The Distrowatch Watcher

Welcome to the Distrowatch Watcher! This site takes a second look at the GNU/Linux and BSD distribution web sites selected by Distrowatch as the "100 most visited". Quoting:

The DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics are a light-hearted way of measuring the popularity of Linux distributions and other free operating systems among the visitors of this website. They correlate neither to usage nor to quality and should not be used to measure the market share of distributions. They simply show the number of times a distribution page on DistroWatch.com was accessed each day, nothing more. Only one hit per IP address per day is counted.

We revisit the Last 1 month list and, in an equally light-hearted way, reorder the sites by the following criteria:

Human readable words: We strip away all the markup used to structure and format the web page. We remove all the trackers and marketing scripts and count the remaining words in the text, i.e. the words which a person using a textual browser such as w3m would see. For Chinese sites, we count the number of characters.
Unique human redable words: We remove repeated words and count what is left. For example «The College roof and the college walls» counts as 5 words. For Chinese sites we count the number of unique characters.
HTML quality: We estimate the HTML quality by using the W3C validators to count the number of HTML errors in the site's home page: 0 = good, >0 = not good.

Here are the results for 2019-07-31 17:18:34:

	Table 1 Distrowatch 1 month hot 100 ordered by number of unique human readable words (Total number of words including repeats)				Table 2 Distrowatch 1 month hot 100 ordered by the number of HTML errors
1	3596	(39882)	Kodachi		0	Trisquel
2	2151	(5896)	HardenedBSD		0	Alpine
3	1100	(3791)	Nitrux		0	ArchBang
4	946	(9157)	Pop		0	Arch
5	818	(5183)	Ultimate		0	Debian
6	799	(4109)	ClearOS		0	Gentoo
7	603	(1471)	Emmabuntüs		0	Mageia
8	598	(1948)	ArchLabs		0	OpenBSD
9	571	(1317)	Trisquel		0	Void
10	569	(1279)	elementary		0	ArchLabs
11	527	(1715)	Feren		0	Q4OS
12	525	(1440)	Haiku	E6	1	Slax
13	502	(1213)	Condres		1	BlackArch
14	477	(1120)	Fatdog64		2	Puppy
15	451	(769)	Voyager		2	BackBox
16	438	(1440)	Archman		2	Xubuntu
17	433	(1035)	ReactOS		2	Zorin
18	425	(1163)	Endless		2	Devuan
19	424	(836)	DragonFly		3	FreeBSD
20	414	(805)	MakuluLinux		3	Kubuntu
21	408	(1515)	ArcoLinux		3	ArcoLinux
22	408	(1213)	Oracle		3	Raspbian
23	406	(861)	Manjaro		4	4MLinux
24	383	(839)	Slackware		4	Condres
