Why is Arch trending up?

dldiamond2 · 2009-08-11 16:52:06

I just went to the distrowatch page and I noticed that for the default 6 month listing Arch is in 10th place. That seems awfully high. Then I went to view the last 7 days detail and arch is in 5th place with over 1000 H.P.D. Is there something going on in the Arch community lately that is causing this high traffic? I've been out of the loop since exams started.

dldiamond2 · 2009-08-11 16:59:53

Oh I think I get it. 2009.08. Everyone is giving arch a try. Sorry for interrupting.

evr · 2009-08-11 17:00:11

Because Arch is awesome?

Seriously though, I'm guessing probably because the 2009.08 images were just released which causes a bump in the HPD.

edit: sorry, too late...

Last edited by evr (2009-08-11 17:00:33)

alterecco · 2009-08-11 17:00:53

100th-Monkey Effect?

.]

jelly · 2009-08-11 17:18:44

because we are taking over ubuntu ?

[offtopic] while true; do post "arch is in the distrowatch top 5"; sleep 4 months [/offtopic]

why do we really always make this threads like : " oh noes arch is getting popular , we are in the distrowatch top 5 w00t, can't we spend our precious time on something better ( oh no what am i doinng )

Last edited by jelly (2009-08-11 17:20:31)

.:B:. · 2009-08-11 17:22:38

I predict a bright future for this highly analytical topic .

TGN wants you so badly!

Acecero · 2009-08-11 17:27:40

jelly wrote:

because we are taking over ubuntu ?
[offtopic] while true; do post "arch is in the distrowatch top 5"; sleep 4 months [/offtopic]
why do we really always make this threads like : " oh noes arch is getting popular , we are in the distrowatch top 5 w00t, can't we spend our precious time on something better ( oh no what am i doinng )

haha, true, we should just let the users decide if they like arch or not, even if it means getting more popular. Though we don't aim to be mainstream, we actually don't care about our ratings and where we stand among other distros (even though those ratings have no basis). We just do our best to follow our philosophy.

cactus · 2009-08-11 17:32:26

dldiamond2 wrote:

Is there something going on in the Arch community lately that is causing this high traffic?

People have been talking about tacos a bit more lately.
I bet that is it.

dldiamond2 · 2009-08-11 17:38:40

I just thought it strange that Arch had gone up so much. I wasn't trying to make a big deal out of it. I didn't know if arch had decided to clone ubuntu and start over fresh or something like that. Some major news that shook up the ranking. Nothing else really needed to be said once I realized it was just the new release. Even Slackware gets those kinds of results when a new version is released. I guess everyone has to once again check and see if this is the killer new version that they will finally use and then after a few days everyone realises that it is still Arch with the same ways and same philosophy and they all go back to their own distributions. I'm perfectly happy with arch the way it is. By the way, that reminds me, I should get around to installing the new version on my laptop. I've been using *shock* *horror* vista.

thayer · 2009-08-11 17:54:25

Just my two cents, but I think the immediate popularity was likely due to a recent slashdotted article about distro freshness. In the report Arch was ranked number one for freshness of packages. This probably brought an onslaught of fresh interest into the project.

Last edited by thayer (2009-08-12 04:36:34)

AdrenalineJunky · 2009-08-11 17:55:13

that would make sense ^^

Wintervenom · 2009-08-11 17:57:20

When good things come into the dark light of the mainstream, the userbase always ends up becoming like that of YouTube and MySpace.

Last edited by Wintervenom (2009-08-11 17:58:18)

kensai · 2009-08-11 18:44:21

I mean the new release got mentioned on osnews front page and on phononix as well. We are popular let's face it. We have tacos, Ubuntu don't.

peart · 2009-08-11 20:03:45

Just an FYI: Arch was #13 on Distrowatch on the 25th of May, 2002 (and this was even before the taco era had begun!). It had 78 HPD, which probably means all 39 of it's users clicked some link 2000 times each. The number 1 distro for that day was ... Sorcerer?!?

Warning: Clicking this link will make a dozen harmless but annoying little error message boxes open up.
Distrowatch on the Internet Archives

kensai · 2009-08-11 20:12:05

So bad, tacos didn't had to do with it.

Well, back then people using Linux were geeks only, hence Sorcerer, Source Mage, Debian, Arch and Gentoo being on top positions. The others that were easy distributions were there for a niche and that was enterprise, Suse, Red Hat, Mandrake.

sand_man · 2009-08-12 02:46:12

As long as Arch keeps on doing what it does and keeps being what it is, I don't care how popular it is.

ngoonee · 2009-08-12 02:57:57

You may want to reconsider that, sand_man. Give Arch half a million members and the forums would be overflowing with "X DOESN'T WORK WTF!!!" type questions, and many questions would be answered immediately with tangential solutions which are at best workarounds or hacks.

