The Wikipedia web logs are probably a reasonable source for popularity of
various desktop Linux distros. The top half dozen distros are:
-
Ubuntu
- Fedora
- Suse
- Debian
- Mint
-
Mandriva
The data lists 19 different distros (or distro
flavours). Ubuntu accounts for 90% of the total. Fedora accounts for
approximately 2.5%, and Suse for about 2.4%, Debian at 1.5%, and Mint and
Mandriva both at about 1%.
Kubuntu (KDE version of Ubuntu) on the
other hand is 0.5%, and Xbuntu (XFCE version of Ubuntu) is 0.003%. Note that
these numbers aren't percentage of total users, these are percentages of Linux
users.
We know from other sources (Canonical's own analysis) that the
vast majority of Ubuntu users either run the latest version, or the latest LTS
version (with more preferring the latest version over the LTS). That means we
can assume that most of those Ubuntu users are running a fairly recent version
of Ubuntu with Unity.
In other words, the top two distros are the ones
that come with the supposedly much hated Unity and Gnome 3 as the default
desktops, and account for well over 90% of the Linux desktop user base. To put
it another way, if we just look at Ubuntu, there are 33,000 times as many people
who seem to prefer the Unity version than seem to prefer the XFCE version.
It's also worth noting that despite all the "social media" promotion
done by Mint, they're only about 1% of the Linux user base, or about the same as
Mandriva (and less than Debian). So, it appears that there is no mass defection
to the Cinnamon or Mate desktops either.
It would seem that all the
happy XFCE users are a very tiny minority of Linux users, and that for every one
of them there are 33,000 happy Unity users. If you happen to prefer XFCE, well
that's fine. That's why we have choice. Just don't expect everyone else to be
following you.
In conclusion, I wouldn't expect Debian offering XFCE
as the default to result in any increase in its popularity. In fact from the
numbers above, it appears that they would be better off offering a version of
Unity.
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