The world of desktop Linux is often portrayed these days as a battle primarily between longstanding leader Ubuntu and up-and-coming challenger Linux Mint, frequently with the suggestion that Mint is winning.
It’s true that Mint is now in the No. 1 spot on DistroWatch’s page hint rankings, but it’s critical to remember that those rankings indicate just that–page hits per day–and don’t really say much about actual usage. Unfortunately, when it comes to Linux, it’s very difficult to gauge real-world usage because the software is readily downloadable, sharable, and free, so there are no sales statisticsthe way there are for Windows.
Every once in a while, though, polls are conducted of the Linux community that can give at least a stand-alone snapshot of what some people are really using, and last week the results of just such a poll were released.