Arch Gaining popularity

abhaysahai · 2006-08-28 05:32:19

At least the packages for the software show this. On the major sotfware sites there is mostly mention of Arch packages. This itself indicate that those people think that Arch is popular and important enough to mention.
Here are some Example:

1) Beagle::
* Debian
* Fedora Core
* Foresight Desktop
* Gentoo
* MandrivaLinux (formerly MandrakeLinux)
* SUSE
* Ubuntu
* Archlinux
2) KDE
# Ark Linux
# Arch Linux
# Kubuntu
# Pardus
# KDE RedHat (unofficial) Packages: (README)
# Slackware (Unofficial contribution) (README) :
# Slamd64
# SuSE Linux
3) Gnome
( Though it list almost all possible distros)

On the other side, the prominent software which have linux binarie ( on their download site) but not Arch binaries are:
1) Wine
2) Opera Browser

Still considering that giants like KDE list Arch on thier site makes me belive that Arch is gaining.
Way to go.

clarence · 2006-08-28 05:43:53

Nice to know but, meh... Popularity Schmopularity.

Mandor · 2006-08-28 10:27:51

For me popularity of any distro is useful only with respect to expanding the usebase. The wider the userbase, the better.

abhaysahai · 2006-08-28 11:21:02

Mandor wrote:

For me popularity of any distro is useful only with respect to expanding the usebase. The wider the userbase, the better.

The reverse is also true. The more the userbase the more the popularity will be. Redhat perhaps is the most popular distro today ( and I am not talking about distrowatch ranking). My point was that it is nice to see that many software consider Arch important enough to mention on their sites.

Dusty · 2006-08-28 14:35:30

Mandor wrote:

For me popularity of any distro is useful only with respect to expanding the usebase. The wider the userbase, the better.

I disagree. And have done for a long time. And I *still* can't stop Arch from growing!!! :-D

Its not the number of users that counts, its the quality. I'm not going to mention any names, but some distros have a highly regarded community (not just Arch), and others are known to be not so nice, or not so helpful, or not so skilled as to be able to help.

Dusty

test1000 · 2006-08-28 15:08:41

word @ dusty

About arch growing.. yeah, definitively, Is it just me that's seen a sudden influx of noobs on the forums?

I hope this doesn't turn into the ubuntu forums.. The amount of noise < _useful_ posts... You have hundred people suggesting the WRONG solution or none at all just adding noise

Thats just from me skimming the forums at random points in my life; i've never used the distro so this experience might not be representative.

Mandor · 2006-08-28 15:31:02

Dusty wrote:

Mandor wrote:
For me popularity of any distro is useful only with respect to expanding the usebase. The wider the userbase, the better.
I disagree. And have done for a long time. And I *still* can't stop Arch from growing!!! :-D
Its not the number of users that counts, its the quality. I'm not going to mention any names, but some distros have a highly regarded community (not just Arch), and others are known to be not so nice, or not so helpful, or not so skilled as to be able to help.
Dusty

Err, should we leave?

..Just kiddin. I hope.

Seriously, statistic can not be fought. People are the same no matter what distro they use. So once the something_like_a_representative_sample is exceeded, it's all the same regarding the people ('userbase' in the wider sense) and only the organization makes difference. And the something_like_a_representative_sample is quite small - several dozen of people at most, before statistic rules enter. I have this experience from other communities, not linux, but it's quite the same. Hermenautic societies are doomed.

deficite · 2006-08-28 21:16:16

Dusty wrote:

Mandor wrote:
For me popularity of any distro is useful only with respect to expanding the usebase. The wider the userbase, the better.
I disagree. And have done for a long time. And I *still* can't stop Arch from growing!!! :-D
Its not the number of users that counts, its the quality. I'm not going to mention any names, but some distros have a highly regarded community (not just Arch), and others are known to be not so nice, or not so helpful, or not so skilled as to be able to help.
Dusty

