Frequently Asked Questions

These are some of the frequently asked questions we receive and our answers.

• What is DistroWatch?
  
  
• I am new to Linux, which distribution should I choose?
  
  
• I cannot access DistroWatch from Turkey/my country, are you blocking a range of IP addresses?
  
  
• What kind of news is published on the main page?
  
  
• A new version of a distribution was released, but it wasn't announced on DistroWatch. Why?
  
  
• Why do you not list Android, arguably the world's most popular Linux distribution?
  
  
• I cannot reach your website when I am using a VPN. Do you block VPN connections?
  
  
• Parts of a distro information's page is blocked/missing, can you fix it?
  
  
• Is the information on your site accurate?
  
  
• What happened to the ratings? There are some missing!
  
  
• Some distributions include more than one version of a package. How do you deal with these situations?
  
  
• I have just developed/discovered a new distribution. Will you list it?
  
  
• Why does DistroWatch include BSDs and Solaris?
  
  
• I am trying to find distributions with/without a feature or package. How can I do this?
  
  
• Linux Mint uses systemd, but shows up in searches for distributions without it. Why? MX Linux shows up in searches for non-systemd. Why?
  
  
• Why is distro X still on the waiting list and not in your database?
  
  
• Why is distro X not in your database?
  
  
• What is the difference between the Dormant and Discontinued status?
  
  
• Distribution X charges its users money. Is that ethical/legal? Why is it on your website?
  
  
• How can I find out if a distro has UEFI support?
  
  
• Do you provide any social media, e-mail newsletters or "news by e-mail" features?
  
  
• Is your RSS feed down? I'm no longer receiving updates.
  
  
• Where can I find laptops/computers that work with Linux?
  
  
• What is this "Page Hit Ranking"?
  
  
• Do some distributions buy/cheat to gain higher rankings?
  
  
• Why is Ubuntu split into multiple entries while Fedora and Linux Mint are each treated as one distro? This lowers its page hit ranking.
  
  
• How long is long-term support (LTS)?
  
  
• Are there any plans to introduce a mobile version of the DistroWatch website?
  
  
• Is there any way to browse DistroWatch over plain HTTP, rather than HTTPS?
  
  
• Parts of the website are hidden - summary tables, links, rankings - why?
  
  
• What are some good tips for writing a mini-review? / Why didn't you publish my rating/review?
  
  
• Where can I find other Linux users, or Linux User Groups (LUGs)?
  
  
• You list so many distributions. Which one do you use?
  
  

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What is DistroWatch?

The DistroWatch website was first published on 31 May 2001. The concept started as a very simple table comprising of five major distributions and the chart only compared a few features (price, version, release date) and a few package versions (Linux kernel, KDE, GNOME, XFree86, Apache web server). Trying to make it slightly more comprehensive and useful (and failing to find anything similar and up-to-date on the Internet), we have kept adding more distributions, features and packages until the table reached a fairly reasonable state in terms of information provided. At that stage, it was decided to share the table with the Linux community worldwide and it was moved 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 an attempt to answer some of the most common questions we receive and reply to suggestions.

Today, DistroWatch provides several features. Our front page provides up to date listings of new versions of Linux distributions (as well as new releases of BSD flavours and other open source operating systems). We also provide a weekly news letter which reviews open source software and provides a recap of recent news in the open source community.

We also track open source packages and news on our Headlines page and seed torrents for open source operating systems. Plus we provide up to date security advisories for several open source operating systems and host copies of projects' signing keys.

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I am new to Linux, which distribution should I choose?

Welcome! There are hundreds of Linux distributions and that can feel overwhelming when it comes time to choose which one to use. However, while there are a few hundred actively developed Linux distributions, relatively few are designed to be easy to use for newcomers.

On our Search page it is possible to locate Linux distributions which are specifically designed with newcomers in mind. We recommend looking at this list of beginner friendly distributions. It is probably best to start at the top of the list as the projects at the start of the list tend to be more popular. If the first one does not suit, then try the second or third item on the list.

One nice aspect of the projects on the beginner friendly list is that not only are the operating systems themselves usually easier to use, but the people on the support forums of these projects are accustomed to helping people with little to no Linux experience.

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I cannot access DistroWatch from Turkey/my country, are you blocking a range of IP addresses?

