Distrowatch is objective the hit ranking?

I do a lot of Linux, so I often visit the Distrowatch page. The site is a web directory of Linux distributions. You can search for the distribution you are interested in and find out if it meets your needs. The site is updated daily with new releases and open source applications

Hit Ranking now using Distrowatch is a method of evaluating the interest in distros hosted on the website. Essentially the service counts the accepted by each distribution, highlighting the ones that interest most users.

This feature of the page, has occasionally made the apple dispute between large distributors claiming the first places as it is just a clicks counter of the page of each distribution. The page displays data per year, month, 30 days, week, etc.

Although there are many who consider DistroWatch to be an unbiased source of Linux popularity , what no one can dispute is the site's age and completeness. The page has been aimed at Linux fans for years, features almost every distribution released, and adds every new distribution released by developer requests.

This means that most clicks come from Linux geeks. But are the ranks representative?

Let's talk about the new EndeavourOS distribution.

This is a new distribution based on Arch Linux, born after the end of the Antergos distribution.

The distribution history states:

When the popular distribution of Antergos (2012-2019) ceased to grow in May of 2019, it left behind a useful and extremely friendly community. Inside the community was proposed the idea of ​​keeping the community alive in the spirit of Antergos, an easy-to-use Arch installer and a friendly and helpful community. The idea was supported by many friends, and so within a week a small group was created. By the end of May, a concise plan was presented to the community.

EndeavourOS was launched on July 15 of 2019.

Distrowatch

The above image shows a publication in the distribution forum. As you can see one of the distribution programmers says:

“Please vote for it awaiting review on Distrowatch”

Let's talk about hit ranking:

The above example comes from a small Linux community, which distribution has not yet been added to the Distrowatch lists. Small community means few members, few votes. What can happen to larger communities? I never mentioned Hit Ranking as a reliable method of evaluating each distribution, since it is more of a "traffic meter" on a site that only deals with Linux. But are the measurements reliable?

Probably not.

Alternative;

If you try to find other ranking, a good source is the Alexa. You can just search for it of the distribution you are interested in and you will find a more reliable ranking.

For example https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/debian.org

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Written by giorgos

George still wonders what he's doing here ...

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