DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics in 2008 and 2009

[bmarkus]

There is an interesting article at http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20100104#stats written by Ladislav Bodnar.

Just two quots:

Among the small distributions, the previously highly rated Damn Small Linux has fallen off the radar due to its prolonged inactivity, with Puppy Linux accepting the role as the most popular mini-distribution.

and

However, if I had to single out one distribution that was the shining star of the past year, I would pick Arch Linux. Although designed for intermediate Linux users, many seem to be attracted to the idea of a "rolling-release" distribution which is installed once and kept up-to-date throughout its lifespan via daily package updates. This is, in a way, a Gentoo of binary distributions, minus extensive time required for compiling software and without the complexity of many under-the-hood features.

[bigpcman]

There is an interesting article at http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20100104#stats written by Ladislav Bodnar.

However, if I had to single out one distribution that was the shining star of the past year, I would pick Arch Linux. Although designed for intermediate Linux users, many seem to be attracted to the idea of a "rolling-release" distribution which is installed once and kept up-to-date throughout its lifespan via daily package updates. This is, in a way, a Gentoo of binary distributions, minus extensive time required for compiling software and without the complexity of many under-the-hood features.

This sounds like nervana. I wonder if it actually works in practice. Anybody have any expeience with this?

[alu]

i did use archlinux once because of the comfort to have one distribution that you theoretically never uninstall and that you can maintain easily and quickly; my purpose was to have a small and fast distro for my small cf-card, and to use it as a server only; but then, i have compared the finale size of the installation with my ubuntu (in these years, it was Hardy) server, and came to the conclusion that the size of the installation was quiet the same (around 1,2 GB with the same stuff); still, archlinux booted and behaved quicker than ubuntu; but i came across several problems with pacman, which took me days to solve; so i dropped archlinux, and return to ubuntu... needless to say how happy i am now with tc/mc for server purpose and day-to-day homework

[jur]

I would venture the opinion that puppylinux gets so many hits due to the sheer number of derivatives. There are so many things to keep track of, and to check if new or better versions are available, with an extensive active forum, that the page hits would be inflated perhaps.

Page hits do not equal user base. I no longer use puppy but still look in there from time to time, to see if a bare bones becomes available. I dislike to swallow other people's choice for installed apps. This is where tcl shines.