Introduction
The Ubuntu Popularity Contest (or popcon, in short) gathers statistics determining which packages are the most popular with Ubuntu users. Once a week, the popularity-contest package submits data to a central server (http://popcon.ubuntu.com/). The data are then processed anonymously to generate the statistics available on http://popcon.ubuntu.com/.
Popcon's statistics are of big importance to Ubuntu developers. They can use the data to determine which packages to include on the CDs, which bugs need to be fixed first, or to order the results of searches within package managers.
Participating in the Popularity Contest
It is easy to participate in the popularity contest if you are using Ubuntu Edgy or higher, because it is already installed on your machine by default. This means that all you need to do is enable it.
- Click System → Administration → Software Sources
Click on the "Statistics" (screenshot) tab
- Tick the "Submit statistical information" checkbox
- That's it. Click "Close" to close the window.
Most used packages
You can know the packages most used by you, with the following (requires several seconds):
popularity-contest | less
The packages are listed from the most recent used.