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Red Hat Software Businesses Software Linux

Fedora Core 6 Hits 2 Million Installs 71

Posted by Hemos from the grats-2-u dept.
spevack writes "Fedora Core 6 reached 2 million installations on Monday, approximately 4.5 months after its release. This number is based on unique IP addresses that connect back to Fedora's servers for updates, with more detailed discussion on their wiki's statistics page."
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Fedora Core 6 Hits 2 Million Installs More

Fedora Core 6 Hits 2 Million Installs

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  • Since all my machines are behind a NAT gateway... (Score:5, Funny)

    by pegr ( 46683 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @10:38AM (#18249964) Homepage Journal
    Make that 2,000,004...

    • Re:Since all my machines are behind a NAT gateway. (Score:5, Informative)

      by linguizic ( 806996 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @10:43AM (#18250040)
      Your machines have already been accounted for, and then some (as it seems to me)FTA:

      Accuracy of metrics
      We believe it is reasonable to equate a "new IP address checking in" with "a new installation of FC6", with the following caveats:
      1. Users who have dynamic IP addresses will likely be counted multiple times, which inflates the number by some amount.
      2. Users who are behind NAT, corporate proxies, or who rsync updates to a local mirror before updating will not be counted at all.
      The anecdotal evidence that we receive from different groups, companies, and organizations suggests that group (2) is significantly larger than group (1). As such, we believe that the true numbers in the field are higher than the numbers on this page.
      • "The anecdotal evidence that we receive from different groups, companies, and organizations suggests that group (2) is significantly larger than group (1)"

        That's pretty dodgy.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MSG ( 12810 )

        Your machines have already been accounted for

        The quote you included specifically states that his machines are not accounted for.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Mizled ( 1000175 )
      No....make that make that 2,000,003... I loaded it on my computer...didn't like it and put Ubuntu back on there.
      • I'm a *long* time Debian (eight years) and Ubuntu (year-and-a-half) user.

        I installed FC6 the Saturday before last, tried it, and enjoyed it. Except for two things. First, cinelerra (the reason I installed it; There's no package for Ubuntu, and the build scripts were broken beyond my ability to repair.) crashed whenever I tried to import video. Second, it only came with Firefox 1.5, and FF2(From an upstream tarball) segfaulted every time I ran it. However, I switched back to Ubuntu because I suspected so

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pegr ( 46683 )
        I'm at a crossroads at the moment. Tell me, why Ubuntu?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Mizled ( 1000175 )
          Ubuntu just simply works for me. Whatever machine I install it on it just works with little setup...not much hassle. I've used Gentoo, Slackware, Redhat/Fedora and Ubuntu. Ubuntu just works better for me. If I were you I would try it...if you don't like..go on to the next *nix OS till you find something that just works for you an feels right.
          • Well i've found that out of all the distributions Ubuntu (GNOME / XFCE) and OpenSuSE (KDE) are the the cream of the crop. I've used Fedora and while I believe it does have its place it is really more of a system geared towards those who are willing to put up with some hassles. It is getting better on Fedora, but still it is really only a test ground for Red Hat. Although it is ashame though that no one now officially gives KDE as much official support as GNOME. Would have been nice if SuSE remained that way

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by jo42 ( 227475 )

          Tell me, why Ubuntu?
          Goofy name. The fad^h^h^htrend is for popular stuff to have a goofy name, i.e. Google, Slashdot, Flickr and so forth.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by aliquis ( 678370 )
        Yeah, -1 here to, I installed it just because I wanted whatever with Linux 2.6.16 or newer and mepis ran 2.6.15 (All I needed was Solaris UFS + OS X HFSX+ support and mount/tar), and because I could I tried to update it resulting in an installation where the OS simply stoped loading at the firewall line. And since I have no intrest whatsoever in fixing broken things and invest my time in shit I don't have it installed longer.
    • "Since all my machines are behind a NAT gateway...Make that 2,000,004..."

      My cousin's FC6 isn't perpetually on, and he gets a dynamically assigned IP every time he connects. So we'll drop that down to... gee... I don't even know. I don't know how many times he has received updates.

      Counting installs by unique IP's isn't very accurate.
      • Your dynamically assigned number is different than the IP used when you connect with the internet. So, no, they won't count him again when he updates.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mgblst ( 80109 )
        Surely they are counting one particular update, since there is no need for a machine to download the same update more than once (well ok, there is a couple of reasons, like reinstalling Linux, but that doesn't happen very often. We aren't talking Windows here).

    • Make that 2,000,004...

      Make that 2,000,002...

