Distrowatch: Dubious Distro Rankings

[imgeka]

1) Linux Mint with its different flavours is treated as one distro, whereas Ubuntu and its different flavours are treated as separate distros. If Ubuntu with its different flavours had been treated as one distro, as in the case of Linux Mint, Ubuntu would most likely top the rankings.

2) I have had perfectly legitimate negative reviews - formulated in accordance with the guidelines - of distros climbing the rankings rejected by Distrowatch.

3) There is nothing to prevent developers from engineering a run on Distrowatch with a view to manipulating the ranking of their own distro. I suspect that this is a common practice amongst developers behind emerging distros.

Bottomline: take the Distrowatch rankings with a pinch a salt.

[thenailedone]

As they would say in Game of Thrones; "It is known."

[yetimon_64]

... "It is known."
Yep, for quite a long time now. I have been active here since 2010 and remember many comments posted here on how "flawed" the idea of using distrowatch, as a measure of a distos "popularity", is; usually in response to a claim of distro "xyz" being "better" than ubuntu etc.

This is probably the first time though from memory someone is posting on how unreliable distrowatch is rather than using it to claim how good some other distro (quite often mint in past postings) is, only to have the reality of the situation explained to them :-).

I haven't used distrowatch to find or download distros for many years now so am not familiar with its current state of reliability or how it is being managed. It seemed like a useful tool for discovering/researching new distros etc, provided you don't take the rankings aspect too seriously, when I was using it.

Cheers, yeti.

[monkeybrain20122]

I think a lot more people know about Ubuntu than distrowatch. I have been using Ubuntu for a few years before I know about DW. So, that means many Ubuntu users would not visit DW in the first place, and DW's ranking is based on clicks. Not a very scientific methodology to rank popularity of distros if you ask me.

[VMC]

Now that Manjaro has taken over top spot, Mint viewers are a tad bit upset, saying that there is questionable page hits. After Mint overtook Ubuntu not a word mentioned.
What peeves me, is outside of DW, many reviews consider DW as the gold standard?! . Are they for real. Visit real download sites for comparisons.

I do have both Ubuntu & Manjaro, and its a tossup as to which is best. Their both rock solid. Mint is the kitchen sink of Ubuntu. Everything on earth included.

[QIII]

Distrowatch's page hit count is about like counting how many times people at the supermarket pick up and look at the back of cereal boxes, then put them down and move down the aisle to put their favorite brand in their shopping cart.

Those counts are entirely meaningless, but some people mistakenly take them to represent something significant.

[yetimon_64]

Distrowatch's page hit count is about like counting how many times people at the supermarket pick up and look at the back of cereal boxes, then put them down and move down the aisle to put their favorite brand in their shopping cart....

Yes, exactly that ^^^. :)

[malspa]

I think a lot more people know about Ubuntu than distrowatch. I have been using Ubuntu for a few years before I know about DW. So, that means many Ubuntu users would not visit DW in the first place, and DW's ranking is based on clicks. Not a very scientific methodology to rank popularity of distros if you ask me.

Agreed. As I was reading through this thread it struck me that while Arch has been one of my favorite distros for a few years now, it's been a long time since I've had any reason to look at its DW page. So I haven't been helping Arch's ranking at DW, but this can't be all that unusual; if you've been using a distro for a while and you're happy with it, maybe you visit the forums and look at the online documentation and so forth, and maybe you have those sites bookmarked, anyway, but you might not be inclined to click on that distro's DistroWatch page even as often as you look at other distro's DW pages.

Also, some of my favorite distros are ranked very low or aren't even in the top 100. If you go to this page (https://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity) and go down one of the lists to the distros ranked lower than #100, you'll find some real gems, some very useful distributions. Like GParted Live, which I always keep on a flash drive here.

Another thing, a distro will get a lot more page hits at DistroWatch if it has frequent release announcements at DistroWatch than it will get if it doesn't have frequent releases, seems to me.

[thenailedone]

The most memorable thing related to Distrowatch:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GoBAImW8do

[imgeka]

So, now we know how Manjaro made it to number one, and now I know why they rejected my negative reviews.

'I submitted JULinux to distowatch.com on 2009-10-17 and it said when I submitted it that it would be up in less than a year, but now the man who runs the site: ( Ladislav Bodnar distro@distrowatch.com ) says that he doesn't have time to list our distribution on distrowatch.com . When I first talked to him he said to have my users and fans e-mail him requesting that it be listed. Now the website says he needs my users to send him donations and tell him to list it. You might as well not send him any more e-mails because he permanently blocked me from his site, he removed my distro from the waiting list...' (from the description of the video link submitted by the previous poster)

[mastablasta]

the rankings do not have anything to do with distributions, but more with how much people looking distrowatch are interested in certain distribution listed on distrowatch. for example i often check sites from distros with latest stuff installed to see what other new packages they hold, but that doesn't mean that distro is popular or that i use it. same with more frozen distros. i would often have a glance at scientific linux, centos and red hat, but i am not using either of them.

[galacticstone]

It's always been my understanding that those rankings are strictly page hits. Many of these hits could be bots or spiders. There is no way of knowing for sure. Also, for all we know, the rankings are gamed - either by visitors or by the site. Although the rankings seem pretty straight-forward, the process itself could be manipulated by visitor spamming or by site admins. I don't put much stock in it. I don't even pay attention to the rankings. I use the drop-down menu to browse distros and window-shop. I am happy with Ubuntu and have no plans to switch, but like a married man at the beach, I can look. LOL.

[imgeka]

I can speak for myself only: the first Linux distro I tried out was Linux Mint precisely because it topped the rankings; quickly got rid of it because the software store would disappear on me. I believe the ranking list has some sort of psychological impact even if you know that the criteria on which it rests are of a highly questionable nature. Those green and red arrows are definite marketing tools. Ubuntu is number 3 and has neither climbed nor descended on that list; why then the red arrow? Does the red arrow signify the fact that the number of hits is decreasing? Decreasing relative to what? What is the equation? In other words: that ranking list is plain rubbish. And the fact that they ask for donations in order to list new distros just goes to show that it is a money-grabbing scheme rather than an impartial platform for Linux distros.

I think it is important to point out these highly problematic issues, because distrowatch.com is often recommended as a reference tool.

[forrestcupp]

They need to have two sets of rankings. Keep one how it is, but have another set of rankings based on statistics gleaned from detecting the OS people are using when they visit the page. Both rankings would be useful. I'd like to know what people are using, as well as what people are interested in.

[pauljw]

They need to have two sets of rankings. Keep one how it is, but have another set of rankings based on statistics gleaned from detecting the OS people are using when they visit the page. Both rankings would be useful. I'd like to know what people are using, as well as what people are interested in.

I don't think either of the rankings would mean squat. If I were to head over to DW now, it would appear that I'm using Win10 with the Edge browser. Neither of which is true.

[Perfect Storm]

Does it really matter?

[uRock]

I only ever go there to see a list of distros that may be worth trying in a VM. My heart says that Debian should be first, followed by the *ubuntu distros. Debian gets there just for being the distro every other good distro is built upon. Debian is also my fallback for 32 bit machines.

[hrsetrdr]

Distro rankings on DW mean nothing to me, I know what my preferences are, and don't care about what others like.