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What's The Fastest Growing Linux Distro?
darthcamaro writes "What's the fastest growing Linux distro? This really solid article on InternetNews.com contains interviews with the Debian Project leader, the founder of Mandrake, SuSe, Red Hat and TurboLinux to get their take on who's the biggest and who's the baddest on the distro block.
Also includes some interesting insight into the next round of releases."
Has got to be RedHat.
It's SCO Linux
Could it be Mandrake?!?!!
-Letter
...or the fastest growing one would be the one that went from 1 to 5 users last week ;)
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Windows XP!!
oh wait....
Gentoo would be rated higher, but they're still waiting for the results to compile.
--
For commercial market share, Red Hat and Suse take the cake (and Red Hat gives the recipe for the icing). But there are a lot of people using Debian in a dizzying array of roles. You can't really measure the commercial rollout of Debian though. If you're just talking about home use, there's no way to tell.
SCO. They sold one license last week. Up 100% from the week before.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
It seems to be Gentoo to me, it's always suggested when someone asks for a new distro(I won't say where though as I'm afraid of being laughed upon ;)), and everyone seem to be using it. I'm happy with Slackware and FreeBSD. I really should check our Gentoo, it might just work on my crappy 5 year old Wintel machine...
And BSD is not dying!!
Red Hat Linux. I mean come on, its gotten to the point where its started to divide into its own set of sub-distros. Red Hat Enterpirse, Red hat, Fedora...
Btw, debian is pronounced deb-een after debbie and ian murdock(sic? - i think its murdock - too much of watching the a-team i guess). I am such a geek.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
It's Debian *shrug*
:: debianHELP ... ... We use GNU! We use GNU... ..do you?! Debian is the fastest growing GNU/Linux ...
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Debian is the fastest growing GNU/Linux distro
distro Posted by: IntnsRed on Thursday, January 29, 2004 - 12:14 AM.
www.debianhelp.org/ modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid
- 47k - Cached - Similar pages
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Mod parent down - talking out your ass should be made a crime. Its indecent.
People who I suspect don't know what Linux is, are now starting to talk to me about this cool "whole computer thing on a CD". When you ask a few questions, it turns out it's Knoppix they're talking about.
I've got no idea if they're ever going to actually switch to Knoppix, but it has a coolness about it that's pretty impressive to a whole lot of people. That's what getting distributed in magazines will do for you. In fact, reading those magazines the month after they bundle a Linux distro, there's always a bunch of reader's letters talking about how great "this Linux thing" is after all.
When you purposefully discontinue distribution to half of your customers!
Likewise, logically, from a purely differential standpoint, the fastest growing distribuion atm would have to be Fedora, since it gained (what?) half of Redhat's customers in the course of a single day (when Redhat told that half of its customer base, guess what, you're now a Fedora customer).
My debian distro grows every day. not sure how fast though.
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
30 new packages installed, none removed and 2 held back.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
I think it has got to be Knoppix. I mean it is the best option for newbies and has inspired so many sping-off's. I think it definately qualifies as the fastest growing for that reason. It has introduced more people and is helping more people to come into the Linux World.
Red Hat -> Lots of enterprise and business users
Suse -> More of the same, except mostly in Europe
Mandrake -> Fast growing with non-techies and some businesses too
Fedora/Old Red Hat -> Fast growing with home users
Debian -> Growing with home users Slackware/Knoppix/Gentoo... -> all have niche audiences
http://www.distrowatch.com/ has a ranking of people downloading each distro from them at the lower right of the page.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
"What's the fastest growing Linux distro? This really solid article on InternetNews.com contains interviews with the Debian Project leader, the founder of Mandrake, SuSe, Red Hat and TurboLinux to get their take on who's the biggest and who's the baddest on the distro block."
Debian Project Leader: "The faster growing Linux distro is Debian."
Mandrake Founder: "No, its Mandrake."
SuSe Founder: "Guess again, it's SuSe!"
Red Hat: "We feel the faster growing distro is Red Hat."
TurboLinux: "Our title says it all - we are the faster growing distro!"
I'm not a journalist, but I play one on slashdot
Debian based distros seem to be generating a lot of buzz just now. Reviews of Lindows, Lycoris, Mepis, and all the Knoppix-varients seem like they`re everywhere.
Part of this I attribute to Redhat`s less-than graceful move away from the desktop (I know that`s an oversimplication...). Fedora is there, but I think Redhat made it too obvious that users would be leaving Redhat and moving to something else. People thought, "Well, if I`m leaving Redhat anyway, maybe this is a good time to try something else." The biggest "something else" to Redhat is Debian.
Another cause might be the brilliant success of Knoppix. It`s easy to try, and easy to like. Of course, it runs a little slowly from the CD, but a hard-drive install is easy. And what do you do after you install? Atpget update.
Of course, the commercial distros are actively working to get people to use and buy their product, but I`m not sure how much that really has to do with it. Right now these companies are benefiting from the Debian buzz, and they will contunue to benefit until they do something to antagonize their customers.
You could get a feel for the number from
http://counter.li.org/reports/machines.php
Has only been in distribution for a couple of days now and it's doing pretty well. I'd say it will surpass lunix by the end of the year.
hmm.. has to be the one I'm building..
another flavor of kernel-source-2.4.21_2.4.21.orig.tar.gz with a little bit of windows_2000_source_code.zip
God is real unless declared as int
Mandrake has always been very popular because of its ease of use.
But Gentoo has stepped out of the shadows and now is talk of the town among geeks (although it has yet to gain a lot of popularity under "Linux laymen".
