Why Distrowatch is irrelevant for Businesses
Someone new coming to Linux may do research and in that research they come across Distrowatch, http://www.distrowatch.com
Distrowatch is confusing as it currently lists thousands of Linux distributions. To someone coming from Windows to Linux who doesnt know that much about it will have a hard time figuring out which one to go with. Distrowatch is a community site, nothing more and nothing less. There is bias there where distributions they like flourish and distributions they dislike are obscure and not given much attention. There seems to be a huge disdain for commercial distributions.
Hits Per Day
Distrowatch ranks the distributions by their hits per day. They claim that it puts the finger on the pulse of what Linux community members are looking at and which distributions are the most successful. But does it really? Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the #1 most popular distribution in the world. Its used in many governments around the world, its used in most of the worlds supercomputers and has more desktop deployments than any Linux distribution in Distrowatch’s database. Where do they rank? For 6 months, #56 for 1 month #61. What is the #1 Linux distribution on Distrowatch? Linux Mint. The Linux Mint guys do a fabulous job of creating a community centrist distribution, but are there any fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 deployments of Linux Mint? No. In preparing for this piece I spoke to may professionals in the Fortune 1000 and Fortune 500 companies and while they all heard of Red Hat, SUSE and Oracle Linux none of them know about Linux Mint. When you get to the smaller businesses you hear more about CentOS, Ubuntu and Black Lab Linux there is still no talk about Linux Mint. I talked to some of the sales people at Red Hat, Micro Focus, PC Open Systems, Oracle, CDW the more popular Linux consulting firms and distributors I asked how many times is Linux Mint thrown in your bids? The answer is always none. So at which point is Linux Mint the most popular Linux distribution? On Distrowatch.
Bias on Distrowatch
Distrowatch has a definite bias towards more community centric, free-as-in-beer distributions than it does on commercial Linux distributions. I distro hop a lot. I try many distributions and I have settled on 3 and yes Linux Mint is on that list. I submit reviews on many distributions. I notice when they have an axe to grind against a particular distribution bad reviews are allowed to flourish but if I or others submit positive reviews they tend to get ignored and there are more than a handful of distributions where I have noticed that trend and if you make a negative comment about their favorite distributions they get ignored as well. They arent a media site though and thats the excuse they will give. Just as such if you dont buy advertising from them you get a place on the “waiting list” to get your distribution placed in the database. If you buy advertising you can be placed immediately front and center.
Does Distrowatch deter potential users
In some cases yes, in some cases no. In cases where it can deter is someone in small businesses and the more non-technical user. With Distrowatch they will find their fair share of non supported distributions. Im sorry but forums are not a good place for someone who is new to Linux to get support. When I first started I cant tell you how many forums I posted to and I was answered with very hostile answers or my question went ignored. So unless you are willing to spend more time on Google or Duck Duck Go then you really want to I would suggest a commercial distribution. If you are a more technical user and you dont mind tinkering and playing around then Distrowatch is a good resource. You will not find a shortage on interesting distributions to try.
Final thoughts
Is Distrowatch a good place for businesses wanting to switch to Linux to trust and use as a resource? Absolutely not. There is absolutely nothing on that site that I would consider a trusted resource. Their reviews are biased and range from somewhat informative to garbage. Their distro ranking practices are not based on merit, they are based on how many users click on them each day and many of those clicks are from people who wouldnt spend a dime on any solution. As a business you need a good distribution based on support and response. A good place to start is a distributors support page and look at their library of support documentation. Look at their customer list and who does in fact use the distribution in question. Is there an evaluation version available for you to test before you buy? Check their support processes. If you need help at 3 am will this distributor be at your datacenter? What I would consider merit and trusted is that distributors time in business, references and track record.
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