Why is Kubuntu never in the top ten on Distrowatch?

I've always been disappointed how far down the Distrowatch list we are too.

Despite the relevance of what the list might or might not show, the Ubuntu family have always been at a disadvantage. Which other distributions have their figures split by desktop environment? :?

Nice to know it probably doesn't reflect true usage numbers after all.

It doesn't. The list is (now) titled "Page Hit Ranking". See http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity. DistroWatch freely admit that the listings are a light-hearted way of measuring visitors to their web-site.

There are dozens of distributions in that list that I've never heard of. Presumably, many others haven't either. I suspect that out of curiosity their reviews are visited and that sends them even higher up the list.

[Simon]

My TOP TEN reasons;

1. Because Kubuntu is premium OS the rest are unleaded.
2. Bill Gates is in charge of the Distrowatch list.
3. It is a conspiracy in league with water fluoridation.
4. The Red Hat people are jealous cry babies.
5. Debian just knows it is God.
6. Mint paid cash to be number one.
7. Kubuntu is not very good at playing softball and gets picked last a lot.
8. Kubuntu is not a member of Google Plus.
9. The webpage designer for Distrowatch can't spell Kubuntu.
10. Kubuntu lawyers have a restraining order against them for stalking.

Ok, I am sorry, but my point is, anyone can make up a top ten list, it don't mean a thing.

[Rod J]

I've always been disappointed how far down the Distrowatch list we are too. Nice to know it probably doesn't reflect true usage numbers after all.

[StormNinja2]

basically we don't have the theoretical avid fanboi base that theoretically goes out and in theory accesses their fave $DISTRO page on DW many times, which is one theory.


Page hit stats mean crap. Of course those distros who have low numbers will always say that , but really no one can know what causes one distro to get more hits on DW, Buzz, marketing, a desire for a distro/community to get higher numbers in the rankings all factor. In our case, being "just another Ubuntu" probably has an effect there.

I would bet good money that PCLos does not have as many users as we do, or that Mint and Mageia don't have as many actual users combined as Ubuntu. You come up with your own conclusions for why they rank so high on this list.

I think that judging the size of our small dev team, and that of our forum, we do alright

Interesting coinsidence! I am a member of PCLinuxOS Forums as well as this--- That said, in my opinion, popularity is fleeting. It is more important that the Distro( regardless which) serve the needs and purposes of the User well and this in turn with create loyalty as well as word of mouth advertising that the Distro is a Great Alternative to offering of the "Big Box" and "Office Supply" stores. In fact earlier today, I was reading about a couple of other Ubuntu-based Distributions that I had never heard of( and I've read and perused hundreds!). The Two in question seemed great and I intend to burn a couple of ISOs to check them out. I don't believe they even make Distro Watch's list and to that end-- I am running a completely off DW Distro on one my machines and it performs like a champ.

I conclude by echoing the opinion the statics seen on DW have little relevance and at the end of the day--I am going to use what I like--not what is necessarily popular.

Just my two cents.

[dmeyer]

I have never seen the distro near or in the top ten, in fact, it seems to be mainly between 30 & 40. Now I know this is probably not a big deal at all, but imho there are some pretty horrible distros far higher up the list.

Is there a reason for this?, surely Kubuntu should at least be regularly within or close to the top ten.

Fun fact: Kubuntu was part of the largest planned Linux rollout in the world for the Brazilian public schools system.

Honestly though, distrowatch is a pretty terrible metric. Its a great aggregator site for news and reviews but otherwise its not very useful.

[claydoh]

basically we don't have the theoretical avid fanboi base that theoretically goes out and in theory accesses their fave $DISTRO page on DW many times, which is one theory.


Page hit stats mean crap. Of course those distros who have low numbers will always say that , but really no one can know what causes one distro to get more hits on DW, Buzz, marketing, a desire for a distro/community to get higher numbers in the rankings all factor. In our case, being "just another Ubuntu" probably has an effect there.

I would bet good money that PCLos does not have as many users as we do, or that Mint and Mageia don't have as many actual users combined as Ubuntu. You come up with your own conclusions for why they rank so high on this list.

I think that judging the size of our small dev team, and that of our forum, we do alright

[Qqmike]

First off, if you'll do a search here, you'll find some good discussion(s) on this.

[KDEnewbie]

I have never seen the distro near or in the top ten, in fact, it seems to be mainly between 30 & 40. Now I know this is probably not a big deal at all, but imho there are some pretty horrible distros far higher up the list.

Is there a reason for this?, surely Kubuntu should at least be regularly within or close to the top ten.