How popular is Linux?

Hello,

I am the owner of an ISP (Internet Service Provider) based in the San Jose/San Francisco Bay Area in northern California. I have recently done an analysis on two domains that are hosted on my company's servers to assess how widely Linux (and other operating systems) are being used in real life. The domains selected have nothing directly to do with Linux or computers. The two domains were not selected because they were expected to give any particular sort of results. The data being analyzed here represent a month's worth of hits for the two domains.

Since I don't want results to be skewed in the future, I won't identify the two domains involved. This will hopefully prevent fans of certain os types from intentionally visiting the site thousands of times to skew the results :)

The Results (Click Here for Older Results)

Domain #1

Major Client OS Type (605431 total entries)
Windows 95           		318287	52.57%
Windows NT           		83814	13.84%
Windows 98           		117265	19.37%
Windows 3.1          		15622	2.58%
Macintosh            		27651	4.57%
All X11 (see below)  		14524	2.40%
Search Engine        		6939	1.15%
WebTV                		5089	0.84%
LibWWW               		1407	0.23%
OS/2                 		389	0.06%
Java                 		5279	0.87%
Prodigy              		177	0.03%
Amiga                		131	0.02%
Solaris (not X11?)   		760	0.13%
Linux (not X11?)     		0	0.00%
OSF                  		8	0.00%
Other Mozilla (OS?)  		7743	1.28%
MSProxy              		346	0.06%

Breakdown of X11 OS Type (14454 total entries were classified)
SunOS		7501	51.90%
Linux		4244	29.36%
HP		554	3.83%
IRIX		827	5.72%
OSF		376	2.60%
AIX		442	3.06%
Solaris		0	0.00%
FreeBSD		476	3.29%
NetBSD		4	0.03%
BSDI		0	0.00%
BSD/OS		7	0.05%
VMS		9	0.06%
SCO		14	0.10%

Domain #2

Major Client OS Type (672010 total entries)
Windows 95           		368262	54.80%
Windows NT           		97169	14.46%
Windows 98           		118998	17.71%
Windows 3.1          		10939	1.63%
Macintosh            		45944	6.84%
All X11 (see below)  		19474	2.90%
Search Engine        		299	0.04%
WebTV                		2522	0.38%
LibWWW               		1086	0.16%
OS/2                 		838	0.12%
Java                 		91	0.01%
Prodigy              		116	0.02%
Amiga                		57	0.01%
Solaris (not X11?)   		481	0.07%
Linux (not X11?)     		0	0.00%
OSF                  		8	0.00%
Other Mozilla (OS?)  		3700	0.55%
MSProxy              		2026	0.30%

Breakdown of X11 OS Type (19464 total entries were classified)
SunOS		5971	30.68%
Linux		7534	38.71%
HP		1164	5.98%
IRIX		2633	13.53%
OSF		732	3.76%
AIX		428	2.20%
Solaris		0	0.00%
FreeBSD		791	4.06%
NetBSD		102	0.52%
BSDI		0	0.00%
BSD/OS		1	0.01%
VMS		60	0.31%
SCO		48	0.25%

Conclusions

Linux continues to gain ground on Solaris, and leaves all other Unix types further behind in these latest results. If this growth trend continues Linux will shortly surpass Solaris as the #1 most popular Unix web client. Compare the results above with the results posted a few months ago here.

Again, I think an analysis of server OS's would be much more in Linux's favor. Consider that Apache is still installed on 50% of all web servers; Linux is certainly disproportionately represented as a platform on which Apache runs, since Apache didn't even run on Windows at all until very recently.

It is interesting to note that Windows 98 went from about .3% market share to over 19% market share in about 9 months. This appears to be mostly at the expense of Windows 95. Win 3.1 usage continues to decline, probably as its users are committed to insane asylums around the world. Mac usage continues to dwindle.

For those who are interested, here is the source code for webagent.c, the program I wrote to analyze the "agent_log" put out by the Apache web server (and other servers).

For another approach to estimating the number of Linux users, see Redhat's "Linux Market" page.

Rich Drewes
Your questions and comments are welcome.
drewes at interstice.com
1/08/99