Random Thing that is encouraging for Linux Supporters

So I mentioned in a different thread here I think, that ELive Gem(aka Elive 1.0) is out. I haven't actually tried it yet but based off the versions I have tried I expect good things from it, and apparently I am not alone. I run a mirror for distribution of it and took a look at the stats for it....


I was actually expecting the largest number of page views to come from Linux users, primarily most likely already users of Elive... They in fact came from WIndows Users. Keep in mind this is page views, not downloads, but there aren't all that many pages to view on this particular server, and it wouldn't be to far a stretch to think that the approx ratio of page views carries over to the approx ratio of downloads as well.

I just found it interesting the ratio of Windows to Linux users downloading.

For those unaware, ELive is a smaller distro, but very well done in many respects, and since trying it many here have reccomended it as a good distro for many purposes. The primary thing about it is that it is based off e17, which happens to be my favorite Window Manager, which IMO provides a good balance of eyecandy and performance, running extremely lightweight but still providing a strong visual experience. Along with e17 it comes with a strong lineup of tools for various purposes, but especially in the multimedia area it is a strong performer compared to your standard distro(Not those customized for multimedia yet). It does not have OpenOffice on the CD, but that can be easily installed of course. And in general comes with a strong basic lineup of software.

Seablade

Quite possible, but to be honest I would still consider that a minority of the Windows users.

Seablade

I am also kinda curious as to the OS unknown portion of that, will ahve to look up what could easily fall under that. I would think things like Solaris would fall under Unix. I imagine the unknown windows might be Vista though.

Seablade

Thing is, in all honest, elive hasn't been in the presses much, primarily word of mouth. That is why it is so interesting to me. I do agree Ubuntu is the first distro to really hit mainstream and do it mostly right though. It will likely be seen as the face of linux on the desktop for many windows users for a while as a result. I would say check out the next version where they are switching to an updated version of e17, which just added full desktop support as well if memory serves(Haven't upgraded my workstation, I probably should, but I am not sure I really WANT desktop support honestly) but I am curious, what are the useability issues for you? I am actually looking at switching to e-live on a fairly regular basis. Main thing keeping me on Gentoo on my workstation is just how freakin nice portage is for me, so it is a major toss-up. ELive has most of what I want in a distro, and the rest I don't mind doing some work maintaining a package tree for them for things like Ingo's patches and some multimedia stuff I use. But portage has a flexibility in it you just don't get with apt, that I completely love. The USE flag system is flat out great IMO. I suppose it might be interesting to me when they finish up the prefix-ed work to portage to use that on ELive to build my packages and package them for apt for me. Would certainly be interesting and if it could be done right, the best of both worlds for me, as well as allowing me to work to help maintain elive which I want to do, but just don't have the time right now(Walked headfirst without realising it into a couple of other open source projects) Seablade

Heh you know me, I am not trying to argue this is the best thing since sliced bread for everyone However I am going to tackle your points as best I can to let you know of a few things... Keep in mind that by next release I mean the one AFTER Gem which has already been released obviously Gem still uses a version of e17 by default from at least a year ago, the next version will be using a much more up to date version. Although they keep a test repo to get a new version of e17 up and running easily. Can you be a bit more specific? I am not trying to argue, but I am very curious to your(And others) exact thoughts on certain tasks, it may be you bring up something that can be done much better certainly. The good news is that you aren't an idiot. e17 a couple months ago added in desktop icon support, so it is NOT in elive in the default e17 environment. I am not sure if it is in the test repo or not, I hope it is, as I hope that they implement in the next version. This is what i was referring to with desktop support earlier. I personally have gotten to a point where I rather like not having desktop icons to be honest, but I still am hoping that the next version gets the new version of e17 in with full desktop support. Yea unfortunatly I have mixed feelings on it myself. For everything else that seems to blend well with the distribution, it certainly does not. However I do like that they made certain things very easy, I just think it needs some work done to it, and should become part of the configuration menus for e17(Which may not have even been in that old a version of e17 as is in Gem) You know, there has been a total of ONE file manager I have thought was very interesting, and a strong approach for one. Every other file manager has followed the same basic strategy, that is old, and outdated IMO. The one I found I think was called evidence, and is no longer developed, but the reason I liked it was because it melded a gui file manager with a command prompt, and if it had been finished and done right could have provided the strengths of both of these. Unfortuantly it was never finished and I believe development stopped some time ago. I still have yet to find any real file manager I like on any OS other than that. So yes I will certainly agree with your observations on it, it is just a question of, is there anything better out there? IMO there just isn't and that is why they switched to Thunar for theirs. Hopefully when the built in one with e17 is complete it will be good. Can't argue with that, though I do wonder how much has to do with the older version of e17 they are running. Have you tried any of the newer ones out of curiosity(I am not advocating downloading it just because of this thread, I am just curious). Seablade

