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| URL | http://distrowatch.com/ |
| Commercial? | Yes |
| Registration | No |
| Available language(s) | English, Hindi, Spanish, French, German, Swedish, Japanese, Farsi |
| Owner | Ladislav Bodnar |
| Launched | May 31, 2001 |
| Alexa rank | 69938 |
| Revenue | Advertisement |
DistroWatch is a website which provides news, popularity rankings, and other general information about various Linux distributions as well as other free software/open-source operating systems such as OpenSolaris and BSD. It now contains information on several hundred distributions.[1] It was originally published on May 31, 2001, and is maintained by Ladislav Bodnar.[2]
The site maintains extensive comparison charts detailing differences between the package sets and software revisions of different distributions. It also provides some general characteristics of distributions such as the price and the supported processor architectures.[3] There is also a Distrowatch weekly (often abbreviated DWW) that comes out on Monday "as a publication summarising the happenings in the distribution world on a weekly basis".[4] As of 17th November 2008, 51/2 years and 278 issues later, Ladislav has decided to step down from the post of the editor for DWW. Ladislav says he will still continue "bringing you the latest release news and to keep all distribution pages up-to-date"[5] while the DWW will be written by Chris Smart.[6]
Distrowatch has a monthly donations programme, a joint initiative between DistroWatch and two online shops selling low-cost CDs and DVDs with Linux, BSD and other open source software. Since the launch of the Donations Programme in March 2004, DistroWatch has donated a total of $17,283 USD to various open source software projects.[7]
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Accuracy
Despite Bodnar saying "I'd like to believe that there is some truth in the figures, but in all honesty, they really don't mean all that much and should not be taken very seriously",[8] DistroWatch's statistics are often cited as a guide to the popularity of various distributions. Its "page hit counter" has been called "the best 'barometer' of Linux distributions on the Internet".[9]
It has been pointed out that DistroWatch's system is prone to fraudulent statistics, and certain distros have been accused of attempting this, such as Ubuntu[10] and Freespire.[11]
Current Distro Statistics
Long-term
| Year | Rank | Top Distros | Hits Per Day | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002[12] | 1 | Mandrake | 473 | Currently called Mandriva |
| 2 | Red Hat Linux | 453 | ||
| 3 | Gentoo | 326 | ||
| 4 | Debian | 311 | ||
| 5 | Sorcerer | 253 | ||
| 2003[13] | 1 | Mandrake | 770 | |
| 2 | Red Hat Linux | 631 | ||
| 3 | Knoppix | 489 | ||
| 4 | Gentoo | 460 | ||
| 5 | Debian | 428 | ||
| 2004[14] | 1 | Mandrake | 1457 | |
| 2 | Fedora | 1202 | Community-based Red Hat Linux | |
| 3 | Knoppix | 910 | ||
| 4 | SUSE | 858 | ||
| 5 | Debian | 832 | ||
| 2005[15] | 1 | Ubuntu | 2546 | |
| 2 | Mandriva | 1664 | ||
| 3 | SUSE | 1451 | ||
| 4 | Fedora | 1211 | ||
| 5 | MEPIS | 1145 |
|
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| 2006[16] | 1 | Ubuntu | 2640 | |
| 2 | openSUSE | 2027 | Community-based SUSE Linux | |
| 3 | Fedora | 1444 | ||
| 4 | MEPIS | 1045 | ||
| 5 | Mandriva | 1015 | ||
| 2007[17] | 1 | Ubuntu | 2519 | |
| 2 | PCLinuxOS | 2502 | ||
| 3 | openSUSE | 1596 | ||
| 4 | Fedora | 1332 | ||
| 5 | Sabayon | 1087 | ||
| 2008[18] | 1 | Ubuntu | 2325 | |
| 2 | openSUSE | 1740 | ||
| 3 | Linux Mint | 1458 | Based on Ubuntu | |
| 4 | Fedora | 1376 | ||
| 5 | PCLinuxOS | 1147 |
References
- ^ Distrowatch: Current distributions on database.
- ^ DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
- ^ e.g. see the Red Hat Enterprise Linux page on the web site http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=redhat
- ^ http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20081117
- ^ http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20081117
- ^ http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20081124 DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
- ^ DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
- ^ Groklaw - Some Facts about openSUSE and Distrowatch Figures - A Correction.
- ^ www.zenwalk.org - Pages.
- ^ http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20050404#1
- ^ DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
- ^ DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
- ^ DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
- ^ DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
- ^ DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
- ^ DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
- ^ DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
- ^ DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
