# OS Popularity on Wikipedia Pages



## vermaden (May 30, 2011)

```
[U][B]Operating System   Requests  Percent[/B][/U]
Windows           3,469,687   81.78%
Mac                 327,753    7.73%
iPhone              116,311    2.74%
Linux               107,158    2.53% (including Android)
iPad                 31,506    0.74%
BlackBerry           17,028    0.40%
SymbianOS             7,926    0.19%
DoCoMo                  449    0.01%
SunOS                   368    0.01%
FreeBSD                 347    0.01%
[U]OpenBSD                  26    0.00%[/U]
[B]Total             4,242,653  100.00%[/B]
```

SOURCE: http://stats.wikimedia.org/archive/squid_reports/2011-03/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm


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## Pushrod (May 30, 2011)

Those numbers show which OSes are used to browse Wikipedia, so the place that I used to work which had about 300 FreeBSD *web servers* would show up as 0% because none of them are used to browse Wikipedia.

That said, FreeBSD is not very popular and may not ever be. Linux has a ton of momentum and that is unlikely to change.


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## vermaden (May 30, 2011)

Pushrod said:
			
		

> Those numbers show which OSes are used to browse Wikipedia


Exacly.


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## kpedersen (May 30, 2011)

Hmm, I would love to make a witty comment on how the lowest scoring OS must just have a massively ignorant userbase to score 0.00%, but since it is OpenBSD, I have decided against it since they might throw a brick through my window


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## gkontos (May 30, 2011)

IMHO the real annoying is the iPhone popularity. I assume iPad is included there as well. I just don't get it when people tend to spend money in such crap.


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## expl (May 30, 2011)

gkontos said:
			
		

> IMHO the real annoying is the iPhone popularity. I assume iPad is included there as well. I just don't get it when people tend to spend money in such crap.



People tend to spend money on what ever is trendy. Is it overpriced? Probably. Is it crap? I don't think so, it is pretty solid product. But then again its off-topic.


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## rusty (May 30, 2011)

It could also be argued that the enlightened (Unix) users tend to get their information from more reputable sources while the less advanced of the human race get their info from Wikipedia.


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## shitson (May 30, 2011)

These statistics don't really play in favor of FreeBSD strengths, looking more at Server stats would be fair. 

http://uptime.netcraft.com/perf/reports/Hosters?orderby=avg_total


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## gkontos (May 30, 2011)

expl said:
			
		

> People tend to spend money on what ever is trendy. Is it overpriced? Probably. Is it crap? I don't think so, it is pretty solid product. But then again its off-topic.


Value for money is usually a good criteria for judging a product. So, when a product is highly overpriced and mainly a fashion statement it turns out to be crap.

This is also not off topic. Let me explain. It is not a big secret that FreeBSD is mainly used for servers that do not browse wikipedia. For the sake of discussion lets assume that for every FreeBSD workstation we have 100 servers, sounds fair?
According to this:

```
[B]Operating System   Requests  Percent[/B]
[B]iPhone              116,311    2.74%[/B]
[B]FreeBSD                 347    0.01%[/B]
Total             4,242,653  100.00%
```
we would have a total of 34700 active FreeBSD machines or less than half iPhones!


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## jrm@ (May 30, 2011)

If we make a general category, FreeBSD and its derivatives, it would be number 2.


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## ian-nai (May 30, 2011)

gkontos said:
			
		

> For the sake of discussion lets assume that for every FreeBSD workstation we have 100 servers, sounds fair?



No.

Long Answer:
No, because there are many, many servers out there - and web hosting is only a subsection of the potential uses for a server.  

I've got a FreeBSD server sitting behind me that doesn't know anything about providing http services, for instance.  The percentage of job listings at a modest regional level (i.e. LA, California for instance) requesting experience with FreeBSD would be more interesting/relevant.  (Even measuring that metric poses problems - not every job listing is of the same 'quality'.)

Bonus points for anyone who points out an embedded use of FreeBSD (I'm new and don't know any off hand).


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## teckk (May 31, 2011)

I question the numbers though.

A lot of Linux and BSD users keep their web browsers user agent switcher set to show a version of windows just so all of the pages load fine.

So the number of *nix users browsing the web is greater than any databas shows I think.


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## Eyemaster (May 31, 2011)

Shouldn't be too hard to get on top of that list. Small script might do the trick :e


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## ahavatar (May 31, 2011)

One thing that worries me is that Intel Sandy Bridge CPU and AMD Fusion APU have a built-in GPU, but FreeBSD does not support them yet. I know that Intel sponsors the Intel graphics FreeBSD development, but it will be ready at least a couple of years later. 