PS I do like e17 enough to the point, it is actually running in Mac OS as well on my powerbook

Unfortunatly a single button mouse and it don't mix nearly as well as my nice scroll mouse, or even a two button mouse. Apple really needs to wake up sometime that most people WANT a two button mouse at least, but a scroll mouse is pretty standard.

Now that being said, I am not saying the current design of mouse is the best, just that apple is very behind in theirs lately

Seablade

By the way, the ratio of Windows:OtherOS on my mirror has actually only increased, the number of windows users viewing the download mirror has only even farther outweighed linux users. Aroudn the range of 10:1 now Windows:Linux if I remember right. And yes that means several thousand windows hits.

Seablade

Actually Vista is doing more to push people to Linux and Mac OS than either of them were

The amount of lockdown and DRM in that POS is amazing, and finally some people are realizing it is not worth it.

Of course MS ALSO just patented a system to read pretty much every file on your computer and deliver information back to ad companies to deliver more 'relevant' ads. I can see this being used to support a 'free' windows. Of course even with that, it would do even more to push people to try other, truly free, options.

Linux IS getting a lot of press lately, especially due to Vista and a large amount of knowledgeable people are looking for other options. We will see how long it lasts. As many here can attest, Ubuntu is a huge boost for LInux because it does a good job of working. People are seeing it, trying it, realising it is not the arcane mixup they thought, and slowly getting drawn into it until hopefully they realize they don't need windows anymore. Ubuntu is a great start for many people, and thankfully it is not the only option and hopefully never will be, as much as I love Canoical and their efforts, it is not for everyone and would be against the thought if it was the only option out there.

Seablade

I don't think much will have changed in ELive Gem that will affect what you have posted. The next setup though might very well depending on how they do it.

It is a good point on network shares though, I don't think there is a good way to do with short of the standard mount command, so it is certainly something to keep in mind. Maybe I will tackle learning etk sometime if someone doesn't beat me to it to try that one.

Seablade

So its been a good long while since i updated this... eLive released a new dev version, what is extremely interesting about this, other than the updated e17, is the following.... This is in the past 5 days. I can't remember what thread I posted some of my transfer numbers in, but if memory serves I was sitting between 30 and 50 gigs a day when it was released. This is a development version and in 5 days I have had at least 1.5 terabytes of bandwidth used. 500+ gigs of that from today, as of a few hours ago. Holy crud is all I can say. I really need to put up basic adsense ads I think to support this, eesh. 35000 downloads... By the way, for the record... Still many more windows users looking at it than any other OS. Seablade Apparently running low on bandwidth...

Well to be fair, that is 20,000 page hits, not downloads, although the download number probably isn't far off.

It is certainly possible it is a bit reporting to be Windows 98, but to be honest I don't think that would make up the vast majority of it. But short of going through my logs manually, which I am not likely to do anytime soon just do to lack of time, for the time being I will take it as being fairly accurate. I do plan on switching to a different stats package sometime, but not right away.

Seablade

Bingo, page hits are the total number of hits on that subdomain to any page, even if it is just a directory listing. Correction time on numbers. While I am showing that many hits on the file, based off bandwidth I would say it has only been fully downloaded about 2000 times if my math is even close to correct. 1.5 TB bandwidth / 600 MB per ISO = 2500 or so in about a weeks time. Still not bad for a mirror of a non-mainstream distro IMO. Seablade