I'd say it's a toss-up between Mandrake and Gentoo. RedHat IS shrinking, for obvious reasons, and Fedora just isn't that popular. Debian isn't as "big" as Mandrake, Slackware... I haven't heard much about that in a while... and SuSE, while up there, seems to have been more popular two years ago than it is now.
The fastest-growing LiveCD linux obviously is Knoppix, which really is its own class apart from the desktop/server environments.
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
I read a review of about a dozen distributions and being only familiary with very early Slackware and RedHat (from v.4) was supprised at how different they are. I just recently downloaded Knoppix and I see a real niche for it. I have some old equipment and want to know if there is a distro that will perform less sluggish than the latest RedHat 9 (either through a default config options or ommisions of unnecessary packages).
However, I have found value in going with the popular thing (how often is the majority wront?) sometimes so yes, after all this "useful?" speak, I see some value in these kinds of things from some angle.
Magic Eight Ball: Outlook not so good., Hmmm, how about Excel and Word?
Why is this "flame bait"? Which part of my post was inaccurate? Face it guys, the hard core base of computer users who used to use systems like Linux and FreeBSD are switching en masse to OS X.
There are a number of other distros not mentioned that people should defintely keep an eye on. JDS (Java Desktop System) which is based on Suse I believe. JDS I believe will be a strong contender in the corporate market as it has Sun behind it (all the bosses have heard of Sun). Then there is Gentoo for techie home user (Gentoo's my personal fav). It provided ultimate flexibility - you want the 2.6.2 kernel you just go ahead a compile it.
----
See subject. I'm serious. I mean, distros have come and gone, in the end I think it's the quality of GNU/Linux as a whole that really matters.
The fastest growing distro could only be Mandrake . Distributions can increase in popularity or number - but technically they can't grow like a plant or animal. A bit pedantic but what the hey...
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
1. What is the best distro for servers?
:)
a. ease of setup up
b. security
c. ease of upgrade
d. longevity of support
e. remote management ability
2. What is the best distro for the desktop
a. speed of setup
b. has the apps I need
c. ease of upgrade/patches
d. supports my hardware
e. ease of use for newbies
3. What is the best of both worlds (1 plus 2)
Just because something is the fastest growing doesn't mean it's the best. While I've read tons of reviews most have such a bias as to be laughable. I'll keep using my tried and true redhat/debian/mandrake/fedora box for now
AngryPeopleRule
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Might not be the best for most newbies - although it was my first distro - but I hope it stays strong and that Patrick will keep up the good work.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
would be to see a growth rate rate-of-growth comparison. I mean, it'd be some use for all this calculus crap I'm using. And we'd be able to predict (guess) the future by looking at the trends!
It is one of the most popular distros out there! It has some nifty features as well for the expert user. Try the command line tool called urpmi! Its like apt-get but for Mandrake. Then there is drakwizard, it makes setting up servers so easy!
Mandrake really is a good distro, for beginners and experts. I am currently using a Knoppix hard drive install but I plan to go to Mandrake once version 10 comes out because it is such a good distro! Two of my freinds installed Mandrake Linux as well, having no priror Linux experiance and they loved it, much better than XP!
Emphasis mine.
Then run an apt-get dist-upgrade. Perhaps there are some packages that need removal because of changed dependencies, etc. :-)
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
This article sucks. Doesn't include many of the bigger distro's out there. Gentoo, Knoppix, Slackware, etc aren't even included. They should just stick with Linux as a whole, and make everyone happy.
Ban Reality TV!
With IBM's Superbowl commericals, and them pushing Redhat (somewhat..mostly..):
http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/va_4010.shtml
I'd say Redhat will pick up and start growing fast, and soon! IBM is the big player here, and if they support Redhat, people will listen. More people trust IBM, than Microsoft!
Mod +5 Drunk
I've mentioned this before, but I'd sure like to know how other *nix variants (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc.) rate in terms of percent growth, not just market share. Example: if FreeBSD was found on 750 servers, and then n month later 1000 were found... 33% increase.
That is more interesting to me than market share, and I'd expect the BSD variants to be growing more raidly.
I have othing against Linux. I'm just an old Linux user (since 1994) who was recently won over by BSD.
I think the influx of new users I notice moving to FreeBSD (often coming from RedHat or such) is sorta the same effect.
We might be heading for "Open Source" vs "Open Source Inc" becoming the great divide after MS goes down or during the same period.
Who would have thought...
-insert token FreeBSD comment here-.
./revolution
Come on its gotta be Fedora, I remember just a few versions ago it all fit on 1 CD, but this weekend I had to download 4 DAMN discs to make the new version run.
"Luke, I am your node.parent();"
Redhat vs Debian: RedHat wins! ;p
Redhat vs Slackware: RedHat wins!
Redhat vs Gentoo: Redhat wins!
Open Source vs Closed Source: Open Source wins!
Gentoo. Hands down.
White Box Linux. All of the functionality, security and stability of RHE3 without any expense.
It also makes a snappy desktop distro with a 2.6 kernel. There are even apt-repositories if you're an apt-rpm type admin.
It's not a desktop distro, on the other hand, I look forward to not having to crossing my fingers and praying that an upgrade works for another five years or so.
As with most IT articles, the objective seems to be a good headline rather than a factual appreciation of the facts.
.0000001% of the market - so what.
From the article, RedHat seems to have the most numbers out there, AND Debian has the fastest growth as a platform for Apache. No conflict there.
