Ubuntu confuses lots of people

When I first saw the Google Trends graph comparing searches for different Linux distributions, I drew the same conclusion Duncan McLeod did in his post “Ubuntu winning the Linux wars.” The chart is certainly striking:

Problem is, search volume as a measure says nothing about why people might be searching for a term. It is quite possible, for example, that people search for Ubuntu because they’re having a lot of trouble with it. Maybe it breaks a lot. Maybe Red Hat or Fedora users are smarter. Maybe Novell SUSE users get better support. Perhaps users of other Linux distributions go to their community forums before hitting Google. Such alternative explanations cannot be made with any more certainty, but the Google Trends chart is of no help in deciding who is right.

It is also possible that multiple explanations are valid. Ubuntu might confuse a lot more people because it really is winning the Linux wars. Again, the Google Trends chart is of no help, but the DesktopLinux.com 2007 Desktop Linux Survey is:

Now the interesting part is the difference between the two charts: There’s no scale on the Google Trends chart, but the Ubuntu line ends at 5.7 times the height of the Suse line. I assume this correlates with 5.7 times as many searches against the respective terms. Yet in an actual survey, Ubuntu is only 1.4 times as popular as Suse. That leaves a lot of Google searches for Ubuntu unaccounted for merely by its popularity, suggesting that at least some other cause is at work here.

And that really is interesting, because when I came up with the possible alternative explanations, I didn’t believe them myself. I was just trying to be argumentative about what I thought was an interesting blog post. That just goes to show, first impressions and preconceived ideas can be dangerous when interpreting what statistics might mean.

Any other ideas? The stats are there. Speculate away.