Distrowatch

shadowplay · 2015-10-25 22:41:45

I agree with everything you say....it's a sort of database (the worse kind, i guess...a "pay to play" database).

It's not the definitive oracle of distros, but it's a place to start (and probably the most widely known/used/quoted).

As you've outlined, the decision process if a lot more involved (and subjective). But like any sales pitch, once your name is out there, you can (almost) let the product speak for itself.

If I search for "best linux distros" (or some other equivalent), i don't know any good way to ensure that BL is on the list....DW looks like a good "attack vector". Having said that, a focused lookup for "lightweight linux distros" will (probably) bring up wikipedia.

Ignoring the grubby aspect of "pay-to-play", it's a fairly easy way of getting the name out there.

And it's not an all-or-nothing....all the other approaches (blogs, word of mouth, etc) are still valid. This is just another relatively cheap avenue to go down.

Having said that....if BL languishes in the bottom 10% of DW, as an example, it probably does more harm than good to the "brand"....(yuch...i feel dirty just saying that word!)

ohnonot · 2015-10-26 06:41:13

i say it again, i'm not re-opening the discussion this thread was originally about.
that out of the way...

shadowplay wrote:

But like any sales pitch, once your name is out there, you can (almost) let the product speak for itself.

you see this is where i disagree with you.
an important (maybe even the most important) thing i've learned since usig gnu/linux is that it does not work this way.
because apart from being FOSS, Linux is a global community achievement.
A program becomes good & trusted because many (or at least more than one) people have developed it (and there you already have a big plus for bunsenlabs compared to many other distros), use it, and comment on it one way or the other (admittedly, this is where publicity is an important factor).
so in a way the community speaks for the product, not the product itself.
this becomes even more true when you look at a program's future. how good is the chance that it will still work in 2 years.

[rant] actually i more and more dislike people who "create" a linux distribution, somehow trying to market it as their thing, new and brilliant and unique... bullshit. it's still 99% the work of others. you cannot somehow distract the "global community effort" aspect from gnu/linux.
i guess these sort of egomaniacs are the ones that are most likely to pay to get to the front of the line. [/rant]

If I search for "best linux distros" (or some other equivalent), i don't know any good way to ensure that BL is on the list....

it isn't.
that search just brings up dozens of indian it blogs (sorry fellow indians, no offence, but statistically it is so) regurgitating the distrowatch top ten list over and over. probably in the hope of getting a few pennies from googleads.

a focused lookup for "lightweight linux distros" will (probably) bring up wikipedia.

it does indeed.
then it becomes a little hazy, but i get your point: bunsenlabs is to be seen only on wikipedia so far, thanks to Pouletic i guess.
but, i tried that search, and one thing i see is that all "best of" search results are distros that have been around for at least a few years, be it lightweight or not.

conclusion:
that's what makes bunsenlabs so good - it doesn try to create something new.
but still, it's a new name and we will have to wait another year or so before we re-evaluate its status in the internet of distros.
i will look at distrowatch differently in the future.

deleted0 · 2015-11-01 13:41:10

ohnonot wrote:

and, like i said, the fact that you can buy your way to the top has been an eye-opener for me.

Respectfully, It's not buying one's way to the top. It's buying advertising and DW's time/effort to add you to the DB. To get "to the top" requires much more than $$$.

I don't see anything wrong for paying for those services, i.e. advertising and being added to the database; to support DW. One is not buying rankings, am I wrong? That I would object to.

Regards,
8bit

EDIT: As long as the distro one is paying to advertise has to jump through the same hoops as a non advertised distro: website, forum, and the other requirements to be in the DB.

Last edited by deleted0 (2015-11-01 14:34:17)

ohnonot · 2015-11-01 20:57:35

^ i should have written "you can buy your way to the top of the list" - distrowatches waiting list to be reviewed to get into their database/website. at least that's how it's been described at the beginning of this thread:

redcollective wrote:

I was delighted to see Bunsen submitted to Distrowatch, however appalled at the futility of the exercise when I noticed the waiting list for listing (add. by ohnonot: i.e. to actually appear on their website) dates back to 2007.
However this can be sped up, by simply paying a 'fee' [cough] to the gatekeepers there, half of which they pinky-promise will be donated to open source projects.
$220 dollars.

deleted0 · 2015-11-01 21:34:10

^Thanks for clearing that up. I see exactly what you mean.

Regards,
8bit

seppalta · 2015-11-01 22:32:12

It is an imperfect world, and the way Distrowatch adds and orders the distros on their list is deplorable and highly misleading. It is also shameful that they are not more upfront about it. You could say it is right out of the Jobs-Gates playbook. That said, I vote that Bunsen-Labs gives them $220 and then forgets about Distrowatch. Pragmatism 51%, Idealism 49%!

