… wondered how the DistroWatch ranking is ascertained? No? Okay, bugger off then.

For the curious rest of us, lemme try to explainify. We start by having a good look at the Top 20:

Now please direct your gaze to the last column, HPD*. It means Hits Per Day, so it just tells us how often any Linux project’s website was clicked upon. It’s that easy, that primitive. Doesn’t give us any further info whatsoever. No download numbers of the ISO files, or how long anyone stayed on that site.

Just one klik is enough to get counted.

So, if I’m the head honcho of a fledgeling new distro, feel competitive, and wanna boost its popularity, I just take 15 minutes time and hammer on that site like a valkyrie … done! My distro is #1. 😉

Of course nobody would do such silly shit buuut … some distros set themselves up for failure already from the get-go. All rolling release Linuxes (i.e. Arch, Manjaro, Garuda, Arco, EOS) are suffering lower HPDs because the users theoretically only need to visit the project’s site once; download the ISO file, and leave to never return.

All the Ubuntu-based distros experience an upswing at least twice a year, when the new ISOs are being released. Makes sense, doesn’t it? The more I admire all the Arch distros to come up with such high HPDs, despite their natural handicaps.

So, when we look at the top 20 again, shouldn’t we rank Endeavour and Manjaro, Garuda and Arco much higher? Give ’em a handicap bonus?

Ok, I’m an Arch fangrrl, so a little bit biased … but really now! Wouldn’t it be so nice?

Imagine the Top 10 looked like so:

#1 EOS

#2 Manjo

#3 Garuda

#4 Arco

#5 MX

#6 Fresh Breath

#7 Poop!

#8 FedEx

#9 Circle of Friends

#10 Debbie