But which is the fastest growing distro? Who really cares. If I sold 1 last week and 10 this week I may have the fastest growing distro, but with
However if Sun really start shipping the Java Desktop (Suse based version) to all those chinese sites then it would likely win
I like the fact that you can now get support for more than one distribution from them.
RedHat's not for everyone. Neither is SUSE.
Because of the nature of Linux and FOSS, it's very hard to know exactly how much deployment any particular distribution is getting.
Sales figures are one thing, but users able to install the same CD on multiple machines mean that the number of installations could be higher.
Worldwise, subtracting new MS licenses from total new x86 hardware sales doesn't account for unauthorized installations of MS software on those other x86 machines. It's not all going to Linux and the *BSD releases. But MS probably has a better idea than anyone about the prevalence of piracy, so they may well have the most accurate figures about Linux installations, better than Gartner, IDG, and the other consulting firms.
Then there's folks like me that have bought several releases of SuSE, but only run the latest one.
And there are people recycling old Win98 boxes into single purpose servers on Linux.
Finally, a few distros might "phone home", but the user is permitted to modify this behavior, so that's not a complete measure either. It might be a good lower bound.
There's just no really accurate way to count installs.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Sarge coming in summer? Sarge will be new stable, right?
2.6 kernel in stable?
Better installer??
What next, KDE 3.2???
Throwing fire suit on,
Has Debian discovered fire? The wheel?
disclaimer, I typing this from a debian box, and run debian almost exclusively.
All Debian needs for the Sarge release (besides above and whatever they are also working on) is KDE 3.2 and a fairly easy firewall front end that installs by default, instead of leaving the install unprotected.
>Mandrake 991
Lots of ex-RedHat users are shifting to Mandrake instead of playing with the Fedora Core. Mandrake is a lot like RedHat, especially if you're used to downloading compiled RPMs and such. Not to mention Mandrake is usually recommended to new people because of its installer and overall GUI-ness.
Can someone tell me why Slackware hardly ever gets a mention in these sorts of articles that purport to be written by journos with their fingers on the pulse?
Slackware is used by a LARGE number of sys admins so though it may me small fry in the home market its anything but in the server arena. Perhaps these writers should get a bit more clued
up about whats really going on out there rather than just finding out and waflling about distributions that their mates have mentioned to them.
$ ls -al /var/lib/dpkg/available /var/lib/dpkg/available
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7182743 Feb 14 11:12
Hey Debian dudes, don't ya think it's about time to move to start using Berkeley DB files instead of plain text for the package database? I don't notice it too much on my 800 MHz Duron, but I pity the poor fools with old pentiums...
pissing contest.
Seriously i don't care who is growing at what rate. i care who is going to be there tomorrow....was hoping to use RedHat for many more years, i'll not be doing that now.
Businuess practices are more important than pissing contests.
1. c
2. c
3. c
Do I pass?
does it matter how much some particular distro is gaining market share? Is the software gonna be there that allows people to use it for office work, gaming, or whatever else people do with desktops is what we should be concerned about. Is linux becoming more useful to the average joe? Is it even becoming more useful to the average programmer? You got the leaders of all the distributions together and the best questions you got to ask them is who's growing faster? give me a break.
But for certain, the slowest growing Linux distro is the SCO "All your code base are belong to us!" Linux.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Fastest-growing seems very vague, without some clarification of terminology. Fastest growing from when to now? Does one measure the increase in number of users, installations, processors it is running on, market share percentage, sales, or what? Or could "growing" imply growing in maturity and feature set rather than in proliferation of users? Growth could even denote the physical size of the distribution in bytes (how many discs is Debian these days?) One could make a case for just about any distribution, just through the right interpretation of such an ambiguous question.
Knoppix is definitely gaining popularity. After all it's a coaster you can give to anyone with a computer and they can give it a try without ever installing a damn thing, everyone is trying it and there's a definite coolness factor involved
;) ) clusters in their companies? Dumb terminal boxes? Small network servers? Web servers? I think Knoppix will be hard pressed to compete there.
But if it's not popularity you are looking at (well, the original article is, but let's be a bit broader here), but rather functionality or what different "roles" or market niches the distro is filling, then the answer is definitely not Knoppix. What distros are people putting in their (Beowulf
But for the desktop, Knoppix's future looks really bright if they keep up the great work they're doing.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Well, Pubix sure looks like it's growing. Oh wait.. Pubix is short for Pubic Hair. Oh wait again.. Pubic Hair is short for Microsoft.. Oh wait again.. Microsoft is short for Pubix. Ok, it all make's sense again.
"Snatching defeat from the mouth of victory on a daily basis."
You mods have never heard Bill Hicks, have you? Watched Python? Read Hitchhikers? Red fricking Dwarf, even...
come on!
Check out VectorLinux (based on Slackware)... lots of positive reviews.
Whats yours? Its a fair bit of effort to go through the entire installation process and some people like bare bones while other like everything to be automatic so the amount of people doesn't make it the best for anyone else. Ford sells more trucks than Chevy, that doesn't make Ford better, its more of a marketing issue than a quality indication.
Don't forget that as soon as it is installed in the hd it becomes debian.
Knoppix is to debian the same thing that mandrake move is to mandrake or suse live to suse.
Knoppix is great (and I really mean it) but you can't use it in a survey like this. Unless it is installed in the hard drive (and in that case it becomes debian) you can't count a new user because as soon as he removes the cd he isn't a knoppix user anymore, is he?
apt-get windows_2000_sp1
(kidding)
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Isn't it time again for the "which distro" poll *hint*?