We do not block traffic for ranges of IP addresses. In other words, we don't intentionally block any groups of IP address, VPNs, or Tor services. Nor do we engage in any blocking of traffic based on countries.

Unfortunately, ISPs in some countries, most notably Turkey, have decided to block access to DistroWatch. We cannot do anything to resolve this as it appears to be a government directive in Turkey that has resulted in the block. People in Turkey, or similarly affected regions, can visit DistroWAtch by using a VPN service.

Apparently the reason for this is the government of Turkey believes Linux is dangerous software (or malware/spyware, depending on the translation).

We will, in extreme cases, automatically block traffic from IP addresses which are engaged in denial of service (DoS) attacks. These bans will last approximately 10 hours and then, assuming the attack has stopped, the ban will be automatically lifted. This is the only case in which we block IP addresses.
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What kind of news is published on the main page?

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, podcasts and official project newsletters are listed in our sidebar. Minor news stories are first covered on our Headlines page and, later, in our weekly newsletter.

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A new version of a distribution was released, but it wasn't announced on DistroWatch. Why?

This situation can happen for one of the following reasons:

• The release was not announced on the distribution's own website. Before we publish a release announcement on DistroWatch, we require that the distribution publish an announcement on their website. 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 website 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 we do not have anything to work with. Unannounced (or minimally announced) releases are listed on our sidebar on the front page.
  
  
• 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 e-mail us.
  
  
• The release announcement has been published, but the distribution's ISO files have not been made available yet. Some projects announce new releases before updating their download page and/or before their download mirrors synchronize. We sometimes need to wait a few hours before a mirror near us has the new version and we can confirm the download links work.
  
  
• Sometimes, when a distribution publishes a lot of minor updates, we will skip one version to avoid filling up our front page with very similar release announcements. We try to space out the announcements we publish from a project to one every three months.
  
  
• The new version is actually just a new edition of a version we have covered previously. If a project releases version 10.0 and then uploads a new edition, for instance 10.0 "GNOME", we usually skip publishing an announcement for the new edition as it is the same operating system, just with a different default desktop.
  
  
• The developers have published a new ISO, but its packages are all the same as in the previous ISO. Some projects push out download media with a new version number, but no significant changes in order to boost their download statistics. We typically skip mentioning these releases.
  

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Why do you not list Android, arguably the world's most popular Linux distribution?

Android does run on the Linux kernel, but it is not one single Linux distribution. Android is a family of operating systems, much the same way GNU/Linux is not a single operating system, but a collection of distributions. Most of the members of the Android family are tied to specific hardware platforms and cannot be installed on any computer or mobile device of the user's choosing. This makes most flavours of Android unsuitable for inclusion on DistroWatch as our readers are unable to download most flavours of Android at home and install them on the device of their choosing.

We do track some specific flavours of Android, ones that can be installed on generic hardware without requiring the user to create a port. The Android-x86 project, for example, features Android's upstream source code and can be run on generic personal computers.

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I cannot reach your website when I am using a VPN. Do you block VPN connections?

We do not block VPN services or specific IP addresses from accessing DistroWatch. We will, in some circumstances, prevent comments and user reviews from IP addresses which have been trying to repeatedly post spam messages. If you share an IP address with a computer or VPN node which has attempted to spam us recently, posting to DistroWatch may be prevented. However, the website will still be available to read and browse, and the search functions will still work.

We have heard from some readers that DistroWatch is blocked in their country, usually at the ISP or DNS level. In this cases, using a VPN or Tor can work around the block and allow access to DistroWatch.

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Parts of a distro information's page is blocked/missing, can you fix it?

If you are visiting one of our distribution information pages - where a summary, screenshot, and package versions are displayed - and sections of the page appear to be missing or invisible then you are almost certainly dealing with a overzealous ad blocker extension in your web browser. This also happens on our front page with some distro/package links. Almost every time package information or links are missing from a distribution's page it is because an ad blocker has flagged that distribution and blocked references to the project. This tends to happen more frequently with commercially supported distributions such as Red Hat and TUXEDO OS.

Unfortunately there isn't anything we can do to help as it's a problem with the extension running on your computer. You basically have four options: disable the ad blocker on that page, report the issue to the ad blocker's developers and wait for them to fix it, install an alternative ad blocker than does not block links to Linux websites, or visit a different distribution's page to find what you need.

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Is the information on your site accurate?

