most popular linux distros

[bobmatino17]

i just wanted to see which distro everyone likes. no K/X/Edu/Myth/Ubuntu because this is the Ubuntu forums.
(The poll is the top ten on Distrowatch, not including Ubuntu.

[Vince4Amy]

Slackware & Fedora.

[dspari1]

www.distrowatch.com

You'll see a list on the right if you scroll down a little. (Page Hit Ranking)

[jimi_hendrix]

arch zenwalk

[DownTown22]

www.distrowatch.com

You'll see a list on the right if you scroll down a little. (Page Hit Ranking)

Well, not really.
That just shows how many times that distro has been clicked on. Doesn't tell you anything about people's favorite one.

[dspari1]

Well, not really.
That just shows how many times that distro has been clicked on. Doesn't tell you anything about people's favorite one.

IMO the amount of times a site has been visited compared to another is correlated with the popularity of the distro.

[Flyingjester]

if ubuntu isn't an option. i'm all about fedora.

[Vince4Amy]

On your Poll you've put CentOS and Fedora separately I would have put them in the same option.

[dspari1]

if ubuntu isn't an option. i'm all about fedora.

Fedora would also be my pick if it wasn't for Ubuntu. It has a pretty decent community too.

[SushiR]

Where is Arch?

[smartboyathome]

Where is Arch?

+1

Also, where is the "Other" option? :confused:

[perlluver]

I voted for Debian, because Slackware is missing in action.

[kelvin spratt]

no Arch

[bobmatino17]

Where is Arch?
I took the most page hits on disrwatch

[Arkenzor]

No Arch, not voting :s.

[smartboyathome]

I took the most page hits on disrwatch

Most page hits != most popular. I use Arch, but never found it nor looked at it on Distrowatch. I think others have done the same.

[kelvin spratt]

The page hits are a joke

[liamnixon]

Slackware & Fedora.

We'd get along quite well! \\:D/

[bobmatino17]

would everyone be happy if i made another pole with an "other" option?

[Vorian Grey]

I have become a huge fan of openSuse. It's very stable and it's so easy to get the latest and greatest software by using the software build service. It is harder to configure than Ubuntu and it has it's quirks, but I find it the best desktop Linux for me at the moment.

I did try Fedora 10 and it's good and all but not really enough different from Ubuntu for me to make a change.

[Arkenzor]

Just keep it going the way it is. It's not like such polls can ever satisfy everyone.

[Raffles10]

Judging by these forums Arch would've won by a mile. :roll:

[jimi_hendrix]

no arch in the poll?

[chucky chuckaluck]

is this thread about which is the most popular distro, or which one is my favorite?

[lukjad007]

Puppy Linux has to be my #2 Linux Distro.

[gnomeuser]

Well I am a Fedora developer... so I think I will have to go with Fedora.

[the8thstar]

I tried OpenSUSE 10.3. It was okay but I missed Ubuntu. I have CrunchBang Linux on another machine.

I never tried Fedora. How is it different from OpenSUSE?

[mips]

Another flawed poll... These things are a waste of time.

[Bart_D]

No Arch, not voting :s.

You clearly did NOT bother paying attention to the criteria for choosing the distros in the poll. This was CLEARLY EXPLAINED in the original post.

[boost3d23]

Correct me if I'm wrong but CrunchBang Linux seems to be becoming popular.

[Arkenzor]

You clearly did NOT bother paying attention to the criteria for choosing the distros in the poll. This was CLEARLY EXPLAINED in the original post.

No, the point is that I have no love whatsoever for any of the distros in the list. I can't really vote for any of them.

[Bart_D]

That would be the correct response.....as opposed to dragging Arch into the discussion, which is what many have done in the thread. Don't make this about Arch. This poll has NOTHING to do with Arch! This is strictly for the Distrowatch top 10+1 popular distributions and guess what....Arch is NOT one of the most popular Linux distributions. The sooner you folks get that through your head the less dismissive you'll become. You may use Arch but the majority of Linux users DO NOT!!!

Correct me if I'm wrong but CrunchBang Linux seems to be becoming popular.

Another guy who didn't pay attention to post number 1.

It's a great distribution, I have it installed in a multi-boot setup and I use it A LOT, BUT It's NOT listed in the Distrowatch top 11(excluding Ubuntu ofcourse)...goodbye Crunchbang.

I see nothing wrong with this poll.

[namegame]

That would be the correct response.....as opposed to dragging Arch into the discussion, which is what many have done in the thread. Don't make this about Arch. This poll has NOTHING to do with Arch! This is strictly for the Distrowatch top 10+1 popular distributions and guess what....Arch is NOT one of the most popular Linux distributions. The sooner you folks get that through your head the less dismissive you'll become. You may use Arch but the majority of Linux users DO NOT!!!



Another guy who didn't pay attention to post number 1.

It's a great distribution, I have it installed in a multi-boot setup and I use it A LOT, BUT It's NOT listed in the Distrowatch top 11(excluding Ubuntu ofcourse)...goodbye Crunchbang.

I see nothing wrong with this poll.

Except for the fact that those distrowatch rankings mean next to nothing...

[gnomeuser]

I tried OpenSUSE 10.3. It was okay but I missed Ubuntu. I have CrunchBang Linux on another machine.

