[ltp] OT: Distributions - bleeding edge or not? (was: What to take care of when buying a Lenovo?)

[Marcin Trybus]

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David A. Desrosiers wrote:

> Now now... making statistical "rectal approximations" is also frowned
> upon in many circles without valid citations.=20
>=20
> Do you have actual data to support your assertion that "most Linus user=
s
> prefer to be on the bleeding edge"?=20

Of course I was talking about desktop Linux. Let's take a look on the=20
most widespread distributions. There is (in no particular order): Ubuntu =

& Debian, SUSE, Fedora & RH, Mandriva, Slackware and Gentoo. There are=20
also some projects based on them like Mint, CentOS or PCLinux, that run=20
roughly similar software. The rest counted together is probably <5% of=20
the scene.

When you take Linux kernel, KDE, Gnome, and OO.o as a measure you get:
(source: DistroWatch.com, may be inaccurate)

latest stable 	2.6.24 	3.5.9	2.20.1	2.3.1
        unstable		4.0.2	2.21.90	2.4.0RC2

		kernel 	KDE 	Gnome 	OO.o

Ubuntu 7.10 	2.6.22	3.5.5 	2.20.0	2.3.0
Debian stable	2.6.18	3.5.5 	2.20.0	2.0.4
Debian testing	2.6.22	3.5.8 	2.20.0	2.3.1
SUSE 10.3	2.6.22	3.5.7	2.20.0	2.3.0
Fedora 8	2.6.23	3.5.8 	2.20.1	2.3.0
RHEL 5.1	2.6.18	3.5.4	2.16.0	2.0.4
Mandriva 2k8	2.6.22	3.5.7	2.20.0	2.2.1
Slackware	2.6.24	3.5.9	-	-
Gentoo stable	2.6.23 	3.5.8	2.20.1	2.3.1

For latest releases of the top distributions:

Ubuntu 8.04b6 	2.6.22	3.5.9 	2.21.90	2.4.0RC2
SUSE Factory 	2.6.24	4.0.2 	2.21.90	2.4.0
Fedora Rawhide	2.6.25	4.0.2 	2.21.90	2.4.0

I listed Debian testing because I (and a majority on Polish Debian=20
Forum) run testing rather then stable. You guessed it, to get newer app=20
versions. When you take these packages as a measure among the mentioned=20
distributions only Debian stable and RHEL are not bleeding edge. All of=20
the others use software releases that is no more than a few months old.=20
Most of them provides Compiz Fusion out of the box (or it's easy to=20
configure).

For me desktop Linux distribution today is either bleeding edge, or out=20
of the Top 10. No statistics, just my observation.

--=20
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