The reasons that I use BL are:
(1) BL uses and is serious about using the Openbox Window Manager;
(2) BL has a large, active, friendly Forum;
(3) BL developers are innovative about offering end users new things - pipe-menus, tips, tricks, etc.

Most so-called big distros do not even offer an Openbox edition anymore, and when they do, they sell it like it's an offering to the have-nots, a piece of bread to be thrown out to those that are technically hungry but too poor to buy a modern computer. They seldom offer new things; it is always the same bland edition with the same weak applications. Is Openbox over-developed and not interesting to high powered developers anymore? Some distros (Ubunti, Mint, ...) have big forums, but from the response a newcomer often gets, the members must be mostly relatives of Donald Trump. I do not need to be told how dumb I am - I know the answer to that question and it isn't all bad, so just answer my stated question.

BL is lucky to start with such a large, enthusiastic, friendly following. There is a little distribution called Gobang that satisfies my criteria except the support group is for the most part just 1 person. Pretty hard to persist if you are alone.

deleted0 · 2015-11-01 23:55:40

^ What he said.

nobody0 · 2015-11-02 07:03:14

seppalta wrote:

Most so-called big distros do not even offer an Openbox edition anymore, and when they do, they sell it like it's an offering to the have-nots, a piece of bread to be thrown out to those that are technically hungry but too poor to buy a modern computer.

Not exactly. Lubuntu is there, based on Openbox and with a DE made for Openbox.

corenominal wrote:

When I first started working on CrunchBang, the Linux landscape was a very different place and whilst I honestly didn’t know if there was any value to it, I knew there was a place for CrunchBang on my own systems. As it turned out, there seemed to be quite a demand for it on other people’s systems too. I’m not entirely sure why this was the case, but if I had to guess, I would say that it was probably due to the lack of competition/alternatives of the same ilk. If I’m remembering correctly, at the time, there was no LXDE tasksel in Debian and certainly no Lubuntu around. CrunchBang filled a gap and that was nifty.

About Distrowatch;
Once, the BunsenLabs "distribution release" is released, Distrowatch would have to include BunsenLabs in its "list" and front page, otherwise it would look unprofessional. Someone has to "announce" it, though.

ohnonot · 2015-11-02 07:03:40

seppalta wrote:

the way Distrowatch adds and orders the distros on their list is deplorable and highly misleading. It is also shameful that they are not more upfront about it.

i wouldn't go that far.
there's a link at the top right of the main page that leads you straight to this page:
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=submit
it's mostly like redcollective stated in pst #1, but i must say i don't understand how these advertisings work.
maybe i've been using adblock for too long...

pvsage · 2015-11-02 07:45:38

ostrolek wrote:

seppalta wrote:
Most so-called big distros do not even offer an Openbox edition anymore, and when they do, they sell it like it's an offering to the have-nots, a piece of bread to be thrown out to those that are technically hungry but too poor to buy a modern computer.
Not exactly. Lubuntu is there, based on Openbox and with a DE made for Openbox.

Repeating for emphasis:

seppalta wrote:

when they do, they sell it like it's an offering to the have-nots, a piece of bread to be thrown out to those that are technically hungry but too poor to buy a modern computer.

LXDE (the "DE made for Openbox") is specifically marketed/branded/pushed as a lower-resource alternative for lower spec machines.

MsMattie · 2015-11-02 17:52:13

seppalta wrote:

Most so-called big distros do not even offer an Openbox edition anymore, and when they do, they sell it like it's an offering to the have-nots, a piece of bread to be thrown out to those that are technically hungry but too poor to buy a modern computer.

I really agree. There is a newer i7 desktop here with 10GB RAM and it will run any Linux fast, but I'll end up with BL on it because from a work flow standpoint Openbox is way more efficient, at least for me.

seppalta · 2015-11-02 21:45:08

ostrolek wrote:

Not exactly. Lubuntu is there, based on Openbox and with a DE made for Openbox.

Not for long. Their next edition will be LXQT, which is a different animal. Also, their forum is tied to Ubuntu forum, and I already mentioned my opinion of them.

nobody0 · 2015-11-02 21:50:19

seppalta wrote:

ostrolek wrote:
Not exactly. Lubuntu is there, based on Openbox and with a DE made for Openbox.
Not for long. Their next edition will be LXQT, which is a different animal. Also, their forum is tied to Ubuntu forum, and I already mentioned my opinion of them.

No problem, Debian would still have a LXDE live distro, http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/cur … so-hybrid/

On Topic;
Once, the BunsenLabs "distribution release" is released, Distrowatch would have to include BunsenLabs in its "list" and front page, otherwise it would look unprofessional. Someone has to "announce" it, though.

hhh · 2015-11-02 22:22:57

That's twice you've said that.

I'll send jessie an email when it happens, and then forget about it. It's up to him if he wants to include us or not, it really is not important.