I never tried Fedora. How is it different from OpenSUSE?

The main difference you will feel as a user is that Fedora is much more community driven. The amount of new features you see in each release is larger, Fedora drives a lot of technology. Fedora is generally first with most things, this can lead to a tad instability but the package maintainers are capable people and take bug reports seriously.

Another thing you will notice is that throughout the lifetime of your Fedora install you will get updates, not just for security but major updates. You don't need a backports repo, Fedora lets upstream determine when something is stable and then lets it seep back into the stable repos. This leads to a high number of updates but also lets users count on using the versions that are supported by upstream of any piece of software.

[speedwell68]

If I didn't have Ubuntu, it would have to be Mint.

[smartboyathome]

That would be the correct response.....as opposed to dragging Arch into the discussion, which is what many have done in the thread. Don't make this about Arch. This poll has NOTHING to do with Arch! This is strictly for the Distrowatch top 10+1 popular distributions and guess what....Arch is NOT one of the most popular Linux distributions. The sooner you folks get that through your head the less dismissive you'll become. You may use Arch but the majority of Linux users DO NOT!!!



Another guy who didn't pay attention to post number 1.

It's a great distribution, I have it installed in a multi-boot setup and I use it A LOT, BUT It's NOT listed in the Distrowatch top 11(excluding Ubuntu ofcourse)...goodbye Crunchbang.

I see nothing wrong with this poll.

Distrowatch ratings mean nothing. They just calculate how many people visit the distro's page. I remember, once, PCLinuxOS held a clicking campaign where everyone was incouraged to click their link on Distrowatch, and many did it several times. This inflated their ranking quite a bit, and as a result the top ten was skewed.

So, just because Arch isn't in the top 10 doesn't mean that the majority doesn't use it. Check around here and around the Arch forum to see how many users actually do use it.

[doorknob60]

No Arch, so I proclaim that this is a crappy poll :-P (JK of course). But yeah, Arch is my favorite. I'll go ahead and vote for Debian though since it's my second favorite distro.

[handy]

My only vote is Arch.

[andrew.46]

Slackware of course: oldest and still the best :-). One of the distros that requires you to think, hence its unpopularity with some.

Andrew

[zolookas]

I miss Arch in poll too :(

[Orlsend]

I went Linuxmint cuz I like it and its the closest to Ubuntu.

[will1911a1]

I'd have voted for Arch, but you didn't put it on your poll.

Shame on you. ;)

[Eisenwinter]

Where is Arch?
+1.

Arch needs to be on that list.

[sujoy]

@OP
next time on a poll like this, please include an "OTHER" option

my vote for::
Arch and Slackware

[k2t0f12d]

Done and done again. I vote for DIY Linux (http://www.diy-linux.org/). Nuthin' like from-source from down under. Thanks Greg.

[billgoldberg]

I use Ubuntu and Arch, but since Arch isn't in there I would pick OpenSuse.

I haven't tried it yet but it seems to get positive reviews and I'm going to have to try it out on of these days.

[Whorehay]

Does it really matter if the page rankings are flawed? So are 73.6% of polls according to a scientific study I just made up. I think the idea is to give you a baseline.

Oh, and I like Arch but I wouldn't go as far as saying it's one of the most widely adopted distros.

[badactress]

+1 for Arch. By far the best distro I've ever used. It's just so damn fast on my machine.

[bapoumba]

Moved to Recurring Discussions.

[ktzqbp]

This poll defines fail.

+1 Arch.

[Skripka]

That would be the correct response.....as opposed to dragging Arch into the discussion, which is what many have done in the thread. Don't make this about Arch. This poll has NOTHING to do with Arch! This is strictly for the Distrowatch top 10+1 popular distributions and guess what....Arch is NOT one of the most popular Linux distributions.

And you know what? Over the last 30 days, Arch is #8 on DistroWatch. Pffffffffffffffffft.



No Arch, no vote. [-X

[C!oud]

And you know what? Over the last 30 days, Arch is #8 on DistroWatch. Pffffffffffffffffft.


That's hardly a way to measure usage statistics. Otherwise this is like the 5th "most popular linux distro" poll this week and this time there isn't even an option for Other :( because I prefer Gentoo.

[Skripka]

That's hardly a way to measure usage statistics. Otherwise this is like the 5th "most popular linux distro" poll this week and this time there isn't even an option for Other :( because I prefer Gentoo.

It is too. That metric agrees with my perspective-therefore I am right. Ho Ho Ho, I say.

[the8thstar]

The main difference you will feel as a user is that Fedora is much more community driven. The amount of new features you see in each release is larger, Fedora drives a lot of technology. Fedora is generally first with most things, this can lead to a tad instability but the package maintainers are capable people and take bug reports seriously.

Another thing you will notice is that throughout the lifetime of your Fedora install you will get updates, not just for security but major updates. You don't need a backports repo, Fedora lets upstream determine when something is stable and then lets it seep back into the stable repos. This leads to a high number of updates but also lets users count on using the versions that are supported by upstream of any piece of software.

Thank you for this thorough explanation. I think I read somewhere on the forums that you are a Fedora dev, aren't you? Still, that was nice of you to take the time to explain. I think I'm gonna try Fedora next.