LinuxMint Number 1 on Distrowatch

[KBD47]

Ubuntu in 4th place for the past 7 days. Incredible.

Rank Distribution H.P.D*
1 Mint 6572
2 Fedora 3924
3 openSUSE 1980
4 Ubuntu 1947

[rijnsma]

Incredible but not unbelievable. They will learn from their Unity, ext4, Grub2 etc.

[gsmanners]

I recall reading somewhere that most of the visitors to those pages are Windows users, so it makes sense. Those are probably a measure of the number of Windows users who have heard about this "free version of Windows" they can use to upgrade their old computers. Mint does seem like a good choice for people who are used to Windows. The more Windows users who switch to Mint, the more attention Linux can get for things like hardware support, etc. And that helps everybody using Linux, not just Mint. It would be nice to see desktop Linux finally get a decent market share (around ten percent would be cool, twenty or more would be fantastic).

[swiftlinuxcreator]

Linux Mint has now dethroned Ubuntu for the #1 spot in the 12-month count. I think the announcement of the new release candidate of Mint 12 was just enough to boost Mint to the #1 spot. In the short run, the announcement of the official release of Mint 12 will pad Mint's margin over Ubuntu. Given that Ubuntu won't be releasing anything for several months, it will have a hard time reclaiming the #1 spot even for the short-term.

I finally got Unity to work in VirtualBox on my computer by trying out version 11.10 instead of 11.04. When I first looked at Ubuntu 11.10, I wondered what the big deal was about Unity. It looked like there was a menu bar on the left side of the screen instead of the bottom. Then I tried doing stuff. Of course, the pretty purple/pink background is about the only thing in common between the new Ubunu UI and the old one.

The left menu bar has a now-you-see-it-now-you-don't quality that would make multitasking tricky. Then there are the applications (like Firefox) with the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't menu bar at the top of the window. The icon with the Ubuntu logo leads to the big menu for various functions. (I guess this is the mobile interface everyone talks about.)

Gone is the full menu common to the Linux Mint, antiX Linux, Puppy Linux, Damn Small Linux, Windows XP, Windows 98, Windows 95, and even the old Ubuntu. You can't even right-click on the desktop to see the full menu showing most or all of the installed programs.

To add insult to injury, Ubuntu 11.04 and 11.10 feel slow with 2 GB of RAM. This is the Hummer of Linux distros. The old Ubuntu flew with 2 GB of RAM and was roughly as heavy as Windows XP. In contrast, Linux Mint Debian Edition flies with only 512 MB of RAM.

Ubuntu has finally done what would have been inconceivable just a few years ago - it caught up to Windows in the bloatware department. I don't have significant experience with Windows Vista or 7, but I'm sure the new Ubuntu has to be as heavy as Windows 7 and possibly as heavy as Windows Vista.

Now that I've tried out Unity, I'm qualified to say that Ubuntu has jumped the shark. User unfriendly + extremely bloated = EPIC FAIL. While I'm sure the new Ubuntu can be tweaked, people who have the time and know-how to do this would be better off tweaking a bare-bones Debian installation or something like Arch Linux, Gentoo Linux, or Slackware. At least these alternatives would provide a fast and lightweight setup.

Canonical needs to be wildly successful in the mobile market to compensate for the loss of desktop users. I think many more Ubuntu users will defect to Linux Mint and other distros when support for the current LTS version ends in 2013. I don't understand why the same OS needs to work for desktops and mobile devices. Canonical could have continued designing Ubuntu for the desktop and rolled out a separate mobile OS. It could have even borrowed elements of the desktop to make the mobile OS to be more expedient.

I think the Ubuntu controversy is a sneak preview of what's ahead for Windows 8. The average Windows user is even more resistant to change than the average Linux user. I think Windows 8 will be a flop and possibly damage Microsoft even more than Vista did.

[rijnsma]

Yes, I have it still on a partition here. I can use it immediatly if I like.
It is usable if one doesn't have something else anymore. But this is NOT the way.
You can remove it and do something else. Or do Xubuntu or Lubuntu or Ku.....
But I don't like it when a distro does this to it's users...

My experience with Mint for years now is perfectly well. Very few bugs, smooth, many desktops and so fair in
the communication with the user.

I'm very, very happy with the approach of Clem and his crew (MGSE on top of Gnome3 or Mate as alternative).
Have not seen it yet, but I suspect it could be a great way to go.
Desktop back I hope, panels back again etc. Like before but in a modern way. What a way...

I thought of another thing:
What would it have been fantastic when Husse were still here... We know how important he was for
Clem and his men en for the legacy and present knowledge in Mint.

[vrkalak]

LinuxMint - the new Ubuntu

Although I’ve seen Linux Mint and even PCLinuxOS hold the DistroWatch crown briefly in past years, each of their #1 listings was during a final release.

Now in the midst of the Ubuntu Unity crisis, I noticed this morning that Linux Mint has moved to #1. Remarkably, the Linux Mint 12 RC is not even out yet and the stable release is not set to happen until the end of November.

This was written by Clem on the Linux Mint Blog, a few days ago. “We recorded a 40% increase in a single month and we’re now quickly catching up with Ubuntu for the number #1 spot within the Linux desktop market.”

I feel like GNU/Linux needs a stand out distribution that represents how easy Linux can be for beginners and new users. This used to be Ubuntu, but now, I think Linux Mint is in a position to take over.

What do you think? Is Linux Mint 12 the real deal or is it destined for failure after it’s adoption of Gnome 3?

Ubuntu is sooo last year

[tdockery97]

Sometime either today, November 14th, or tomorrow Mint will enter #1 in the 12-month view on DistroWatch. It is truly an historic time for Linux Mint. Clem should be very proud of what he has accomplished in competition with distributions that have dozens of developers.

