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Canonical Developer Criticizes Linux Mint's Security

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  • #21
    Originally posted by Bathroom Humor View Post
    A quote, from our friends at Distrowatch
    Yes, it's a pure coincidence that the most popular distros are on top of the list.

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    • #22
      Saying DistroWatch is a bad source is just like when my teachers would say Wikipedia is a bad source. It always felt like a discrediting statement especially when I would write papers sourcing the material, but say it came from an encyclopedia. In other words it may not be as good as getting a piece of software on every single Linux system reporting which distro they are using, but it is as good as it gets.

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      • #23
        When an Arch developer said about the same about Manjaro I saw nobody on Phoronix flip their shit. Actually, I don't even remember Phoronix covering it, but if someone at Canonical even farts, oh boy, oh boy, they (Phoronix and other outlets) will be all over that along with the hate bandwagon of trolls and zealots

        Here. Have at boys!
        http://allanmcrae.com/2013/01/manjar...for-stability/

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        • #24
          Originally posted by Bathroom Humor View Post
          It's impossible to know for sure how many people use any given Distro, but a more comprehensive picture can be drawn by using a universally known website that generates huge amounts of traffic, regardless of userbase. I have a feeling you don't know what I meant by "significant".

          The data here may not be 100% accurate, but even if Mint (or any other distro) somehow has an order of maginitude more users than is listed, there is little risk of it approaching the same userbase size as Ubuntu.
          Respect for being scientific and producing data that should actually mean something - there really isn't enough of that around here.

          That said, those Wikipedia numbers just look...wrong. No way does Ubuntu have 50x more users than other major distros like Fedora, Mint and SUSE; the 'Linux Other' column contains almost twice as much traffic as all other entries combined despite all major and some minor distros being shown individually. It looks rather like the version-detection for non-Ubuntu systems is very poor - whether it's bundling everything into Other or miscategorising some as Ubuntu isn't evident, but I can't really take that data at face value.

          /me will look for more data later on.

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          • #25
            Originally posted by Goddard View Post
            Saying DistroWatch is a bad source is just like when my teachers would say Wikipedia is a bad source. It always felt like a discrediting statement especially when I would write papers sourcing the material, but say it came from an encyclopedia. In other words it may not be as good as getting a piece of software on every single Linux system reporting which distro they are using, but it is as good as it gets.
            Not really. You go to distrowatch.com and click on distributions to learn more about them. Nobody needs to learn about what Ubuntu is because everyone on that page knows. Also most people who install Ubuntu (because they heard of it from their friend, Valve/Steam, whatever) don't go on pages like distrowatch.com because they don't care about this stuff.

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            • #26
              Originally posted by prodigy_ View Post
              Yes, it's a pure coincidence that the most popular distros are on top of the list.
              Nobody said that, ever. If more people know about a distro, it makes sense for a portion of them to check out the page for various reasons. I feel like you may have glossed over my entire post just to avoid the fact that your point of view was drastically skewed. Allow me to reiterate:
              Like I already said, most people who aren't using Linux yet don't know to look at distrowatch (Googling Linux does not lead to Distrowatch, whereas Ubuntu.com is the third result), and people who use Linux don't have much incentive to check the Ubuntu page, as they more likely familiar with it than they are anything else. This makes plenty of sense. Even Distrowatch itself says they aren't meant to be an accurate measure of userbase.

              This has little to do with the conversation now. There's no reason to assume that the majority of Linux users go to distrowatch very often, or that most people who go there are trying to look up information on a distro they probably already know about.
              We could go on to speculate that both Distrowatch AND Wikipedia are feeding us false information about their statistics, but I'm not nearly whacky enough to do that.

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              • #27
                Originally posted by FLHerne View Post
                Respect for being scientific and producing data that should actually mean something - there really isn't enough of that around here.

                That said, those Wikipedia numbers just look...wrong. No way does Ubuntu have 50x more users than other major distros like Fedora, Mint and SUSE; the 'Linux Other' column contains almost twice as much traffic as all other entries combined despite all major and some minor distros being shown individually. It looks rather like the version-detection for non-Ubuntu systems is very poor - whether it's bundling everything into Other or miscategorising some as Ubuntu isn't evident, but I can't really take that data at face value.

                /me will look for more data later on.
                It does seem kind of odd, how Linux Other is such a huge piece of the puzzle. But there are some bugs in their trackers that need to be addressed.
                However, even looking back over the years, Ubuntu has had a way larger number of server requests than any other distro, by far. Unless every other distro in existence is showing up a portion of their users listed as Ubuntu for whatever reason, I don't think there's a way for other distros to be even close to it. The consistency means either a long-standing bug, or the numbers are fairly accurate.

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                • #28
                  Another source of data would be nice though. According to Wikipedia, Ubuntu was sitting around 10-15 times the number of users of Fedora who was in second place, until october of 2011, when Ubuntu surged upward to about double over the next few months. So maybe that's some kind of bug or miscalulation? I wonder.

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                  • #29
                    Originally posted by Bathroom Humor View Post
                    Another source of data would be nice though. According to Wikipedia, Ubuntu was sitting around 10-15 times the number of users of Fedora who was in second place, until october of 2011, when Ubuntu surged upward to about double over the next few months. So maybe that's some kind of bug or miscalulation? I wonder.
                    well you asked...

                    here are some google stats - make of it what you wish.

                    - http://www.google.com/trends/explore...nt,fedora,arch

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                    • #30
                      Originally posted by who_me View Post
                      When an Arch developer said about the same about Manjaro I saw nobody on Phoronix flip their shit. Actually, I don't even remember Phoronix covering it, but if someone at Canonical even farts, oh boy, oh boy, they (Phoronix and other outlets) will be all over that along with the hate bandwagon of trolls and zealots
                      That is the same that i thought when i was reading the Headline.

                      It really shows whats going on in the linux-"community".
                      its really sad.

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