I feel like MX Linux has been at or near the top of Distrowatch forever, but I literally never hear it mentioned elsewhere on the web. Is it just people literally asking this question for them selves, clicking on it and bumping it up? Has anyone tried MX to see if it lives up?
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Distrowatch ranking is just the distros that are more commonly searched on the site. The FAQ says “The page Hit Ranking represents hits per day by unique visitors”. It’s just an attempt to see what’s more popular among visitors.
Yeah, maybe there is a feedback loop where people will click on the top one just to see why it is on top, and in doing so they give the clicks necessary to remain on the top.
It is now official. Netcraft has confirmed: Distrowatch is dying.
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Distrowatch community […]
I tried MX a few times on different machines maybe a few weeks/months apart. Every time I did because of it being up there at the top and I was like “What am I not seeing?” It’s a decent distro, yeah, but some of the customization is distracting to be honest. I can say it’s good but the top? For what… more than a year or two even, it’s been in the top few.
I just don’t get it.
I think there is no ranking site that can be 100% trusted.
That said, I trust linux-hardware.org a bit more than distro watch, even if it’s not as popular, because you have to intentionally download an app/script for it to scan and upload your distro/hardware data (so no page clicks or just traffic, you must have the distro installed), and if you repeatedly try to upload the same distro/hardware data, it doesn’t count multiple uploads on its statistics, if they are not at least a month apart.
Edit: and even on linux-hardware you have strange results like OpenMandriva and ROSA as Distros on top 15, and I have never heard of them outside there, and from what I can find they are somewhat popular in Russia and some parts of Europe
and even on linux-hardware you have strange results like OpenMandriva and ROSA as Distros on top 15, and I have never heard of them outside there
As you have said they are REALLY popular in russia, and that alone makes a great ammount of people, specially since they still support i386 and older architectures with full support, thats why ALT linux is also really popular.
Distrowatch has been gamed for years.
I rarely see any references to MX in Linux forums, I don’t think it’s anywhere near as popular as DW would indicate.
I rarely see any references to MX in Linux forums
That could be a testament to it’s reliability.
If you say so. MX is a Debian base, so it’s more a testament to Debian’s reliability.
This is now my head cannon.
Distrowatch has been gamed for years
In what way? Elaborate, please? How and for what purpose?
There was a pretty good indication that Manjaro was click-botting it a few years back, then Mint, and now MX. While I actually like Manjaro, that team is totally not above having done such a thing. And pretty much as soon as the rumors about that started, it mysteriously started dropping in the ranking…
Why? For a long time, DW was considered a source of distro recommendation and popularity. With these “attacks”, it’s become a community joke and not considered much of a real indication.
I am sure it will creep back up once the MX 25 has been released with Debian 13 on 9th August.
https://mxlinux.org/blog/changes-coming-with-mx-25/
Optional distro downloads for Systemd or sysVinit.
use Mx-Linux on my old T450 laptop.
works great for my needs.
Yes and yes, hits to the page drive it up that list. It’s a fine Debian reskin, nothing special.
It’s not just a reskin, the MX tools are really useful for beginners and non-technical people.
I’ll defer to you on that, when I got to trying it those weren’t tools I was looking for.
Wonderful. May it live in this fame forever 🫡
From what I understand about distrowatch is that their “ranking” system is based on how many people (or bots) visit a distros page.
MX Linux was botted due to the amount of hits.
My producer, Neigsendoig, did a video here where he covered MX 23.
Kind of a dead site.
I asked because I saw a video talking about Catchy and Edeavour, and had them near the top which I don’t think of as super old, so it seemed like somehow newer ones here moving up the list.
