Article: Ubuntu - the new #1 distribution

[bored2k]

Ubuntu Linux - the new number one distribution

Ubuntu As many of you noticed, Ubuntu Linux overtook Mandrakelinux in our Page Hit Ranking (PHR) statistics last Sunday. For those of you who are new to DistroWatch, the PHR statistics provide data about the number of times each distribution-specific page on DistroWatch is accessed - a very non-scientific way of gauging the popularity of various distributions. Over the last few months, the Ubuntu page has been consistently getting over 3,000 visits per day from unique IP addresses, twice as much as its nearest challenger. Of course, there have been concerted efforts by several Ubuntu user communities around the world to drive their favourite distribution to the top as fast as possible, so take the new ranking with a grain of salt.

That's not to say that Ubuntu does not deserve the top spot; in fact, with the current interest in the project it will be very hard for any distribution to get anywhere near Ubuntu's page view figures, let alone to beat them. Ubuntu has clearly won over many users of other operating systems and has quite possibly become the fastest growing Linux distribution of all times. What its competitors can do right now is to learn from Ubuntu's success and incorporate some of the project's ideas into their own work. Building solid support infrastructure (user forums, mailing lists, Wikis, translation framework) with active participation of the distribution's developers is absolutely essential for any project that intends to grow. Having a fixed release schedule and clearly stated support period (without changing them every few months) is equally important. It is amazing how many distributions neglect these two basic characteristics, then wonder why users start looking elsewhere!

Congratulations to Ubuntu. Not so much for rising to the top spot in our distribution ranking, but rather for their dedicated development effort and for devising what surely is one of the most exciting Linux projects ever created!


http://img232.exs.cx/img232/5922/ubuntu504small5pn.png
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20050404#1



:-D Ubuntu is taking over :-P

BTW, "Of course, there have been concerted efforts by several Ubuntu user communities around the world to drive their favourite distribution to the top as fast as possible, so take the new ranking with a grain of salt." who's been cheating :-k ?

[defkewl]

BTW, "Of course, there have been concerted efforts by several Ubuntu user communities around the world to drive their favourite distribution to the top as fast as possible, so take the new ranking with a grain of salt." who's been cheating :-k ?

Now that point is quite interesting. Or is it just another jealousy comments?

[bored2k]

Now that point is quite interesting. Or is it just another jealousy comments?
I think it's jealousy or disbelief at how fast it is growing. I have never seen here a plan to do what they say, being this THE place for ubuntu users to meet and share info. I did saw a dude once that was asking others for thoughts on creating a script to automatically log in ubuntu website, but quickly me and some others said that would be cheating and there is no point in cheat ourselves to #1, none at all.

But again, I have never seen a group of people, or anyone do this. I hardly ever go to the website [why would I? most of the information is here!], but when I go, it is never for cheating purposes.

Is there anyone on this forums cheating like they say we do? Nothing will happen :-P, I just want to know if such people exist.

[Buffalo Soldier]

I did saw a dude once that was asking others for thoughts on creating a script to automatically log in ubuntu website, but quickly me and some others said that would be cheating and there is no point in cheat ourselves to #1, none at all.

But again, I have never seen a group of people, or anyone do this. I hardly ever go to the website [why would I? most of the information is here!], but when I go, it is never for cheating purposes.

Is there anyone on this forums cheating like they say we do? Nothing will happen :-P, I just want to know if such people exist.I remember reading that post/thread too. And yes most that replied do not support it. Maybe I can dig up that thread and post it here later.

But IF there is such an effort. I wish that person/group would stop. It takes away the value of the hits per day.

[bored2k]

I remember reading that post/thread too. And yes most that replied do not support it. Maybe I can dig up that thread and post it here later.

But IF there is such an effort. I wish that person/group would stop. It takes away the value of the hits per day.
I completely agree, but even if that effort is being made by a small group of _fans_, that small distrowatch comment makes everyone reading it to think that maybe Ubuntu is not that good after all, and that it is only number 1 because we log in 30 times a day with different IPs. That is so degrading.

