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Linux Distributions Trends
I am sure that by now all the world has already found out and tested the cool new tool google launched yesterday: google trends… It is a very nice tool that allows you to see the searches done by peoples, on any keyword you are interested, have evolved over time. This doesn’t show ‘exact’ results, but instead is shows a nice graph with a visual representation of the ‘trend’. Another cool feature is that you get also some details about spikes on searches (on the right), and information about the locations of the peoples doing the searches (on the bottom of the page). You can also restrict the trend search by region or only some year or month in time. Very cool.
Still what I have liked most is the possibility to compare the trend of searches between 2 or more keywords. Let’s look for example on a comparison of the searches performed by peoples containing some linux distribution names. This doesn’t result in how many peoples are actually using linux, or those distributions, but the interest of the general public in those names. Here is a real example:
debian redhat fedora centos
What does this show us? That redhat is going down… (not a surprise after the release of their rhel/fedora projects). Debian is strong and many peoples are still interested into it. Fedora took the interest over redhat (rhel as search term is negligible). Centos? Peoples don’t know to much about this cool project.
Here are some more comparisons that looked interesting to me:
debian ubuntu
This shows that the interest for ubuntu has grown constantly lately.
And one more 
windows linux
That shows a comparison between windows (still this can be seen as a general term as in doesn’t necessary mean microsoft windows) and linux.
As a conclusion, I have liked very much this tool and its potential is great. Your imagination is the limit. Still regardless of your interesting topics this should be really useful to see what the trend is…
Tags: distributions, google, Linux, trends
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12th May 2006, 11:59
Clever usage and demo of the Google Trends tool.
12th May 2006, 13:19
Happy to see Budapest/Hungary at the top
12th May 2006, 21:19
I am curious if everyone sees the same geo locations. For example in the search for debian, redhat, fedora, centos, myself I see as top city “Budapest Hungary” and top country “Czech Republic”. I could bet that Google sees that I am located in Europe and lists those locations based on my own location. As it is hard to believe that USA is nowhere in the top.
12th May 2006, 23:39
As I understand it, the trends are a related to the ratio of search term to total searches done. Seeing as Britany Spears was a top search total on google for a while, this is probably not surprising.
13th May 2006, 11:11
I’m pretty sure Ubuntu, SUSE and Mandrake are going to the top most popular linux distribution for the next couple of years.
I agree that Debian is still much favoured because of its much emphasis on system stability.
It should be interesting to see comparison between these top few linux distributions instead.
13th May 2006, 11:11
Remember, you can put in multiple keyword search terms.
Just type in:
microsoft windows, linux
and you’ll eliminate any searches with just “windows” in them.
13th May 2006, 11:23
Hi,
Very interesting comparative
Ubuntu is the best Linux distribution for me now
13th May 2006, 12:01
Risky business?
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=red+hat&btnG=Search
(in google finance type: “red hat”)
vs
http://www.google.com/trends?q=mandrake%2C+suse%2C+debian%2C+red+hat%2C+fedora&ctab=0&geo=US&date=all
(in google trends type: “mandrake, suse, red hat, fedora, debian”)
13th May 2006, 12:02
Actually a lot of Windows queries are not Microsoft related:
http://google.com/trends?q=windows+-microsoft%2C+windows
Great comparison… always nice to know.
13th May 2006, 12:02
Riskcy business? (second part)
remember to compare the same period of time (from 2004 to present) because in finances only shows to you last months.
13th May 2006, 12:10
Three versions of redhat and Debian as an afterthought? No SuSE or ubuntu but CentOS?
Tut tut, you naughty boy.
13th May 2006, 12:49
Google vs Microsoft vs Yahoo:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=google%2C+microsoft%2C+yahoo&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all
13th May 2006, 13:00
Here are my replies to some of the comments:
to Wilbur Henry Gates: as I said this were just some examples to show the power of the tool.
to rolandog: I wanted to initially include microsoft and linux, or microsoft windows and linux, but in the end I have ended up including windows and linux. But as I said in the original article windows is a general term and is not so relevant, but it was ok for the sake of the example.
Cheers,
- Marius -
13th May 2006, 13:17
FreeBSD more Popular than Linux…
Google has recently released Google Trends. Google Trends compares different search terms’ usage over time. After reading a post on MDLog about Linux distribution trends I became curious about FreeBSD’s numbers in such a comparison.
So…
13th May 2006, 13:36
http://www.google.com/trends?q=gentoo%2C+redhat&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all
Yes!
13th May 2006, 14:18
debian, redhat, fedora,gentoo,ubuntu
try that, centos is lower on the pecking order than gentoo or ubuntu.
13th May 2006, 18:41
Re: Geographic locations. I am in the U.S. and Budapest still ranks number 1 city searching. I think the geo locations are one of the most interesting analysis to come from the linux comparisons. We can see that which parts of the world are interested in free os and not tunnel visioned into M.S. (Opinion)
13th May 2006, 19:47
The geographic locations at the bottom of the trends page are ranked by number of searches for the first item in your trends list. For example, if you did a trend search for “red, yellow, blue”, the cities and countries would be ranked by searches for “red”
15th May 2006, 14:37
Long live ubuntu
Linux > Windows
1st September 2006, 12:01
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