We're a group of former #! forum users who got together for this hobby project because there was a community demand for it. And it's here, it's happened, you can download and install Hydrogen RC1 and it's a working jessie desktop with some tools to make OB+tint2+conky easier to configure (tint2 and conky restart FTW) and it's stable and solid and you can tweak it to your heart's delight.

You've all found it, what do you care if it's on DW for? If you want to tell a friend about it and they want some page hit count, point to these forums (6,000 topics in the first month). Or to the monthly screenshot thread (almost 18,000 views in the first month). Seed the current ISOs and see how someone's almost always downloading them. Our ISOs have been downloaded over 2,000 times already.

I think we're doing just fine as it is for the moment.

tknomanzr · 2015-11-02 23:24:19

^ I agree with this. Having been through the entire transition from #! to BL, I can say, it is a fine iteration. And the first post-Bang iteration. I am sure more cool stuff is coming, given the amazing amount of creativity, both in configurations and coding that is arising from the community again. I am not sure why we have to market it, given that it is entirely a labor of love by and from the people that frequent these forums.

As for openbox being like the red-headed step-child, I say people just don't know what they are missing. I find it funny that all the major commercial tech giants spend gobs of money doing analysis for the user experience when the best user experience (to me at least) hands down comes from Openbox/Fluxbox.

At one point, I got myself painted into a corner through the series of Live Builds I did. Forgot to backup configs, I believe and ended up with an unusable Openbox install. So I thought, well, I could spend a bunch of time rebuilding the bloody thing by hand again or I could just use tasksel to bring in a DE. I first chose Gnome3, then later tested Mate a bit. I can honestly say, I didn't like either one of them at all. Gnome3 is like too tablety and Mate just required too much mouse motion to go all the way to the top to the menu launcher, then dig around in the menu until I found what I needed. I missed my right-click, there's the menu that I built, so I know where stuff is and why it is there.

My little WM/DE hopping adventure was very short lived. Next Live Build, I got a properly working #!-like build working again.

Sector11 · 2015-11-03 00:04:57

hhh wrote:

I think we're doing just fine as it is for the moment.

HEAR HEAR! Three cheers for Bunsen!

We're watching our own distro

nobody0 · 2015-11-03 06:09:26

^ Oh, I don't care about DW's hit count, for DW is a business website that lives off ads.
Most of us are here, because we were there in #! forums, and if you click the About button there, you are redirected here. The old #! users/friends would look in #! forums, even if it is known as discontinued. Newcomers might even look in the #! forums, and by chance click the About button and find themselves in BunsenLabs. I mentioned about "announcing" at DW, because even Debian does that. It doesn't hurt to let people know.

I also propose uploading the BunsenLabs RC1 to Sourceforge, Linuxtracker, Ibiblio, Nluug etc.

ohnonot · 2015-11-03 07:12:34

ostrolek wrote:

On Topic;
Once, the BunsenLabs "distribution release" is released, Distrowatch would have to include BunsenLabs in its "list" and front page, otherwise it would look unprofessional. Someone has to "announce" it, though.

this whole thread has been about the fact that it will not be that easy.

I order you to be quiet!

nobody0 · 2015-11-03 08:49:55

ohnonot wrote:

ostrolek wrote:
On Topic; ...

No comment!

Last edited by nobody0 (2015-11-03 08:52:28)

dolly · 2015-11-03 08:53:20

^Agree! Forget about Distrowatch. BunsenLabs will do fine by it's own merits. As it has already proven!

#61 2015-10-25 22:41:45

Re: Distrowatch

#62 2015-10-26 06:41:13

Re: Distrowatch

#63 2015-11-01 13:41:10

Re: Distrowatch

#64 2015-11-01 20:57:35

Re: Distrowatch

#65 2015-11-01 21:34:10

Re: Distrowatch

#66 2015-11-01 22:32:12

Re: Distrowatch

#67 2015-11-01 23:55:40

Re: Distrowatch

#68 2015-11-02 07:03:14

Re: Distrowatch

#69 2015-11-02 07:03:40

Re: Distrowatch

#70 2015-11-02 07:45:38

Re: Distrowatch

#71 2015-11-02 17:52:13

Re: Distrowatch

#72 2015-11-02 21:45:08

Re: Distrowatch

#73 2015-11-02 21:50:19

Re: Distrowatch

#74 2015-11-02 22:22:57

Re: Distrowatch

#75 2015-11-02 23:24:19

Re: Distrowatch

#76 2015-11-03 00:04:57

Re: Distrowatch

#77 2015-11-03 06:09:26

Re: Distrowatch

#78 2015-11-03 07:12:34

Re: Distrowatch

#79 2015-11-03 08:49:55

Re: Distrowatch

#80 2015-11-03 08:53:20

Re: Distrowatch

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