| Frequently Asked Questions about DistroWatch |
| A d v e r t i s e m e n t |
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What is DistroWatch? |
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The DistroWatch web site was first published on 31 May 2001. The concept started as a very simple table comprising of 5 major distributions and the chart only compared a few features (price, version, release date) and a few package versions (Kernel, KDE, Gnome, XFree86, Apache). Trying to make it slightly more comprehensive and useful (and failing to find anything similar and up-to-date on the Internet), I have kept adding more distributions, features and packages until the table reached fairly reasonable state in terms of information provided. At that stage, I decided to share the table with the Linux community worldwide and moved it from a spreadsheet into an HTML document. The page was first mentioned on LinuxToday and on many other sites around the world. Besides visitors, the site has also received a lot of feedback; what follows below is my attempt to answer some of the questions and reply to suggestions.
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What kind of news is published on the main page? |
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First and foremost, news about release announcements of Linux distributions and *BSDs (both stable and development) are published on the main page. To a lesser degree, interesting reviews and interviews with distribution developers (in English) will also be published. However, please note that only quality reviews will be given space on the main page. Short and superficial reviews, as well as reviews with spelling mistakes, grammatical errors or poor writing style will not be linked on the main page, although they will still be added to the relevant distribution-specific page.
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A new version of a distribution was released, but it wasn't announced on DistroWatch. Why? |
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This situation can happen for one of the following reasons:
- The release was not announced on the distribution's own web site. Before we publish a release announcement on DistroWatch, we require that the distribution publish an announcement on their web site. This can take the form of a press release, release announcement or, at the very least, a changelog. It must be published either on the main web site or in a publicly available community section, such as a mailing list, user forum or Wiki.
- The release announcement was too brief. Some distribution maintainers do announce their releases, but with only one sentence saying that "version X.X has been released". This poses a problem for us in that we find it difficult to turn a simple sentence into a full paragraph for publishing on DistroWatch. If the distribution maintainers are unable to produce a decent release announcement, giving at least a basic list of new features and updates, then don't expect us to do their job.
- We didn't know about the release. Although we try our best to traverse the Internet continuously in search for new distribution releases, we do miss some on occasion. In this case, please let us know about it - the preferred way is to simply email us (a contact email address is published at the bottom of every page on DistroWatch).
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Is the information on your site accurate? |
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It is my objective to provide correct and accurate information. At the same time, I cannot guarantee that every number and every dot is in the correct position, however hard I try. As you can imagine, it is quite tedious to collect all the information and it takes a lot effort and time to wade through busy ftp servers and extract the facts from subdirectories of ISO images. Many errors were fixed soon after the site was first made public (Slackware users were the most active in correcting them) and most of the information should be correct. Don't be shy to point out any errors you find; just send me an e-mail and I will fix them immediately.
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Some distributions include more than one version of a package. How do you deal with these situations? |
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Some packages, such as Bash, BIND, GCC, GTK+, Python, Qt, and the Linux kernel, are often supplied in multiple versions in some distributions. Including all these versions in tables would destroy their aesthetic qualities and bring potential confusion. Hence, only the "default" version is listed in the tables. The only exception is the Linux kernel (package "linux"); the reason is that most people seem to be interested in knowing what kernel options are available in a distribution, rather than what is the default kernel.
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I've just developed/discovered a new distribution. Will you list it? |
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Yes, as long as it is based on a version of the Linux Kernel or BSD, it qualifies for inclusion. However, please be aware that certain categories of distributions, such as small, embedded, floppy-based and distributions running from Windows partitions are currently excluded. This is mainly due to the fact that I don't have enough time and because of other priorities such as automating site updates. I am sorry if you feel disappointed, but I had to draw the line somewhere.
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Why does DistroWatch include BSDs and Solaris? |
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Originally, the site covered Linux distributions only. However, after numerous requests from readers, BSDs and BSD-based projects were added to DistroWatch in May 2004. The reasoning behind this move was simple - Linux and BSDs have much in common - both are free and open source operating systems, and they both use many of the same open source packages available on the Internet. Best of all, the various BSD flavours are widely used and considered by many to be great operating systems.
