I noticed that Debian-based distros now occupy all three of the top spots on the DistroWatch 6-month rankings. Linux Mint is still far ahead at #1, Ubuntu is now ranked #2, Debian itself is close behind at #3, and Mageia is close behind at #4. I'm not sure why Ubuntu has moved up, and Mageia has moved down, but I'm guessing that Debian Wheezy (which recently moved from testing to stable) has been a big hit. During my tenure as a Linux user, I've been gravitating towards Debian-based distros, for basically the same reasons many others do. Except for Damn Small Linux (based on Knoppix, which is only loosely based on Debian), Debian-based distros have always had great hardware support and one of the largest software repositories (due to full Debian or Ubuntu compatibility). A large software repository means that software support goes beyond the common apps (like Sylpheed, OpenOffice/LibreOffice, etc.) and includes much more specialized apps (like Octave). I know that people criticize Debian for having old software. However, I value stability over having the latest and greatest software. When you add the fact that I'm much more reluctant to change distros now than I used to be (I've been busy boning up on Android and Ruby on Rails development), this gives me even less reason to try out more distros. -- Jason Hsu <jhsu802701 at jasonhsu.com>