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> I'm claiming that Debian's wording was somewhat weird, and that they aren't necessarily as large as it makes them sound. In fact, it was not Debian's wording

by krn 8y ago

> I'm claiming that Debian's wording was somewhat weird, and that they aren't necessarily as large as it makes them sound. In fact, it was not Debian's wording, but Greg Kroah-Hartman's, who is currently responsible for the Linux kernel -stable branch, and who has previously worked for SUSE, where he initiated the development of openSUSE Tumbleweed[1]. So, he is in no way associated with Debian, and is one the most important employees of the Linux Foundation. > Additionally, this doesn't count desktop installs. Google alone likely has over 20k developers[3], and the default desktop for them is Goobuntu (a Google variant of Ubuntu). Interestingly, Google ditched Ubuntu for Debian in January 2018[2], which means, that the entire Google internal engineering environment is now based on Debian. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Kroah-Hartman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Kroah-Hartman [2] https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3024623/google-ditches-ubuntu-for-debian-from-internal-engineering-environment https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3024623/google-dit...

kbenson 8y ago
> In fact, it was not Debian's wording, but Greg Kroah-Hartman's Ah, thanks for the correction. I was under the impression it was Debian speaking. I still think it's an odd way to describe the group in question (those running vanilla kernels), but there's less negative connotation since the obvious benefactor of that wording wasn't responsible for the statement. That said, it's clear that some of my prior statements were erroneous. > Interestingly, Google ditched Ubuntu for Debian in January 2018[2], which means, that the entire Google internal engineering environment is now based on Debian. Interesting. I wonder if they did an easy-upgrade for the Goobuntu installs, or if it's just for new installs. To my knowledge, Google has a recommended Linux distro, and developers can choose it or choose another supported distro if they have reason (i.e. There are devs running windows and OS X). In that type of situation, I would think some portion of developers might have switched quickly, others as they had problems and needed a reinstall, and finally new hires. There's probably a good mix of the two distros, which will shift towards the new one consistently over time. It will undoubtedly increase install numbers though, as it's not a small amount of people. I still wish we had some better numbers on this. :/

by krn 8y ago

kbenson 8y ago

> In fact, it was not Debian's wording, but Greg Kroah-Hartman's Ah, thanks for the correction. I was under the impression it was Debian speaking. I still think it's an odd way to describe the group in question (those running vanilla kernels), but there's less negative connotation since the obvious benefactor of that wording wasn't responsible for the statement. That said, it's clear that some of my prior statements were erroneous. > Interestingly, Google ditched Ubuntu for Debian in January 2018[2], which means, that the entire Google internal engineering environment is now based on Debian. Interesting. I wonder if they did an easy-upgrade for the Goobuntu installs, or if it's just for new installs. To my knowledge, Google has a recommended Linux distro, and developers can choose it or choose another supported distro if they have reason (i.e. There are devs running windows and OS X). In that type of situation, I would think some portion of developers might have switched quickly, others as they had problems and needed a reinstall, and finally new hires. There's probably a good mix of the two distros, which will shift towards the new one consistently over time. It will undoubtedly increase install numbers though, as it's not a small amount of people. I still wish we had some better numbers on this. :/