14 DAY TRIAL // The use of the Linux operating system on desktop computer continues to grow, as shown by the Linux Foundation annual survey. This will continue to run until the end of this month.
The Linux Foundation, previously known as Free Standards Group and the Open Source Developer Labs (the two groups merged in January, this year), got 20,000 answers to the survey. It seems that almost 70% of the respondents are part of small companies, followed by medium-sized companies, with 8.8% of the total responses.
Linux is getting very close to Windows, with more than 40% of the respondents who use Linux on more than half of their computers. A growing number of persons use Linux on their client desktops (more than 65%), followed by those who use this operating system on development desktops and web servers. Also, the largest number of the respondents have the IT/IS/MIS System Administrator job, or something similar to it.
An interesting thing is the fact that many of the respondents use Linux in domains like education and research, computer software and consulting. From these three, computer software is leading with approximately 20% of the votes. The Old Continent, Europe, is the leader in using open source, with North America following it.
From this survey, you can notice that e-mail applications, Internet browser, office productivity software and business specific programs are the most important things to the respondents, while the news aggregators received the lowest score.
And... surprise-surprise! Guess which Linux distribution is the most used on the desktops, in the companies? If you said "Ubuntu", you're right, because it (and the three derivatives Kubuntu/Edubuntu/Xubuntu) is the winner, and the second place goes to Debian, which is followed by Fedora and OpenSuSE. For personal use, Ubuntu wins again! OpenSUSE is on the third place, while the second is occupied by Debian.
The persons who took the survey want the most Adobe Photoshop to be ported on Linux, and Autodesk AutoCAD. Many respondents won't try solutions like virtualization for running native Windows applications, but will look for equivalent Linux applications.
To see the complete results, go take the survey, and see how much things have changed in the Linux world. Hurry up, it's available until the end of this month!