Having fully deservedly become one of the top offerings for the Linux desktop, Linux Mint has also quietly risen to the number one spot on DistroWatch, a well-known platform for tracking distribution popularity.
This marks the end of a five-year streak for MX Linux, which has held the position since 2019. However, while such rankings are not definitive measures of success (more on this below), they often reflect user preferences and interest shifts within the Linux community.
Itโs always fascinating to see how the DistroWatch rankings have shifted over the past 15 years. Interestingly, this isnโt Linux Mintโs first time leading the pack. Back in 2011, just six years after its debut, Mint overtook Ubuntu to claim the top spot and held onto it for an impressive six years until 2017.
The following year, Manjaro took the crown, only to be replaced by MX Linux in 2019, which dominated the rankings until very recently. Now, the cycle has come full circle, with Linux Mint reclaiming its place at the top once again.
Now, on to something important that needs to be understood. DistroWatch’s ranking is based on the number of visits each Linux distribution’s page gets on this site. In other words, itโs not a measure of how many people use a distro but rather how often users check out information about it on DistroWatch. So, consider it a popularity tracker for interest, not actual usage.
Furthermore, as you might expect, these rankings are largely shaped by users focusing on Linux as a desktop operating system. Just for example, RHELโan absolute powerhouse that supports countless servers across the internet and, in my opinion, far outpaces most desktop Linux distros in terms of usabilityโfinds itself in a humble 57th place.
Or, to take another example, Alpine, the undisputed champion of the containerization world, is powering hundreds of millions of running containers at this very moment. Despite its dominance, it sits at a modest 30th on the list.
What I’m trying to say is that while DistroWatch’s rankings shouldnโt be seen as a reliable measure of quality or usability for Linux distributions, it (to some extent) offers insight into what appeals to (mainly) new Linux users, particularly those focused on desktops. And there, the crown fully deserved goes to the new leader, Linux Mint. Congratulations!