Knoppix is what introduced me to Linux in the first place. And it's utility goes far beyond that of a simple "drop in and load" distro. The hd installer works quite well and it would allow anyone who can do so much as partition a hard drive to go from Windows to Debian based apt-getable goodness in one fell swoop. It is most certinally a distribution in its own right.
What is the most pirated Linux distro?
Servers
a)Has both graphical and text based installer, plus has the drakwizard utillity, the easiest way to setup a server without editing text files
b)Has customizable security, from medium to paranoid (low removed for obvious reasons)
c)Has secrurity updates, and can upgraded with special update CDs
d)Years of support but you have to pay for it.
e)SSH, VNC and of course Webmin!
Desktops
a)Installs in around 5 minutes to an hour based on what you install and the speed of your cdrom drive
b)Several CDs filled with apps, plus online downloads from the Mandrake club and Othersites
c)Mandrake Update, you can even update it when you install
d) Mandrake supports a lot of hardware,
e)Easy for both beginners and experts.
3. Best of both worlds. Mandrake really is good!
Or are you just an American punk poser trying to look cool?
actually wrong.. people are using repackaged debian for the numbers so why not repackaged red hat???? not just fedora but also distro's like pink tie.. how many distro's are based off of red hat..
when you look at it like this i would bet red hat is the fastest growing distro, but instead people only look at debians growth in this way.
But Debian's Michlmayr also noted that governments and schools are sweet spots for the project's momentum in 2004. Its next release, code named Sarge, is expected by summer and will include the 2.6 kernel,
Is Debian really going to release an stable distro with 2.6 that soon?
It doesn't sound like Debian at all, since they released woody with kernel 2.2 as default instead of 2.4
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
windows reigns king.
life's a bitch, ain't it?
this too is not a troll - just pointing out the blatantly obvious..."better" doesn't always have everything to do with it.
Aside from that - OSX requires particular hardware, whereas you have a bit more of an option with linux as far as platform flexibility.
Here's the link: http://www.debian.org/intro/about.html
You forgot "Vendor lock-in, in software AND hardware".
I think I speak for most when I say *puke*
Okay, so it went from one person using it once a month to 4 or 5 people using it on a daily basis...
Lies, damn lies, and statistics, guys.
...all other distros are for wussies
****
"I'd never want to join a club that would have me as a member" - G. Marx
I couldn't agree more. IBM is clearly cozying up to Novel/Suse. They certainly have to support rh because they're the big dog in the US but IBM doesn't appear entirely confortable with rh from what I can see.
Xandros
Being developed in leaps and bounds -- check it out.
Sad thing is, that slackware users are really a small number. Most have went to debian or gentoo.
Slackware needs more marketing and repository of packages.
Irony is, it needs more users so it can get more users
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Btw. I included "Linux", to remove irrelevant hits. Hopefully, it scaled down evenly.
...test as many as you can and take your choice. I've tested out Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake and Slackware but I want something "in-between" Slackware and SuSE - advanced but usable for non-Linux gurus so I'm going to buy some CDR's of Debian from a cheap Linux distributer when the 2.6 kernel is default
I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born - Ronald Reagan
Suse 9.0 Professional.
Rock solid. Works out of the box.
Very nice package.
I strongly recommend it to anyone thinking about getting into Linux.
There's something wrong with moderators...
I use debian for a long time and I also don't believe that sarge is coming with 2.6 as the default kernel.
I think there was a misinterpretation, probably 2.6 will be available with sarge, but not the default.
It's too soon to add kernel 2.6 as the default, and it probably wasn't properly tested in all archs (not for debian's stability standards).
fast growing as in getting more bloated?
Then what about the distro that went from zero to 1 user just recently. You could truthfully say it had inifinitly more growth than any other established distro ;)
The article ranks only Web servers. So it's hardly going to provide useful numbers on desktops.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
First, I don't agree with the criteria here at all. I don't think any decient admin cares about speed of setup. How often do you set up machines as opposed to maintaining them.
Either way, I disagree about OSX for everything. See inline.
# Server:
#a. ease of setup up - OS X hands down.
Knoppix-Drop in a CD and it works. No setup necessary.
#b. security - check the stats, OS X hands down
OpenBSD-Say what you will about Theo, it's been the most secure since Apple was in it's OS# days.
#c. ease of upgrade - Once again, OS X no question
Debian-OS X is a close second, but so are a lot of others. Debian has a lot more options in it's upgradability.
#d. longevity of support - Apple's been around far longer than any Linux company. OS X again.
Debian-Yes, Apple's been around for longer, but it doesnt' supports OS2 anymore. Debian, on the other hand, still seems to support (and provide) packages that were written in the mid 1950's. Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration, but so of the packages in Debian stable go back -quite- a while.
#e. remote management ability - Has all the best open source tools (X, ssh, etc) plus all of Apple's brilliant ones not available for Linux - OS X again.
I think this is too close to call. It really comes down to administrator preference. Personally, I don't like Apple's remote admin features. I'd rather have ssh which is available on almost anything these days.
Ok, here's will Apple will really shine.
#Desktop:
#a. speed of setup - OS X installs and runs flawlessly on all Apple hardware. OS X wins.
Knoppix-Just boot. There's no way you can compare anything that needs to be copied to a disk.
#b. has the apps I need - OS X has thousands of commercial apps not available for Linux and can run all open source apps that Linux has. OS X again.
This completely depends on your Application. OSX does very well, but doesn't support "all open source apps that Linux has". And for the ones that can be built for it, often packages aren't available. Against, the comes down to end user needs.
