Slashdot Mirror
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
...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
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!!
It's Debian *shrug*
:: debianHELP ... ... We use GNU! We use GNU... ..do you?! Debian is the fastest growing GNU/Linux ...
= 3231
Results 1 - 20 of about 11,600. Search took 0.41 seconds
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, &
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?
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.
----
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!
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
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!
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
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."
>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.
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
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!
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.
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
Well, since KDE 3.2 is in woody already, I don't see how they could not include it in the official release of sarge as "stable".
...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.
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
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.
Hm, well, Ian would be two syllables and pronounced "ee" as in Bee and "n" as in Sudden.
It would probably be "deb-ee-n"
No..?
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/
scripsit SoTuA:
Actually it's not:
Note that Woody==Stable -- that's 2.2.2-14.7. Sarge (Testing) currently has 3.1.3-1, and Sid (Unstable) has 3.1.5-2.
In principio creauit Linus Linucem.
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.
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?
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...
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.
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?
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
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!
So many people miss the point of Debian.
What's on the CD is usually hopelessly out of date. It's enough to build a working system. Once it's going and online you use apt-get to upgrade either individual packages or the whole system, including the kernel. This can take a long time, particularly if you have a slow connection.
Once the system is up-to-date you continue to update packages using apt-get indefinitely. There is no 'next version', you never need to burn/buy CDs and upgrade or rebuild.
If you are running servers this is very good. If you are running a desktop machine and you're used to Windows, MacOS or other Linux distros this is, as you say, very confusing.
Now wash your hands.
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
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.
Debian also has the larger website: "debian site:debian.org"
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,230,000. Search took 0.14 seconds.
> And if FreeBSD can compile the c library, the c compiler,
/bin, /sbin and some games (bind and sendmail
if you want them). Other stuff too which I can't remember.
Everything in the base system which you can browse in
cvs.
;)
To be fair too I've got a Celeron (one of the good ones)
with a L1 cache addressed at the full clock speed of the
chip.
> kernel, xfree86, qt, kde, python, perl, and many other
> packages in 2 hours on a p2-300 w/160MB RAM and a slow hard
> drive, then I would be amazed.
3 hrs! C compiler, C libs, kernel, perl, openssh, openssl, nntpd and everything in
So you're right, we're not strictly comparing like with like - especially since I've got 192MB RAM and a Samsung 32GB IDE HD so my machine will obviously leave yours for dead
Apologies for the broken links. Try reading about the makeworld process here.
For upgrading userland stuff, most FreeBSDers use portupgrade which makes things pretty easy and painless.
Anyway, give FreeBSD a try one day. It would be interesting to compare it with Gentoo and see which bits of each system are better. I think you'll find the performance a lot better which is important when you're on low end hardware and building all your stuff from source.
The Machine stops.