Arch Linux on Distrowatch

whol · 2004-02-17 16:19:45

http://www.distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity

Arch Linux Rankings:

Last 12 months: 58
Last 6 months: 56
Last 3 month: 45
Last 1 month: 28

sarah31 · 2004-02-17 16:26:58

and this will change wildly over the year.

spikes come with the release of versions or user opinions on the news forums.

the numbers drop wildly the further off the mainpage arch news falls.

dp · 2004-02-17 18:13:22

next 6 months: rank 1

-> stop telling people how great arch is ... because then everybody want's to run it !!

terrapin · 2004-02-17 18:27:50

dp wrote:

next 6 months: rank 1
-> stop telling people how great arch is ... because then everybody want's to run it !!

Then Judd will be broke

sarah31 · 2004-02-17 18:30:08

dp wrote:

next 6 months: rank 1
-> stop telling people how great arch is ... because then everybody want's to run it !!

not likely. there are not enough developers to handle the current flow so i doubt they would be able to keep up with a #1 rank.

as homer simpson once said:

'bed goes up. bed goes down. bed goes up. bed goes down......"

skparkes · 2004-02-17 18:42:32

Look, I think all the publicity is good. Get a few more good package maintainers to help, and a could people on documentation, what more do ya need?

As long as the packages stay up to date, I'm not gonna have a cow when .6 gets released.

The bandwidth issue is a bit of a problem. Maybe you should add a mirror configuration to the install process. I know there is one available and mentioned on the front page right now. That, or at least put ibiblio.org on the top of the mirror list instead of archlinux.org.

You all rule, and I just donated some money to help with the bandwidth even.

Later,

Isamoor

dp · 2004-02-17 23:17:43

skparkes wrote:

[...]
The bandwidth issue is a bit of a problem.
[...]

... actually the most problematic problem around :-)

if growing, you have to grow slowly that's a law of nature, of this planet and a law of this slowly growing universe ... if you expand too fast, this causes always problems

drivingmsjuki · 2004-02-18 02:00:27

Like with Linux distributions and many other things, I think popularity is a vastly overrated quality.

There have been quite a few Linux distros that started off small, catered to the crowd that wanted small / fast / lightweight, then got popular, then got larger .. and sometime later they were no longer those lean, mean distros they used to be.

More to the point, why would anyone want to see the Arch server slashdotted to oblivion everytime someone gives it a good review?

I vote for keeping Arch lean and focused. It is so good like that.

Just my US$0.02

sarah31 · 2004-02-18 03:08:56

drivingmsjuki wrote:

Like with Linux distributions and many other things, I think popularity is a vastly overrated quality.
There have been quite a few Linux distros that started off small, catered to the crowd that wanted small / fast / lightweight, then got popular, then got larger .. and sometime later they were no longer those lean, mean distros they used to be.
More to the point, why would anyone want to see the Arch server slashdotted to oblivion everytime someone gives it a good review?
I vote for keeping Arch lean and focused. It is so good like that.
Just my US$0.02

aye! thanks for saying what i have always thought. gentoo was a good example of this. sorcerer is an example of one distro that stayed the course even after generating soem interest.

arch currently cannot handle the demand developmentally. and rather than cowtow to the masses they should stay the focused. the issues that were present before the past week's surge in interest should be the focus.

of course growing the development team should be high on the list. experienced linux people that have the time to help are hard to come by but that is what is needed. about three documentation people, and people that will be active in the community and keep the documents dynamic, would be great.

i3839 · 2004-02-18 03:24:36

Well, theoretically it shouldn't matter if 100 or 1000000 people use a distro for the developers, they still should do the same work. Only thing that really changes is that the community will be much bigger, so there will be more questions and demands, but those should be handled by the community itself imho. A bigger community also means potentially more people willing to write docs and make packages, so the "problem" should be fixed by itself. Only thing that can go wrong is that reality isn't in sync with theory .

sarah31 · 2004-02-18 03:34:55

i3839 wrote:

Well, theoretically it shouldn't matter if 100 or 1000000 people use a distro for the developers, they still should do the same work. Only thing that really changes is that the community will be much bigger, so there will be more questions and demands, but those should be handled by the community itself imho. A bigger community also means potentially more people willing to write docs and make packages, so the "problem" should be fixed by itself. Only thing that can go wrong is that reality isn't in sync with theory .

yeah the last sentence is more true than the rest. and the first one is definitely the least accurate. some devs do more work than others and everyone should have the same workload. the TURs should be processing incoming, the TURs should be moving stuff to staging more regularily. ALL devs should be working abit on moving packages from incoming and staging to the repos. alll package maintainers should regularily work on their packages and ideally the workload (ie number of packages maintained) should be equal.

