Debian Fastest Growing Linux Distribution

Over the last six months Debian has been the fastest growing Linux distribution when measured by counting active sites which contain the name of a Linux distribution in the Apache Server header. In percentage terms Debian is closely followed by SuSE and Gentoo. RedHat has a far greater number of sites but a slower growth rate, and actually fell this month, after making widely publicized and controversial changes to its licencing and security update policy. A distribution name is present in a little over a quarter of Linux based Apache sites.

Distribution	July 2003	January 2004	Growth Rate
Debian	355,469	442,752	24.6%
SuSE	240,411	296,217	23.2%
Gentoo	20,273	24,229	19.5%
RedHat	1,231,986	1,451,505	17.8%
Mandrake	51,299	52,543	2.4%
Cobalt	553,012	548,963	-0.7%

The trend over the second half of 2003 and to date is as follows: