Ubuntu no longer NO1 on distrowatch!

Submitted by libervisco on Thu, 2006-12-14 00:48.

Can you believe it? After more than a year of being absolutely at the top of distrowatch ranks I've been told that Ubuntu fell to the second place, and after checking it out, indeed, OpenSUSE replaced it.

This is extremely interesting considering all the furor that went down because of the Novell-MS deal where many people in the community started talking about leaving SuSE, even outcasting it from the community. Yet, after a single release since the news of the deal, OpenSUSE generates enough interest to outrank Ubuntu. It is either that the OpenSuSE 10.2 is just so good that it can't be ignored or negative news contributed to the rise of popularity.

It should be notable, after all, that OpenSUSE is indeed a separate project from Novell, even if it is founded by Novell. It is a separate community making an excellent distribution. All I can say then is.. Go OpenSUSE! Ubuntu has been on the throne long enough. Eye-wink

If OpenSUSE, as a community project, outshines Novell itself, it can only be seen as a good thing. It shows the power and value of community run projects.

EDIT: It appears that they shuffle. Ubuntu is back on the first slot and OpenSUSE second. It wouldn't be surprising for them to switch again. Who knows what will it end up at in the end?

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Submitted by a thing on Thu, 2006-12-14 15:52.

IIRC Distrowatch ranks are based on how many hits go to that distro's page. The negative news would bring that up, but not necessarily bring up the distro's usage.

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I think that's true. The

Submitted by libervisco on Thu, 2006-12-14 22:32.

I think that's true. The distrowatch ranks are closer to "mind share" than "market share" which doesn't exactly guarantee that all of this "mind share" or awareness of a certain distro is always positive.

It does reflect the general popularity of the distro when it sticks around a certain rank for a long time, like Ubuntu did, which probably does have the biggest market share as well in reality.

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