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Debian Fastest-Growing Distro, Says Netcraft
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."
"Debian has been the fastest growing Linux distribution when measured by counting active sites which contain the name of a Linux distribution in the Apache Server header... A distribution name is present in a little over a quarter of Linux based Apache sites."
To me it says that 75% of the Apache administrators on Linux boxes have tought about security.
Sure, it's an Apache server, but do you really need to show which distribution you are using ?
...is right here.
Lots of discussions on library dependencies and Kaffe and such like are in the January archives.
The Army reading list
What do Java, Ant, and Swing have to do with surveying which Linux distribution is run by web servers? I'm baffled.
Debian would be the one. It has the ring of solidity that characterises a lot of open-source stuff. For people actually *using* Linux rather than playing with it, reliability's a big issue.
:-)
I'm not saying the others are unreliable, I'm saying that the perception is that Debian is more true-to-the-roots, and therefore more favourable. Perception is all - a statement that can mean two distinct things, and be simultaneously correct
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Namaste
~Darl
Not suprised one bit. Both Debian and Gentoo are the only two usable UP TO DATE distro's that will run on a sparcstation. They obviously care to encompass EVERYONE who might use their OS, and gladly, Ill join that line.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
This illustrates perfectly how the free-market can work without overbearing monopolistic influence: Red Hat ends support for certain software, users can (and apparently do) go elsewhere.
Cutting support in a proprietary environment means a forced upgrade or outright migration which would cost a bundle. In the free software world this could just be a lateral shift, nothing more than a speed bump.
Consider this: in the very odd chance SCO wins lawsuits and Linux crumbles there wouldn't be much involved to move Linux web servers over to *BSD as they're likely all running Apache/PHP/*SQL anyhow.
Trolling is a art,
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
okAnd it doesn't.
It just goes on and on, never crashing, never getting it's knickers in a knot. Just an endless stream of prime software, at my finger tips, or at the beck of a quick apt-get. And the upgrades and patches, just happpen. The dependencies? It all just sort's itself out.
I've been in this business for a very long time, and every time I look at the list of things that "aptitude" is going to upgrade today I chuckle and say, it going to break now.
And it just doesn't!
And I'm not even on the "stable" distribution!
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:
I await your comments.
~Darl
If you look at the numbers on the Netcraft report
A) Redhat has more installations than all the other Distros combined
B) Growth of Redhat is greater than all the other distros combined. Of course the percentage is slightly less than the others.
- Kill Yourself, spare us all! -
I've been a long time Redhat user, both on the server AND desktop (yeah, that's right, desktop).
After Redhat's new policy on Redhat Linux was announced, I knew I had to switch. Why? Redhat had made it clear it didn't want me as a customer.
I need patches and that's it, I don't need hand holding and I don't need a 5 year plan (if that really turns out to hold). I'd gladly pay for patches, but the Enterprise options are why too expensive both for my current workplace and me personally. Fedora sounds like a good idea, looks good for messing around. But serious server work? No thanks.
I read you load and clear Redhat, so I'm moving on.
I looked at all the distros and kicked the tires. Gentoo is promising, but not mature enough (portage needs some work and not just technical). Slackware, well, I started with Slackware and I just can't go back. Debian (stable mind you) takes a little getting used to, but it's heart is in the right place and I look forward to being a contributing member of the community.
Anything is possible given time and money.
Yes, but Debian was already in third place behind Red Hat and Cobalt. It was ahead of SuSE, Mandrake, and Gentoo to begin with. It will almost certainly pass up Cobalt in the next six months (Cobalt has a negative growth rate and Debian is right behind). Of course, Red Hat has more market share than everyone else combined, and they also have a very strong growth rate (17.8%). They actually added more hosts than anyone else, although Debian was fairly close.
This survey kind-of depends on distros putting their name visible in the apache version string, something slackware doesn't.
I for one manage a couple of slackware servers, some of them running apache with public reachable sites.
However slackware, is to put it in slashdot-terms, dying. I still love it because of the ease of use and how easy it is to mold into what you want it to be. I even managed to convice the phb at my previous employment to commit to slackware instead of more "commercial" and buzzword distros like redhat et al.
Unless swaret or other apt-ish application turns into a huge thing, I guess slackware will remain a distro for people with special needs. It's just not simple enough anymore to go out and look for packages or even compiling your self when all you friends are typing "apt-get install blah" and that sorts everything out.
With signed-debs the security argument doesn't really hold anymore, and gentoo (with other deficits) provides pretty much custom-compiled applications the custom-compiled argument doesn't hold anymore.
It's finally a matter of taste rather than functionality.
