Then and Now: Changes in DistroWatch Rank of Fifteen Distros
canopic jug writes:
LinuxLinks has looked at 15 distros that were popular back in 2006 and looks at where they are now in 2020. These were the ones ranked in the top 15 back then by DistroWatch. The only ones still in the top 15 are Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and OpenSUSE. Some others like CentOS, Slackware, and Gentoo are still active and have strong communities but no longer listed as high in DistroWatch's somewhat arbitrary1 ranking. Others, like several Ubuntu-based distros occupy the rest of the 2020 top 15.
Back in 2006, Distrowatch ranked the following distributions in terms of page hit ranking1. The top ranked distro was Ubuntu. The other places were taken by openSUSE, Fedora, MEPIS, Mandriva, Damn Small, Debian, PCLinuxOS, Slackware, Gentoo, KNOPPIX, FreeBSD, Kubuntu, VectorLinux, and CentOS.
It's interesting to see how these distributions fared over the past 14 years? Are they still going strong, are they outclassed by other distributions, or are they only remembered like fingerprints on an abandoned handrail?
[...] 1It's important to remember that the page hit ranking has never been an indicator of the popularity of a specific distribution. For a start, it's easy for malicious users to manipulate Distrowatch's page hit ranking. Just as important it cannot possibly reflect the usage of any distribution for many reasons.
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