Linux

Hey guys! Remember that survey we took quite a while back?

Well, I didnt find the time to do the results earlier, so... here are they!

For those who didn't take part, here was the survey. You can still write silly stuff there! But I will probably not read it.

I still have no idea how to share the results, so here is the HTML bundle downloaded with SingleFile..

This Table, which should also be on Github as .csv, offers all answers of every user which you can play with. All users are completely anonymized.

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Results

I will pick some random funny things.

Usage & Experience

The majority uses Linux since over 3 years. Most have used a few distros.

A lot of people give unpaid support for friends and family, which is great! Thats... what we are here for, right?

Most of you devs are not engineering systems, which makes sense, but I guess contributions from your companies could help?

We have quite some admins and people working with Linux, which is cool! Let me hear your experiences and coolest moments in your job?

Gender & Representation

Well, that is crazy! Interesting for sure. We are a huge majority male, together with about 5% women, 5% nonbinary people, a few agender people or some that dont feel in these categories.

The question about representation didnt resonate a lot with most, so there is low participation and many wrote it made no sense.

I dont think so, cough hyprland, but well, the majority feels represented, which specifically for this question is worth nothing XD

We have 25 people in the survey that dont feel represented! I think we should work on that, and of course feel free to post ideas on this.

Improvements to the Linux community

1. We need to be friendly, inclusive and welcoming to newbies and each other. No elietism and separation among each other. Our goal is to free the world together, isn't it?
2. Again, working together.
3. Help very early newbies with onboarding, easy docs and tools
4. More specialists on software, less duplicated efforts
5. Use open platforms, not Discord

\1. and 3. got a ton of votes. So yes, if our goal is to spread the word, the first steps to the bright side need to be as easy and welcoming as possible!

Origin

We have more europeans than nothern americans!

poorly, veery few from all the rest, especially low in India, which was unexpected.

I dont know how, but I think this could be improved. The english-only communities may be an issue?

Age

That one surprised be a ton, as I am way below average.

Income

Linux is free software, so our goal should be to empower poor people.

We seem to kinda be able to do that?

Neurodivergence

I have ADHD and I have the feeling a ton of y'all cat ears are neurodivergent too.

Seems like I was right, ADHD and Autism are pretty common here.

Why did you start using Linux?

• Windows annoyed me
• privacy
• tweaking the system

very few switched from macOS or ChromeOS, which is interesting but probably expected.

Contributions

Well... everyone can translate, support others on dedicated forums (or here) and donate a few cents! Come on guys! We can improve here.

Multiple systems

Way more people use multiple Linux systems than I thought.

A lot run Windows and macOS in parallel too, we even have some ChromeOS users! Only very few use Linux (as in "not Android" only!)

For the reasons, companies, schools, unis are just as much at fault as... gaming.

I had no idea this was such a big deal!

Also, not many use multiple systems for testing stuff (like me), but actually daily drive them!

Why do you use Linux?

1. Freedom
2. Privacy
3. Fun
4. No costs

Hardware

Most of you have hardware supported by Windows 11, which is interesting. The "pile of awesome Linux machines" didnt arrive yet!

Security

More people have unencrypted disks than encrypted ones. A few people dont even know what disk encryption is!

Of course I highly advise those people to learn a bit about that, I wouldnt want an unencrypted laptop.

For the reasons for encrypted systems

• security
• privacy

quite a few also have it as a school/uni/work requirement, which is great! Having an unencrypted company laptop... well no.

Distros

Well, Arch.

A ton of people use Debian too, then come Ubuntu and Fedora as base. 2 Slackers too!

And... the NixOS community here is bigger than OpenSUSE.

So, what distro did you use first?

• Ubuntu
• Debian

Obvious, but still worth asking.

Switching distros

Nobody switched away from NixOS, that one person starting on it is still rocking!

Many switched from OpenSUSE because they found something better.

From Arch, because... other? And for some it broke.

