Distrowatch.com
 

How does everyone feel about this site? As I was looking for things like which distro is more popular were are people leaning towards that type of thing. I went on the site I noticed that Slackware was like 9th which means we are slowly growing on popularity. (we are usually on average like 13th). But some of the distro's that are above us I just don't understand why? Unbuntu I understand only because it's like SUPER user friendly.

I experiemented with it I was really happy using it but I realized I am not learning anything about Linux using it. Whereas when I was using slackware. Everyday was like a adventure. Let me spend hours trying to install 1 program. Using slack builds... (which i still can't even do well). The'yre is just something about Slackware that keeps gravitating me to it.

I don't know if it was beacuse someone once told it was a Black Hat hacker's distro of choice or if it was beacuse of it's overall flexibility and control.

My 2 cents..

Don't confuse the page hit ranking on distrowatch.com with popularity; the two don't necessarily correlate. I use Slackware because I want to, not because everyone else is. Not to mention the fact that it's extremely difficult to measure popularity with something as decentralised as Linux. Or indeed measure popularity at all.

How do I feel about distrowatch? The same way I feel about most sites: indifferent. It's there, sometimes I have a look at the news section, most of the time I don't.

An increase in the ranking of Slackware on distrowatch is quite likely to be a side effect of more people searching for it with the imminent release of 13.0 and the recent news about the 64-bit version.

Distrowatch is a good site that provides a valuable service for people wanting to learn about Linux.

I started in Linux with Ubuntu because I read a series of articles in PC World about how user-friendly it is. After a while I thought I wanted something more hands-on and more like the traditional Linux I'd been reading about since the mid-90s. Distrowatch -- despite being somewhat biased toward the thinking that automatic configuration and dependency-checking are necessary -- does a very good job of describing the pros and cons of the different distributions. It was reading about Slackware on Distrowatch that led me to try it.

That was three Slackware versions ago and I couldn't be happier.

Regards,

-Drew

I don't give popularity contests much credibility, though distrowatch does temper its numbers with other factors.

Distrowatch used to have a phrase in their description of Slackware that went something like: "If you want to know how Linux works, ask a Slackware user".
There are pros and cons in that... I used to be a part of the problem that *nix has making inroads to the desktop market.
We celebrated our arcane knowledge to the point that we were viewed as elite. Slackware heavies were (and still are) generally regarded as reliable experts.
Slackware's popularity still suffers from that to some degree through no fault at all of the distro or its creators and contributors; I think its just a holdover of the old way of thinking.
All of the credit for countering that trend (if indeed it ever really existed) has to go to those same folks; Patrick and the rest of the Slackware team.
I've seen the solidity and flexibility of Slackware win over management types that were heavily biased in favor of Windows where other distributions, while initially attractive because of their similarities to Windows or the marketing of paid support options, were ultimately passed over.

I like DistroWatch. The statistics are entertaining, at least, and the distro profiles are concise and precise descriptions of differentiators of all the distros out there. I haven't visited the site for a while, but last time I did (about a year ago, or so) there charaterisations of distros like Slackware and OpenSuSE were to the point.

gargamel

I usually visit distrowatch because of the "Latest Packages" announcements.

I used to, but I just subscribe the rss feed with Claws-mail now. I do enjoy the trolling that takes place in the comments section. Not quite as entertaining as AOLS though ;)

Distrowatch serves a valuable resource to the Linux community. The page hit ranking doesn't honestly mean squat. Ladislav has even stated many times how flawed it is. I love(d) reading the comments when PCLinuxOS was ranked number one. The conspiracy theories were everywhere!

Distrowatch is valuable for finding out about new versions of distros you may be interested in. I check it every day just to see what distros have released something new.
I also like reading the 'distrowatch weekly' every monday. It is good for keeping up with what is going on in the linux world.

I believe we have been up to #3 before. So if anything, the long term trend is we have gone down. The stats are meaningless as they only track where their visitors click. I for one never go there as I never need to read anything about other distros. And everything about slackware is on slackware.com :)

Note that there are many distro's that distrowatch won't tell you about

1 is Ubuntu Satanic Edition
lol, distrowatch hates on them cause their "satanic"
but, yet you will find both christian ubuntu
and muslim ubuntu on distrowatch

kinda biased huh?

I don't think it is biased. Because of mocking, provoking and opposing position held by any "satanic" thing it is considered offensive while both christian and muslim distros are neutral in that sense.

Site itself is good though looks a bit aged.

?
LOL
maybe you don't understand "bias"
?

I think there wouldn't even be Satanic edition if Christian or Muslim editions haven't appeared first. I quit on that.

Christian and Muslim versions are at least trying to fill a legitimate niche. A satanic version is just looking for attention.
It's not bias, it's limiting people's exposure to idiots who are just wasting time and bandwidth.

Well
I hate the Islamic religion
but, I still think it should be available to Muslims
'cause this is America
and if people wanna worship Satan
more power to 'em

That's No Bias:)