Installed base
Because of a lack of registration, any number provided for Ubuntu usage can only be estimated.[122] In 2015, Canonical's Ubuntu Insights page stated "Ubuntu now has over 40 million desktop users and counting".[123]W3Techs Web Technology Surveys estimated in September 2016 that:
- Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distribution for running Web servers on, used by 34.1% of "all the websites" they analyze.[124] Linux distributions are used a little more than Microsoft Windows for websites based on W3Techs numbers, and only Ubuntu and Debian (which Ubuntu is based on, with the same package manager and thus administered the same way) make up 65% of all Linux distributions for web serving use; Ubuntu got more popular than Debian (for such server use), in May 2016.
- Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distribution among the top 1000 sites and gains around 500 of the top 10 million websites per day.[125]
- Ubuntu is used by 12.4% of all websites analyzed, growing from less than 7% in October 2012.[126]
According to TheCloudMarket.com, Ubuntu is on at least 57% of the images it scanned on Amazon EC2 (and Windows at 7.8%).[14]
Wikimedia Foundation data (based on user agent) for September 2013 shows that Ubuntu generated the most page requests to Wikimedia sites, including Wikipedia, among recognizable Linux distributions.[129][130]
Large-scale deployments
The public sector has also adopted Ubuntu. As of January 2009, the Ministry of Education and Science of Republic of Macedonia deployed more than 180,000[131] Ubuntu-based classroom desktops, and has encouraged every student in the country to use Ubuntu-powered computer workstations;[132] the Spanish school system has 195,000 Ubuntu desktops.[131] The French police, having already started using open-source software in 2005 by replacing Microsoft Office with OpenOffice.org, decided to transition to Ubuntu from Windows XP after the release of Windows Vista in 2006.[133] By March 2009, the Gendarmerie Nationale had already switched 5000 workstations to Ubuntu.[133] Based on the success of that transition, it planned to switch 15,000 more over by the end of 2009 and to have switched all 90,000 workstations over by 2015 (GendBuntu project).[133] Lt. Colonel Guimard announced that the move was very easy and allowed for a 70% saving on the IT budget without having to reduce its capabilities.[133] In 2011, Ubuntu 10.04 was adopted by the Indian justice system.[134] The Government of Kerala adopted Ubuntu for the legislators in Kerala and the government schools of Kerala began to use customized IT@School Project Ubuntu 10.04 which contains specially created software for students. Earlier, Windows was used in the schools. Textbooks were also remade with an Ubuntu syllabus and are currently used in schools.[135]The city of Munich, Germany, has forked Kubuntu 10.04 LTS and created LiMux for use on the city's computers.[136] After originally planning to migrate 12,000 desktop computer to LiMux, it was announced in December 2013 that the project had completed successfully with the migration of 14,800 out of 15,500 desktop computers.[137] In March 2012, the government of Iceland launched a project to get all public institutions using free and open-source software. Already several government agencies and schools have adopted Ubuntu. The government cited cost savings as a big factor for the decision, and also stated that open source software avoids vendor lock-in. A 12-month project was launched to migrate the biggest public institutions in Iceland to open-source, and help ease the migration for others.[138] Incumbent US president Barack Obama's successful campaign for re-election in 2012, used Ubuntu in its IT department.[139][importance?] In August 2014, the city of Turin, Italy, announced the migration from Windows XP to Ubuntu for its 8,300 desktop computers used by the municipality, becoming the first city in Italy to adopt Ubuntu.[140][141]
Critical reception
Ubuntu was awarded the Reader Award for best Linux distribution at the 2005 LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in London,[142] received favorable reviews in online and print publications,[143][144] and has won InfoWorld's 2007 Bossie Award for Best Open Source Client OS.[145] In early 2008 PC World named Ubuntu the "best all-around Linux distribution available today", though it criticized the lack of an integrated desktop effects manager.[146] Chris DiBona, the program manager for open-source software at Google, said "I think Ubuntu has captured people's imaginations around the Linux desktop," and "If there is a hope for the Linux desktop, it would be them". As of January 2009, almost half of Google's 20,000 employees used Goobuntu, a proprietary, slightly modified version of Ubuntu.[131] In 2012, ZDNet reported that Ubuntu was still Google's desktop of choice.[147] In March 2016, Matt Hartley picked a list of best Linux distributions for Datamation; he chose Ubuntu as number one.[148]In 2008, Jamie Hyneman, co-host of the American television series MythBusters, advocated Linux (giving the example of Ubuntu) as a solution to software bloat.[149] Other celebrity users of Ubuntu include science fiction writer Cory Doctorow[150] and actor Stephen Fry.[151]
In March 2013, Canonical announced that it had decided to develop Mir,[152] reversing an earlier plan to move to Wayland as the primary Ubuntu display server[153] and causing widespread objection from the open source desktop community.[154][155][156][157] X.Org contributor Daniel Stone opined: "I'm just irritated that this means more work for us, more work for upstream developers, more work for toolkits, more work for hardware vendors....".[158] In September 2013, an Intel developer removed XMir support from their video driver and wrote "We do not condone or support Canonical in the course of action they have chosen, and will not carry XMir patches upstream".[159][160][161]
In January 2014, the UK's authority for computer security, CESG, reported that Ubuntu 12.04 LTS was "the only operating system that passes as many as 9 out of 12 requirements without any significant risks".[162]
Ubuntu's developers acknowledged battery life problems from version 10.04[163] and sought to solve the issues of power consumption in the 12.04 LTS release.[164][self-published source?] The 14.04 release improved the situation, but still lagged other operating systems in the battery life metric.[165]
Amazon controversy
One of the new features of Unity in Ubuntu 12.10 was the shopping lens—Amazon search results displayed in the Unity dash. It was alternately described as the "Amazon controversy",[166][167] "privacy fiasco"[168] and "spyware".[169]From October 2012, it sent the user's queries through a secure HTTPS connection from the home lens to productsearch.ubuntu.com,[170] which then polled Amazon.com to find relevant products; Amazon then sent product images directly to the user's computer through HTTP. If the user clicked on one of these results and then bought something, Canonical got a small fraction of the sale.[171]
In 2012, many reviewers criticized it: as the home lens is the normal means to search for content on the local machine, reviewers were concerned about the disclosure of queries that were intended to be local, creating a privacy problem.[170] As the feature is active by default instead of opt-in, many users could be unaware of it.[170][171][172][173]
Some users chose to turn it off or to remove the feature using a patch.[174] An April 2014 article by Scott Gilbertson stated that the online search components of Ubuntu could be turned off with a couple of clicks in version 14.04.[165]
For the move, it was awarded the 2013 Austria Big Brother Award.[175]
Since Ubuntu 16.04, the setting is off by default.[176]
Conformity with European data privacy law
Soon after being introduced, doubts emerged on the conformance of the shopping lens with the European Data Protection Directive.[177][178] A petition was later signed by over 50 Ubuntu users and delivered to Canonical demanding various modifications to the feature in order to clearly frame it within European law.[179][self-published source?] Canonical did not reply.In 2013, a formal complaint on the shopping lens was filed with the Information Commissioner's Office (IOC), the UK data privacy office. Almost one year later, the IOC ruled in favour of Canonical, considering the various improvements introduced to the feature in the meantime to render it conformal with the Data Protection Directive.[180][self-published source?] According to European rules, this ruling is automatically effective in the entirety of the European Union. However, the ruling also made clear that at the time of introduction the feature was not legal, among other things, since it was missing a privacy policy statement.
No comments:
Post a Comment