RedHat is the biggest reason why people switched from Fedora... which is a bit silly... but again "other" is the biggest reason, what happened guys??

Debian had too old packages, I feel you. "other" again huge, just as with Ubuntu, which scared people away with Snaps, GNOME, privacy issues and a whole lot of "other"!

Distro type

A third of you use small distros, most dont.

Not many use a small variant from a bigger distro (like Fedora Kinoite etc), which surprised me.

Distro optimizations

Many people simply want a better user experience. Again, gaming is a huge factor too, while privacy and security hardening is significant but not for many.

Modifications

People uninstall way less than they add additional stuff. Theming is less important than I thought.

Privacy and security tweaks are again pretty low, I encourage you to take a look!

Hardware

Even, which is again really surprising.

It may correlate with the quite old user base?

Only a few of you got that Android runs Linux ;D Or those all run PostmarketOS or something.

We have quite a few running hardware with official Linux support, which is cool!

And even though most is not officially supported, you still dont really have big issues, or none at all.

Coreboot

Only a tiny fraction you uses coreboot! While a huuuge majority trusts some random proprietary code running at highest priority.

I can encourage you to look into coreboot!

Of the ones using coreboot, a majority bought hardware with it.

For the ones looking, here a small list:

• System76
• Starlabs
• 3mdeb, Novacustom
• Nitrokey
• A ton of Chromebooks with MrChromeBox coreboot
• A few pretty old Thinkpads

And... nobody uses the Heads firmware! Which is a shame, as it is really cool and the only good measured boot implementation, outside of Google Pixels with GrapheneOS.

DE or Window Manager

A big majority uses KDE, followed by GNOME and then the Window Manager guys.

Cinnamon also has a reasonable user base.

Users of smaller desktops often didnt switch because they didnt like the direction of others (mostly GNOME) but simply because they are easy to use, lightweight... and then there are the Mint users.

34 Window Manager users have no hobbies, I feel you.

The main reason pro KDE is customization, while the traditional UI is also very important. A ton of users switched from GNOME to KDE, which should be a hint for Fedora and others.

Virtual Desktops

A majority uses them, which is crazy!

Wayland or X11

Many dont even know what they use, while Wayland is luckily the majority.

Reasons to stay on X11 are

• missing features
• software issues
• the Mint users

Many people have considered changing the WM to a wayland-native one. A lot say they will probably switch soon, while there are a few that dont consider this.

Packages, Source, Flatpaks, ...

Most get their apps from the system repos, followed by native packages from 3rd party repos.

Flatpak is even below those 3rd party native packages, which have full control over your system! But they are close.

Appimages are used more than native packages that dont come from a repo, while both methods are pretty insecure and I hope you are careful with them!

Snaps have not many friends, which I can understand.

Immutable or not?

SteamOS has a ton of fans here, and more use NixOS than Fedora Atomic.

Android stays the most used immutable/composed/atomic system out there.

Not many are using new distros like VanillaOS, BlendOS etc.

Proprietary software

Beware, a rant. A ton of people runs whatever they need or want, even if it is proprietary!

Also a lot more people use non-flatpakked proprietary software, which can be a pretty big security risk, as those can do whatever they want.

Flatpaks

A lot of people like official maintenance of packages, the store and ease of use. Security through bubblewrap sandboxing is a high point too.

Many tell that sandboxing breaks their use case, which I would respond to with: This is not the intended behavior, they should work by default, please file bug reports!

Desktop integration is also an issue, which must be theming as other things normally just work.

Many people prefer distro packages and fear bloat through extra libraries.

Snaps are also a big cause for not liking them, which is a shame really.

Very few have actual hardware limitations to run the apps like that.

I dont know what to say to this, the result surprised me a lot. There seems to be huge emotional bias towards Flatpaks, or ignorance towards the security mess that running proprietary unsandboxed software is.

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Anyways, those where not all answers, have a read through them!

Here is the link to the survey results if you have troubles with cut-off questions.