[If it's not obvious: italic text comes from the parent post, which has already been modded into oblivion.]
;-)
I like Debian because it works on my Powerbook (big-endian non-x86 architecture with slightly odd hardware) just as well as it does on my (ordinary, mainstream) PC, and because it also managed to work on my friend's mutant box-of-bits (Cyrix 500MHz cheap-knock-off CPU, ancient AT keyboard port, USB mouse due to no PS/2 ports, serial and parallel ports on an expansion card, graphics card that didn't do VESA... the thing was extremely dodgy).
I also like
- the fact that the packages are made by control freaks (in the nicest possible sense of the words...) who care about consistency and things working nicely together to a sufficient extent that they have formal policies for large classes of packages, but package things in such a way that you can apply local hacks if you don't like how they did it, and make a great effort to preserve local changes to configuration
- the way the development process is usually as transparent and open as the source code of the packages themselves
- the fact that they've built a complete operating system out of software held to standards of freedom and openness high enough that even the Free Software Foundation's "Free Documentation License" doesn't qualify.
- the fact that no one entity controls Debian, so as long as someone's interested in developing for it, it won't go away
- the social contract that sets out the principles Debian will work by.
Debian sucks because
Debian rocks because
* Out dated packages, even in unstable
* Packages are tested (and compiled on more architectures than I care to imagine), and even unstable is actually usable
* Buggy and hard to use installer, people are told to use 3rd party installers because the developers cant be assed to fix it
* A text-mode installer which doesn't blithely assume that graphics mode works properly, or even that you *want* graphics mode (very handy if your hardware is bizarre, like my friend's old PC which couldn't do some of the standard VESA video modes)
* More security flaws than any other distro
[To parent: Really? Please provide links to back that up, I'm interested]
* A transparent mechanism for security updates and bulletins which doesn't introduce new and untested code at the same time, and takes all reported security flaws seriously
* Contains too many redundant and legacy apps
* Contains a huge choice of apps
* All the people who actually used Debian have fled to other distros such as Slackware, Gentoo and Fedora. Only the eleetist pricks are left now
* um... how to answer that one... how about "I actually use Debian, you insensitive clod?"
Wow, Mandrake's low scores really surprised me. I've been using it for quite a while, and find it to be the best there is for the desktop. It's sitting there right above Gentoo, and with gentoo's current growth, will probably be at the bottom in about a year.
I think mandrake has one of the best desktop distros around. I had some friends who installed fedora a few weeks back. They just made it a little too un-linux for me. Mandrake still maintains that linux feel, without making everything a bitch to use.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Netcraft rates servers. Debian is being lauded as a replacement for Red Hat servers aggressively (like Server Beach did while I was with them). Debain stable is a good replacement on the server, so expect these numbers to continue to climb a bit (the whole Red Hat thing probably shook up a lot of people and left a big opening for a wholly OSS, stable solution).
I've seen a few posts mentioning their favorite distro scoring suspiciously low, but remember: Mandrake [yours here] is a distro mainly targeted at the desktop, not the server.
Quack, quack.
None of the commercial vendors impressed me with their technical support, which is funny since I paid them for it. Red Hat of course dropped support for their desktop distribution altogether.
Both gentoo and Debian, in my experience, have extremely friendly communities who are willing to answer even my worst inane questions ("How can I get video1394 to load automatically on boot?")
I ran gentoo for probably six months, but the cost of compiling everything once a week to keep up-to-date just wore me down, especially on the laptop. I know it has binary packages, but not for everything, and anyway I was all proud of myself for having optimized binaries for AMD...
Well, no more. Now I'm on Debian and I'll probably stay there. It has the best "everything just works" rating out of all of them, even the commercial distros. Well, it has the best rating after you've installed discover. (And why doesn't discover load video1394 when it sees my firewire cable? It seems to know to load raw1394...)
My only complaint is that there needs to be kernel-image packages that have ACPI compiled in.
I'm impressed enough with Debian that I intend to install it on 50 desktops at work, if only I can convince management of the benefits of doing so. (Especially with Fully Automated Installation, woo hoo.)
Wow, a lucrative publishing contract! I don't have to be evil anymore. --Meteor
Well - I never really got this one. I actually like Debian's strict policy on software licenses even if it now and then causes some inconvenience. As for Java - well - it didn't take me long to realize that I needed the original - and that Blackdown have a ready made Debian package that can be included in apt's sources.list. That's all - one line in a configuration file and you've got perfectly working Java in Debian.
And here's the line:
deb ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/java/debian/ testing non-free main
By the way - I would assume this problem to be exactly the same on all other Linux distro's due to SUN's licensing. Isn't that so?