I think this graphic cards (built-in or external also) support is the biggest hurdle to the FreeBSD desktop. It affects me to choose my graphics card because only Nvidia supports recent cards with their binary blob driver. Because it is a closed driver, what if Nvidia stops FreeBSD support?


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## graudeejs (May 31, 2011)

I don't see this happening in near future, unless they change architecture drastically.
Remember they (Nvidia) Updated driver to support amd64


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## shitson (Jun 1, 2011)

Kind of a related question, How much of the BSD code does Apple still use... Do they still take new updates from Free/OpenBSD updates (what is the term for this... is it source trees?)


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## ian-nai (Jun 1, 2011)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> I don't see this happening in near future, unless they change architecture drastically.
> Remember they (Nvidia) Updated driver to support amd64



Just because the girl's said yes in the past doesn't mean she has to say yes in the future   Having said that, thanks, Nvidia!


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## expl (Jun 1, 2011)

shitson said:
			
		

> Kind of a related question, How much of the BSD code does Apple still use... Do they still take new updates from Free/OpenBSD updates (what is the term for this... is it source trees?)



Darwin uses less BSD code than most people think. It's mostly VFS and network stack that have been directly taken from FreeBSD, rest of the system is quite different.


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## troberts (Jun 1, 2011)

shitson said:
			
		

> Kind of a related question, How much of the BSD code does Apple still use... Do they still take new updates from Free/OpenBSD updates (what is the term for this... is it source trees?)


I do not know how much BSD code is used by Apple, but Apple is definitely giving back to the community. Grand Central Dispatch, Clang, LLVM use non-copyleft licenses and OpenCL is royalty-free. As for WebKit, WebCore and JavaScriptCore use the LGPL license while the rest uses a BSD-style license.

FreeBSD will benefit more from Apple's investment in Clang/LLVM than Apple has from using BSD code.


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## shitson (Jun 2, 2011)

> including the process model, network stack, and virtual file system



From Wikipedia, just for clarification. Thanks for the replies guys.


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## SPlissken (Jun 8, 2011)

Where is NetBSD? I use it as a desktop OS on my eeePC 701 and use Firefox without changing UserAgent.


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## fonz (Jun 15, 2011)

*Talk about enlightend/advanced... tsssk*



			
				rusty said:
			
		

> It could also be argued that the enlightened (Unix) users tend to get their information from more reputable sources while the less advanced of the human race get their info from Wikipedia.



{{Citation needed}}

--~~~~

Fonz


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## B0o-supermario (Jun 16, 2011)

fonz said:
			
		

> {{Citation needed}}
> 
> --~~~~
> 
> Fonz



Now *that* was funny


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## fonz (Jun 16, 2011)

B0o-supermario said:
			
		

> Now *that* was funny


Glad to have made you laugh. My point however is that Wikipedia is great if you understand a) what it can or cannot do and b) how to properly use it. When I see people ridiculing Wikipedia they usually do so out of ignorance, rarely do they actually truly understand Wikipedia's merits and/or shortcomings.

Fonz (FreeBSD afficionado *and* Wikipedian)

P.S. For example, the English version of Wikipedia is generally pretty anal about verifiability (that's the whole [citation needed] thing), which makes it a great "source of sources". Several of those _cited_ sources are authoritive enough even for scientific research, go figure. Even if you don't trust Wikipedia itself directly, which is quite understandable if you actually know why you don't, you can often still find {{RS|reliable sources}} that are trustworthy.


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## Eponasoft (Jun 17, 2011)

ian-nai said:
			
		

> Bonus points for anyone who points out an embedded use of FreeBSD (I'm new and don't know any off hand).


I use FreeBSD for all of my robotics projects, including my incredibly large one, G.Project, which is to be a highly capable autonomous human-like robot. However, I can't think of anything in the wild currently that uses it... the price scanners at the grocery stores here all run Windows CE, and the ATMs are either running OS/2 or Linux.


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## aragon (Jun 18, 2011)

Eponasoft said:
			
		

> I use FreeBSD for all of my robotics projects, including my incredibly large one, G.Project, which is to be a highly capable autonomous human-like robot.


Keen to read more about these.  Do you publish your work anywhere?


