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What's The Fastest Growing Linux Distro?

Posted by simoniker on from the everybody-wins dept.

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."

15 of 530 comments (clear)

  1. The fastest shrinking distro by HuguesT · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Has got to be RedHat.

    1. Re:The fastest shrinking distro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually acording the the article RedHat added twice the number of installs over Debian. Percent growth is kind of a stupid number, since the "fastest growning" distribution could be one that went from 1 install to 2.

    2. Re:The fastest shrinking distro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The fact that they made it 10x more expensive, and they are still growing at all says quite a bit about RedHat's market position.

    3. Re:The fastest shrinking distro by NanoGator · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "People got upset at the mention of MS dropping support for Win98 and that is 6 years old now."

      That had more to do with the who than the 'what they did'. Microsoft was bashed here both for discontinuing it, and then changing their mind and renewing it.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
  2. depends on what demographic by pyros · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Well yes, that kind of happens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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).

    1. Re:Well yes, that kind of happens by The+Analog+Kid · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I wouldn't consider half those people actual customers because they aren't buying anything. Sure there was a small amount buying the boxed set, but really it was pretty small compared to those just downloading it off the internet.

    2. Re:Well yes, that kind of happens by globalar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I get your point, and from a business perspective this is right on. But the end users have their own perspective, and that controls what they buy and how they spend their money.

      Linux is basically free. At a base price of nothing for the core components (and with alternative distros like Mandrake), it doesn't make sense to try to sell a distribution without allowing someone to preview it. What you are paying for is support (especially easy updates), to get hard copy documentation and media, as well as to support Linux in general. Note: I bet a lot of people (percentage-wise) bought Redhat to support Linux. Those users downloading the OS can translate into customers and at the very least may influence others (their employers and friends) to buy or use. The bigger the user base, the more influence you have, the more brand recognition, the more people will actually shell out cash.

      Big point being that Redhat got its reputation with those freeloaders, some of which became into customers. The net gain was Redhat's growth and popularity, which somehow found a place in the business world with marketing direction. Basically, no one paid for the OS upfront, but rather tried it and then paid. So the customer pool comes from freeloaders, directly or indirectly that is why Redhat is purchased (because someone uses it for free to begin with).

      Redhat wanted business contracts, because those are stable and there is a growing market (not to mention good money). Redhat took its good name, and now sells it to businesses. But that name became popular largely with the aid of freeloaders.

  4. If you consider it a distro by barenaked · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. Debian based by sanctimonius+hypocrt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.


  6. Either Mandrake or Gentoo by LordK3nn3th · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  7. The questions I would ask would be different by cluge · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  8. Re:From what I gather... by NixLuver · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I started with Slack, years ago, then switched to RH when I started doing commercial Linux stuff (at approximately 5.2, around the libc5/6 controversy time); now I use Gentoo on my workstations, because it kinda brings back that old Slackware ("The distribution with attitude") feeling; it's the distro for ubergeeks or distro weenies that either like to get their hands dirty on the internals, or people who like to say they like to get their hands dirty on the internals.

    I will tell you what; if you set up Gentoo a few times, you'll truly understand the Linux boot process and associated configuration.

    --
    Thinking outside my Head
  9. What's the big deal? by Jay9333 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  10. Fastest growing, or most popular web server by buchanmilne · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.