Number 4 on DistroWatch and climbing! What a great job, folks! I never would have thought that I picked the right distro back when I jumped from Lindows (how I learnt linux) to OpenSuSE 10.x. Thanks. 
No 4?
Kewl
Iâm guessing that is due to Tumbleweed. Some people really like the idea of a rolling distribution.
Credit to you for having such good judgement!
I never pay attention to where openSUSE sits on the list, but it is good to know that the distro remains popular (despite the media bashing Iâve observed from time to time).
I donât normally either - I just happened to swing by distrowatch - I think opensuseâs been climbing. I seem to recall it was #5. It may partially be tumbleweed, but I also think itâs the only distro that successfully combines power-linux with a great noob-usable interface. (the âsortedâ application launcher is a good example - does any other distro even have that?? Another example is the YaST and Configure Desktop apps, and zypper/YaST available.) And letâs not forget the great forum⌠
Thatâs okay, I suppose, but they still need to move it up 3 more spots before they match my list.
Yes, theyâre biased 
There may be truth in that statement (/pets desktop running Tumbleweed)
Just went to distrowatch ranking page, it shows oS in 4th place for the last 12/6/3/1 months, so nothing new really.
It is growing up, only not enough to change position.
OpenSUSE has been consistently in the top 6 or so for a long, long time. As long as I have known DistroWatch.
It is actually DistroWatch, and its description of the distros and their evaluation of which is good for what, that led my to try openSUSE in the first place.
On Sun, 18 Jan 2015 00:26:01 +0000, deano ferrari wrote:
> Fraser_Bell;2689757 Wrote:
>> Thatâs okay, I suppose, but they still need to move it up 3 more spots
>> before they match -my- list.
> Yes, theyâre biased 
The bias, of course, being, that the page counters are for hits on their
page, not an actual measurement of distro popularity.
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
Like an âexit pollâ (e.g for elections) can serve only as a speculative guide. Where there are no actual âsalesâ to record, popularity is often gauged by polling where sample size matters. The question remains whether Distrowatchâs equivalent sample size is large enough, looking at page hits counted and totalled across all distros listed there.
DistroWatchâs influence resides in that there are no concrete methods of measuring use and popularity.
Speaking of DistroWatch, the openSUSE description needs to be updated some :
The openSUSE project is a community program sponsored by Novell. Promoting the use of Linux everywhere, this program provides free, easy access to openSUSE, a complete Linux distribution. The openSUSE project has three main goals: make openSUSE the easiest Linux for anyone to obtain and the most widely used Linux distribution; leverage open source collaboration to make openSUSE the worldâs most usable Linux distribution and desktop environment for new and experienced Linux users; dramatically simplify and open the development and packaging processes to make openSUSE the platform of choice for Linux developers and software vendors.
Novell isnât in the picture anymore. Actually, just read that Attachmate was purchased late 2014 by Micro Focus, which I hadnât heard before.
On 2015-01-20 14:56, dragonbite wrote:
> Novell isnât in the picture anymore. Actually, just read that
> âAttachmate was purchased late 2014 by Micro Focusâ
> (http://tinyurl.com/k29f82e), which I hadnât heard before.
They also own Borland. We are cousins now :-}
â
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 âBottleâ at Telcontar)
On Tue, 20 Jan 2015 13:36:01 +0000, consused wrote:
> hendersj;2690187 Wrote:
>>
>> The bias, of course, being, that the page counters are for hits on
>> their page, not an actual measurement of distro popularity.
> Like an âexit pollâ (e.g for elections) can serve only as a speculative
> guide. Where there are no actual âsalesâ to record, popularity is often
> gauged by polling where sample size matters. The question remains
> whether Distrowatchâs equivalent sample size is large enough, looking at
> page hits counted and totalled across all distros listed there.
Actually, the question is whether or not the hits the pages receive are
proportional to the number of installed systems.
My gut says ânoâ - Ubuntu is probably used on more desktops, openSUSE and
CentOS more on servers that wouldnât be connecting to Distrowatch on any
sort of regular basis.
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
On 2015-01-21, Jim Henderson <hendersj@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Jan 2015 13:36:01 +0000, consused wrote:
>
> Actually, the question is whether or not the hits the pages receive are
> proportional to the number of installed systems.
>
> My gut says ânoâ - Ubuntu is probably used on more desktops, openSUSE and
> CentOS more on servers that wouldnât be connecting to Distrowatch on any
> sort of regular basis.
>
> Jim
While Iâd not only trust your gut (splendid though Iâm sure it is - I myself have a very fine transverse colon!), I
think the evidence speaks for itself. Any non-Distrowatch-based survey ranks Ubuntu as by-far the most popular GNU/Linux
distribution. However, DistroWatch ranks Mint as #1, and has done so far considerable time, and way ahead of Ubuntu.
I remember seeing a LAS (Jupiter Broadcasting) feature on this, in which ZDNetâs SJVN is lambasted for being lazy by
relying on DistroWatch to gauge GNU/Linux popularity in one of his articles. In the LAS, they claim that most of
DistroWatchâs counts are indirect `hitsâ made by web searches in which users ended up never actually visiting
DistroWatch. Apparently Mint users are more likely to seek help from web search engines, whereas Ubuntu users tend to
search directly within Ubuntuâs web site. As a result Mintâs DistroWatch statistics are artifactually inflated in a way
that is not the case for Ubuntuâs statistics.
Consequently the rankings from DistroWatch mean nothing, and anyone who takes them seriously needs a reality check.
DistroWatch itself admits the rankings are just for fun' and advises caution in their interpretation. Since the rankings have duped many people, the world would be a better place if they were abandoned as they are so misleading. But DistroWatch won't drop them otherwise there'd be no point visiting their website. I suspect therefore that the rankings are definitely not there for funâ but for much more insidious reasons.
Since the sampling method (historically open to misuse) and size are in doubt, thatâs another question but possibly one much further down the track. Two possible answers to it now, as Iâm sure you know, are âno hopeâ and âno chanceâ. Unless of course you can persuade all the distros to encourage/force users to register their installations.
âŚUbuntu is probably used on more desktops, openSUSE and
> CentOS more on servers that wouldnât be connecting to Distrowatch on any
> sort of regular basis.
Surely openSUSE is used on more desktops than it is on servers, or is the default installation setting just a gamble? Even though servers are much less likely to connect, their admin users might do so from their own desktops which could be on any alternative desktop-biased distro.
BTW, some time ago someone thought it necessary to include package levels for âfactoryâ on the openSUSE page on DistroWatch - there it is still called that - unlike a previous poster I see no evidence of Tumbleweed causing any noticeable increase in popularity. Itâs more likely to result from the normal surge in interest which seems to accompany new distro releases i.e. openSUSE !3.2 in this case.
How does that actually work, and whose IP address is being counted on for example a google search that just produces a list of possible website references that includes a reference to DistroWatch?