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Ubuntu popularity in downward spiral, is Unity to blame?
It has been an interesting year for Ubuntu and its backer, Canonical. Unity arrived amid much speculation in its April release of Ubuntu 11.4, with many questioning why Canonical needed to be moving away from Gnome's desktop environment. Unity makes sense for those new to Linux, but many power users found it frustrating to work with. The initial fallback into the old Gnome 2.x environment when lacking 3D acceleration just confused matters. Now at least, with the release of 11.10, Unity functions with or without 3D acceleration, providing a more consistent environment. But the latest figures suggest differently for the once dominant Linux distribution.
The graph, representative of page hit rankings from the last six years shows a mostly continuous decline in Ubuntu. It looks even worse when you look at the last 30 days page hit rankings. Ubuntu manages only fourth place, despite having released its new version, 11.10, only last month. To be fair, three of the top four distributions have released new versions in the last month or so, although interestingly Mint is not one of them. The figures should be fairly accurate when taking into account the extra attention they receive around release dates, with people scrambling to try their preferred Linux as it hits the download servers.
I think it's fair to suggest most of those new to Linux are unlikely to be viewing Distrowatch's website, though. Therefore, we'll look at Google's Trends tool to see search result statistics and gauge interest in each distro.
The graph above shows a continuous downward trend for Ubuntu, with Linux Mint slowly increasing in popularity and spiking much higher in the last six months to a year. Also decreasing are Fedora and Debian, although their fall is nowhere near as pronounced as Ubuntu is.
Ironically, the core release of Linux Mint is based on a snapshot of Ubuntu. They chose to keep to the Gnome environment, however, with customization and tweaks to the menu system. It is therefore a natural progression for existing users of Ubuntu, with the same available packages, package management tools and the same underpinnings that many users are already accustomed to from using Ubuntu.
Viewing the top five distributions in the above chart it does give some credence to the notion that Unity's release corresponds with a larger than expected reduction in Ubuntu's share. In the last 12 months, Ubuntu has reduced from 25 percent to just 14 percent, with Mint and openSUSE gaining ground in the top five. Mint increased its page hit ranking by 12 percent in the 12 month period alone.
However, it is important to point out that Canonical prefers to keep its different versions of Linux separate, so Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu all have individual listings on Distrowatch's page hit rankings. Mint on the other hand, bundles its different versions (including a Debian-based release) into one page ranking. This is obviously going to push the general outcome of the results in Mint's favor.
It could be that users are fed up with Unity and the direction Canonical is driving Ubuntu and are naturally progressing on to Linux Mint. The data does make it reasonable to assume that Unity has had at least some impact on these figures. That said, it is hard to really confirm a definitive answer for the reasons behind its decline. Any Ubuntu users -- or Linux Mint converts -- in the house? We'd love to hear your thoughts.
User Comments: 58
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Let me get this right. You post three graphs. Two are based on Distrowatch. One of those for one day, November 23rd. The Google graph can hardly be called a spiral. And you hype this as conclusive proof that Ubuntu has tanked.
I question your methodology and your conclusion. DW puts Minty ahead of Ubuntu. Google puts it significantly behind. Clem Lefebvre admits Ubuntu is about three times larger which backs Google's position and show DW to be useless as a tool for anything but sensationalism.
Imagine if Billboard made its top 100 based on a +1 instead of sales. Would that make an accurate reflection of who the best selling artist is? Hardly.
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Thank you, that was a most informative post.
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I've just started dabbling with Unity in 11.10, and I've got to admit that I prefer the more 'traditional' Gnome look of 10.4 (which I use all the time). However, the way things are moving in IT, more and more tablets are going to appear, and I see exactly where Ubuntu are coming from. Up until now it has been easy really, as all you've had are laptops, and desktops. Now you have them, and tablets, and smartphones. All UI designers are now trying for a one size fits all, including MS with Windows 8. Therefore I am prepared to put up with Unity. However, what is being ignored (IMO) are all those people who are not prepared to change, don't want to change, or are unable to change (silver surfers spring to mind). MS are ignoring them as well, which could be a huge mistake.
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Not a fan of Unity, but I didn't find Linux Mint to be that much better when it came to performance, detecting my drivers, etc. (which is odd, considering it is a snapshot of Ubuntu). Switched to Ubuntu 11.10, changed some of the navigation features (mimicking Apple's Expose') and I have a usable machine again. Stable, too (though Gwibber still seems to be powered by drunk hamsters).
I'm using Ubuntu solely as a Desktop solution. I don't really tweak anything anymore and just need a machine that's stable and works despite the oddity that is Unity. On an actual server I use Debian which, with its command line, delivers day after day.
The Unity bar and the fact that the tool-bar menus disappear is still high on my annoyance list, but I'm noticing that I'm getting used to it to the point where I probably won't be bothered by it soon.
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I am not sure if I believe these numbers, but Unity is the reason for the decline. I am still using it, but I am struggling. The next release will have to fix most of the problems, or I am out.
I have my fingers crossed.
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For many years Ubuntu users have "create" a way to work on Ubuntu/Gnome
With Unity they can't anymore so : Unity is the main reason.
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I would possibly accept Unity. The main drawback for me is the increased hardware demand. Ubuntu was ideal for older or weaker machines as contemporary replacement of XP. Latest version of Ubuntu is running much slowly than previous versions. I will stay with 10.04 LTS until is supported and then I will have to move to another distro. Too bad. Have been with Ubuntu for 5 years, running it on 4 machines in our family...
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I agree that Unity is to blame.
I've used several distros and moved back to Debian for stability, personally, but always installed Ubuntu to my friend's with chronic computer virus problems. After Unity's release I was lost though. I'll admit that after using it for a few days (new work computer, needed hardware support ASAP) there were a few things that do work a bit better, but it's far to drastic of a shift. I ended up with Debian, backports, manual firmware installs, and a working stable *familiar* system.
What Ubuntu was doing for Linux popularity was great, and it's a shame to see them take such a dive. Ubuntu was good because it was what it was. Trying to do something so drastically different will alienate people, and I'd bet there are other techs like me out there that just don't have the time or drive to learn another UI when we have Windoze to deal with doing that already!
Personally I would like to see an OPTIONAL Unity install. I know it might be hard to fit on a single CD, but if during installation (or a separate download) I could have my pick of Unity or Gnome, I'd be happy. But that's a lot to maintain...And rolling back to Gnome, which I tried, wasn't as trivial as it seemed. It look me less time to get Squeeze working on brand new hardware I'd never worked on than it did to fail rolling back to Gnome. To me, it just wasn't worth the effort to make Ubuntu work how I wanted it to. I chose Ubuntu because I don't need to do that.
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