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
The Hit Ranking now uses Distrowatch is a method of evaluating interest in distros hosted on the website. Essentially, the service counts the clicks received by each distribution, highlighting the ones that interest the 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.
While there are many who consider DistroWatch as a non-objective source for the popularity of Linux projects, one that can not be denied is the age and completeness of the site. The page has been addressed to Linux friends for years, has almost every release that has been released and adds to any new distribution that is being distributed by developers.
This means that most clicks come from Linux geeks. But are the ranks representative?
Let's talk about the new EndeavourOS distribution.
It is a new distribution based on Arch Linux, born after the end of the distribution Antergos.
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.
Or more picture shows a post on the distribution's forum. As you can see one of the developers of the distribution states:
“Please vote on the project that is awaiting evaluation in 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 results, a good source is it Alexa. You can simply search for the distribution domain you are interested in and find a more reliable ranking.
For example https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/debian.org
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- VLC Media Player vulnerability to the popular application
- Windows 10 Cumulative Updates KB4507466, KB4507465, KB4507467
- Debian 10 Buster a few words about the latest stable release
