this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
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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

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

Do you have a better way of measuring it?
In what direction would voluntary self-reporting of all system specs skew the display server statistic (and why)?

[–] [email protected] 105 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Do you have a better way of measuring it?

No better way of measuring doesn't mean this is a good way of measuring.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

What way do you imagine would be more precise?

[–] [email protected] 48 points 6 months ago (2 children)

A method that attempts to collect data from a randomized or representative population rather than relying on self-report.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The fact that you need consent to get this data would make a randomized approach impossible.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yes. It just may be possible that accurate poll data on such things isn't possible.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Steam hardware survey but that will skew towards gamers. That said, it would be a good indicator on how compatible Wayland is.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The Steam hardware survey will skew towards whatever it is the Steamdeck uses in the surveyed categories.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] -2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Could always go for opt-out instead opt-in metrics. Fedora had some recent controversy with it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Yeah, this is pretty textbook selection bias.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (2 children)

What way do you imagine would be more precise?

Unavoidable analytics, apparently. Yay?

[–] refalo 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Tbf a lot of that stigma has to do with trust violation.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I imagine people who care about this sort of thing are more likely to report it. And people who care about this sort of thing are also more likely to be early adopters and go through the effort of switching to Wayland.

The way to get a more random sample is not something I want (built-in, automatic telemetry by default). So I'm fine with having skewed data for something like this.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

Its a pretty good survey and has a good sample size. Statistics is hard. I won't take the criticism too seriously.