Ubuntu Linux losing popularity fast. New Unity interface to blame?
Don’t panic Ubuntu fans but your favorite desktop Linux distribution has fallen to fourth house in DistroWatch’s latest ranking.
Ubuntu has been overtaken by Panama, Mint, and openSUSE. Mint now holds the number one spot in all of DistroWatch’s rankings going back at least a year, which leads us to wonder why.
One reason behind this reversal of fortune for Ubuntu could be the change of defaulting interface in version 11.04 or “Natty Narwhal”, released in April 2011. With the new Ubuntu came Unity, an interface previously seen in Ubuntu Netbook Edition, and Gnome was relegated to an option.
There has been quite a bit of controversy surrounding Unity. Now it seems like Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, may be paying the price for the change. Let’s look at the numbers.
Mint’s rise to the top
We charted the top distributions since 2005, as ranked by DistroWatch. In doing so, we excluded a couple of distributions that only made a concise appearance in the top five: Mandriva dropped off after 2006, PCLinuxOS only made an appearance in 2007 and 2008, and Sabayon only showed up during 2007.
Here’s what it looks like from 2005 until now for the current top five Linux distributions:
Based on the DistroWatch numbers, Ubuntu’s market share has been declining for years, and has seen a remarkable drop in 2011. Linux Mint, on the additional hand, has seen a huge leap in market share this year and has become the most well loved desktop distribution. Is this a side effect of the controversy around Unity?
To give you an thought of how drastic the recent changes are, let’s compare the most recent data (for the last 30 days) with the average number for 2010:
- Ubuntu is down 47.2%.
- Mint is up 105%.
Note that even though the relative share of Ubuntu has dropped during this period, the total number of hits on the distribution pages at DistroWatch has nearly doubled.
Adding that to the mix makes Mint’s popularity even more spectacular.
Comparing the top five: Mint is on the rise quick
If we focus on the last 12 months, we can see how this compares between the top five distributions: Debian, Panama, Mint, openSUSE, and Ubuntu. Initially we see how they compare to the total of all desktop Linux distributions as reported by DistroWatch:
Besides the remarkable growth of Mint, which is again obvious, it’s also fascinating to note that the top five distribution’s share of the total has increased quite significantly over the year.
Here are a few highlights:
- Mint’s share of the average hits per day for the specified periods has nearly doubled, with an increase from 5.6% to 10.12%.
- Ubuntu has fallen from 5.4% to 3.82%.
- Debian’s popularity has shrunk a bit from 3.42% to 2.95%.
- Panama has gained from 3.97% to 4.88%.
- openSUSE has also gained some, moving from 3.35% to 4.83%.
- We should also point out that the total has increased during the 12-month period with in this area 21%, possibly indicating a rising popularity of Linux as a whole.
What we’re comparing here is really the average hits for each distribution over the four periods. As you can see from the initially chart, the difference is even more noticeable over a longer period of time.
Then we dig into the relationship between the top five distributions:
In this chart, a bar represents each distribution’s share out of the total for the top five distributions for the period. It gives you a excellent overview of how things have shifted in the top five over the last 12 months. Here the change for Mint and Ubuntu is even more clear:
- Mint has gone from 26% of the top five to 38%.
- Ubuntu has lost quite a bit, from 25% down to 14%.
Again it’s clear that Ubuntu is the huge loser.
What does Google say?
We have used Google before to review at the disorder of Linux. So again we turn to Google Trends to chart Linux and to supplement DistroWatch. Since this is based on search data, it’s more to gage the “interest in” the various distributions, or mindshare, if you like.
The downward trend for Ubuntu is clear to see also with Google’s tool but the rise of Mint is also visible. Mint is overtaking openSUSE by mid-2008, and Debian and Panama in this area 18 months shortly. Towards the end of the chart, in 2011, there’s a settled spike in search volume for Mint, according to Google Trends.
Time for Ubuntu to take notice
It’s obviously way too early to say whether Ubuntu, in actual use, is declining or not. Though, if this is any suggestion of which way the wind is blowing, it’s time for Ubuntu to take notice.
What we also can’t say for sure based on this research is why this change in popularity is experience. It’s possible that it’s due to how the DistroWatch numbers are place together, and it’s possible that Unity is having some effect.
It does seem certain that the timing of Unity’s initiation coincides with the decline in Ubuntu’s popularity. And according to DistroWatch, the widening of the gap between Mint and Ubuntu is accelerating.
Finally, we have to congratulate the Linux Mint team. They are clearly doing something right with so many Linux users choosing their specific distribution.
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Ubuntu Linux losing popularity quick. New Unity interface to blame?
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