3 Paragraphs saying it is number 1 + 3 lines saying there is a massive group effort [if that group exists, Imma mod in the place where users gather, I should be notices!] = obviously the writer has the hots for Mandrake/Fedora and doesn't want to go down peacefully. But they will see, Ubuntu butter spread over the linux world will not loose much ground for this nonsense!

[bored2k]

I remember reading that post/thread too. And yes most that replied do not support it. Maybe I can dig up that thread and post it here later.

But IF there is such an effort. I wish that person/group would stop. It takes away the value of the hits per day.

Here it is, starting from post #12 [or the second one].
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=18803&page=2&highlight=make+script+auto+click+link

The point was made: we were/are not doing that. Seriously what is wrong with that writer ?

I read distrowatch, a lot. I don't remember reading a text that wasn't a full review degrading a distribution to such level.

I don't know much about journalism, but I tought that, If someone is announcing something -news-, he should remain as imparcial as possible, without giving his LAME -I couldn't care less- parcial opinion. I don't know but I don't remember seeing on TV-CNN "U.S. troops disarmed an iraqui tank full of explosives, but who the hell cares? We're almost in the NBA Playoffs." Disgusting.

[Buffalo Soldier]

Found the post/thread I was talking about earlier. It's the Ubuntu moving up in the world (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=10707&page=2&highlight=ubuntu+3rd+point) thread and specificly post #11 (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=46956&postcount=11). But I don't think the authoer/poster went ahead with the idea. And I don't think it was ever brought up again.

EDIT: Darn bored2k :P I'm 2 minutes late.
EDIT by bored2k: Mine's different ;). I changed your link BTW.

[Ubunted]

I think we (and the author) are missing a bit of simple logic here guys - no "fake click" campaign can make the HPD of another distro go DOWN as Mandrake is. :mrgreen:

[bored2k]

I just sent an email to distro@distrowatch.com, here it is:
bored2k to distro


Hi my name's Rafael, I'm a moderator for the Ubuntu Forums (bored2k) . First of all let me say I love distrowatch (one
of the first websites I open daily), but, let's go straight to the
point. Reading the latest "Distrowatch weekly" emission, particular
your article about Ubuntu becoming #1 , I felt like in some way you,
or the writer of the article was some what disrespectful to Ubuntu,
its developers and all the great things it has done for the Linux
community in a very small period of time.

I don't feel like I need to paste the whole article to you, just
what's important:

> "Of course, there have been concerted efforts by several Ubuntu user
communities around the world to drive their favourite distribution to the
top as fast as possible, so take the new ranking with a grain of salt."
>
We appreciate that you fully understand how good of a distribution
Ubuntu really is, but we were very disheartened to read that you think
we enacted a campaign to artificially raise our standings on
Distrowatch. We actively discouraged any artificial means, and we were
appalled to hear you suggest any different. While we take your ratings
with a grain of salt as you have suggested, the sheer number of our
forum users in such a short time should represent just how vibrant and
active our community really is.

In conclusion, I just wanted you to know that in my year or so as a
daily Distrowatch.com visitor, I had never seen an article (that
wasn't a review) giving such a degrading opinion about a distribution
on a news article (the title is: News: Ubuntu Linux - the new number
one distribution ).

Anyway, here is our discussion on this
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=24002 .

[They didn't accept formatting, had to write in plain text].

I hope we receive an answer from them..

P.S. - Yes I so know my english writting sucks, but hey, deal with it.

[poofyhairguy]

Don't worry so much people. I study marketing and "making things look good" all day. I bet the owner of Distrowatch has been getting complaints about being "pro-Ubuntu" because Hoary has so many Array releases and because it moved up so fast in the rankings. If you ever actually look at ads on the site? I go there a lot (stuffing the ballot?) and I see a lot of MEPIS ads and Libranet ads. Other distros based on Debian that are not completely free. It would look bad if the owner of the site was riding a different Debian pony than the ones that are paying the bill.

When Ubuntu leaped ahead in the month scale, the writer of the newsletters mostly slammed Mandrake. Almost saying it deserved to be dropped because it wasn't free.

