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Announcing the beta of our User Stats page

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I am pleased to show off a work-in-progress user statistics page that will form part of our new survey system. The old survey was based on google docs which became a bit of a nuisance to manage properly, and it seems it gave people fatigue filling it out. This way, a bunch of information that doesn't change often is easily set by you. It also means you don't need google for something, so that's nice.

To get this out of the way: Why are we not using some script to gather info from your machines? It would take me far longer to learn how to do that and to be honest, the time and effort involved in getting that would probably not be worth it. I also have doubts about how many people would even do it.

I allowed my Patreon supporters to get an early look at it, but I am now pleased to offer all of you a look at this in-progress system.

It uses the data gathered by peoples profiles (so go update them).

The chart/graph system uses the SVGGraph library (same one we use for the GOTY award), which is under the LGPL v3 license. I have been tinkering away at it for a few days, and I personally think it's starting to look pretty cool.

It will probably get wiped a few times along the road, so if you see it blank or come up with errors it will be worth waiting a few minutes to try again.

What is good about it, is that it will automatically run via a cronjob and then store the output in a database. Currently I run it manually, as it's being worked on often to include new graphs and adjust existing graphs. When more complete, it will hopefully run once a month.

No user information (not even your username) is gathered for it, so the results are completely anonymous (honestly they are!).

It will also be possible to include them easily in an article, since I already have that coded in from the GOTY award.

On top of that, it will store each generation separately, so it will be easy to compare and include previous ones :). When I come up with a nice way to do it, I will allow you to select a date to view the statistics of.

Finally, the distribution dropdown list has been moved to the bottom of the User Control Panel to sit with the rest of the PC info section. Makes more sense that it is there. I have also updated the code behind that to make it easier to add more distributions. We also recently added a few like SteamOS and Solus.

Update: You can now set your PC Info to private from your User Control Panel, so it will hide it from profiles and not display a link to grab it in comments.

Check out the user statistics page here.

Let me know what you think for this early WIP preview.

This is only the start of the new system, there will eventually be a monthly page for anonymous users (without needing to be registered/logged in) to fill a survey. This is much easier to do for now to show actual results right away as a proof of concept.

If you like seeing stuff like this, support me on Patreon to allow me to have more time to do it! If you can't, that's cool, if you don't want too, that's cool too! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly.
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48 comments
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hardpenguin May 30, 2016
That is quite handy to use! Good job!
opera May 30, 2016
Nice. Last both graphs have the same title btw.
Liam Dawe May 30, 2016
Quoting: Stupendous ManIt would be nice if the amount of RAM on the graph was ordered numerically by amount, instead of number of users with X amount. Makes for easier comparison :-)
I could look at adding an option in to adjust the sorting on that graph, it's probably the only graph that would need it.

Will reply to any others later/tomorrow, it's nearly half 10PM here and I haven't eaten dinner yet...
Nel May 30, 2016
Quoting: liamdaweWe store a date and time for last logins, it won't capture results for people who haven't come back in a while. Have yet to code that in, as the entire system is so new it won't matter for now. I agree it's needed though.
OK, nice. :)
ChuckDaniels87 May 30, 2016
I really like this idea. I've got just one suggestion: use a better colour palette. There are some palettes used by other libs (matplotlib, seaborn,...) that could give a more homogeneous and nicer look to the graphs:

- husl (link

- ColorBrewer (link

- cubelix (link

There is interesting info about palettes in matplotlib documentation (link.
no_information_here May 30, 2016
Good work. I can see that you will be adding more features as you go.

QuoteNo user information (not even your username) is gathered for it, so the results are completely anonymous (honestly they are!).
You may not be collecting this info, but it is freely available on the user page and can be scraped by anyone on the internet. Personally, I won't enter my info into this form unless I can prevent it from being public. Just a thought, if you want to get more people to participate (anonymously).

I appreciate the intentions, though!
Liam Dawe May 30, 2016
Quoting: noinformationhereGood work. I can see that you will be adding more features as you go.

QuoteNo user information (not even your username) is gathered for it, so the results are completely anonymous (honestly they are!).
You may not be collecting this info, but it is freely available on the user page and can be scraped by anyone on the internet. Personally, I won't enter my info into this form unless I can prevent it from being public. Just a thought, if you want to get more people to participate (anonymously).

I appreciate the intentions, though!
Yes, profiles can be looked at of course, but I am talking purely in regards to this page right now. The information behind the stats page does not store user_id's, usernames or anything. Only the overall counter for each bit.

Anyone who is that worried that their profiles are being scraped wouldn't enter anything anyway. To be honest, I am surprised anyone that wary is even signed up on here at all.

As said before, this is just the start of the system.


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 30 May 2016 at 10:42 pm UTC
Ben D May 30, 2016
Looks interesting. So far, my machine is middle of the pack in everything.
Though, like ChuckDaniels87, I think it could use a better color palette.
Liam Dawe May 30, 2016
Quoting: ChuckDaniels87I really like this idea. I've got just one suggestion: use a better colour palette. There are some palettes used by other libs (matplotlib, seaborn,...) that could give a more homogeneous and nicer look to the graphs:

- husl (link

- ColorBrewer (link

- cubelix (link

There is interesting info about palettes in matplotlib documentation (link.

The colours (apart from Intel, AMD and Nvidia which are manually done to the vendors known colouring) are built into the script. It may not be that easy to override the defaults with a new set.


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 30 May 2016 at 10:44 pm UTC
Kuduzkehpan May 31, 2016
this is awesome and more accurate then steams never happening survey form.
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