Results of GrADS Platform Survey

[Arlindo da Silva]

Dear GrADS Users,

   As promised, here are the results of the GrADS Platform Survey. I'd like
to thank all the 136 respondents. Here are some of the highlights:

1. It is good to find out that people have embraced GrADS v2.0, despite the
fact that it is still branded as an "alpha release". Those who have used
GrADS v2.0.a7 would agree with me that this is no alpha grade software;
GrADS v2.0 has been very reliable and is getting used more and more in
production mode. Congratulations Jennifer and Brian for a job well done!

2. As expected, most people use pre-compiled binaries. Of those building
from sources (about 30%), half relied on pre-compiled supplibs, the other
half are brave enough to build all from scratch. Most people (59%) get their
binaries from COLA, followed by 51% who use our sourceforge site. (Notice
that the percentages add to more than 100% because some people get binaries
from both COLA and sourceforge, say Linux from COLA and Windows from
sourceforge).

3. Of those using the OpenGrADS releases, the extensions are the most
popular feature (81%). PyGrADS is being used by 30% of the OpenGrADS users,
followed by Perl, TCL and PHP interfaces. This is somewhat expected because
the Perl/TCL/PHP interfaces are more often used server-side, while PyGrADS
has a command line and tend to be used on client desktops.

4. Most people use GrADS on desktops (81%), followed by laptops (44%) and
servers (32%). Two people reported running GrADS on a PocketPC. I am curious
about that.

5. The fact that Linux, Windows and Mac OS X are the most popular operating
systems comes as no surprise. However, only 40% of the respondents use
Windows, compared to 95% of people who reported using Linux. This is very
different from our download statistics at sourceforge which sows that nearly
70% of the downloads are for Windows, and only 20% for Linux. One
explanation could be that most people obtain their Linux builds from COLA,
biasing the stats at sourceforge.

6. Of those using Windows, XP is the most popular version, with Windows 7
quickly getting close to Windows Vista. A few people are still using Windows
95/98 and even one person reported using MS-DOS! I'd like to remind you that
the next cygwin major release will drop support for Windows 95 and we may
forced to drop support for it as well.

7. On the Mac OS X side, most people are using Leopard, followed by the
recently released Snow Leopard version. The great majority are on an Intel
platform, with 17% still having PowerPC hardware. The OpenGrADS project has
not released PPC builds for v2.0.a7.oga.3, and unless we hear from you no
such build will be made. COLA continues to make PPC releases.

8. On the Linux side, there is a good mix among all the major Linux distros.
The OpenGrADS Project has released generic Linux i686 and x86_64, and as I
far as we can tell these work well across a number of distros. If you are
curious, we build the i686 binaries on RHEL and the x86_64 on Suse.

  Thanks again for taking the time completing the survey, and thanks to the
folks at Google for the nice survey software. The detailed results follow.

   Cheers!

      Arlindo


               GrADS Platform Survey 2009

Which versions of GrADS do you regularly use?
GrADS v1.700%GrADS v1.82720%GrADS v1.95440%GrADS v1.1021%GrADS v2.010074%Don't
know.43%
People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more
than 100%.
Do you build your own version of GrADS or download pre-compiled binaries?
I build my own GrADS (using pre-compiled supplibs)1310%I build my own GrADS
from scratch1612%I download pre-compiled binaries10376%None of the above,
someone else installed it for me1612%
People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more
than 100%.
Where do you download GrADS from?
COLA website7759%Sourceforge (OpenGrADS)6751%From my OS distribution54%Other
32%I don't know, someone else installed it for me118%
People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more
than 100%.
If using the OpenGrADS builds, which of the following do you regularly use?
Extensions (re, fish, gxyat, shape, etc)4481%Python Interface
(PyGrADS)1630%Perl
Interface (Gerl)47%PHP Interface36%TCL Interface24%
People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more
than 100%.
Which kind of device do you run GrADS on?
Desktop11081%Server3224%Notebook (screen larger than 10")5641%Netbook (10"
screen or smaller )43%iPhone/iPOD touch00%Pocket PC21%Other118%
People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more
than 100%.
Which operating system do you run GrADS on?
Microsoft Windows5440%Mac OS X2317%Linux i686 (32 bits)7152%Linux x86_64 (64
bits)5843%FreeBSD i686 (32 bits)32%FreeBSD amd (64 bits)32%Solaris64%SGI
IRIX32%IBM AIX43%Other86%
People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more
than 100%.
If running GrADS on Microsoft Windows, which version?
Windows 95, 98, ME35%Windows NT00%Windows 200000%Windows XP4580%WIndows
Vista1730%Windows 7814%MS-DOS12%Other35%
People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more
than 100%.
If running GrADS on Mac OS X, which version?
Tiger (10.4) PowerPC14%Tiger (10.4) Intel28%Leopard (10.5) PowerPC416%Leopard
(10.5) Intel1976%Snow Leopard (10.6)832%Other00%
People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more
than 100%.
If running GrADS on Linux, which distribution?
Debian1111%Ubuntu2928%Fedora3332%RedHat Enterprise3130%CentOS2121%Mandriva4
4%Suse2525%Gentoo33%Slackware22%Arch Linux11%Xandros00%Other77%
People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more
than 100%
-- 
Arlindo da Silva
dasilva at alum.mit.edu
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