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## jrm@ (Jul 1, 2011)

expl said:
			
		

> Darwin uses less BSD code than most people think. It's mostly VFS and network stack that have been directly taken from FreeBSD, rest of the system is quite different.



I haven't looked through Darwin's code, but I saved this page off apple's site a few years ago: http://gly.ath.cx/misc/osx_is_freebsd.html.  From the text, "The upgraded kernel, based on FreeBSD 5.x....".  Maybe things have changed since then?


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## Bellum (Jul 15, 2011)

fonz said:
			
		

> Glad to have made you laugh. My point however is that Wikipedia is great if you understand a) what it can or cannot do and b) how to properly use it. When I see people ridiculing Wikipedia they usually do so out of ignorance, rarely do they actually truly understand Wikipedia's merits and/or shortcomings.
> 
> Fonz (FreeBSD afficionado *and* Wikipedian)
> 
> P.S. For example, the English version of Wikipedia is generally pretty anal about verifiability (that's the whole [citation needed] thing), which makes it a great "source of sources". Several of those _cited_ sources are authoritative enough even for scientific research, go figure. Even if you don't trust Wikipedia itself directly, which is quite understandable if you actually know why you don't, you can often still find {{RS|reliable sources}} that are trustworthy.



Heh, every time someone dismisses the wiki out of hand, I think of Randy Pausch's Last Lecture, where he (only half-jokingly, I think) mentioned that after writing for print encyclopedias and dealing with their supposedly superior "fact checking", he no longer had a problem with Wikipedia. 

Someone who deals with FOSS should understand something about the value of a collaborative effort.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jul 15, 2011)

At least half of everything on Wikipedia about the Star Wars movies was written by my son. I can verify all the fretting and gnashing of teeth that went into every word and verification.

OT - George Lucas is a regular at the restaurant he works at.


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## fender0107401 (Jul 17, 2011)

Just ask, can it know I run FreeBSD if I run IPFW too?


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## fonz (Jul 17, 2011)

fender0107401 said:
			
		

> Just ask, can it know I run FreeBSD if I run IPFW too?


Most browsers tell the server what operating system they are running on. There are ways around that, but ipfw(8) probably isn't one of them.

Fonz


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## d_mon (Jul 18, 2011)

vermaden said:
			
		

> ```
> [U][B]Operating System   Requests  Percent[/B][/U]
> Windows           3,469,687   81.78%
> Mac                 327,753    7.73%
> ...



well...that's [a little bit] frustrating!


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## vermaden (Jul 19, 2011)

d_mon said:
			
		

> well...that's [a little bit] frustrating!



Think how frustrated NetBSD users must be


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## d_mon (Jul 19, 2011)

i do not understand why *BSD* is not the OS preferred by USA/canada people...why windows...why windows...why win...are people robotized?

btw vermaden...going to visit/post on u forum!


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## jrm@ (Jul 19, 2011)

d_mon said:
			
		

> i do not understand why *BSD* is not the OS preferred by USA/canada people...why windows...why windows...why win...are people robotized?



What region of the world doesn't "prefer" windows?  http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-monthly-201006-201106 (requires flash).  In fact, Windows might have less of a share in the USA/Canada relative to other countries if this source is accurate.

EDIT (Off topic Bit): Why do you lump USA/Canada together?  Aside from our computing preferences, we are different cultures in many respects.  It was always frustrating in Europe to introduce myself as Canadian and be referred to as American (not North American) by that same person a few minutes later.  That's like referring to a Dutch person as German or a Swiss.


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## fonz (Jul 19, 2011)

d_mon said:
			
		

> i do not understand why BSD [edit: color and bold face removed] is not the OS preferred by USA/canada people