25	382	(1226)	Ubuntu Studio		4	Whonix
26	375	(996)	SparkyLinux		5	SteamOS
27	372	(847)	Clear		5	Ubuntu Studio
28	372	(624)	SteamOS		5	Chakra
29	370	(931)	Kali		5	SparkyLinux
30	368	(1003)	Arch		6	openSUSE
31	358	(1625)	PCLinuxOS		6	Netrunner
32	353	(716)	Devuan		6	Ubuntu Kylin
33	350	(777)	Qubes		6	Vector
34	343	(756)	openSUSE		6	SwagArch
35	331	(661)	GhostBSD		6	Tails
36	327	(826)	Clonezilla		7	OpenMandriva
37	326	(678)	AV Linux		7	KNOPPIX
38	325	(648)	Debian		7	Oracle
39	321	(1206)	Red Hat		8	Sabayon
40	320	(798)	Peppermint		9	KaOS
41	305	(721)	Ubuntu		10	Fatdog64
42	295	(858)	SmartOS	E6	10	NuTyX
43	289	(684)	BunsenLabs		10	KDE neon
44	284	(998)	NixOS		11	Bodhi
45	280	(571)	Sabayon		11	Clear
46	279	(647)	Puppy		11	LibreELEC
47	279	(1683)	ExTiX		11	Ubuntu MATE
48	275	(526)	Lubuntu		12	Robolinux	E3
49	275	(509)	Slax		12	ClearOS
50	274	(524)	Gentoo		12	MX Linux
51	264	(728)	Trident		13	Lubuntu
52	260	(533)	Vector		13	NixOS
53	258	(742)	deepin		13	ExTiX
54	253	(493)	Zorin		13	Endless
55	250	(463)	Fedora		15	Qubes
56	249	(511)	Android		15	Fedora
57	247	(995)	LibreELEC		16	GhostBSD
58	246	(370)	CentOS		16	Pop
59	243	(457)	BlackArch		17	Android
60	240	(459)	Artix		17	Red Hat
61	235	(500)	Lite		18	Tiny Core
62	228	(458)	ArchBang		18	BunsenLabs
63	225	(628)	ROSA		18	TrueOS
64	221	(414)	Tiny Core		19	Kali
65	219	(434)	KaOS		19	EasyOS
66	217	(444)	BackBox		21	DragonFly
67	216	(539)	FreeBSD		21	Ubuntu
68	206	(396)	Chakra		22	Archman
69	205	(567)	Mint		22	Septor
70	204	(90)	Ubuntu Kylin		29	HardenedBSD
71	203	(342)	Parrot		29	Ubuntu Budgie
72	199	(366)	TrueOS		30	ReactOS
73	194	(458)	Xubuntu		30	ROSA
74	192	(472)	MX Linux		33	AV Linux
75	189	(377)	KDE neon		34	Trident
76	188	(291)	Whonix		34	deepin
77	181	(314)	Kubuntu		35	Emmabuntüs
78	172	(382)	Netrunner		36	Mint
79	171	(376)	Raspbian		37	LXLE
80	168	(397)	Bodhi		43	Peppermint
81	166	(269)	LXLE		43	Parrot
82	150	(295)	Tails		43	Slackware
83	144	(275)	SwagArch		43	Manjaro
84	139	(219)	Q4OS		71	Lite
85	133	(229)	Ubuntu Budgie		72	Ultimate
86	129	(223)	OpenMandriva		74	CentOS
87	126	(260)	Ubuntu MATE		84	elementary
88	124	(195)	OpenBSD		106	Artix
89	119	(210)	Septor		112	PCLinuxOS
90	83	(264)	Alpine		122	Voyager
91	74	(108)	EasyOS		125	MakuluLinux
92	71	(120)	Mageia		130	Clonezilla
93	34	(36)	NuTyX		130	Nitrux
94	2	(2)	KNOPPIX		131	Feren
95	2	(2)	4MLinux		155	Kodachi
96	0	(0)	Solus	E6	—	antiX	E4
97	0	(0)	Void		—	Bluestar	E6
98	0	(0)	Robolinux	E3	—	Haiku	E6
99	0	(0)	Bluestar	E6	—	SmartOS	E6
100	0	(0)	antiX	E4	—	Solus	E6