It is our objective to provide correct and accurate information. At the same time, we cannot guarantee that every number and every dot is in the correct position, however hard we 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 sub-directories 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. Do not be shy to point out any errors you find; just send us an e-mail and we will fix them immediately.

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What happened to the ratings? There are some missing!

Some people have noticed that the number of ratings a distribution has can drop occasionally. When this happens, the distribution's rating may go up or down. What is happening is we periodically purge old ratings (those that are several years old) from our ratings calculations. Ratings for versions of a distribution that are quite old and no longer supported are not particularly useful and just skew the ratings up or down, depending on whether the project is improving or in decline. Removing old ratings after several versions/years and removing outdated reviews that will no longer be useful allow the ratings to remain more relevant.

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Some distributions include more than one version of a package. How do you deal with these situations?

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 (or highest 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 have just developed/discovered a new distribution. Will you list it?

We probably will, assuming the project is maintained and provides some basic infrastructure such as a website, documentation, a way for users to get support and a method for reporting bugs. We receive a lot of new distribution submissions and so new projects go on a waiting list until they can be properly evaluated. Once a project has been actively maintained for a while and has support for users in place, it will usually be added to our database.

There are exceptions. For example, we usually do not offer coverage for embedded distributions or very niche specialist distributions as they can be difficult to track and/or test without special hardware.

New distributions should be installable on their own without requiring another distribution to be in place to bootstrap them. There should be an ISO or IMG file users can download, we do not list projects which are available only on cloud services (ie Amazon Linux) or as Docker containers. Also, new projects should have their own website. Distributions which only have a project page on build services like SUSE Studio will not be featured. Or that are only mentioned on a page of a larger company website as a promo or demo tool will not be listed.

Another exception is platform/propaganda distributions. For example, if a music band has a website which talks about their music, tour dates, etc and they happen to offer a re-spin of Ubuntu which includes wallpaper with images of the band and samples of their music pre-installed, then their re-spin will not be listed on DistroWatch. Likewise, political parties, businesses or other special interest groups which take an existing distribution and merely add their promotional material to it will not be listed on this website. We are interested in distributions which fill a technological purpose.

Finally, we will not list distributions which have names identical (or nearly identical) to projects already listed in our database. For example, we have a project called "Arch Linux" so we will not list a new project called "Linux Arch". Or if we track a project named "Super Linux" we will not list a new project called "Super GNU/Linux". We also try to avoid listing projects we suspect are violating another project's trademark. For example, projects which use the text "Debian" or "Ubuntu" in their names, without first getting permission from the owners of those trademarks will not be added to our database.

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Why does DistroWatch include BSDs and Solaris?

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.

In recent years we have made exceptions for some popular projects such as Haiku and MINIX, both of which are open source operating systems.

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I am trying to find distributions with/without a feature or package. How can I do this?

Most of the time people can find what they are looking for through our Search page. If you're looking for distributions with UEFI support, or that do not use systemd or that have a Raspberry Pi edition, then the Search page has you covered.

The Search page will also help people look for beginner oriented distributions, distributions with installation media that will fit on a CD and various combinations of other features.

We have another page where visitors can compare package versions between any two distributions.

If there is a search parameter you feel is missing from our Search page please let us know.

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What is the difference between the Dormant and Discontinued status?

A distribution which has not put out a new release in two or more years is marked as being Dormant in our database. The distribution may still be worked on, but has not published any new stable releases. When a dormant distribution publishes a new stable release it is then marked as being Active. A project may also be marked as dormant if it no longer plans to put out future releases, ie planned inactivity, while older releases are maintained.

The Discontinued status is reserved for projects which are no longer being developed. There is no outward activity and no roadmap for new releases. Projects which no longer have websites will also be marked as discontinued.

We often receive e-mails from projects which have been Dormant and plan future releases (or from fans of dormant projects) asking us to update the distro's status to Active. This will be done automatically when a new stable release is published.

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Linux Mint uses systemd, but shows up in searches for distributions without it. Why? MX Linux shows up in searches for non-systemd. Why?

While it is rare for a distribution to support multiple init implementations, there are a handful that do. Projects which feature both systemd and another init implementation will show up in searches for distributions offering alternatives to systemd.

While Linux Mint's main edition is based on Ubuntu and uses systemd, Mint's alternative editions, based on Debian, previously used SysV init. If you are running either Linux Mint Debian Edition version 1 or 2, your init software is SysV init.