#c. ease of upgrade/patches - Do you even need to ask? OS X again.
Debian-See above.
#d. supports my hardware - OS X supports all modern Apple hardware perfectly. OS X again.
OSX hands down. Exactly as you say.
#e. ease of use for newbies - Pfft. This one's a given. Anyone who has used OS X for any length of time would probably feel sea sick using Linux afterwards. OS X wins again
OSX again. This is the place where Apple really shines. Their usability is amazing. It's years ahead of anything else on the market. Except for the Dock. I hate taskbars.
--
Mike
-- Mike wildcard@illuminatus.org
In the very begining of the article the author states that gentoo is the 3rd fastest growing distro at 19%. Then they never mention gentoo again. I found that really interesting since, like other have mentioned, I have always seen gentoo as a niche distro. I only recently installed it at home to play around with it. I thought I was all cool and cutting edge but now I read this and find out I am just one of a huge herd of sheep.
I swear PowerPoint is going to be the downfall of higher education in western society.
You gotta be kidding. Slackware was all the thing in 1994 but surely you must've made some progress since then. Most have.
Knoppix has been around for a while now. Aside from being a live CD distro it is also known as an "easy Debian".
Its GPL
Why can't the Debian folks just cobble all of the good stuff Karl Knopper did into Debian?
Steve
I sell distros through my website, fastdiscs.com. I sell more copies of Mandrake GPL than all the other distros put together. It's quite phenomenal.
Distro of the week though? MEPIS. Try it, it's fantastic!
James
Like tinyurl, but one letter less! http://qurl.co.uk/
FreeBSD wins!!!
Debian is the most secure OS out there, and it has the reputation for it. Some of the operating systems out there pervert Debian, like Lindows, and ruin its name.
For more information on how you can stop Lindows, click the link in my sig.
Lindows Steals Copyrighted Art and Promotes Porn
2 months ago, no one was using my distro.
1 month ago, I created a distro, which was remarkably similar to Red Hat, but with a few extra configuration files specific to our computer lab. My distro had one user -- me.
This month, I installed my distro on 10 other machines in the lab. Yes, that's right -- in one month, my distro's userbase increased from 1 to 11, or an increase of 1000% That's an annualized growth rate of 10^12, or over ONE TRILLION PERCENT!
So, please either acknowledge that (1) my distro is the fastest growing, or (2) "fastest growing" statistics are really dumb.
I agree with you. I would like to see FreeBSD on this kind of news as it's a popular open source OS.
It's *not* dead. It's sleeping... Taking a nap.
The primary tension between RH and IBM is that they both are in the consulting business. Novell is not going hand over the profitable support biz to IBM either.
This article is related a bit.
I've been liking Debian so far, but it is killing me setting up WiFi!!!!
--D "Debian Woody, SMC 2532w-b, no WiFi love"
Maybe I'm missing something, but what's the big difference between a Fedora customer and a Red Hat customer, except the name? What are people so excited about? From what I can tell both RH 9 and Fedora are still free (as in beer) and all still get security updates (now from a corporation supported community instead of just a corporation). Red Hat is still pouring a lot of effort and money into the community. Are people upset because they don't get phone support any more or something like that? Seriously, what makes people feel sold out?
I personally am excited that a OSS-based company is starting to succeed and is creating a winning business model in the market place. OSS helps the market by increasing competition. I'd better get used to OSS companies needing to make money somewhere, if I want to see them take market share from proprietary companies. It seems such corporations make in-roads into the market more easily then a less organized community. Red Hat's success, its relationship with IBM, and IBM's increasing dependency on OSS is a great thing, IMHO.
While I don't contest the stats in the article, I just wonder if web server stats are valid for "Fastest Growing Linux Distro", even if they are valid for "Fastest Growing Apache platform".
...
...
Unless you assume every corporate/SME file/print/authentication server and all desktops run publicly accessible webservers, this is a really bad metric
IDC stats aren't much better either
Of the > 30 machines running Mandrake that I have installed (ranging from corporate authentication servers to firewalls to laptops), only one has a publicly accessible web server.
Where do you get off saying that? Personally I don't know a whole lot of former Slackware users who aren't of the "must try the new version of this or that distro as soon as it comes out" group. Yes, there are a lot of former Slackware users who now use Gentoo or Debian.
Here's the shocker. I'll bet you they still use Slackware on some things.
Here's another shocker. I know a lot of Slackware users who are former Debian or Gentoo users.
Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
Everyone seems to be talking about which distro will be "King".
OTOH, I like seeing what kind of distros people are making with Linux. Let's see:
1) Firewalls/Server
2) Desktop
3) Server
4) Embedded
5) Live Distros
6) Source compiled
7) Mini-CD sized
8) Recovery/Diagnostics
It would be interesting to see which of these categories become dominant and get more developer resources put behind them. Already I find myself using several of these either for practical or hobbiest purposes.
If you want a prebuilt binary like every other distro emerge --usepkg whatever after you copy it from the cd rom, get it from the mirror or whatever. It's really not that difficult. I've been using gentoo for only a week now, but lemme tell you, best linux distro I've ever used. emerge is an awesome tool, for those bitching about it being too techy, it has tools to dumb it down (like genkernel for configuring a kernel especially for your machine). I've compiled most everything I've put on here, but stuff I really couldn't give a crap about optimizing, I just use a prebuilt binary. Hell, if you wanted to, you could use a stage3 tarball (prebuilt binary) and binaries for everything, and have zero compile time (except for your kernel, which genkernel will handle for you if you like).
