With my marketing interest hat on, I am increasingly aware, in an uncomfortable way, of the implications of the Distrowatch rankings.
It is a simple counter I believe, and has limitations, but is a number to be judged upon, particularly in the apparently complete absence of any other available metric. Ubuntu has been consistently falling in ranking for months and is now only ahead in the 6 month ratings. Other periods, including 3 month figures put ubuntu clearly in second place behind PCLinuxOS(2007). The analysis of the reasons why, is of interest, possible consequences, and also possible action including maybe any thing which can be gained or learned from this. I really liked it when Ubuntu was climbing to top place, and was pleased when it stayed there. I noted that the very visible popularity led to media comment, which presumably fuelled more popularity. Media comment is fickle and blunt and some comments simply hung onto the fact of the Distrowatch rankings. Media comment about falling from top position can be equally blunt (I have not seen any yet) and may have a negative effect. Are our responses going to be well informed, or unprepared, defensive, or constructive? *If* Ubuntu has a correct place now below top place, then with marketing interest we hopefully want to know why. Personally I find it hard to accept that Ubuntu is worthy of second place (!) It should be first. Without clicking onto the pclinuxos in distrowatch (!) I have myself had a fairly quick look at its present live CD offering in comparison to Kubuntu 7.04 (which I regularly use). I note pclinuxos is kde based. The pclos boot menu screen is rather similar to Kubuntu except it has a designed multi toned background and bright white bold text. It is a bit 'busy' looking but the clarity of the white on blue gives an impression of simplicity. ========================= PCLinuxOS 2007: When loading, PCLinux OS, shows much scrolling text, and some coloured text, then a textured mesh background, keyboard choice list, timezone choice list - USA regions are pre-expanded (inconvenient for rest of the world, including me), date clock and timezone setting, including NTP server time sync, Choice of connection type, confirmation of network interface to configure, (ethernet) chice of dhcp or manual, DNS servers (default auto), Ethernet - managed or at boot, When to start the connection (now?), 'congratulations, the network configuration is finished'. Login as guest or root, Welcome screen: PCLInuxOS 'Radically Simple' Desktop: blue, designer two tone with multi tone shades. Desktop text: Bright white sans serif edged in black. Tested as Live CD on Dell laptop Inspiron 1100, and desktop asus P4C800. Music files play in Amarok - mp4 (IPOD) and mp3 play in both machines without apparently geting codecs. However, I was fascinated to see that while all mp3 played in the laptop, only some mp3 played in the desktop, presumably there can be different coding parameters in some way. The existing PC storage locations were auto mounted and shown uder My Computer (a windows terminology). KDE defaults to use a double click. Screen: It is notable that on the Inspiron 1100 the full screen is successfully used. The Inspiron 1100 has a particular problem in that there is poor reporting of screen to the bios, and even the original Dell XP install CDs give a reduced size screen display until xp install completes and particular drivers are found manually and used (supplementary CD). Knoppix - up to and including 4.02 also gave full screen display. Subsequently it only offers reduced display size unless special video driver information is used at boot. ========================== Kubuntu Desktop (Live CD) 7.04: The boot screen gives a black background with edged blue logo and blue text. The text is not bold, but has a clean, if basic, look. The inital choice is 'start or install' There is discussion elsewhere about how worrying this might be to total newcomers. I also think the wording is unfortunate. I know one person who did not try it for some weeks until the option was clarified to him. The Inspiron laptop showed no on screen activity during most of the booting. (Probably a screen resolution problem?) boot subsequently has some strange font text appears as later stages occur. The Asus machine shows the expected progress bouncing bar and then a progressive bar, again on a black background. Desktop has almost symmetrical shading accross a light blue screen. Driver was not found for the problem Inspiron, and display was limited size. No existing storage was mounted so I did not have access to mp3 files. I copied in an mp3 file and amarok offered to get a codec, - I accepted the offer but it crashed if I tried to restart it or play. KDE is single click. The Asus machine had no display problems, but amarok would also not get mp3 codecs - it became unresponsive. ======================= Comments and comparisons: First impressions were that pclos was more polished because the initial graphics were slightly more sophisticated to a newcomers eyes. The multitude of configure entries needed for pclos can hardly be called 'radically simple'. Good marketing though! The text scrolling during booting was conventional but primitive, although I do not think anyone would object or be concernerd about it. The KDE startup is indicated by simple graphic circles - again an impression of 'simplicity'. Kubuntu kde startup is the conventional kde icons - all fairly detailed. An impression of sophistication not simplicity, to a newcomer. The lack of mounted storage severely limits what a live CD can be used for by a newcomer. The lack of codecs or even easy getting of codecs is a significant turn off for a newcomer, and inconvenient for some experienced hands. However, kubuntu was straight on the (wired ethernet) web completely automatically. Conclusions: To a newcomer wanting to use the live cd, pclos is by far the easiest for access to existing files on the machine, and playing some audio, maybe not all audio for some reason(?). The pclos screen backgrounds are pleasant and not bad on the eye, but not breathtaking either. The kde double click is home from home for windows users. The Kubuntu black backgrounds look clean but primitive and undeveloped, with a similarity to a dumb terminal or dos box. Probably off putting to a newcomer from windows. Compared to pclos anyway. The user isolation from existing storage is further confirmation to a windows newcomer that this is going to be unfriendly. The single kde click can be confusing initially to a newcomer from windows. However, the immediate network internet configuration is superb. However, no mp3 etc codecs is an obvious problem (I do understand the reasons), and *particularly* since the 'get codecs' did not work in the Live CD. If I were a newcomer with a windows legacy I would not give Kubuntu live CD a second try, but go straight to pclos. I think the excellence of K/Ubuntu would not be found until after installation, nor the community nor many other of the approaches which mean a rounded successful Kubuntu distro. The desktop background in Kubuntu is unsophisticated and not pleasant on the eye. The near symmetry is unattractive and the shades of blue are also unattractive. These are fixed for Live CD users. Installs can be expected to configure backgrounds easily of course if people are forgiving enough to continue to install. If the popularity of pclos results from the factors I have picked up, then it should be easy for K/Uubuntu to regain ground, on the condition that the Live CD user newcomer is considered carefully and offered real convenience when live CDs are being debugged or designed. I note that I have used Ubuntu to discuss initially as in second place, but have then compared using Kubuntu..... :-) There is an obvious factor of KDE in PCLinuxOS. For newcomers to linux from PCs kde is probably attractive anyway. I still have no doubt that Kubuntu is the better choice to live with, but the distrowatch movements are telling us something. -- alan cocks Kubuntu user#10391 -- ubuntu-marketing mailing list ubuntu-marketing@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-marketing
