Posted by Nekhelesh Raman... on March 22, 2012
In a post few days back we posted a call to vote on the poll created by the Canonical team regarding your ubuntu usage, demographic information and how you were introduced to Ubuntu and many more questions. You can see the post here. In total there were about 19,000 responses to the poll. The results to the poll are now being published in small phases.
Please note that the poll responses represent a small percentage of the actual community. Hence, it would not be fair to take the results of this poll to be the definite representation of the community response but more of a general opinion. Keeping that in mind, let review the results obtained.
Demographic Distribution
From the chart below you can see the demographic distribution of users using Ubuntu. United States top the chart ranking followed by United Kingdom, Germany and India. It is interesting to note that only about 35% of Ubuntu users use the English language. This shows the importance of deadlines like User Interface Freeze and others to ensure that the translations are up to the standards of a quality release.
This poll was only available in 3 languages. Provided they were available in more languages, we would probably see some changes in this chart. Also the poll was announced through twitter, blog sites, forums which will definitely not reach every Ubuntu user out there.
User Information & Hearing about Ubuntu
Around 38% of the users have being using Ubuntu for 5+ years. While around 20% of the users have used Ubuntu for less than 2 years. What is more interesting is the way new users get to know about Ubuntu. Based on the response, currently around 25% of the users know about Ubuntu because of their social circles while around 47% of the users came to know about it from forums, IRC channels etc.
However, the trend of knowing about Ubuntu through forums, IRC channels has decreasing from 54% to 46%. While social circles are increasingly become the way to know about Ubuntu. This has increased from 20% to 27%. This indicates a change in the users coming in who would less likely hang out in forums, IRC channels etc..or in other words..increasing usage by people who are not tech enthusiasts.
Also, the poll also shows the increasing awareness of Ubuntu through Schools and Colleges. This has increased from 9% to 12%. Especially in India, around 16% of users were introduced to Ubuntu through School and Colleges showing the penetration in Education systems.
Ease of Installation
It is definitely encouraging to see that that around 87% of users found it easy to install Ubuntu with only around 2.6% finding it difficult. This is a positive sign though work on making the installation even more easier is always being done. New features like Twitter feed etc are being constantly added to make the installation more interactive and interesting.
How do you get the current Ubuntu setup?
Considering that the installation process is easy (from the previous chart seen above), it is not surprising to see that around 67% of the Ubuntu users performed the installation themselves. Though this also provides a glimpse into some equally disturbing facts about companies pre-loading Ubuntu. It is a mere 0.1% which is roughly around 1900 users based on the response received. However, this is something worth tracking over time to see how Ubuntu performs in the commercial markets.
It is interesting to look at all these data since they show an importance perspective as not seen by the community before. Is this it? No, there are more results which will be published soon. We will certainly publish them at the earliest. Meanwhile you can have a look at the two links below for a more detailed review of the results.
