Quote:
Originally Posted by Speciolution
Yeah I probably need to compromise. I never used a rolling release and just know it from hearing. And the stability does not seem that great. Plus if you don't update in a while the system probably breaks with the next update. Correct me if this is not true.
|
This is not innately true. It CAN happen, and generally with rolling release that have NO additional testing or validation between updates and the users. This is why I prefer Manjaro over ARCH, and SPARKY over DEBIAN SID. That extra team, extra sets of eyes, and estra testing makes if far less likely to roll wrong on you.
Quote:
|
I checked Distrowatch many times but this site just does not seem that reliable.
|
I think you do not mean reliable, because what you describe has nothing to do with reliability and everything to do with accuracy. If you read the site description of what they are really trying to report and the methods used it makes sense. The measurements are likely to be accurate, but they may not be measuring what you assume they are.
Quote:
|
There are request for Distros going back to 2019. The site still looks like from 1995, you never know if it is up to date or not and it is just confusing sometimes. But I will try what you said. I only searched for Gnome so far.
|
A solid and unchanging look and feel is the mark of reliability. You can depend on being able to use and navigate it because while it may have changed on the back end the front end has evolved very slowly just so that you CAN count on it.
Someone else has already detailed a bit about the submission standards and how and when they approve a submission for a distribution entry or change. They do not list every project that had ever been, and that is a GOOD thing. I have been involved in a dozen projects, most of them lived for less than 6 months. The ones that actually last and might be useful CAN get into distrowatch, but the ones that die as fast as they were conceived do not and should not. A very few make the cut in all ways except one. That might be documentation, support, or function. (If no one can actually get it to WORK other than the developer, it should not be listed until that is successfully addressed.)
Distrowatch is the place that lists all of the distributions that are, or have been, successful. Some of those are no longer active, and they have filters for that in the search function so that you can choose to include or exclude inactive distributions from the list.
As an example: I find SOME of the inactive ones PERFECT for certain older hardware platforms that are not well supported by current active distributions. Most of the time I am looking for only active entries with certain features or packages. There is NO OTHER SITE where I can find that information and sort through it to find what I want. Distrowatch is invaluable for me.
Clearly, other people find it invaluable as well, although we do not all use it the same way or look for the same things.
The point of the original suggestion is this: 99% of the time there is no better place to start your search for exactly which distribution you need. Period.
It has been VERY reliable: although there have been short outages due to failures, network issues, or maintenance they have been pretty short and quite rare. You can pretty much count on the site to be there, to have data that might help you, and have links to follow to learn more about the distributions you find interesting.
I hope it, and the comments here, help you.
