Source: https://linux-hardware.org/?view=os_display_server
Reporting is done by users who voluntarily upload their system specs via
# hw-probe -all -upload
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
No better way of measuring doesn't mean this is a good way of measuring.
What way do you imagine would be more precise?
A method that attempts to collect data from a randomized or representative population rather than relying on self-report.
The fact that you need consent to get this data would make a randomized approach impossible.
Yes. It just may be possible that accurate poll data on such things isn't possible.
Steam hardware survey but that will skew towards gamers. That said, it would be a good indicator on how compatible Wayland is.
The Steam hardware survey will skew towards whatever it is the Steamdeck uses in the surveyed categories.
Absolutely!
Could always go for opt-out instead opt-in metrics. Fedora had some recent controversy with it.
canonical has been doing this for years too, and a significant portion of linux users are on ubuntu. i'm not sure if a good portion of users enable it though.
Yeah, this is pretty textbook selection bias.
Unavoidable analytics, apparently. Yay?
Well do you want useful stats or not /s
But seriously, a lot of opt-in (that never get opted in to) data is insanely useful for developers, but it has such a bad stigma that we never get anywhere close to the amount of usefulness a larger dataset could provide.
Tbf a lot of that stigma has to do with trust violation.
I like the way kde does it. On first install it gives a slider with how much analytics you want to send. I just do all of it because I trust KDE, but it's nice that it asks you. They probably have some pretty good data.
This is the important point IMHO. This kind of feedback is exactly something I'd love to do, but I don't think I had any idea about it before this post. Just a little popup on a new install/upgrade would be a much broader net.