Novell can't dictate whether IBM support its Linux any more than they can dictate whether I choose to support SUSE Linux. IBM (Global Services) support a WIDE variety of OSes. Solaris, Windows, Linux... you name they support some form of it.
Seriously. No flame intended, but who really cares? The whole article is flamebait.
Its like discussing if BSD is dying.
STupid and arrogant.
Gentoo was unknown 3 years ago or Knoppix has also made its name known
While Redhat Mandrake have been around for awhile and is'nt
One of the old UNIX giants (IBM, Sun, SGI, etc) is bound to come out with their own Linux distro sooner or later.
When this happens (if done right), their distro will take over almost overnight. The only reason I don't think IBM is doing their own distro is that they can really force the companys like RedHat and SUSE to include specific software/drivers/options...
I like my Slackware.
Gentoo is a new thing so it has a lot of hype right now. Slackware has *just worked* nicely for years.
Geez, I tried installing OS X on my lil' ol' i686 box here, and I can sure tell ya, installation is not easy! Darn near impossible I'd say. Support? Everytime I call Apple about it, they hang up! Well, I guess it is pretty secure...haven't met a hacker yet who can even get it to boot! Ease of use?! Give me a break! Even the so called experts can't even get it started! ;-) They just seem to shake their heads and walk away...frustrated I guess...but then as they get further away, they seem to be howling in laughter...=) OS X you say? I think not!
As an intermediate user, I'd say that Debian is quite confusing for a beginner.
First off is the installation selection. The "vanilla" install is kernel 2.2.x... shouldn't that be updated?
The other, more updated, install is 2.4.20, but they way they have it explained (along with the naming) makes it look like it's still in beta or whatever.. "experimental" as they say.
If 2.6.x is the latest stable, then how is 2.4.20 experimental? The thing is, you install the plain vanilla system, get kernel 2.2.x, but then you need to update EVERYTHING else since it's so old.
Personally I've used slackware and redhat.
the real question here is how much has a distro(or even linux as a whole) penetrated the overall desktop market? We always knew Apache + RH was a good combo.Even if it was'nt web server admins have enough knowhow to install,configure and run most distro's.But are normal desktop users moving to linux? If yes whats the distro they find easy to migrate to, from their Windows boxes? That should something interesting to find out.
Lord of the Binges.
With Wal-Mart hocking $200 PCs with Lindows Pre-installed you have to wonder if it might actually be the fastest growing...
Check out our infosecurity industry blog: http://securitymusings.com/
I think Suse will be the next best thing. I mean take a look at YaST and other things of the distribution in general. Suse is polished, looks good, easy on configuring (you don't have to play with conf files). Oviously, a lot of revenue comes from having to buy the box, since you can't download it. I guess a little money (paying for it) does good. Just the same way with Mac OS X, while the hardware is expensive, the software $130 isn't. And for $130 not only you get a great OS, but it also comes with a ton of comercial grade applications. It is the best bang for buck. With windows, you pay $300 (Windows XP Pro), and what do you get? Well, you get a crappy browser called IE, a Windows Media Player (which is a nice application), notepad (you call this an editor)? And that is about it. You have to buy Nero for CD/DVD writing; the explorer wizard for cd writing is pathetic (not enough features, just like the firewall). You need to buy a decent firewall, you need to buy a good text editor, basically you need to buy a lot of crap or get the free alternatives. Windows XP is useless by itself. Even though I do not own a Mac, I believe that it is the best bang for the buck since a lot of good, easy to use software comes with $130. Microsoft spends a few million on development, and gets $40 billion in revenue, sounds that it sells a lot of over priced crap, which reminds me of a memory which was about $113 after production (sallary, materials...) and it sold for about $1150. That is 10 times the cost of production. A lot of over priced crap in this world, and for those of you who say that everything should be open source, you are wrong! That would mean that a programmer would have to program as a hobby and also be a doctor, lawyer or something else to put some food on his table. Everything can't be free! Open source will never be mainstream! Comercial applications should not be over priced. Windows should cost $40 (like it does in Malayisia [so they won't move to linux]), Office $100, Visual Studio $200, QT should have a poor developer licence for $50-$100, etc.
Hit the bookstore. Look for the Publishers edition of Caldera Open Linux. It is a whole lot cheaper than $699 and gets past any legal challanges from SCO. They sold it. How can they after the sale try to collect?
I have two copies. No worries except I feel let down on support, patches and updates.
The truth shall set you free!
I'm getting less than 3M total Linux installations in the article. How can that be if linux accounts for 29 percent of all server installations?
Did anyone notice that the article says "Regarding Susie's principal competitors..."? :)
Is that why Linux is overtaking Mac on the desktop?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/35588.html But the real security problem in Xandros is precisely the Windows affliction: too many networking services are enabled by default.
da'covale d'Rie Bolmdahl
the finest distro of linux available
The fastest growing Linux distro used for serving webpages may be Debian. I'd be willing to bet that the actually fastest growing one is either Gentoo or Knoppix, if you count it since it's not a permanent system for many people (hopefully.)
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
Do us a favor, let us know what you think when you have more than one week's experience.
I try to stay out of the distro arguments, but I really have to agree with the parent poster here. I started off with Mandrake when I stepped into the shallow end of the pool with a life preserver on, but as I got more comfortable with Linux I started really exploring the vast amount of distros out there, and guess what?
...I kept coming back to slackware.
