Talk:Comparison of Linux distributions/Archive 1

message: This is an article to compare Linux distributions. It was created due to the prevention of (potentially) bloating the comparison of operating systems with Linux distributions - the day where we had to create this article, is better now then sooner. Squash 03:34, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Information from Comparison of operating systems

message: Any chance of adding a column for "Approx # of Users" or something and then sorting from highest to lowest?  I'm new to linux and don't have a ton of time to play around with a million different "sects" of the same religion.  which one is everyone using?  that seems like the bottom line to me.
:There's no chance of getting any accuracy on a stat like that :) Greenman 17:59, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The DistroWatch stats are the standard source for this, but (A) are considered to be "just a good guess", and (B) change about as rapidly as the pop music charts -- todays's #5 might be the most popular in a few months, while today's #1 might be considered a primitive piece of junk.  You probably want to consider most other factors a lot more highly than the rankings here. http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity -- Writtenonsand 22:45, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Raw Number of Users comparison 

message: Like in operating system advocacy should there be a scope here, or in another article, for putting the main perceived pros and cons of each distro?
:I don't think that is a good idea. Comparison of [   ] articles should be only a table with facts. Pros and cons with NPOV etc should be on a different article not on this one. Squash 10:38, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pros/Cons? 

message: Some of the column headers are confusing and/or misleading, such as Preferred License and GUI Installation Procedure. The way preferred license is stated, implies packaging licenses, however it seems the distribution's license is listed for some projects (e.g. Lycoris). GUI installation procedure implies X-driven installation only, however, many distros have text (curses) based installations only. Both of these were the cause of a bit of confusion while adding Lunar Linux to the list. I would propose splitting the licensing into distro and packaging licenses, since some distros are under GPL, while some of the packages are BSD/Mozilla/etc. I'd also suggest changing GUI Installation Procedure to GUI/Curses Based Installer or something similar. Striker 11:31, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Column Disambiguation 

message: What is the source of the number of packages? http://rpms.mandrivaclub.com/rpms/mandriva/official/10.2/Distribs.html lists a total of 23869 Packages of Mandrake 10.2 (=Mandriva 2005). --Hhielscher 23:42, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not about to count them, but you'll notice a lot of repeat entries on that page for different arch's.  It's also a pretty gray area.  Technically every distro can use every RPM, deb, tgz, ebuild, etc. on the internet, giving them all the same total package count which is the total number of packages available period.  What we're after here is the total number of packages officially provided (without duplicate entries). ¦ Reisio 15:05, 2005 August 19 (UTC)
jack@crossbone:~$ sudo apt-get update ; apt-cache search '^' | lc
[tickticktick]
16645
jack@crossbone:~$ cat /etc/debian_version 
testing/unstable
 --Jack (Cuervo) 13:26, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of Packages 

message: I assume this means "filesystems supported by the install disk's default kernel, last I checked". Maybe a note to the effect that it's possible to compile one's own install-disk kernel? --Jack 22:40, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Adding this comment momentarily. --Johnny (Cuervo) 09:31, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I couldn't figure out quite how to phrase it, at least not briefly. I'm assuming I'm preaching to the choir, here, but for distributions that use the official kernel source (e.g., as opposed to Debian, which feels it neccessary to rip out a bunch of stuff *grunt*xfs*grunt*otherstuff*grunt*), any filesystem that's supported by one is supported by the others. Whether or not it's supported by the kernel and modules on the install media is a different matter. --Johnny (Cuervo) 09:40, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Supported filesystems