What do Linux users want from their desktop? The Linux Foundations survey has the answers.
While the LFs third annual desktop Linux survey doesnt officially end until Nov. 30, the number of daily respondents has shrunk to a trickle and the Foundation is working on analyzing the results. This is an early look at the raw data.
For starters, almost 20,000 self-selected users filled out this years survey compared with fewer than 10,000 in 2006s survey. The survey, which drew primarily from European users (51.5 percent) followed by North Americans (35.8 percent), found that the vast majority of Linux desktops (68.4 percent) are deployed in SOHOs (small office/home office) and small business settings having one to a hundred PCs running Linux. Medium-sized businesses with user bases of 101 to 500 (9.7 percent) and 1,001 to 5,000 (6.2 percent) Linux desktops came next.
In those businesses and organizations that have deployed Linux desktops, 39.5 percent are running Linux on more than half of their machines. Even in Linux-oriented groups, Windows remains the single most popular desktop system, with 59.6 percent running on half or more of their desktops.