Ubuntu Linux hits 12 million users
Linux may still be a niche operating system — sorry, it just is — but its popularity is growing as people look for an alternative to the proprietary nonsense of Windows and Mac OS. And Ubuntu has increased in popularity massively over the past couple of years.
According to LinuxPlanet, Canonical, the lead commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, is now claiming 12 million people use Ubuntu as their primary operating system. That’s up from 8 million in 2008. Chris Kenyon, vice president for OEM at Canonical, said:
We have no phone home or registration process, so it’s always a guesstimate. But based on the same methodology that we came up with for the 2008 number, our present belief is that it’s somewhere north of 12 million users at the moment.
That figure comes as Ubuntu 10.04 is being prepared for release. Nicknamed the ‘Lucid Lynx’, Ubuntu 10.04 is the first new Long-Term Supported (LTS) Ubuntu release for two years since Ubuntu 8.04 hit.
Will the Lucid Lynx increase the popularity of Ubuntu even more than has already been managed? Probably, but that still won’t make Linux as big a player as it could and maybe should be in the OS market. What would do that is the million dollar question.
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April 8th, 2010
Ubuntu hits 12 million users. Assault charges forthcoming.