but for every 200 packages added you need one more maintainer. some devs have way more than 100 packages which is entirely too much. i did 400+ for three months and it drove me nuts. it isn't good to have some overworked while others disappear for months and maintain only a few packages.

doc developers NEED to be ontop of what is going on inthe community so that anything that is becoming FAQs is incorporated into the docs and does not lie in in three or four different places.

it would be nice too if the workload was in such a way that releases could be more regular or even incremental so that ugly upgrades can be avoided or installing via ftp.

and so forth.

it would be nice if your theory was true but alas i just don't think it is.

i3839 · 2004-02-19 17:08:29

Again only in theory, the number of packages is independent of the number of Arch users, thus more Arch users doesn't necessarily mean more packages...

In practice it's probably the case that more users make more incomming packages, which need to be handled by more trustworthy people. So you need more package maintainers, but where else than from the user base/Arch community should they come from? As you said before, Arch may have growing pains, but in the end the bigger community should solve all problems it caused, with as end result the same Arch with just more packages.

In the worst case all you should need to do to be able to handle all those extra users is ignoring packages in incomming and new package requests. If Arch has not enough developers, than it should make that clear and stimulate people to become one (like people with a good TUR).

beniro · 2004-02-20 16:42:21

I agree that the Arch Linux core should be kept lean, light and simple. The Arch devs can keep this improving at the current rate, things will be fine. As long as they don't succumb to pressure.

My vision for Arch would be something like a stripped, optimized Debian in the sense that it is great core OS, that eventually could be used to create many specifically tailored distros, like Debian's Knoppix, XandrOS, blah, blah blah.

Arch should stick to it's guns and hone it's formula and stay focused. PLEASE!

Soon, there will be plenty of Distros based on Arch.

Guest · 2004-03-07 20:11:48

New stats:

Last 12 months: 51
Last 6 months: 43
Last 3 month: 31
Last 1 month: 14

Old stats:

http://www.distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity

Arch Linux Rankings:

Last 12 months: 58
Last 6 months: 56
Last 3 month: 45
Last 1 month: 28

rasat · 2004-03-27 13:32:23

To put Arch in its right place, it will become among the 10 first distros.

The future :?:
Mandrake, Fedora, Knoppix, Debian, Gentoo, SUSE, Slackware, and Arch.

dp · 2004-04-04 23:16:30

rasat wrote:

To put Arch in its right place, it will become among the 10 first distros.
The future :?:
Mandrake, Fedora, Knoppix, Debian, Gentoo, SUSE, Slackware, and Arch.

the future is soon :-)

thedave · 2004-04-07 18:41:24

There are a few benefits to becoming a more widely used distro (IMHO) - those that I see right off are:

- More active community, more likely that someone is experiencing the same growing pains you are

- More package managers (really, really not a bad thing)

One of the things I liked about Gentoo was the immense forums support - now, don't get me wrong - I get lots of support here. But with Gentoo, there was not once that I had to post a new question regarding some odd text output that was freezing X (for example) - it lends itself to becoming more "noob" (read: me) friendly... so long as it comes without the Gentoo arrogance

As for more package managers, I really don't see an issue. If Linux is all about choice, it sure would be nice to have my choice of any package out there...

Just some thoughts...

Arch Linux

#1 2004-02-17 16:19:45

Arch Linux on Distrowatch

#2 2004-02-17 16:26:58

Re: Arch Linux on Distrowatch

#3 2004-02-17 18:13:22

Re: Arch Linux on Distrowatch

#4 2004-02-17 18:27:50

Re: Arch Linux on Distrowatch

#5 2004-02-17 18:30:08

Re: Arch Linux on Distrowatch

#6 2004-02-17 18:42:32

Re: Arch Linux on Distrowatch

#7 2004-02-17 23:17:43

Re: Arch Linux on Distrowatch

#8 2004-02-18 02:00:27

Re: Arch Linux on Distrowatch

#9 2004-02-18 03:08:56

Re: Arch Linux on Distrowatch

#10 2004-02-18 03:24:36

Re: Arch Linux on Distrowatch

#11 2004-02-18 03:34:55

Re: Arch Linux on Distrowatch

#12 2004-02-19 17:08:29

Re: Arch Linux on Distrowatch

#13 2004-02-20 16:42:21

Re: Arch Linux on Distrowatch

#14 2004-03-07 20:11:48

Re: Arch Linux on Distrowatch

#15 2004-03-27 13:32:23

Re: Arch Linux on Distrowatch

#16 2004-04-04 23:16:30

Re: Arch Linux on Distrowatch

#17 2004-04-07 18:41:24

Re: Arch Linux on Distrowatch

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