THANK YOU! Although I don't feel like I'm one of those quality members you were talking about, I'm glad somebody isn't worried just about the numbers and length of use. I know a few people on here that wishes that Arch will remain a distro that only a few dozen people use and say some things that really make me feel unwelcome. I'm just glad this message board isn't overflowing at the seams with those mean, agressive n00bs that talk to people like drill sargeants.

abhaysahai · 2006-08-29 04:56:13

Adding feather to Cap.
This is in today's Distrowatch Weekly
"take a look at Arch Linux - an unpretentious, independently developed distribution with a great package manager, knowledgeable user community, and large software repository. That's what I'd call a "real Linux distribution"! "

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20060828

if people behind Distrowatch ( which deals with mumerous distros ) say this, I would better belive it with a smile

McQueen · 2006-08-29 05:03:38

People in the community who know their wares always give respect to Arch.
It's our marketing that sucks (and the installer).

Romashka · 2006-08-29 07:11:53

McQueen wrote:

It's our marketing that sucks (and the installer).

Regarding marketing (and DistroWatch): isn't it time to change our distrowatch blurb finally? It's soooo old!

palandir · 2006-08-29 09:49:00

Focus on quality, and your userbase will slowly grow, and never stop. That's how it is with Arch I guess, and that's how it should go on. If the distribution is worth it (and it is), more users will come.
I'm not a big fan of that popularity thing. Often, popularity is not a good measure of quality. Music is probably the best example.

brazzmonkey · 2006-08-29 09:55:34

you may consider me as stupid, but i'd rather be part of a relatively small, friendly community than part of an overgrown one.
imho, growing too fast is the worst thing of all. so i very much agree with palandir.
still, your distrowatch blurb should be updated.

bigbob73 · 2006-08-29 10:10:00

Dusty wrote:

Mandor wrote:
For me popularity of any distro is useful only with respect to expanding the usebase. The wider the userbase, the better.
I disagree. And have done for a long time. And I *still* can't stop Arch from growing!!! :-D
Its not the number of users that counts, its the quality. I'm not going to mention any names, but some distros have a highly regarded community (not just Arch), and others are known to be not so nice, or not so helpful, or not so skilled as to be able to help.
Dusty

That's one reason i came to Arch. My former community seems to have turned nasty. So far, the community has been very helpfull, and much more civilized here.

abhaysahai · 2006-08-29 10:19:11

brazzmonkey wrote:

you may consider me as stupid, but i'd rather be part of a relatively small, friendly community than part of an overgrown one.
imho, growing too fast is the worst thing of all. so i very much agree with palandir.
still, your distrowatch blurb should be updated.

Agreed that people who count have good regard for Arch and Arch also have arguably one of the best community, Well Ubuntu comes very close.
Still it would be great if my Linux nooob friends know Arch, so that I can recomment it to them. Their first choice is Suse, Redhat ( still fedora is considered Redhat only), Mandriva or Ubuntu. Hence despite the fact that Arch is probubly the best distro to start with, none of my friends and collegues have started with it.
Here is when popularity counts.

If is Distro is good, why not promote it and advice new users to try it.
Regarding growing too fast, Ubuntu had the most exponential growth and still it has good community.

lefallen · 2006-08-29 11:12:04

I've been using Arch for a while now, moving from Slackware/Mandriva/Red Hat on my home machines and laptops and have to say it's the BEST implimentation of createness ever! I'm not going to blabber on too much about how PERFECT it truly is as you all know this, I just wanted to say this:

I'm not sure if I want loads of users either as it could destroy Arch, however if you want to keep a lot of them away, DON'T fix the installer. It doesn't allow you to select EVERYTHING and carry on... That's enough to turn a lot of people away.

So, yeah, I'm on the fence but keep it in mind if you are one in power to do such things, and want to do so. I don't mind the installer now as I go base and build from there but EVERYONE I've seen try Arch for the first time, simply select all packages, see that there's a dependency issue, and give up.