      Hey, this game is fun! Everbody can join in!

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by mmcgrath ( 1072410 )
        Amusing at best, if you RTA then you'd know that we understand what you're saying, we've heard it before. We also know that there are companies out there (and governments) that have many thousands of installs that don't get counted at all because they all have private mirrors. The fact is Fedora is the only distro out there who's publically giving out numbers AND explaining exactly how we get them. How many installs does Ubuntu have? And where did they get that number from?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by bfields ( 66644 )

          If you RTA then you'd know that we understand what you're saying, we've heard it before.

          Sure. But the reason you're hearing it over and over isn't that people aren't listening, it's that there isn't a satisfactory response: "The anecdotal evidence that we receive from different groups, companies, and organizations suggests that group (2) is significantly larger than group (1)" isn't very convincing. (It's understandable--the problem here seems to be difficult to solve--but it's still a real problem.)

          We a

          • Hey, I like Fedora. I'd like to know that it was popular. That's why I wish we had numbers that meant something more.

            Well if you can wait until Fedora 7 then this will include Smolt [fedoraproject.org] which is a hardware profiler which collects not only information about how many systems are running fedora, but also what hardware they are using. This should hopefully give a better picture of the usage of Fedora and may also help with pressuring harware manufacturers for better linux support.

            Of course sending your details to Smolt is stictly optional so reported numbers are guaranteed to be an underestimate, but hopefully most users w

  • I would really like to see "total" stats, at least from other major distros...who knows what this data could change in mindsets of many people (that is, if they would be big enough...).

    I'm also curious about geographical distribution...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by sgholt ( 973993 )
      How about all the FC3,FC4 and FC5 machines still running out there? I know there are still some. I had a FC2 box up untill a few months ago...Fedora Core has a release cycle of 6 months which further skews the stats.
      Fedora Core is one of the best distros IMO...

    • Th embedded space (cell phones etc) is a growing area and by now I would expect that some individual embedded "distros" like those from http://www.mvista.com/ [mvista.com] have a lot more installs (counting every mvista-based cell phone etc as an "installation").

  • vs Ubuntu (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm just curious how that number would stack up to ubuntu which claims to be the most popular distro because of the number of hits it receives on distrowatch.com

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by nick58b ( 536112 )
      Mark Shuttleworth said "there are probably at least 8 million [Ubuntu] users" in an interview here [redherring.com].
    • Ubuntu has over 4 million users. FC6 only has 2 million but that is only counting 1 version of Fedora Core, who knows if the 4 million Ubuntu users are *all versions* or just the latest version?
  • Us Fedora users are still here. :-D
    LEGION AARRRRRGHHHH
    • I hear there are still a couple of Marxists too.
    • Could someone mod parent up? I've been noticing WAY too many things being modded troll that shouldn't be lately.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Emetophobe ( 878584 )
      You know, if linux ever wants to become more popular, linux distros (and users) need to stop fighting amongst themselves. Who cares if you like Ubuntu better than Fedora? We need to stick together, even if we are "apart" distro-wise. Why must people attack others Operating System of choice? To make yourself feel better about your own OS choice? Quite sad really...

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Magada ( 741361 )
        People must attack other people's convictions because otherwise we'd still be living in mud huts, mmkay?

        So, when I say things like "Shuttleworth's pandering to hardware manufacturers who only provide binary drivers is a bad thing for FOSS in general and Linux in special because it removes their motivation to provide specs to their hardware instead of badly-written blobs of proprietary crapola and his insistence that his distro is the best thing since sliced bread and a sure-fire replacement for Windows smac
  • I bet half of these installations are people like me, that installed, uninstalled it... and then reinstalled it later.
    • Er, that would still be one unique IP - it counts connections to the update server, not iso downloads.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by SevenHands ( 984677 )
        Some of us are still on DialUp you insensitive clod!
      • Still, there's a lot of people who installed it, decided we liked it, and never used it again. It only says how many people installed it, not how many people are actively using it. I'm sure there's quite a few people who heard all this stuff about how good fedora is, that they went and installed it. But that doesn't really mean that they liked it.

