Hello good peepels,

as long as Orca’s patiently waiting in storage for her puppet player to fix her mesh problems, I’ve decided to ignore her for now and have a peek at the DistroWatch charts, as I do from time to time. And I guess I rather like what I see there:

Before I enter into the comment/rant mode let’s have a quick view back to the last time I checked the chart:

Okay, first positive is that movements in these charts happens in glacerial speed, and the whole Linux infrastructure seems to have reached an astonishing degree of maturity and the distros at the very top are there for good reasons.

MX has obviously nailed it with their user-friendly Debian spin. That neither Karmi nor yours truly liked it much, doesn’t matter. We’re just two old grumpyfaces in a Hooo and Weeee society of fresh faced Linux disciples. Manjaro sits still on its well-earned 2nd rank as well as the old stalwart Mint on #3.

But then it becomes a bit more interesting: MX’s mothership Debian has pushed the abomination elementary off the #4 rank. Now it’s on me to squeal in glee. 🙂 Doesn’t matter that Debian itself has missed yet another opportunity to make their  distro really aswesome and show those newcomers MX who’s the boss. But at least they are the server masters, the professional’s choice. They, contrary to elementary, belong on #4.

Ubuntu, even if I hate it with a vengeance, is super stable now on #5, and only slips down ever so slowly. We all know in the real world Ubu is the #1 without any competition anywhere near. Unfortunately they are still living from former greatness and are such a stable part of Linux, they will have to go on like this and build shitty distros for the next 20 years before the users will notice and even think about trying something else. In so far is Ubuntu a bit like Windows.

And anyway, better Ubuntu on #5 than Elementary, which is to be found now at #6. Still too high up since #7 Solus, #8 Fedora and the new #9 Deepin (which has pushed openSUSE out of the Top 10), as well as Zorin on #10, are all better suited candidates for the #6 rank than stinkin’ Elementary. Yes, even Zorin, which I don’t like at all. But I’m hearing the lastest version is really good … or what the modern “users” think is good. Oh yes, it looks and feels like MacOS, that’s probably why.

Altogether I guess the Top 10 is a good reflection of where Linx on the desktop is right now. A colourful mix of friendly, practical, professional distros and highly fashionable, good looking bullshit distros with fucked up usability. Just like its users. =^.^=

Now I guess I must mention this again and again: Wanna know what the biggest criticism of Linux Mint is, since years? It’s supposedly too bland and not fashionable. Pfffff … who cares about shit like that? Youngsters, that’s who. Hobbyists who just wanna play with their Linuxes but using Windows for work and gaming. 😦 Fukn Mint is one of the very few complete distros, complete out of the box, instantaniously usable and stable and a real workhorse. It comes with 3 desktop environments, the siamese twins Cinnamon and Mate and the anemic Xfce for older computers. All three tried and tested … and trusted. They aren’t exciting but offer a logical, traditional workflow, as you know it from WinMac. If you’re using – like really using – your Linux day in day out as your daily rider, you know that’s more important than the modern shitshows from Pantheon via Budgie to Gnome3.

I tell ya, if I’d start the installation right now, I could send my first blog from Mint in five minutes!

And when we look at the Top 5 in the list, they all operate on traditional desktops as standard. Well, except Ubuntu of course, which is on stupid Gnome3. But as we all know there are probably more *buntus with alternative desktops in use than the standard mothership distro. In so far the most usable and practical distros are on top, the crapola follows in a distance.