In a similar fashion, MX Linux uses SysV init by default, but supplies systemd as an alternative.

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Why is distro X still on the waiting list and not in your database?

We receive a lot of new distribution submissions, usually several a month and it takes time to properly evaluate new projects. We also find that new distributions are often discontinued within their first year. For these reasons, we usually leave distributions on our waiting list for approximately one year before exploring them.

Once a project has had time to mature, we will look it over and decide whether it meets some basic criteria. We look for projects that (ideally) offer users documentation, support (through forums or mailing lists) and have a particular goal or mission. Projects meeting these goals and that we can get working will usually be imported into our database and receive news/release coverage.

There are some exceptions. Projects that violate the trademark or copyright of an existing project or that appear to be discontinued will not be added to our database. We usually will not add a project that has not yet published a stable release (ie is still in the alpha/beta development stage). We also will not add projects we cannot get working ourselves or which require special software or a specific operating system to install. For more information, please see our Submit New Distribution page.

To get a feel of which projects our readers think should be added to the database first, we allow our readers to vote on which projects on the waiting list they like best. Projects with the most votes will usually be evaluated and, if they meet our requirements, be added to our database for full coverage.

We will not enter into correspondence debating the listing of distributions on DistroWatch. Over the years we have received too many angry and abusive e-mails from distro developers to engage in such conversations.

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Why is distro X not in your database?

There are a few possible reasons. One is that the distribution may be on our waiting list and has not yet been moved over to our database yet. See the previous question as to why a distro may be still on our waiting list.

Another possibility is that the distribution is in our database, but is no longer active. Projects which are not active are excluded from some searches. To find a project which is no longer active, you can search for a distribution by its name in the search box in the upper-left corner of the page. Alternatively, visit our Search page and perform a search with the Status field changed from "Active" to "All".

A third possibility is that the distribution has not been submitted to us, you may be the first to mention it! If you would like us to check out a new distribution we do not know about, please submit it to us.

Finally, some projects may be known by alternative names. Sometimes people are trying to find a distribution named "FooBar" instead of "Foo Bar" or "FooBar Linux" when the distribution calls itself "FooBar OS". When the spelling of a project's name is in question, please try looking for it in our Select Distribution pull-down menu located at the top of the page.

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Distribution X charges its users money. Is that ethical/legal? Why is it on your website?

Generally speaking when we receive this question it is because people tend to assume "free software" means software that is available at no monetary cost. However, in the context of Linux distributions, "free software" refers to a particular type of license, usually the GNU General Public License (GPL).

The GPL does not require software to be made available at no cost, in fact the GNU organization encourages the sale of software licensed under the GPL: "Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible - just enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding. Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license."

Given GNU's stance on selling free software, we see no ethical reason not to list Linux distributions which charge for their software. We are more interested in providing information on a wide range of distributions (commercial or free of charge) and allowing people to decide for themselves which approach best suits their needs.

The GPL is an often misunderstood license and we have written an article to address some common misunderstandings.

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How can I find out if a distro has UEFI support?

Knowing for certain if a distro supports UEFI, and to what degree, is difficult. Some distributions do well with UEFI implementations across the board, others have partial support. Some may claim to support UEFI, but not boot on (some) UEFI-enabled hardware. Also, people tend to confuse UEFI support with Secure Boot and the inclusion of UEFI does not necessarily mean the distribution also boots in Secure Boot environments. (UEFI and Secure Boot definitions can be found in our glossary.)

To help people find out which distributions have at least some UEFI support, our Search page has a quick-link at the top which will display a list of projects which appear to work with UEFI.

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Do you provide any social media, e-mail newsletters or "news by e-mail" features?

With the current amount of spam hammering mail servers around the world, often combined with harsh anti-spam efforts, we do not consider e-mail to be an ideal medium for transmitting frequent news updates.

If you want to be kept informed about distribution releases, a more elegant solution is to use one of the RSS feed readers and subscribe to DistroWatch news feeds. We recommend the Liferea feed reader - it has good options for combining and filtering feeds. In fact, you can think of Liferea as an "e-mail" application that monitors websites of your choice and informs you about changes.