  • Oddball (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mateo_LeFou ( 859634 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @10:53AM (#18250184) Homepage
    I only ever seem to like the odd-numbered FC versions. Not sure why...
  • anyone know what ubuntu is at?
  • Question: Is it wise or useful to upgrade earlier Fedora Core installations to FC6? Or is it more trouble than it's worth? I've got a server running FC4 at home, and a few dev machines here at work running FC4 and FC5, and want to know if I should bother.
    • I haven't been very involved with the Fedora world for a few years now, but back when I used Fedora it was possible to upgrade a live machine from one version to another, but it was recommended against. I believe they recommended that you reinstall, or use the 'upgrade' option on the DVD/CD. I don't really have much of a problem doing a live upgrade (though I used apt4rpm, not yum... I hated yum, so slow, and would always crap out on any even slightly complex dependencies... at least back in the days of F

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kelson ( 129150 ) *
        I've done a number of upgrades from various Red Hat and Fedora versions to later ones. In general, upgrades from the CD went more smoothly than those where I attempted to use yum. There was also one memorable case back in the RHL days, when I manually upgraded a live system using just rpm on the command-line. It was hairy, but at least the system was only down for the length of a reboot.

        I have seen it recommended to only jump one version at a time, which would mean upgrading a Fedora 4 system first to Fe

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Intron ( 870560 )
      Upgrading FC4 to FC5 fixed some things for my desktop machine. Mostly from getting the newer firefox release. CUPS still can't configure a shared Windows printer, you need to use system-config-printer. They also dropped smbfs from FC5 and forgot to mention it in the release notes -- kind of a huge problem for me, since cifs won't mount samba shares. Given those problems I've been reluctant to upgrade to FC6. I may try kubuntu since I prefer KDE.

      • They also dropped smbfs from FC5 and forgot to mention it in the release notes -- kind of a huge problem for me, since cifs won't mount samba shares.
        What are you talking about? CIFS mounts Samba shares just fine. As a matter of fact, CIFS is the protocol Samba uses.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Intron ( 870560 )
          smbfs worked in FC4, cifs doesn't in FC5. Shares didn't change. I had to convert them to NFS to mount them on FC5.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by junkgui ( 69602 )
            cifs... Users cannot seem to mount drives (even if you explicitly allow them to)... and it seems to have problems with directories with a lot of files in the (>1000) which is ironic considering they switched to cifs to allow the protocol to handle large files. All in all it does work... just with some caveats.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by petrus4 ( 213815 )
      Contrary to the claims of just about every distro in existence to be able to perform massive in-place upgrades, the authors of the Linux From Scratch book issue a very stern warning (which I agree with) about such.

      Their rule of thumb is, if you upgrade *any* element of the core toolchain, (gcc, binutils, and glibc mainly) the only way to be 1000% sure that everything works is to backup your data and reinstall the lot. You might be able to get away with in-place upgrades of minor point releases of those thr

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by hughk ( 248126 )
        The upgrades can work ok especially off CD but you can also accumulate a lot of cruft, old libraries and discontinued packages. I just tend to backup /etc (there are always some config files you want to resurrect) and blow away everything except /home and /usr/local (non-rpm stuff for me) and even the latter usually wants a rebuild to use the latest libraries.
  • Sorry that's my fault, I just can't get this install to work right :(
  • Hate to rain on your parade but that was just me trying to get those huge updates over my spotty 56k connection that kept dropping...

  • The Danger (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mpapet ( 761907 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @12:07PM (#18251246) Homepage
    In stating these numbers is it puts a "market size" on Linux. This sets a dangerous precedent.

    How can that be? Well you see, any corporation or trust-fund baby having the slightest relationship to operating systems buys market research. They know with a little confidence how much, how many and how often computer-things sell. This is the stuff that CEO's and their wanna-be brethren eat for breakfast lunch and dinner.

    Once Linux distros are stuck into the "how much, how many, how often" blender, there will be a mixed-bag of consequences. For example:

    1. What are the top 3 distro's. Winners and Losers (or is it loosers?) will be chosen. The depth and variety of distros will suffer.

    2. How much money is the Linux market making?
    3. How fast is the market for Linux products growing?

    2+3 = dot-com bubble and all the baggage that went with it.

    Remain out of reach of the CEO-class and there's no target, no winners, no losers, just an amorphous thing called Linux that's diverse, active and everywhere.
    • ...except that these people would be interested in things like RHEE, rather than Fedora Core.... Take a wild guess at the total profits made off of all the copies of the FC editions that are out there
      • That's my point.

        Every idiot that can shake money out of a vulture capitalist or his rich uncle will see dollar signs.

        This time though, they will make a mockery out of Free Software and abuse the GPL kind of like Tivo has and other craziness yet to be discovered.
  • Don't forget those that download portions at work, the rest at home, install, then -oops - something breaks - then re-download, re-install - over and over again.

    I for one, through various IPs,probably personally account for at least 40 installs.

    And no, I don't currently have it running due to bugs.

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