Case-in-point the official forums for a certain popular-distro-which-should-not-be-named. I found gems there, but the forum was just a mess.

Allan · 2009-08-12 03:04:56

ngoonee wrote:

You may want to reconsider that, sand_man. Give Arch half a million members and the forums would be overflowing with "X DOESN'T WORK WTF!!!" type questions, and many questions would be answered immediately with tangential solutions which are at best workarounds or hacks.

You obviously do not spend enough time here...

ngoonee · 2009-08-12 07:13:49

Allan wrote:

ngoonee wrote:
You may want to reconsider that, sand_man. Give Arch half a million members and the forums would be overflowing with "X DOESN'T WORK WTF!!!" type questions, and many questions would be answered immediately with tangential solutions which are at best workarounds or hacks.
You obviously do not spend enough time here...

Hi Allan. Perhaps the case, being a relatively late-comer, but I'm not sure whether you mean my statement is wrong or that its already happening?

Allan · 2009-08-12 09:46:29

I was saying that we were already well on our way... Especially around the time of big updates requiring rebuilds for soname bumps..

ngoonee · 2009-08-12 16:47:50

Ah. Understood then. I check 'recent posts' and skip those which look uninteresting, so I guess yes I would have missed much of that. Habit I learnt from that forum I mentioned...

sand_man · 2009-08-12 23:37:36

ngoonee wrote:

You may want to reconsider that, sand_man. Give Arch half a million members and the forums would be overflowing with "X DOESN'T WORK WTF!!!" type questions, and many questions would be answered immediately with tangential solutions which are at best workarounds or hacks.
Case-in-point the official forums for a certain popular-distro-which-should-not-be-named. I found gems there, but the forum was just a mess.

Again, if Arch keeps doing what it does that's fine. I don't have to spend time on the forum.

userlander · 2009-08-13 00:50:11

ngoonee wrote:

You may want to reconsider that, sand_man. Give Arch half a million members and the forums would be overflowing with "X DOESN'T WORK WTF!!!" type questions, and many questions would be answered immediately with tangential solutions which are at best workarounds or hacks.
Case-in-point the official forums for a certain popular-distro-which-should-not-be-named. I found gems there, but the forum was just a mess.

Maybe there should be a completely separate "newbie" forum where all newcomers have to post until they reach a certain post count. Kind of like a chroot jail, or it could be "chroot probation." All issues from all newcomers go in there. Once a user has a certain number of posts (25, 50, 100, whatever) they "graduate" to being able to post in the main forum.

Not that post count itself means much -- and I definitely don't mean it in any elitist sense -- but you have to use something. It wouldn't guarantee anything, but it might cut down on the forums getting flooded with a lot of stuff that otherwise would all be contained in a single newcomer forum. It would also automatically "weed out" those who are just distro hopping and trying arch out for a while or out of curiosity, but who soon leave.

Another benefit is that the newbie forum could be easily scanned to provide quick, targeted help to newcomers. Not that that doesn't happen now, but I think a forum dedicated to relatively easy newbie issues would not only make it easier to provide stealth help but also serve as a great info resource for newcomers, kind of like a second wiki, or a cross between a forum and a wiki.

Perhaps most importantly for the long term, I think when the person finally did "graduate" to the main forum, a sense of accomplishment, belonging, etc. would come with that and make the person psychologically more invested in keeping the main forum operating smoothly. Win-win all around.

dunc · 2009-08-13 02:11:17

There are problems with a "newbie forum" - there's nothing to stop someone spamming it with useless posts to increase their count; there may be technical difficulties in implementing it; it's a bit tough on current users under the cut-off point (you might have to admit them to the "full" forums to start off, with some heavy advance warning for long-time users who don't post much); and it certainly would look elitist to outsiders, whatever the intention - but I don't think it should be dismissed without thought. It's potentially a useful idea, for veterans and new users alike.

For what it's worth, I think it's great that Arch's popularity is increasing. People seem to want a "hardcore" distro, which can only be a good thing; it shows you don't have to dumb down to be popular, and that the core idea of FOSS - control over your system - is catching on.

alessandro_ufms · 2009-08-13 06:08:22

3º on "Last 7 days" with 1231 points (13/08/09). O.o

Arch Linux

#1 2009-08-11 16:52:06

Why is Arch trending up?

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