Mint #1 on Distrowatch (Last 1 Month)...

[Jesse654]

...at least for the moment.

I've been checking out Distrowatch almost daily. I go to http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mint (not that I want to skew the results toward Mint , then navigate to http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity via their home page (there is a link there to "More statistics..." just below the 100th ranked distro entry on the right).

Yesterday and today Linux Mint showed up as #1 in the last 1 month column.

I say "for the moment" because I've seen lots of fluctuation in the 1 month column. In the last couple of weeks, eg, Debian was 3rd, then went to 2nd (ahead of Mint and behind Ubuntu), then jumped back to 5th and now is at 4th.

The 3 month, 6 month and 12 month columns are much more stable. Their home page defaults to the 6 month figures.

[AlbertP]

Same in Last 7 days. Looks like Mint is overtaking Ubuntu in the last month... (still 2nd in 3 months view)

Ubuntu's red arrow down shows that there were less Ubuntu users the last 30 days (and more Mint). Note that they are very close to each other in the last 30 days view.

[Jesse654]

Ubuntu's red arrow down shows that there were less Ubuntu users the last 30 days (and more Mint). Note that they are very close to each other in the last 30 days view.

Indeed, but these numbers for the 30 day list change very rapidly from what I've seen, so I'm guessing Mint will probably settle into 2nd place again soon. I hope not, as that would show a real change in it's search frequency on Distrowatch, but that's what I'm guessing.

[Jesse654]

Today, Mint seems to be taking off vs. Ubuntu. Perhaps this thread prompted a bunch of people to check it out themselves and precipitated this bump up. So, again, maybe this is only temporary.

OTOH, is Mint on its way to becoming the most popular Linux distro, the 3rd most popular desktop OS in the world?

[AlbertP]

Mint is now 2nd again at the last month's statistics, but first in the last 7 days. As I said before, Mint and Ubuntu are very close to each other, much closer than in the 12 month column, the Mint usage is rising the last year. The same trend is visible at 6 and 3 months. Ubuntu numbers haven't changed that much, and K/X/Lubuntu numbers are decreasing. (But the Ubuntu+Kubuntu+Xubuntu+Lubuntu number is still higher than Mint's)

[Arenalgarden]

Every time Debian has a new stable release it jumps way up due to interest. Then they find out it's the same old Debian, non functioning, FreeDumb song and dance to to the likes of Stallman and co. Then people go somewhere like Ubuntu, Mint, Vector, Saline, Salix etc so they can load up, jump on the net, and go without spending a day searching for those " evil" non free drivers and plugins, etc.

I'm not knocking the Debian developers. They are the best on the planet. I'm knocking the FreeDumb mentality.
No noob could ever attempt to handle Debian "pure" . Thanks to all these other folks for tweaking it so newbies can actually USE it which kicks the Debian project up, if in an indirect way.

[Arenalgarden]

Before I get chastised. I know Vector and Salix are Slack. I'm only commending the guys that make Slack usable for noobz too.

[AlbertP]

Ubuntu is back on #1 in all periods of the Distrowatch stats (except 2004 and before).

[nukm]

Every time Debian has a new stable release it jumps way up due to interest. Then they find out it's the same old Debian, non functioning, FreeDumb song and dance to to the likes of Stallman and co. Then people go somewhere like Ubuntu, Mint, Vector, Saline, Salix etc so they can load up, jump on the net, and go without spending a day searching for those " evil" non free drivers and plugins, etc.

I'm not knocking the Debian developers. They are the best on the planet. I'm knocking the FreeDumb mentality.
No noob could ever attempt to handle Debian "pure" . Thanks to all these other folks for tweaking it so newbies can actually USE it which kicks the Debian project up, if in an indirect way.

Actually, you did knock the Debian developers - the entire Debian community. See http://www.debian.org/social_contract Also, Fedora and that community, Slackware and all of GNU and the Free Software Foundation and RMS with his "FreeDumb" mentality. Now, if one subtracts GNU from the kernel, what's left?

Not much.

[Jesse654]

Mint is now 2nd again at the last month's statistics, but first in the last 7 days. As I said before, Mint and Ubuntu are very close to each other, much closer than in the 12 month column, the Mint usage is rising the last year. The same trend is visible at 6 and 3 months. Ubuntu numbers haven't changed that much, and K/X/Lubuntu numbers are decreasing.

I hadn't noticed that Ubuntu was so stable over 3-6-12 months. I did see that Mint is rising. Your analysis suggests LM is in a position possibly to overtake Ubuntu--perhaps not now, but in the foreseeable future. Maybe the blip to #1 for Mint is a further sign of this?

[randomizer]

Distro releases push a distro higher up for a short period. Wait until Ubuntu 11.04 releases and watch it double in hits in a week.

[AlbertP]

But some time after Ubuntu Natty, Mint 11 wil come. And if you are right, Mint will get popular in Distrowatch then.

[lmintnewb]

Not surprised, nothing against it. But tried ubuntu 10.10 the default layout was horrible. Don't know about the LTS version before 10.10 or this new one 11.04. But 10.10 was a nightmare. Almost had me ready to retreat back to M$, lol.

If you knew my attitude on megacorps like M$, then you'd know how bad it had to be to make me feel like that, lol.

So far finding linux mint to be awesome. Hope the developers behind it and the ubuntu communities keep up the good work. Keep hoping to see the day when linux does to M$ in the personal computing arena. What it did to them in the server arena.

[ThistleWeb]

Distrowatch is about download figures, anytime a major distro has a new release they shoot up in the figures. Ubuntu could easily drop to 4th or 5th at month 5 of their 6month cycle, then shoot way back into 1st when the new version is released on month 6. Fedora always have a good showing when they release a new version too, so does Mint. Rolling distros don't do well in those calculations, because people use a netinstall and keep it updated for years, there is no release, and no rush to download the latest edition.

It's impossible to judge how many users or installs there are anyway. Not every download is even burnt to a CD / DVD or USB to be tried, and not every one that's tried gets installed. The flip side of that is that one download can easily be used to upgrade an entire company network, with that CD duplicated 100's of times for the tech staff to upgrade them all at once.

It's an interesting gauge but nothing definitive. The fact that Mint has been a solid top 5 position for a long time now speaks volumes. In terms of numbers it's a fun and irrelevant battle for 2nd place behind Ubuntu.

[proxima_centauri]

Distrowatch is about download figures...

Not even, just "the average number of [page] hits per day for the specified period."

I mentioned it on another thread, but these types of stats are largely susceptible to a population bias, and as mentioned by others, the results (page hits) are largely influenced by news and release announcements on the main page.

[greennow]

DistroWach.com is not suitable for comparing just the numbers, these numbers are at best an indication. A high number indicates a popular distro and a low number indicates the opposite... thats about it.

Another problem is that DistroWatch is counting all 5 distro versions of Linux Mint as one distro, resulting in unrealistic high score. While distrowatch is counting every ubuntu version separate. Even if the count on DistroWatch would be accurate, then linux mint its counts equals the number of page hits divided by the number of variants: 2198 / 5 = 439. This is even less than slackware (my favorite, but not very populair these days).

Ubuntu counts: 2239 (this is even without the other ubuntu versions e.g. Xubuntu, Kubuntu, mythbuntu, lubuntu etc.)

So Ubuntu keeps being the most populair distro around (but I still don't like it...).

[nunol]

If you check other threads in this forum about Mint and Distrowatch Page Hit Ranking you will find that we already talked about that: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=72394