Really? Twice in one day. I'll paraphrase myself from the last post:<p>Distrowatch stats are based on hits to distro pages on their 'informational' website. They don't reflect downloads, active installs or anything tangible beyond interest in a platform based on their #3 ranking for 'Linux Mint' in Google. Even the graph used on this pingdom blog say "Distrowatch's page hit ranking (Nov 23)".<p>In fact the Google Trends referenced below as "gage the interest in" stats are _more_ likely to be a barometer of real-world popularity as google searches will include a considerable amount of people looking for support for their own (current) platform, not just 'about distro X'. Hence Ubuntu's higher numbers.<p>It's not even fair to Alexa to call DW the 'Alexa of Linux popularity' the stats are that skewed from reality.<p>I'm not an Ubuntu fanboy, and fair credit to Mint for providing another truly viable user desktop distro, but I do get tired of the annual trotting out of bogus stats and misinterpretations for the sole (successful) purpose of flamebait, originally on slashdot, and now apparently HN.
The problem I have with this is that Ubuntu does not require you to use a particular interface. I run Ubuntu with Xfce all day, and I have a few other environments installed for testing purposes.<p>I don't understanding switching distributions solely because of the default desktop environment. It's only a default, not a requirement.
Mint's policy of having a custom Google search (that resets itself upon every browser update) in all their browsers[0] is rather off-putting.<p>I personally have switched over all my non-technical friends to Lubuntu[1]. It has proven to be fast, simple, and trouble-free. It follows the Windows metaphor very closely, which has made the transition painless for even those who know as little about computers as they can survive with.<p>0: <a href="http://stevehinesley.com/tutorials/linux-tutorials/linux-mint-custom-google-search/" rel="nofollow">http://stevehinesley.com/tutorials/linux-tutorials/linux-min...</a><p>1: <a href="http://lubuntu.net/" rel="nofollow">http://lubuntu.net/</a>
I must be one of the few people that actually like Unity :)<p>But I really don't get why people would bother to switch distros just because of Unity. My mum is just fine installing things from the software centre, and with a minimal amount of guidance could install LXDE. I can imagine average Ubuntu users would be capable of following online instructions to get LXDE/XFCE.
Quickly querying Google Trends with keywords that aren't as stupid as the ones used in the article: <a href="http://www.google.com/trends?q=ubuntu+%2810.10|11.04|11.10%29%2C+linux+mint+%289|10|11|12%29&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends?q=ubuntu+%2810.10|11.04|11.10%2...</a><p>Ramblings from the Pingdom team are ramblings.
The "Top 5 desktop Linux distributions" chart (the first one) shows Ubuntu declining steadily from 2005 until now. There's no dramatic drop with the introduction of Unity in 11.04.<p>It DOES show Linux Mint becoming very strong in the past year all of a sudden, but, at least from that graph, it doesn't look like it was Ubuntu users who "flocked" to Mint.