I don't think USA/Canada is much different from the rest of the world (not regarding to this, at least). Some reasons why people stick with Windows:
_Learning curve_
Windows 3.11 may have been not much more than a cheap knock-off of the Macintosh UI but over the years Windows has evolved into a system that's easy to learn for people who just want to browse the Web, send e-mail, make office documents and watch videos. Even a monkey can be trained to use Windows. My brother is only just technically inclined enough to plug a power cord into a wall socket and flip a power switch but he can use Windows. Properly using FreeBSD (as well as several flavors of Linux) tends to require more technical knowledge. Something that many people don't have and most of those can't be bothered to acquire.
_Vendor lock-in_.
Windows often comes bundled with the computer and most people simply aren't even aware that there are alternatives. Also, once you've committed to Microsoft there's often no easy way out.
_Market share_
Windows is still by far the most dominant OS on desktop computers. Being different (by running another OS) introduces several compatibility problems that often require a certain degree of technical skill to overcome. This is a particularly big problem in business. Even at the university I see (computer science) students having trouble exchanging (office) documents.
_Hardware support_
Pretty much *every* piece of hardware comes shipped with (optimized, specifically written) drivers for Windows. Some manufacturers also provide Linux drivers (although not always open source) but often enough the open source community has to reverse engineer the whole thing and write their own drivers. Manufacturer support for FreeBSD is even less than for Linux.
_Application availability_
There is some pretty impressive free and/or open source software out there, but there simply is a whole lot more software available for Windows than for most other systems, even including MacOS. For example, I'm pretty sure that Maplesoft could make a native FreeBSD version of Maple if they wanted to, but it's probably just not feasible from a business point of view due to the relatively small userbase. Fortunately I can use Maple on FreeBSD via the Linux emulation layer, but as much as I'd like it I don't see a native FreeBSD version coming out anytime soon.
*Games*
See the previous point, but multiplied by at least a factor 100. This is a bit of a vicious circle: since most people use Windows (or to a lesser extent MacOS) it often simply isn't profitable to release commercial-quality games for other platforms. It's simple economics, unfortunately. In fact, I vaguely remember the maker of Doom saying about the Linux version that he did it _"because Linux gives me a woody. It doesn't generate revenue."_
_Marketing_
Because Microsoft (and to a seemingly increasing extent Apple) are such big companies they can afford extensive (and expensive) marketing campaigns. FreeBSD is not a commercial product and therefore cannot afford to license a Rolling Stones song to be played over a commercial aired during half time of the Superbowl (or UEFA Champions League final, if you live in Europe).
As much as most of the people here on this forum probably loathe Windows, it's a fact of life and unless you have several millions of euros/dollars to donate to the FreeBSD project this isn't likely to change anytime soon.

Fonz


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## DutchDaemon (Jul 20, 2011)

You should probably add a *tl;dr* to that, because someone doesn't like to read that much.


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## fonz (Jul 20, 2011)

DutchDaemon said:
			
		

> You should probably add a *tl;dr* to that, because someone doesn't like to read that much.


You're probably right and I didn't intend on writing such a long post (which will indeed probably fall mostly on deaf ears anyway), but I guess I was just on a roll... 

Fonz (forget I said anything)


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## namor (Jul 22, 2011)

Eponasoft said:
			
		

> I use FreeBSD for all of my robotics projects, including my incredibly large one, G.Project, which is to be a highly capable autonomous human-like robot. However, I can't think of anything in the wild currently that uses it... the price scanners at the grocery stores here all run Windows CE, and the ATMs are either running OS/2 or Linux.



How about TVs and HDD-Recorders? My girlfriend's family bought one (TV with HDD-Rec.) recently. Good her father read the specs.


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## Bellum (Jul 24, 2011)

DutchDaemon said:
			
		

> You should probably add a *tl;dr* to that, because someone doesn't like to read that much.



Heh, you'd think the big bold bullet points would be enough.


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## caesius (Jul 24, 2011)

fonz said:
			
		

> I don't think USA/Canada is much different from the rest of the world (not regarding to this, at least). Some reasons why people stick with Windows:
> 
> ...
> _Application availability_
> ...



Yeah this. There are a few applications for which the GNU/Linux alternative is lacking at best. For example, the only Windows machines in our team where I work were to run the Altera FPGA synthesis design software. Yes they release a free GNU/Linux version, but it's just not as good as the Windows one.

I have *nothing* against commercial applications in GNU/Linux or FreeBSD. I see no issue with a company paying for a license to use have solid native FreeBSD version (still really talking about Altera/Xilinx here - but it extends to games).


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## fonz (Jul 24, 2011)

Bellum said:
			
		

> Heh, you'd think the big bold bullet points would be enough.


Heh. Although as I said I was just on a roll and churned out a bigger post than I intended, I did have the common sense to use a bullet list so it shouldn't be that hard to read 

Fonz


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## DutchDaemon (Jul 25, 2011)

When I posted the tl;dr remark, I was thinking about a specific someone on the forums. Don't take it generally, please


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## fonz (Jul 25, 2011)

*Gotcha*



			
				DutchDaemon said:
			
		

> When I posted the tl;dr remark, I was thinking about a specific someone on the forums.


I figured as much  And I didn't mean to pollute (to the extent that this is possible in Off-Topic in the first place).

Fonz


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