Another option is to subscribe to one of the unofficial DistroWatch social media pages which mirror our feeds. These pages provide notifications when new distribution releases and issues of DistroWatch Weekly are published. While we do not have any official DistroWatch social media accounts, we link to these automated social media accounts on our Contact Us page. We do not maintain these social media accounts and cannot be contacted through them.

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Is your RSS feed down? I'm no longer receiving updates.

The answer to this is almost always that our RSS feeds, which are listed on our Contact page, are still up and working as expected. You can verify this by clicking the RSS feed links and opening them in your web browser. Almost all browsers will list the raw RSS feed data to confirm the feed is working.

You can also visit the W3C Feed Validation Service and put in the URL of the DistroWatch feed you wish to verify. The W3C tool will both verify the feed is working and that its format conforms to Internet standards.

This still leaves the question of why, if our feed is working and in the correct format, then why isn't it showing up in your RSS feed reader of choice? The reason is almost always one of two things:

• The application or service you are using does not correctly parse standards compliant RSS feeds and needs to be fixed. Please report this issue to the developers of your application. Alternatively, you can use a different feed reader.
  
  
• The application or service you are using has been checking for updates constantly and has been flagged by the DistroWatch firewall as spam. This can happen with very aggressive feed readers, especially web-based services where each user's request is funnelled through one IP address. When this happens, reducing the frequency of update checks will usually cause the firewall to unban the offending IP address in about 48 hours.

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Where can I find laptops/computers that work with Linux?

We have a page dedicated to helping people find computers and computer parts which either ship with Linux pre-installed or are known to work with open source operating systems. Please see our Linux/BSD Compatible Hardware page for a list of vendors and other resources such as hardware compatibility databases.

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What is this "Page Hit Ranking"?

It is a light-hearted way of looking at popularity of distribution. Since each distribution has its own page, we thought it would be fun to track the number of visitors viewing individual distribution pages. The Page Hit Ranking (PHR) 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 this website.

These rules have been implemented to prevent various counter reloading schemes:

• Repeated page and counter reloads in short or regular intervals are not permitted.
• 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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Do some distributions buy/cheat to gain higher rankings?

Despite some wild conspiracy theories you might have read on the web, it is not possible for projects to buy boosts to their page hit ranking. The page hit count is generated naturally from traffic to our website and we do not adjust it in exchange for ads or payments. We've had a few project developers offer over the years, but they were all rejected.

Whenever a new project rises up the PHR ranks we always get e-mails from people assuming they are cheating somehow - by buying ranks, by using bots, by using bookmarks built into their distribution's web browser. Some distributions do attempt to do one (or more) of these things, but we don't sell PHR boosts, we filter out counting traffic from bookmarks to specific pages, and we filter traffic from bots so none of these affect the PHR table.

Almost all rises in PHR boosts come from one of two things: new releases by the project - distributions which release more often tend to rise faster. The other is reviews by other websites or YouTube channels. MX Linux and EndeavourOS, for example, tended to get waves of reviews for a while, which drove interest in the projects among DistroWatch visitors. Once the reviews taper off, the PHR counts tend to decline.

People have been suspicious of bot traffic, distro-specific bookmarks, and the idea of some projects purchasing hits for almost as long as the PHR table has been active. As we have demonstrated in the past these worries are unfounded.

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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.
  
  

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How long is long-term support (LTS)?

The label Long-term support (LTS) is applied to software packages or operating systems which receive support and/or security updates for longer than usual periods of time. On our Search page visitors can search for distributions which offer LTS support. Long-term support projects can be selected by selecting "Fixed (LTS)" from under the Release model field.

Different projects define the length of LTS differently. For some projects it might be as short as two years, while others regard LTS as covering five to ten years, or more. We allowed our readers to define the length of LTS in a poll. Our readers overwhelmingly chose five years as the minimum amount of time a version of a distribution could be supported and still be considered a LTS release. Projects that show up as offering LTS support on our Search page must both offer at least five years of support and have a declared life span.

This means projects which carry the term "LTS" in their name, but only offer three years of support are not considered LTS on DistroWatch. Projects such as Kubuntu and Lubuntu publish releases declared LTS, but the release notes indicate these distributions only receive three years of support. Also, some projects may provide more than five years of support, but not officially declare this information anywhere. Distributions which "release when ready", for example, often provide around five years of support, but do not have a fixed schedule people can use to determine the length of support.

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Are there any plans to introduce a mobile version of the DistroWatch website?

