[undertow]

  The year of the Linux desktop was brought about by Android.

Oh, right. Ubuntu had nothing to do with it. Definitely not back in April of 2008, with LTS 8.04. No way. It was Android. The mobile operating system intended for smart phones was what brought the Linux desktop to everyone.

[zanny]

Well of course it brought Linux to everyone, it was actually in stores and people bought it.

The number one failing of the "year of the Linux desktop" is the fact that is no channel through which your mother would ever get an Ubuntu computer. They just do not exist in the purview of 90% of the market. And it will take Canonical throwing money at getting Ubuntu computers in stores to fix that.

[bdcravens]

I've dealt with a lot of overseas developers running Ubuntu, but other than that, not sure how often I've seen it in the wild. Compared with the dozens or hundreds of Android phones I see every day. Many spend more time on their phone than on their computer, so I think it's fair to call it the "new desktop"

[staunch]

There are 1+ billion Android users. Are there even 1 million Ubuntu desktop users? I'm one of them.

[phaemon]

Yes, from wikipedia: In 2015, Canonical's Ubuntu Insights page stated "Ubuntu now has over 40 million desktop users and counting"

Probably based on the number of hits to the repositories (so it would obviously be a minimum number).

[giovannibajo1]

Not to be picky, but that number includes servers too, where it is widely used.

[phaemon]

Since they specifically say Desktop, I'm guessing they're measuring updates to stuff that's only on the Desktop (say, Unity or something).

[staunch]

Without disclosing how they came to that number it's just marketing puffery. I doubt it would hold up to scrutiny. But even 4 million active Ubuntu desktop users would be impressive.

[phaemon]

The blog entry at:

http://jspaleta.livejournal.com/42464.html

estimated (in 2009) the number of Fedora users at around 16 million. I think Ubuntu has more users than Fedora had then.