgraded from Ubuntu 16.04.x 32bit or Ubuntu 17.10 32bit. The low 2% figure is by design or intended. In a few more years, through non-availability, 32bit Ubuntu users will drop to zero%.
....... In comparison, the latest Win 10 1809 ISO downloads still come in 32bit and 64bit. What a surprise.!
.

P S - Google Chrome dropped support only for 32bit Linux in March 2016, likely because of Linux's minuscule 2% world marketshare. Google Chrome still supports 32bit Windows.
....... Modern 64bit CPUs can install both 64bit and/or 32bit OS. But an installed 32bit OS can only run 32bit apps/programs, whereas an installed 64bit OS can run both 64bit and 32bit apps/programs. A 64bit OS is more resource-hungry than a 32bit OS = eg Win 10 64bit requires at least 2GB of RAM and 20GB of hard-disk space, whereas Win 10 32bit only requires at least 1GB of RAM and 16GB of disk space.

[gm10]

Only Ubuntu 18.04.x 64bit ISO is available for download, ie no 32bit. Those 2% still using 32bit Ubuntu 18.04 were remnants/"refugees" who inplace-upgraded from Ubuntu 16.04.x 32bit or Ubuntu 17.10 32bit. The low 2% figure is by design or intended. In a few more years, through non-availability, 32bit Ubuntu users will drop to zero%.

32-bit ISOs weren't made available for vanilla Ubuntu, but the alternate installer that they offer allows for 32-bit installs. Also all the Ubuntu flavours offered 32-bit ISOs regardless. I expect them to be counted in the statistics as well since they include the same reporting tools.

Ubuntu now blocked the 32-bit in-place upgrade path for 18.10 though. 32-bit will inevitably die out eventually, as it should.