According to Distrowatch http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity
they use the following formula to rank distros:



Lets invite all the Zenwalk community during the version 4.8 beta stage release to add the Zenwalk Distrowatch section to their home page bookmark aside from their normal home page.

To do this in Firefox open your browser with just your normal homepage. No other tab should be present/open. Now open another tab.



With the newly open tab, go to Zenwalk section in Distrowatch http://distrowatch.com/zenwalk

Now with your normal homepage and the Zenwalk Distrowatch section open, edit your browser preference, go to Main and click the "Use current pages" button.

Every time you open your Firefox it will also open the Zenwalk Distrowatch page aside from your normal homepage.

Now let see if the Distrowatch formula really works...

p.s.
I'm not sure if dual homepage is possible with other browser like opera, konqueror etc.

I don't mean to be rude but I see absolutely no reason to do this.

The whole point of the ranking system is that it's meant to be a FAIR assessment (albeit rather inaccurate) of the interest of the public. If you do this then your just scewing statistics which would give you a false view of how popular the distro is.

I think that Ladislav (the guy who runs distrowatch) has made this point very clear a large number of times.

the point of this exercise actually is to point out that the formula used in distrowatch is not that accurate and misleading. just to give us some other reference, lets take a look on pclinux (currently #2 in distrowatch) and kubuntu (#16 just below zenwalk).

now lets compare this 3 distro with alexa http://www.alexa.com/, see the attached graph.

the attached graph from alexa shows some interesting statistic. the current distro ranking in distrowatch is just pure marketing and it has no bearing how popular a distro really is.

btw : the highest point in the graph for zenwalk was around the time when version 4.6.1 was released.

Hi zen_walker.

You're absolutely right - PCLinuxOS has no where near the popularity that it appears like on Distrowatch. They might have 5 times the users of Zenwalk (but score an average of 2500 HPD on Distrowatch). Your little trick with Firefox makes me believe this is maybe what PCLinuxOS did ... or something equivalent.

Since it is fraud and will eventually be exposed, I recommend that the Zenwalk distro does not use this trick -- but individual users can do it, if they like, no problem with me -- since that would be an individual decision (just because you'd like to see this page every time you open Firefox).

Best regards,
Claus

P.S. My belief that there is something phony about PCLinuxOS is supported by the fact that a single release some time back sported an enormous extra HPD score on Distrowatch. Besides they are not exactly frequent visitors with news on Distrowatch - but they still keep pulling in a score of 2500 HPD. When the DesktopLinux survey ran in 2007 - PCLinuxOS was small (as in 2% of the users). This is sooo suspicious.

I don't think openly skewing the distrowatch ranking will be well taken by members of other Linux communities, not mention Ladislav is fully entitled to delete your listing if he feels like it. But uhm whatever.

I just wanted to report that as of today (Oct. 14), Zenwalk has caught up with CentOS to tie for 12th place on the default 6 month ranking at distrowatch.com.  AFAIK, this is the first time Zenwalk has gotten above 13th, at least whenever I have checked.  Currently, Slackware is next at 11th place.

Hi xopherh. Last time Zenwalk was no. 12 was in May:



But it's great 

Best regards,
Claus

P.S. Zenwalk was also no. 12 in March:

Just a small warning: mess all too much with distrowatch and 'they' (at distrowatch) do get mad.    I do not think we 'deserve' that. Please let zenwalk grow by virtue of the good work we put into it, cheating only helps short-term.

Let's be honest on this one.

Certain people here have promoted the 'use' of distrowatch as a means of publicity for this distro. It is in the IRC channel topic, and it certainly used to be on either the forum page or homepage (it seems to have gone). So users were 'incited' to do exactly the same as what PCLinuxOS is said to be doing. For me, exposing users to this kind of 'requests' is the same as 'implementing' it structurally. I sincerely hope PCLinuxOS is not that dumb to do the latter.

As of now I'll take it out of the IRC channel topic. One cannot claim distro A is committing fraud when one's own distro has done similar things in the past, with no moral objections.

When i get rich enough, i will buy a google #1 rank adWord for the word Linux, i will then point it to the Zenwalk Distrowatch section.

This way it won't be considered "cheating", rather "contributing".

I guess this will be a multi-million-dollar affair, so it may take me a while, better begin looking for a well paid job to start with.

Hi Claus,

Let's be careful about accusations like these. Maybe someone or some individuals in the PCLinuxOS community actually do this trick.  That does not mean the whole community is responsible.  The fact of the matter is we don't know.  Being a user of PCLinuxOS, I have found the people in their community consist of good people. Especially the development team led by Texstar.  Much like this community.

As for the survey, I was using the distro at the time and I didn't participate.  Who knows how many didn't?  That's why I don't put too much weight on it for the PCLinuxOS numbers or in general.  How do you know someone wasn't able to set things up to vote twice or even more?  It's hardly scientific.

I apologize if any of my statements come across as confrontational, that is not my intent.  Just suggesting we use a bit of caution otherwise it can come across as distro bashing.

-Eric