Creating a mobile version of the website is on our to-do list, though it is a relatively low priority item. The full version of DistroWatch loads in just a few seconds and displays well on mid-to-high-end phones and tablets on 3G networks and faster. This makes the target audience for a trimmed down mobile website relatively small (low-end phones and slow or low-capped networks). Still, we know some of our audience is in this demographic and we do hope to roll out support for smaller devices in the near future.

Update: Work on a mobile version of DistroWatch has started and a trial run will hopefully appear late in 2016.

Update: The mobile version of our website has been launched and is being improved as we get feedback.

Update: An unofficial Android app for accessing DistroWatch's news feeds has been developed by Md. Emran Hossain which is available in the Google Play Store. The app is called LinTree.

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Is there any way to browse DistroWatch over plain HTTP, rather than HTTPS?

Yes. While our main website, distrowatch.com, redirects to HTTPS connections automatically to protect privacy and security, we maintain a second domain (with the same content) over plain HTTP for people using older web clients. You can access our non-secure domain at distrowatch.org.

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Parts of the website are hidden - summary tables, links, rankings - why?

We have received a handful of reports from visitors to DistroWatch who have reported pieces of the website, usually tables or rankings of things, like the Summary section of distribution information pages and the user supplied ranking page, are missing or appear incomplete due to hidden entries. This was surprising to us as we hadn't made any changes to how these information pages are displayed.

Some investigation and the kind help of people reporting the issues revealed that, in each case, the information we were trying to display on DistroWatch was getting blocked by browser extensions. Specifically the culprit was usually uBlock or a member of the AdBlock family. This is a bit frustrating because the sections of the site being hidden by these extensions are not areas of the website where we display advertising. There are often a lot of links on the aforementioned pages, but they are legitimate links to distribution websites and related information resources like documentation, not ads or affiliate links.

This makes it difficult for us to provide a fix, because it seems the ad blockers are specifically targeting and blocking links to legitimate Linux websites such as the Debian project, Pop!_OS, and TUXEDO OS. The bug also doesn't appear to affect all users or all ad blocker extensions.

We bring up this issue for two reasons. The first is: if parts of DistroWatch appear hidden or to not be working, then chances are it's a browser extension making a table or group of links invisible. We're unable to fix this as the issue is in the extension running on the visitor's computer, and not something we can control. The only known fix at the moment is to disable the adblocker while on DistroWatch.

Second, we appreciate people letting us know when they have a problem accessing DistroWatch. However, as this is a situation we cannot control, if you discover one of your extensions is limiting access to information on this website, please send a bug report to the developers of the extension. They are probably unaware a recent change is causing their extension to be overzealous. Letting them know which pages no longer display properly will help them make their software better for all of their users, not just DistroWatch visitors.

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What are some good tips for writing a mini-review? / Why didn't you publish my rating/review?

When submitting a rating & review of a distribution, please keep some of the following ideas in mind:

• Please stick to technical arguments. Personal complaints about the developers, politics, or users will not be published.
• When possible, be specific. "This distro is garbage" is not helpful. Something like "This distro does not work with my Broadcom wireless card" is helpful.
• Do not post links to articles/reviews. We want to hear what you think.
• Reviews with profanity will be removed.
• Whenever possible, try to report on multiple aspects of the project. Does a distro run fast? Have lots of useful applications? How is the documentation? What do you think of the default desktop environment?
• Please do not post reviews of other reviews. Focus on sharing your perspective, not replying to others' reviews. Posts that reference other reviews or debate previous posts will not be published.
• Tech support requests will not be published. Please use a distribution's forums and bug trackers to get help.
• Reviews complaining about a distribution's ranking or position on the PHR table will be removed.
• If you want to contact DistroWatch staff, please e-mail us, we do not reply to messages posted in reviews.
• Write more than one sentence. Posts under a hundred words are unlikely to help the people reading them. Explain why you like or dislike a distribution.

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Where can I find other Linux users, or Linux User Groups (LUGs)?

The LUGS List website maintains an international list of Linux User Groups (LUGs) where Linux users can meet and exchange tips.

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You list so many distributions. Which one do you use?

We tend to switch distributions and desktop environments on a semi-regular basis, both to explore what is available and in an attempt to remain as objective as possible.

The DistroWatch web server is currently running on a dedicated machine powered by FreeBSD. Previously we had been running Debian since late 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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