Yes, it has a text installer, but it still autodetects well, gives you plenty of control, and works well. After much exploration I still have yet to find a distro that works better on my Dual PII 266 machine with SCSI drives.
Slack 9.1 with xfce4 sitting on top of it seems to reach that nice middle ground between ease of use and proformance for slower machines.
ce n'est pas un Sig.
A bit off-topic, but I work at IBM and use RedHat as my development and desktop OS. Everything I could possibly want is available in Linux, except one thing. Lotus Notes!
Currently I run v5 in wine, and simply have to live with bugs (for one, when viewed in v5, meeting notices sent from newer versions don't include where the meetings are!). I don't know how IBM can pull so hard for an OS while its main collaboration tool is Windows-only. Well, maybe not knowing where meetings are is a feature...
I have tried Gentoo & many other distro's.
Fiddling with compiler flags in source based distro's is a waste of your time.
Use what you want just cut the hype.
Darl? Is that you?
> The recent updating included building most of the
> system over again (for about 6 months only security
> related packages had been updated) which took about a
> week, but the system was still often usable while it
> was compiling (slow, but usable).
A week!! I just rebuilt this box (300MHz Celeron FreeBSD) last night. Buildworld took just under 2 hrs with -j4, kernel took about 20 mins and the whole job was done in 3 hrs: installworld, installkernel and mergemaster
Big ports I just rebuild over night. Rebuilds I might do once every 6 months. ie. every release.
The Machine stops.
According to this article[1] on InternetNews, Netcraft's January survey
counted over 24,000 Gentoo installations on active web servers, showing
almost 20% growth over 6 months. Also, as we've reported in the past,
Gentoo has been getting more and more recognition from various sources
recently - while Gentoo Linux did not win the award, it was a finalist for
a Product Excellence Award at LWE 2004[2], and has been featured in
publications like Linux Journal[3] and Linux Weekly News[4]. Here's a
shout out to all the developers and community members who keep making
Gentoo great.
1. http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/
2. http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/linuxworldny/V40/in
3. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?thold=0&m
4. http://lwn.net/Articles/59138/
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
I use Slackware as often as I can. Usually install it without GUI (barebones as possible), use swaret to keep it up to date (Slackware team is very quick on releasing updates), and then I can compile things by hand and edit config files to my heart's content.
Long live Slackware!
haha....Slackware is a solid distro ..too bad they don't have either a marketing or a PR contact though....it sure would make it easier for any journo that was writing about them to actually talk to someone...
If I want to stay with Red Hat, I would have to run Oracle on a separate box and pay for the server version plus the workstation version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Plus a router (or something) and security issues that are much more complex.
I want to run Oracle on my Linux workstation. I don't think Fedora is the answer here.
There must be slashdotters out there running Oracle on their workstations. What is a good Linux distribution for this?
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -- HST
Thanks to their confusing graphics, I see Red Hat's name misspelled as one word "RedHat" all the time. And it *still* googles at 3,440,000!
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
it reads like a 50 way he said she said arguement.
Oh wait, that came out MONTHS ago.
simply mepis
Got Code?
#d. supports my hardware - OS X supports all modern Apple hardware perfectly. OS X again.
OSX hands down. Exactly as you say.
That's kind of a bogus answer really. I think every Linux/BSD distro has flawless support for hardware created by the same people behind its development.
But when you talk about MY hardware instead of THEIR hardware, OS X fails miserably. MY hardware is all ia32.
Ok, so my post was labeled flamebait because I said "Bite it troll". Other than that, its completely true. Gotta love slashdot.
I can remember buying distros back when downloads were slow (1996 or so), and the University of Toronto book store had Red Hat boxes stacked all over the place. They were all gone in a couple of weeks, too. Of course there were only so many stores that got boxes in any volume, but still, thousands of units (they were seriously piled up when they came in) in a couple of weeks.
Of course they probably don't sell any retail boxes now. The few students who don't have broadband (networked dorms) probably get copies from those who do. Good revenue stream while it lasted.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
Um... *BSD is NOT Linux...
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
I think there is nothing surprising: :) - speed and (yes) ease of upgrade, however the necessary recompilation is both blessing and burden (as in *BSD), and sometimes something just does not work in those fancy-python managed-parallel starting init scripts
RedHat (and Fedora) is the easiest way of transition from Windows to Linux, the easiest way to set up your own server - you know all this graphical configuration tools (redhat-config-*) and the kernel which virtually has everything compiled in or as a module, but it is more difficult to change the startup scripts from hand and the upgrade process requires from you (in RedHat case) to have support - besides I have experienced some problems during upgrading over longer time spans - and the config files (if edited by hand) tend sometimes to be clobbered during updates
SuSE is a little more difficult to set up but the startup scripts are easily configured manually, you also get the decent GUI management tools (YaST)
Debian I don't think it is security - I think it is the ease of upgrade, the ease of manual management (clear structure of init files) - the stability during longer periods
Gentoo - of course for geeks and geek-girls
Slackware - for me not enough automation - but you get control...
And here comes the "nothing surprising" part: people have played long enough with RedHat to gain skills and are ready to try something better but more difficult from administrator's point of view.
You can defy gravity... for a short time
After RedHat (from 5.1 to 6.2) and Slackware, I decided to switch to something better, much better. I strongly dislike idea of Debian, and I don't think Gentoo would be my choice. I build my own Linux From Scratch.
Sure - it's not updating itself. There are no official packages at all. But from the other point of view - you are not limited at all. You don't need to find balance between your needs and what distribution gives. You don't need to worry how many users your distro has, because there is only one distribution like yours. Because it is your own installation of Linux. One and true.
