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Does anyone knows where I can find some statistics how many percent each OS takes out of 100% users out there?

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is it wrong that i really wanna tag this [lies-dmn-lies-statistics] ? – ~quack Nov 25 at 6:32
I know, I have hard time believing that there is less then 1% of Linux out there, what kind of BS is that? I think Linux is getting more and more popular, small businesses start using it more, a lot of net books have Linux as a choice, today servers being sold with Linux, definitely there is a demand for it and if there is a demand for it then it's gotta be more then 1%! – alexus Nov 26 at 5:17
and another thing, come on even w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp states IE6-IE8 37.5% which is Windows Firefox takes 47.5% which is at least Windows/Linux/MAC which is ~15.8% (equally divided), Chrome is 8%, so far that's Windows only, Safari 3.8% and Opera 2.3%. Which it tells that even though Windows most likely biggest right now but non -Windows world is more then 1% by about to 45.5% – alexus Nov 26 at 5:25
w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp states 4.2% for Linux, which is more then wikipedia says under 1% – alexus Nov 26 at 5:37
You're playing really fast and really lose with your numbers, and you're making boatloads of assumptions. The assumption that Firefox users are evenly split between the 3 OSes is dubious. The assumption that the machines used to visit W3Schools constitute a representative sampling of the overall installed base of personal computers is even worse. Skepticism regarding the 1% figure is fine. But your personal perception of Linux's popularity is not a reason for it. – Lawrence Velázquez Nov 26 at 9:07

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Two sources are wikipedia and w3counter. They both use web browsing statistics to glean information about what OS's are actively in use. From wikipedia:

There is little published information on the usage share of desktop and laptop computers. Web client information (see below) is often used as a proxy for this, but many such computers are not used for web surfing. Web client stats suggest that Microsoft Windows has a 93% share, Apple Mac OS 5% and Linux 1%, but the estimates are believed to have a heavy US bias, among other problems.

useage pie chart

Here's and example of how these stats can be wrong:

At home I use mostly Linux & when I used KDE, plenty of sites refused to display anything when I visited using Konqueror. Typically they believed the page would not work viewed in my browser & they threw up an error page. My solution? Konqueror allows you to specify a 'Browser Identificaton' - essentially I lie to every site I visit. I claim to be using IE 6+, Windows XP. Everyone wants to display web pages to me now ;-)

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Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for. – alexus Nov 25 at 17:27
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There is no solid way to know 100% at all.

There are many sites that have conflicting data, you really just have to Google "Operating System Trends" or similar keywords.

Here is one article I found (August 2009)

alt text

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Where did you find that graph? – DaveParillo Nov 25 at 0:13
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I would guess w3counter.com ;) – phoebus Nov 25 at 0:28
You'd think, but no. At least I didn't find it there. Thanks Wil for adding the link! Good article. – DaveParillo Nov 25 at 0:47
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I use MarketShare this site lets you see pretty much everything.. from OS to Browser and search Engines. Try it out..

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