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Who downloads Linux

Posted by Graeme in Software at 10:23 am on Monday, 18 February 2008

I noticed that most people downloading Mandriva One using bit torrent were using Windows clients, but almost everyone downloading Arch Linux seems to be using Ktorrent. The latter is to be expected, but the former surprised me.

Arch Linux is not for the average user. It offers fine control, but, for that very reason, it needs ome knowledge of the workings of Linux to install and administer. It is no surprise that most people downloading it are already using Linux. The dominance of KTorrent also suggests it is the most popular Linux torrent client, confirming what I have read elsewhere.

Now, what is happening with Mandriva? Downloads seem to be split between people using Windows only clients (usually μTorrent) and those using cross platform clients like Azureus.

I am assuming that those using Azureus are not using Linux already. I think this is justified given the apparent dominance of KTorrent on Linux, and the lack of Linux only clients.

I would have expected that a lot of people downloading Mandriva would be either upgrading from an old version of Mandriva, or considering switching from another Linux distribution. Where are they all?

I can think of a few explanations, none altogether satisfactory:

  1. People are dual booting Windows and Linux, and doing the downloads while booted into Windows. This would be odd because the usual reason for dual booting is to use Windows for games.
  2. Existing users upgrade immediately after a new version is announced, with very few delaying like me. I would expect many people to be too busy to upgrade immediately. It also seems from the Mandriva forums that many people do delay upgrading.
  3. There are such huge numbers of Windows users wanting to try Mandriva that they dominate the downloads. If so, it is the first time I have heard that Mandriva is growing so fast.
  4. People are using Windows on their desktops and Linux on their servers. That might be convincing for some other distributions, but Mandriva is really a desktop distribution and not a popular choice for servers.

My best guess at the moment is some mix of two and three above.

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