[KBD47]

Sometime either today, November 14th, or tomorrow Mint will enter #1 in the 12-month view on DistroWatch. It is truly an historic time for Linux Mint. Clem should be very proud of what he has accomplished in competition with distributions that have dozens of developers.

That is great!

[coman norbert]

Mint nr 1:

[Jesse654]

Yup, Linux Mint shows number 1 across the board:
Last 12 months 2193
Last 6 months 2355
Last 3 months 2778
Last 1 month 4455
Last 7 days 6892

6892! Ouch.

[rijnsma]

Mint is great and so this is perfect and it was expected. We're having a party!
Also one can see the frustration about forcing on people desktops they don't want and destroying desktops people like
and use day to day, sometimes for work.
MGSE and Mate appear to be the possible solution. Fantastic, clever idea. 'Produce gains out of disaster'.

Hope it will stay this way and hope it will grow.

[mank_in]

he he , i actually swicth from MS window in ubuntu 11.04 but unity make me confuse . when gooling i found distrowacth where mint is number 2 ( around july 2011). and i try mint 11 and make me easy to understand linux. okay, you must learn about CLI, repository, etc. but thanks for Mint 11 . Sorry for bad english, i am from indonesia
By the way for some who want know more statictic try: http://distrowatch.com/awstats/

[rijnsma]

Thanks for the statistics mank_in!
Great to hear Mint had been noticed in Indonesia.
I hope many will use it in your beautiful country (which is as large as the EU or about).

[JaguarNight]

congrats on the number 1 spot

I think one of the main reasons is mgse on gnome 3
gnome 3 looks like a phone/touchpad oriented desktop obviously
and core linux users don't really like it ...
with msge/gnome3 option is going to be possible to do
desktop/laptop traditional type desktop layout.

Bottom line, if it ain't broke don't change it...
gnome 2 was perfected and then suddenly discarded for
the new phone/touchpad looking desktop - which basically did not
go well with core user base...
Core user base used workspaces/layouts/panels/docks heavily.
mint team has recognized that early on and that's the reason
it's number 1...

Gnome2 - real good, workspaces/app layouts/quick app access through icons
on panels + for those who hate panels they can use docks, but it did
not look like phone app layout desktop , although you could easily emulate
it just by populating desktop space with a bunch of favorite app icons

Gnome3 - for touchpadders who do use workspaces/app layouts/quick
access apps through panels, basically for low load users who
just use 3-5 apps at most at one time, those who are used to phone app
layouts gnome3/unity basically destroyed traditional workspace way and
angered and stressed out a lot of core users.

Gnome3/mgse - middle ground found where you can do both,
you can go traditional with panels and workspace oriented desktop
or you can make it look and feel like a phone/touchpad desktop.


Congrats, this time looks like mint is going to stay number 1 for a while.

Best Regards.
ps. just checked out LM12 and MATE(desktop), real good !
MATE was another right decision for Mint team, and another reason most ppl are going to be
happy with mint.
So now the gnome desktop options are GNOME3 or GNOME3+MGSE or MATE(gnome2 fork )
what could be better than that ?
+ LMDE can run GNOME3 already...
MINT IS #1

[Jesse654]

By the way for some who want know more statictic try: http://distrowatch.com/awstats/

Thanks, mank_in, for the link.

Check out who is linking to DistroWatch (more Windows users than Linux users):
Windows 46.8 %
Linux 45.3 %

And those Windows numbers, broken down, are (click on "Full list/Versions" on the "Operating Systems (Top 10)" list from the stats page):
Windows XP 16.6 %
Windows NT 26.9 %
Windows Vista 2.6 %

NT users? Maybe that include Win2000 users, even though 2000 is its own entry. I was using NT for many years (~10), but not for a few years now. This is just weird.

[Anakinholland]

And those Windows numbers, broken down, are (click on "Full list/Versions" on the "Operating Systems (Top 10)" list from the stats page):
Windows XP 16.6 %
Windows NT 26.9 %
Windows Vista 2.6 %
NT users? Maybe that include Win2000 users, even though 2000 is its own entry. I was using NT for many years (~10), but not for a few years now. This is just weird.

Think that's Win7 matey, as it's not in the list.

If you have a look at a browsers User Agent String, you will see which OS, browser and browser-renderer you use. In my case:

Code: Select all


Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:7.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/7.0.1

This is where statistics are built from. Since Windows NT 3.5, every version has been a version of "NT", as shown here.

Correct if I'm wrong, but top of my head, "NT 5" is XP, 6 is Vista, 7 is Win7 and 9 is Server2008. Distrowatch "just" has to adjust their parsing so thing will be displayed properly?

The thing that caught my eye was the fact that IE only had a mere 8.8% usage!!

Regards,

Anakin

[tdockery97]

Just checked the 11/18/11 change in DistroWatch rankings. Mint is still moving further into the lead at warp speed. Some say it's because of Mint 11, but that was now months ago. I think the pre-publicity and the RC release of Mint 12 is the primary factor.

[Troken]

Check out who is linking to DistroWatch (more Windows users than Linux users):
Windows 46.8 %
Linux 45.3 %

I suspect that most Mint-users also have a computer/partition with Windows (like myself). And Windows at work and so on.

[rijnsma]

Check out who is linking to DistroWatch (more Windows users than Linux users):
Windows 46.8 %
Linux 45.3 %

I suspect that most Mint-users also have a computer/partition with Windows (like myself). And Windows at work and so on.

Not me!

[Jesse654]

Think that's Win7 matey, as it's not in the list.

Thanks for the correction and explanation--very informative.