2c

lumiwa · 2006-08-29 11:25:26

Popularity or not popularity...
First I am not a hacker, I am not a computer educated person. I am a " normal computer user" who has long time Linux on machine (I start surfing with Lynx and use telnet for email and Pine).
Why? Because is more safe OS, I never had a virus, programs which I use have not a problem.
For people who don't want popularity: send email to "distrowatch" and tell them that stop monitoring Arch Linux and before that put a message that Arch is just for elite.
I really Like Arch and I don't want go back to Debian but if users, developers...decided that is not for anybody than I will change distro.
And BTW installation is not more difficult as Debian or SuSE.

colnago · 2006-08-29 15:46:30

Yeah, I don't mind the installer either.

brazzmonkey · 2006-08-29 15:55:50

the installer's fine. i especially like the feature that allows specifying mountpoints.

McQueen · 2006-08-29 16:45:57

There's nothing "wrong" with the installer, but you can see from all the forum posts that it does give a lot of new users fits. Maybe this can be corrected with more targeted docs, but I also think it could also be addressed within the mechanism itself.

abhaysahai · 2006-08-29 18:58:51

lefallen wrote:

I've been using Arch for a while now, moving from Slackware/Mandriva/Red Hat on my home machines and laptops and have to say it's the BEST implimentation of createness ever! I'm not going to blabber on too much about how PERFECT it truly is as you all know this, I just wanted to say this:
I'm not sure if I want loads of users either as it could destroy Arch, however if you want to keep a lot of them away, DON'T fix the installer. It doesn't allow you to select EVERYTHING and carry on... That's enough to turn a lot of people away.
So, yeah, I'm on the fence but keep it in mind if you are one in power to do such things, and want to do so. I don't mind the installer now as I go base and build from there but EVERYONE I've seen try Arch for the first time, simply select all packages, see that there's a dependency issue, and give up.
2c

Great,
So now we already have voices saying that they do not want to share this excellent distro with others, to the extent that there are suggestion for keeping "Others" away from Arch.
Did I miss the famous "RTFM" in the above message.
And I though the Pros of Arch include :
# the people behind are gentle, motivated and able
# perfect to learn linux on it

Please pardon me if I have misunderstood something, but I belive that I got Arch as a gift from the Arch community and I want others to receive this gift too.
Just my 2 pennies.

Mandor · 2006-08-29 19:37:39

So, are new users are welcome or not? If you are afraid that most of them will ask stupid questions for some time, you are perfectly right. But there is no other way. If there are any (meaning more than few), most of them will be noobs or close (like me).

The installer thing has some point - something like an entrance test..lol. Actually only the partitioning part needs some improvment- it is especially annoying if you have more than one drives. But it still works well and fast enough. Considering gentoo...

The point about more users is that it implies more packages, more docs etc. The rate with which the improvement will come is likely to be much slower than the the userbase enlargement, but it's the only way. Or am I wrong?

test1000 · 2006-08-30 14:22:24

i don't have as much problem with people asking "stupid" questions as I have with people providing the _wrong_ answer. That really gives me the fits.

On the ubuntu forums iv'e seen people responding "just to help" or to say "hope you get help bla bla bla" and you have to weed through pages and pages to get to that _ONE_ person who actually knows what he is talking about.

that pisses me off. If you people want to socialise, do it in offtopic.

Lone_Wolf · 2006-08-30 14:50:04

Less than a year ago (oct 2005) i was a new arch user also.
I felt welcome here and my questions were answered.
Let's keep in mind we all heave been newbies one time.

arooaroo · 2006-08-30 15:27:32

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Less than a year ago (oct 2005) i was a new arch user also.
I felt welcome here and my questions were answered.
Let's keep in mind we all heave been newbies one time.

Not Phrak - he was born with the Linux gene...

Arch Linux

#1 2006-08-28 05:32:19

Arch Gaining popularity

#2 2006-08-28 05:43:53

Re: Arch Gaining popularity

#3 2006-08-28 10:27:51

Re: Arch Gaining popularity

#4 2006-08-28 11:21:02

Re: Arch Gaining popularity

#5 2006-08-28 14:35:30

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#6 2006-08-28 15:08:41

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#7 2006-08-28 15:31:02

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#8 2006-08-28 21:16:16

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