Muhahahahaha.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Any of the large distros which wish to gain further market share could benefit by ensuring that at least one boxed set is on the shelf of the university book store. This is especially important in areas with poor connectivity or with out ethernet in the dorms.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I only wish that apt would take advantage of the plain-text databases by enabling the use of diffs to update the package database instead of requiring complete file downloads to sync up.
Having to download 6 MB of testing and unstable package databases every time I might want to upgrade a package that could be as small as 10 kb by itself is quite frustrating over my dialup. Even for people with faster connections, it surely increases the required bandwidth unnecessarily on the debian servers, too.
If diffs were simply provided for the previous week, it would allow most people to update with minimal effort in a cron job or an ip-up script.
Why would people download or buy it then? Simple, it has all freely available programs from RHEL 3.0 AS ($1499) and RH Cluster suite ($499) as free download, 18 Euro DVD-ROM, or 30 Euro Finnish book+DVD-ROM.
Perhaps you are not aware, but LindowsOS is the fastest growing desktop OS.
Err , yes I'm british. There a problem with that?
It should be retitled "Linux shares amongst web servers accessable from Netcraft" because that's all it deals with. Its as if file-servers, database-servers and desktops don't exist. I know its difficult to get accurate figures for the latter uses of Linux but that shouldn't mean that they are ignored.
This distorts the figures by, for instance, ignoring the fact that many distributions are targetted at the desktop (especially the home user's desktop) and so are never likely to register highly on a sample of internet-linked web hosting servers.
As many of these distribtions achieve their market share by being downloaded rather than purchased in a box, some idea of their level of distribution would be gained from the multi-distribution download sites (linuxiso.org etc) or sites like Distro Watch.
For instance, over the last 6 months the average hits-per-day by people looking for information on Distro Watch are
Yet in this article Mandrake is an non-player and Knoppix doesn't merit a mention.
if figures could be assembled from download sites, i have a shrewd suspicion that Debian and Mandrake would be well ahead, with dists like Gentoo and Knoppix definitely contenders.
as for the article being "solid", it seems pretty thin on information and very shaky on its contentions..
Paul
www.opencouncil.org
Open
Debian also has the larger website: "debian site:debian.org"
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,230,000. Search took 0.14 seconds.
Don't count RH out yet. There how appears to be a cottage industry sprining up to take care of the RH customer alienated by RH. Check this out... http://www.eclinux.com .
By the way, RH's old model was to give away the OS and then generate revenue from paid support contracts. Technically they are still "giving" their distro away, you just can't download it and you HAVE to buy a support contract. I realize that's "hair splitting" but true.
I personally like SuSe which provides me with a clean and lean KDE desktop. Debian/Gentoo is Hacker's choice. German language support is also of importance for me and Suse is better in that field than RedHat. Distributions?
But it depends. i want to use SuSe on the dektop. You should not mix up the server and the desktop market. this year Linux gains on the desktop market which was out of reach a few years ago. the desktop needs different software and tools. Redhat does not seem to be intrested in the desktop market anymore, their priority lies on the server market. Also the Linux in data center approach for Kernel development focusses on the Server and Enterprise market. From my perspective it would be more important to improve notebook support and kick the hardware manufacturers in the ass.
Mandrake always was a very good desktop distribution. I would like to see a joint desktop initiative with several goals and money to reach them. And not gnome radicals or Bruce Perens involved. I would like to see more standardization and more linux ports of commercial software.
The linux distros are just a changing dynamic. There is already evidence that RH's changes are opening the door for new companies. You might not be able to get official RH support for Fedora, but new companies are taking advantage of RH's decision.
Witness www.eclinux.com. They are offering to not only offer support for RH's distros, but for Fedora Core as well. RH/Fedora might continue their reign, just in a new dynamic.
Debian unstable, on the other hand supports packages written in the 1970's, and even some from the early 1980's.
Sorry, but that was just asking for a cheap dig at debian :O) I'll get my hat...
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
Um....a 3% increase in speed in individual programs and libraries translates intoa 3% increase in overall system performance. The percentages aren't cumulative in this case, because you're not just adding the time saved, but also the time it still takes the programs to execute as well; the ratio of time saved to time used remains constant.
Hope that helps.
Software is a tool, not a religion.
Heretic. :)
Eric, with 2 Windows, 1 Linux and 2 OSX machines in his office...
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Actually, the "not displaying where meetings are" problem is nothing to do with WINE or Notes; it's because half of IBM uses a non-standard mail template with special fields for the information, and hence it isn't displayed to anyone using the standard Notes mail template.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
And the answer is... article doesn't say.......
Must-not-watch TV!
Actually, IBM isn't pushing one particular distribution. IBM threw its weight behind supporting UnitedLinux 1.0--i.e. RedHat, SuSE, Connectiva and... uh... SCO. Oh well.
Obviously the strategy will need to change soon, not least because UnitedLinux is deader than NetBSD, thanks to SCO.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
If you do a search on Freshmeat for "linux distribution" and sort by vitality the top result is Astaro Security Linux. Never even heard of them though.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Gobo Linux (www.gobolinux.org) looks like it's been doing well. They only started a couple years ago but they already have a graphical installer, one of the simplest package managers, and a growing user base.
I started on Linux Mandrake, it got me into the pool but I have started using Red hat 9. So I think red hat is the Mainstream distro of choice. If I were to change I think I would use SUSE just because it seems more secure.
You mean like this?
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Is it the most popular linux? I heard there are many servier use it, is it true?