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Debian Fastest-Growing Distro, Says Netcraft

Posted by timothy on from the all-statistics-are-flawed-of-course dept.

Oskuro writes "According to this story at news.netcraft.com, Debian was the fastest growing distribution in the last 6 months, closely followed by SuSE and Gentoo. RedHat, while still reigning, has started to lose sites in Netcraft's survey after they announced the end of support for their desktop releases. The survey is based on the stats from webservers which include the distribution name in their webserver's header." Maybe it would grow even faster when Java issues are worked out -- read more below on that.

adamy writes "For people like me that use both Free/Open Source software and Java, the two have come together with two major exception: The Java Virtual Machine and the Base Libraries. Seems the folks trying to get Java packages ready for Sarge could have listed the issues. This is an interesting example of dependency tree pruning: Several packages are orphaned because they depend on Ant, which depends on Swing. Swing has been lower priority for the Classpath because most of the java pacakages are server side or lack a UI componenet."

20 of 516 comments (clear)

  1. Debian's not like it used to be. by Mateito · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm absolutely in agreement.

    These days you need a couple of CDs for Debian.

    When I was a lad we used to fit a full Debian distribution on one side of an 8" floppy disk.

    --
    Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
    1. Re:Debian's not like it used to be. by Erick+the+Red · · Score: 4, Funny

      When I was a lad, it only took one side of a loose leaf paper to fit in all the ones and zeros.

      --

      DO NOT WRITE IN THIS SPACE

      ok
    2. Re:Debian's not like it used to be. by Dasaan · · Score: 2, Funny

      Whee, you had paper? In my day we had to memorise the ones and wonder what else we needed as neither paper nor zeros had been invented!

      --
      XP is basicly 98 with a lot more extra features to hunt down and disable. --Dram
    3. Re:Debian's not like it used to be. by ENOENT · · Score: 2, Funny

      You need "a couple of CDs" where "a couple" means "ten to twelve".

      Potato came on 3, woody came on 5 (IIRC). Sarge adds openoffice.org and a bunch of smaller stuff.

      By the way, when I was a lad, we used to fit a full Debian distribution onto on side of an old Bee Gees cassette. And we didn't have modems, so we would have to use Morse code drivers to encode all of our network traffic! Of course, this was before Marconi, so we would then chisel the morse-encoded data into big stone slabs, throw them into the ocean, and wait for continental drift to take them to their destination!

      AND WE LIKED IT!!!

      --
      That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
    4. Re:Debian's not like it used to be. by flewp · · Score: 2, Funny

      My Woody wasn't floppy, nor would it fit on a 5 1/4 if it was.

      --
      WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
    5. Re:Debian's not like it used to be. by OoberMick · · Score: 2, Funny

      Ones, you had ones! We where lucky of we seen half a half between twelve kids once a month and we wer' glad o' it!

    6. Re:Debian's not like it used to be. by gangien · · Score: 2, Funny

      In my day the same joke wasn't funny after the 50th time it's been said. ANd we liked it! But so much for my day i guess...

  2. This is how we celebrate by Mr.+Darl+McBride · · Score: 5, Funny
    I am going to apt-get loaded tonight.

    ~Darl

  3. Re: I seem to remember predicting... by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Funny


    > Debian would be the one. It has the ring of solidity

    Been to the movies lately?

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  4. Re:75% servers without Distro name... by Luscious868 · · Score: 2, Funny
    To me it says that 75% of the Apache administrators on Linux boxes have thought about security. Sure, it's an Apache server, but do you really need to show which distribution you are using ?

    Hey man, it beats the ever loving shit out of running any version IIS on any version of Windows.

  5. The best way to celebrate by Mr.+Darl+McBride · · Score: 5, Funny
    Stay with me on this...

    Debian is more than just Linux. It is possible to use The HURD as your kernel, for Debian/HURD, and similarly, Debian/NetBSD, Debian/OSX, and Debian/FreeBSD efforts are under way. I believe there is even a Debian/Cygwin port in usable shape, although I haven't heard of progress on development in a while.

    Now that you can find cheap SCOWare license packs up and down ebay, ubid, Silcon Auctions and the likes, perhaps it's time to take Debian in a new direction.

    May I be the first to propose:

    Debian/SCO?

    I await your comments.

    ~Darl

  6. I thought Windows was fastest-growing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I thought Windows had the distro that was fastest-growing:
    Windows 1.0: 1.2 meg
    Windows 3.11: 5 meg
    Windows 95: 20 meg
    Windows ME: 40 meg
    Windows XP: 300 meg.

    By the end of the decade, it will have an install distro requiring a stack of DVD's.

  7. Re: I seem to remember predicting... by Space+cowboy · · Score: 4, Funny

    [grin] on re-reading it, I wondered whether to put something like:

    One distro to rule them all
    One distro to find them
    One distro to bring them all
    And, in the darkness bind them.

    Except, that would have more suited Windows than Linux. IMHO, of course :-)

    Simon

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
  8. New Debian Motto by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Debian Stable's new motto:

    Good things come to those who wait.

    Now maybe we can start using kernel 2.2...

  9. SCO endorses Debian by Mr.+Darl+McBride · · Score: 3, Funny
    The phenomenal success of Debian is largely attributed to its many developers and maintainers, nearly a thousand in the US alone. All operating under the Debian social contract, the bureaucracy is thick, however the quality results speak for themselves.

    But the more powerful driving factor behind Debian's recent growth is its having become the first Linux distribution to partner with SCO. In an industry shaking maneuver, Bruce Perens has brokered a deal between SCO and the Debian team, in which Debian has agreed to share 15% of net revenue in exchange for full idemnification for any and all use or misuse of SCO's intellectual property.

    As soon as the ink has dried on the mutually signed contract, SCO will be in receipt of Debian's financial statements. This 15% of Debian's commercial revenue will surely mean a powerful boost for SCO's next fiscal quarter. The Boies back home will be proud.

    ~Darl

    1. Re:SCO endorses Debian by Mr.+Darl+McBride · · Score: 3, Funny
      Share revenue? I thought the Debian dev team was all volunteer or am I wrong on this. Last that I checked, 15% of nothing is still nothing.

      We are now well aware of this, and believe that Bruce Perens has not acted in good faith. Accordingly, we are exercising our stipulatory option and bringing in an arbiter. We expect to increase our share to 30 or even 35%.

  10. Re:Fast-growing distributions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    That was my experience with Debian too. Don't worry. The story ends in a wild sex party where anything goes. Heh, running OS X isn't so cool anymore, heh.

  11. It's all because of debiantakeover by Great_Jehovah · · Score: 3, Funny

    http://www.hadrons.org/~guillem/debian/debtakeover /

  12. What about lesbian linux though by MajorDick · · Score: 3, Funny

    I was surfing along or maybe I was on IRC anyhow something pointed me to this Its a SPOOF on Debian.

    My favorite is apt-get install finger :)

  13. Growing how? by yecrom2 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Does it now take a 12 ISO download to do a base system install?

    Matt