Countdown from 100 -> 0 --> #1 (last 12 months)

[Dennis-TW]

A better metric would be the cumulative number of downloads from all the mirrors. This would give an idea of the number of people who have at least tried MX or plan to do so, not taking into account those who get it via torrent.

Hi there, new user here

The best metric would probably be the number of times a certain update package has been downloaded in a given time, e.g. release update xy right now and count how many times it has been downloaded in the first 24, 48 hours and so on. This would give a good overview on the number of current active installations. However, I am not sure whether this kind of telemetry would be something to go for

I actually don't remember why I eventually chose to install MX first in a VM and now on three different devices, but it most certainly was because MX was somewhere at the Top 10 on Distrowatch. It was quite a ritual of mine to test the five or ten best distros on a semi-annual basis or so ... until MX 18.1 came out and won the race of all races

[dreamer]

how much help they give for free despite being busy with software development, website, forum, documentation etc.

I forgot packaging. It's easy to forget when everything is working and is a couple of clicks away in MXPI.

"Most users ever online was xxyyzz" may not be apples-to-apples comparison.
forumA might be configured to use a 24hr (or 48, or 72!) session cookie timeout, vs forumB @15minute timeout.
Also, a forum's sysadmin may (I've seen this done in the context of sites being put up for sale) inflate the count by manually editing the database.

That's a valid point. We can also look at these numbers:
Linux Mint: Total posts 1505874 • Total topics 233081 • Total members 117383
MX Linux: Total posts 166750 • Total topics 13721 • Total members 5334

Granted, MX Linux is a much younger distro so that's not fair either.
However, I don't doubt Linux Mint has more users if you look at donations. Every month Linux Mint receives $10k from 300+ users. In December 2018 alone LM received $40k+ from users. On top of that LM has sponsorships (you have to disable adblocker to see them) which LM wouldn't have if businesses didn't use the distro. So we are probably looking at $200k annual income. You don't get that without a big userbase (individuals and small and medium-size businesses). Linux Mint has established itself as the go-to distro for users coming from Windows. Since Windows has 80 % market share that's where the growth potential comes from.

This doesn't mean that I think MX Linux should become more like Linux Mint. It's good that distros find their own niche. In fact what brought MX Linux to the top of DistroWatch is that it offers things that Linux Mint does not. Linux Mint may be boring, but for non-geeks getting 5 year support for Firefox, Chrome, Skype and other apps may seal the deal. Linux Mint has been able to capitalize on the Ubuntu LTS base, especially now that Ubuntu uses Gnome...

[rasat]

If we want more meaningful popularity numbers let's look at forum activity.
I don't have numbers for the latter, but Linux Mint forum states:

Most users ever online was 2029 on Mon Apr 08, 2019 9:27 am

The same number for MX Linux is:

Most users ever online was 717 on Tue Oct 30, 2018 5:46 pm

I would not count on this calculation when Linux Mint has 117,406 registered users. 1.7% hit the page on Mon Apr 08, 2019. And how many are active members..... maybe 3% which is less than MX registered users (5,340). Ubuntu has 2,112,455 members with 2,460 active (0.1%). The number of MX registered users is quite the same as active, inactive members are frequently removed.

[antiX-Dave]

A better metric would be

expire the repo keyring key, then sit back and watch how many come a runnin' to download the new key?

Hmm...


just sayin'

Lol aaaallllllloooooootttt.
Of course this could be said for any updated package in the repo

Edit
Approximately 750 unique "people" a day at approximately 40000 requests for stretch for March. For the antix repo not including mirrors. Surprisingly close to the distrowatch result even when scaled to multiple months.

Can I be safe in assuming that the difference between the two are the "regulars"?

[dreamer]

In December 2018 alone LM received $40k+ from users. On top of that LM has sponsorships (you have to disable adblocker to see them) which LM wouldn't have if businesses didn't use the distro. So we are probably looking at $200k annual income.

Seems my memory isn't correct. It should be $22,803 in December 2018 from 675 users. So maybe $150k annual income is more correct. Either way Linux Mint is a green distro... good for them and good for Linux because Cinnamon can be used elsewhere.

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3724

[Eggnog]

I'm kinda glad that MX is about to hit #1 in the rankings, but it's mostly just entertainment to me. Recently, I took a look at the DW rankings for each year since they've been doing it. Puts things into perspective -- they come and they go. Maybe MX will have a long run at #1 like Mint did. By the way, sometimes I wonder if Ubuntu and the Ubuntu flavors shouldn't have their hits per day totalled together.

I used to wonder the same thing about the Ubuntu flavors, but I read somewhere that it's because not all of them are official or made by Ubuntu or something to that effect. Seemed kind of sketchy but whatever.

[skidoo]

https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resou ... buntusplit
Why is Ubuntu split into multiple entries while Fedora and Linux Mint are each treated as one distro? This lowers its page hit ranking.

We treat Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Kylin, etc as separate distributions for several reasons.

Most community editions of Ubuntu usually begin life as their own, separate distributions and later join the list of official Ubuntu community editions. Quite often we add new projects to our database prior to them becoming official community editions.

While the community editions (usually) release at the same time as Ubuntu, each community project has its own developers, its own governing body and its own design goals. The community editions have their own websites and sometimes maintain parts of their own infrastructure. They are, for most practical purposes, independent entities. The names of the community editions are similar to Ubuntu and they share some infrastructure, but they are otherwise separate from Ubuntu. Our database organization reflects that.

We generally determine what is a separate distribution vs a community spin based on whether a project has its own website. Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, etc each have their own website and are therefore regarded as separate projects. By contrast, Linux Mint's editions (Main, Debian Edition, KDE spin) all share one website. Likewise Fedora Workstation, Fedora KDE and Fedora Xfce all share one website. We organize our information to reflect how distributions organize themselves.

Grouping Ubuntu editions together, ie going out of our way to treat Ubuntu differently from the way we treat all other distributions, just artificially inflates Ubuntu's ranking. The way the stats are organized now are, if nothing else, internally consistent. We have tried combining Ubuntu community stats before, but it understandably annoyed people as it inflates Ubuntu's ranking and hides the independent community editions from the PHR table.

It may be worth noting we often receive this query about Ubuntu and its many community spins. The reasoning being that Ubuntu community editions all share similar names and most of the same package repositories so perhaps they should be treated as one project. To date, we have not received the same question asking why we split all the different Arch-based distributions into separate entries. Like Ubuntu, the Arch-based projects usually use the same repositories, have "Arch" in their name, and use the same media update cycle. We have approximately the same number of projects named "Arch*" in our database as "*buntu", yet no one questions treating the Arch-based spins as different projects. People acknowledge Arch-based projects have different websites and developers and are therefore different distributions. We treat Ubuntu-based projects, with their own websites and developers, the same way we treat Arch-based spins.

[rasat]

55 more hits and there it is... #1

[KBD]

Good point about why Ubuntu spins are counted separately. After all, if MX was included with Debian, Debian would have been the #1 Distro awhile back :)

[BitJam]

I think we will go over the top Saturday (US timezones) or Sunday at the latest.