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20050207

"Thus, the dominance of Mandrakelinux, at least in terms of page visits on this site, is likely to come to an end. This is not surprising. Those of you who remember the good old days of "Mandrake Linux" when the distribution was truly free in every sense of the word, and when "Deno" was still around to drive the Mandrake sentiment (not to mention develop the company's web sites), it used to be a lot more fun."

and

"But by shifting the focus on the economics side of the business, they, together with fans and users of the distribution, will have to accept the inevitable slide in Mandrakelinux's popularity and loss of market share."

So the first time it was like "commercial linux can't win." Again looks pro-Ubuntu. The people paying the bills are Linuxes that are not all free, and therefore the second time around the writer sung a different tune. Saying that "the results are not final" to prevent the place from turning into Ubuntutown in the eyes of the ad buyers who pay for what Ubuntu gets for free on the other side of the page (recognition).

Its bull. The numbers don't lie. Ubuntu is the fastest growing distro at that site and the most used. Viral marketing worked, Ubuntu is kicking the asses of pay-for Linuxes and now the Distrowatch writer has to more careful about what to say to keep his/her own bread.

Just follow the money and you'll find the solution. Though I think its good that you were so happy to uplift a supposed negative part of the community.

[Buffalo Soldier]

hello Mr. Rafael.

[bored2k]

hello Mr. Rafael.
LoL ^_^ .

[bored2k]

Well below is Ladislav Bodnar's reply [distrowatch maintainer]:

Ladislav Bodnar
to me 2:57 am (12 minutes ago)
-
On Tuesday 05 April 2005 14:21, bored2k wrote:
> In conclusion, I just wanted you to know that in my year or so as a
> daily Distrowatch.com visitor, I had never seen an article (that
> wasn't a review) giving such a degrading opinion about a distribution
> on a news article (the title is: News: Ubuntu Linux - the new number
> one distribution ).
-
PROPOSAL: "Ubuntu Promotion" Day?
Countdown to #1 on DistroWatch.com
Congratulations! (for becoming Number One at DistroWatch)
How long before Ubuntu is #1
Ubuntu to take Mandrake tomorrow (April 2)!
For a new distro Ubuntu is... (On distrowatch http://distrowatch.com/)
Ubuntu moves in front on 3 month Distrowatch list
Ubuntu soars!
Ubuntu moving up in the world...

Do the above sentences sound familiar? If not, then let me remind you that
these are just some of the headlines that appeared on UbuntuForums.org in
the last few months. The Spanish and German Ubuntu forums were littered
with similar topics. All drawing attention of users to the DistroWatch page
hit ranking statistics and sometimes even blatantly encouraging readers to
visit the Ubuntu page frequently and "vote".

If you still maintain that there has been no effort whatsoever to drive up
Ubuntu's ranking on DistroWatch than it's because you are blinded with
devotion to your favourite project. Relax, step back, and try to look
objectively at the whole picture before condemning my point of view.

Of course, I replied thanking him for giving us his answer on this.

P.S. - Remember his arguments deserve as much respect as he gave ours, so don't start flaming him buck wild now..

[TjaBBe]

I am excited to hear what their reply to bor2k's mail is. I too see no reason to believe there where efforts from the community to drive Ubuntu up the charts.

I, myself, mostly visit Distrowatch from my work instead of home. So I'm afraid I am more help to FreeBSD then Ubuntu :(.

[im_ka]

i visit distrowatch regularly, and i'm sure that ladislav (the guy who runs dw) is not against ubuntu. in fact, he has even considered to run dw on an ubuntu server.
some mandrake fanboy even accused him pushing ubuntu.

it happened with other distros too that someone tried to boost page hits.

ubuntu is nr. 1 on dw's not really scientific (but important) ranking, and nobody denies ubuntu's success.

[Buffalo Soldier]

Well below is Ladislav Bodnar's reply [distrowatch maintainer]:


Of course, I replied thanking him for giving us his answer on this.

P.S. - Remember his arguments deserve as much respect as he gave ours, so don't start flaming him buck wild now..But those are not a concerted efforts.

Those are efforts, but hardly something concerted or organised.

[gylf]

I doubt there is a single distro forum out there that doesn't have a "We're now ranked X on Distrowatch!!!" post on it. The only true "concerted efforts" I've seen on here are posts encouraging people not to cheat on the rankings...