- Distrowatch is very useful for finding and comparing distributions
- Their major distros page is a good place to start your research
- But pay no attention to the distro page ranking as this number only reveals how many people viewed that distro in the past week
- Wikipedia Linux Timeline is a good way to waste a few minutes
- FabioLolix/LinuxTimeline makes the chart used in the Wikipedia page
- Wikipedia list of Linux Distributions is mildly useful
- Wikipedia Comparison of Linux distributions is mildly useful
- Statistics regarding operating system market share should always be considered imprecise
- The Statista Global Desktop OS popularity charts show that Windows is continually losing market share to MacOS mostly, and Linux somewhat
- Free access to Statista is usually available through a public library
- The GlobalStats Desktop Operating System Market Share Worldwide is informative
- This 2022 article about Ubuntu market-share taking a nosedive is an example of taking the Distrowatch rankings too seriously
- EnterpriseAppsTodays maintains Linux statistics
- In 2022 their statistics showed that...
- Ubuntu accounts for 33.9% of the Linux market
- That means that over a third of websites that use Linux run on Ubuntu
- Second place goes to Debian, which accounts for 16% of Linux-based websites, followed by CentOS with a share of 9.3%
- Other distributions, like RedHat, Gentoo, Fedora, and SuSe, have a much smaller share, i.e., below 1%
- Their shares are 0.8%, 0.5%, 0.2%, and 0.1%, respectively.
- Red Hat has a 33.9% share in the worldwide server operating environment market
- The Stack Overflow 2022 Developer Survey tells us what users of their platform are using
- Windows: Personal use 62.33%, Professional use 48.82%
- Linux-based: Personal use 40.23%, Professional use 39.89%
- macOS: Personal use: 31.07%, Professional use 32.97%
- Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL): Personal use 15%, Professional use 14.34%
- BSD: Personal use 1.47%, Professional use 1.03%
- There is also a Stack Overflow 2023 Developer Survey
- Phoronix 2020 article Linux Kernel Commits per the top 3 commercial distros (Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical)
- RedHat makes the most commits every year by a wide margin
- SUSE is in second place at about half of the RedHat commits
- Canonical is a distant third
- Phoronix 2020 article Linux Kernel Commits per the top 3 silicon suppliers (Intel, AMD, nvidia)
- Intel has the most Kernel commits by a wide margin
- AMD's contributions are growing vs Intel every year but are still only half of Intel
- Nvidia is a very distant third
- RedHat vs Debian : Administrative Point of View is more of an opinionated comparison between the two than actual statistics