Similarly, Sun Microsystem's Solaris was frequently requested to be included in DistroWatch, especially after the release of version 10 with a much less restrictive license than their previous releases. However, Solaris is listed here purely for reference purposes and not as an endorsement of the product.
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Do you provide any email newsletters or "news by email" features? |
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No. With the current amount of spam hammering mail servers around the world, often combined with harsh anti-spam efforts, I don't consider email to be a reliable medium for transmitting anything other than short plain-text messages.
If you want to be kept informed about distribution releases, a much more elegant solution is to use one of the RSS feed readers and subscribe to DistroWatch news feeds. I recommend Liferea - it has good options for combining and filtering feeds (see the following paragraph for links to DistroWatch RSS feeds). In fact, you can think of Liferea as an "email" application that monitors web sites of your choice and informs you about changes. Give it a try.
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What is this "Page Hit Ranking"? |
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It is a light-hearted way of looking at popularity of distribution. Since each distribution has its own page, I though it would be fun to track the number of visitors viewing individual distribution pages. The HPD figure represents hits per day by unique visitors; as determined by the visitor's IP address. This prevents those readers, not disciplined enough, from rigging the results by re-loading the pages multiple times. The idea is to identify which distributions attract most attention and to rank them accordingly. Admittedly, the page clicks by themselves may not always reflect the popularity correctly, but they should, over time, provide an indication about what is hot among the readers frequenting these pages.
These rules have been implemented to prevent various counter reloading schemes:
- Repeated page and counter reloads in short or regular intervals are not permitted. If you are inclined to set up cron jobs to repeatedly "wget" your favourite distro's page counter, then please do yourself a favour and go to see a psychologist. You need help.
- All suspicious page hit counts will be investigated and any regularly reloaded counts will be deducted from the total count.
- The repeat offender's IP address might be banned from accessing all areas of DistroWatch.
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You list so many distributions. Which one do you use? |
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In order to remain objective and up-to-date with the latest technologies, I switch my distribution every 6 months. Currently, my main production system runs on Debian GNU/Linux "Lenny" (since November 2008). Before Debian, I used openSUSE 11.0 (June 2008 - November 2008), Fedora 8 and 9 (November 2007 - June 2008), Sabayon Linux 3.3 and 3.4 (April 2007 - November 2007), Mandriva Linux 2007 (October 2006 - April 2007), Kubuntu (July 2005 - October 2006), Debian "sid" (July 2003 - July 2005), Sorcerer (January 2002 - July 2003) and Mandrake Linux (April 1999 - January 2002).
The DistroWatch web server is currently running on a dedicated machine powered by Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 "Etch" (since October 2007); before then it was running on FreeBSD 5 and 6 (October 2004 - October 2007) and Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 "Woody".
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Can you tell us about yourself? Where are you from? |
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Not sure any more. I was born in Slovakia, I am a citizen of South Africa and I live in Taiwan. My professional career has so far included nuclear research in Czechoslovakia, platinum mining in South Africa, diamond mining in Namibia and software development in Taiwan. I attempted my first ever installation of a Linux operating system in April 1999. The Chinese say:"A one-thousand mile journey starts with a single step." Those first steps were not very easy, but the journey itself has been full of pleasant surprises, even joys and, most importantly, it has been a journey of freedom. Open source software is great and this site is just a small contribution to all who enjoy it.
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Contact details |
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Name: Ladislav Bodnar
Physical Address: No 47-7, Lane 575, Taiping Rd, 954 Beinan, Taitung County, Taiwan
Telephone: +886 89 381717 (home/office), +886 912 034681 (cell)
E-mail: distro at distrowatch.com
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| Quick Summary |
News Headlines
http://distrowatch.com/news/dw.xml
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Latest Packages
http://distrowatch.com/news/dwp.xml
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Latest Distributions
http://distrowatch.com/news/dwd.xml
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