Distrowatch is a well-known page to Linux friends. It is essentially an online directory that includes explanations of almost every Linux distribution that is released, will be released, or has been released at some point in the past.
The website does not host the distributions themselves on its servers, but links to each project with links. It enables the search and promotion of distributions with many different criteria. It is updated daily with the new versions of each distribution and has an evaluation system (we will talk about the reliability of the following) distributions, which shows the popularity of each project.
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 the majority of clicks come from Linux geeks, so the ranks are probably not so unrepresentative.
So what we noticed last time is one impressive rise of Manjaro Linux.
For those who do not know the operating system, Manjaro is based on Arch Linux and its goal is to make things easier for novice Linux users.
Manjaro's installation is simple and can be done with two different graphical applications but also traditional via the terminal.
In general, Manjaro Linux deserves your attention and leaves a lot of promise for the future.
The myth we found while working with distribution is that rolling releases can be stable and offer reliability.
Manjaro Linux automates many processes that you have to do manually in Arch, which makes distribution quite affordable even for novice users.
This of course has not gone unnoticed by Linux friends, as we see in the Distrowatch ranking the distribution has now reached second place, chasing Mint Linux, which has long been at the top.
But let's look at the rank that Alexa gives. This rank now concerns the global ranking of the website of each project, and is a method used as a metric traffic system. So we can talk about metrics that show the popularity of a website in relation to the rest globally, and no longer among geeks.
So in the pictures below you can see Alexa ranking in the distributions that are first in the Distrowatch ranking: Debian, Manjato and Mint.
The ranking is very different, with Mint clearly ahead of Debian and Manjaro. On the other hand, we notice a decrease in the traffic of the Debian page (pay attention to the graphic), but also the return of traffic to the Manjaro page.
The drop in Debian traffic does not mean that the distribution has ceased to be the favorite of the majority, as this distribution is used as a basis by many other top distributions (Ubuntu, Mint, MX Linux, antiX, Sparky and many others)
In view of all the above, it is probably safe to say that the Mint is rightfully maintaining the first place in the world, and that the Manjaro seems to be preferred by the geeks, as it seems to be rising in the special ranking of the Distrowatch.
The rise of Manjaro in the Distrowatch list, compared to other stable distributions (Ubuntu, Debian, elementary) shows a tendency to adopt the rolling operating system.
The rolling distributions offer software and new cutting edge system updates from time to time, ie the latest update that is released.
Debian again has not stopped occupying the interested parties with its stability, although many times it is "served" with many different brand names.
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