To put the Distrowatch top 100 sites into the context of the World Wide Web in general, here are some more or less popular sites, ordered by the same criteria:

	Table 3 Popular sites ordered by the number of unique human readable words (Total number of words including repeats)				Table 4 Popular sites ordered by the number of HTML errors
1	5797	(137577)	openSUSE Reference Leap 42.3		0	Network UPS Tools
2	5750	(30560)	Daily Mail		0	Technical article
3	5726	(35458)	Maître Eolas, legal blog		0	Modest Hotel (amateur site)
4	3202	(18708)	The Tragedy of Macbeth (MIT)		0	IETF
5	2905	(13143)	Ross Anderson's page		0	RFC 2822, E-mail
6	2613	(18753)	Markus Kuhn's UTF-8 and Unicode FAQ		0	Edmonton 7 day weather forecast
7	2077	(21984)	Constitution de la République française		0	GNOME
8	1909	(8480)	Raspberry Pi Blog		0	What is an ISBN?
9	1765	(14057)	OpenVPN HOWTO		0	Ruby programming language
10	1705	(7144)	Wikipedia: Screw threads		0	The Register
11	1700	(15417)	RFC 2822, E-mail		0	W3C
12	1623	(4355)	Die Zeit		1	The Tragedy of Macbeth (MIT)
13	1555	(4888)	Slashdot, stuff that matters		1	HSBC Bank
14	1547	(9786)	Telegram.org FAQ		1	KDE
15	1518	(4441)	Le Monde		2	British tax authority HMRC
16	1490	(9791)	Technical article		2	Jesus College Oxford
17	1377	(9956)	人民日报 (The People's Daily)		2	LibreOffice
18	1142	(4057)	Distrowatch		2	Pinterest - jobs in India
19	1036	(2803)	The Register		3	GNU GIMP image manipulation
20	1023	(2884)	Bruce Schneier's blog		4	Cartier jewellery
21	954	(4464)	4chan - Fitness		4	OpenVPN
22	882	(2777)	ACM		4	Where to danse in Buenos Aires
23	843	(2194)	SUSE.de		4	Markus Kuhn's UTF-8 and Unicode FAQ
24	754	(2199)	SUSE		5	DNS24, Free DNS in Switzerland
25	688	(2053)	eBay Inc.		5	Bruce Schneier's blog
26	662	(1817)	Merriam Webster dictionary		6	openSUSE
27	658	(3444)	openSUSE Forum: EFI boot		6	FSB (ex KGB)
28	656	(1530)	Jornal do Brasil		6	Правда (Pravda)
29	656	(1491)	Amazon, Inc.		6	Gandi Domain+Hosting, old site
30	656	(1436)	Kinshasa Fashion Week		6	Emacs, love it or leave it
31	639	(2242)	Australian Gov. Find unclaimed money	E6	7	XFCE
32	627	(1824)	Nobel Prize		8	Die Zeit
33	603	(2053)	IEEE		8	Telegram.org FAQ
34	575	(1582)	IKEA		9	The first web page (CERN)
35	567	(2290)	Cartier jewellery		10	Haskell programming language
36	561	(1284)	Haskell programming language		11	IKEA
37	559	(1325)	New York Times		12	4chan - Fitness
38	549	(1870)	GNU Prolog		12	ISO
39	535	(2175)	Distrowatch Watcher		13	Ross Anderson's page
40	534	(1616)	US Securities and Exchange Commission		13	SiteBuilder
41	474	(1228)	ISO		13	VLC media player
42	474	(1041)	openSUSE 2014-10-15		14	SUSE.de
43	472	(1592)	Wix		14	SUSE
44	472	(1267)	DNS24, Free DNS in Switzerland		14	IBM Corporation
45	462	(1301)	British tax authority HMRC		15	openSUSE Forum: EFI boot
46	444	(1246)	VLC media player		15	VI, the ubiquitous text editor
47	429	(1329)	HSBC Bank		15	X.org Foundation
48	415	(1139)	W3C		17	Singapore Ministry of Information
49	402	(1619)	Royal and Ancient Golf Club		17	Red Hat
50	399	(1051)	About CERN		18	Raspberry Pi
51	388	(2720)	Edmonton 7 day weather forecast		20	Maître Eolas, legal blog
52	384	(1153)	Python programming language		20	Raspberry Pi Blog
53	378	(1095)	Mitre: About CVE		21	Gandi Domain+Hosting, new site
54	374	(1253)	NRA National Rifle Association		22	Apple, Inc.
55	360	(1024)	ISO/IEC JTC1 IT standards		23	NSA
56	355	(1060)	Health and safety site		24	ACM
57	344	(856)	LibreOffice		24	Twitter, Inc.
58	343	(756)	openSUSE		24	WordPress
59	343	(733)	VI, the ubiquitous text editor		26	Yandex
60	340	(1396)	Jesus College Oxford		27	ISO/IEC JTC1 IT standards
61	321	(1206)	Red Hat		27	OpenVPN HOWTO
62	319	(1113)	Where to danse in Buenos Aires		28	openSUSE 2014-10-15
63	314	(695)	Twitter, Inc.		28	Kinshasa Fashion Week
64	312	(820)	HK—Macau Fast Boat Schedule		29	Wikipedia: Screw threads
65	310	(669)	Gandi Domain+Hosting, new site		30	HK—Macau Fast Boat Schedule
66	303	(915)	NSA		35	New York Times
67	298	(734)	IBM Corporation		48	About CERN
68	298	(723)	What is an ISBN?		49	Gaziello olive oil mill, Ventimiglia
69	297	(582)	Trinity College Dublin	E6	54	IEEE
70	291	(619)	Emacs, love it or leave it		68	Python programming language
71	280	(676)	Microsoft, Inc.		76	Mitre: About CVE
72	279	(684)	OpenVPN		79	US Securities and Exchange Commission
73	279	(606)	X.org Foundation		99	GNU Prolog
74	278	(733)	Public Money Public Code		99	Slashdot, stuff that matters
75	272	(571)	Raspberry Pi		119	Microsoft, Inc.
76	268	(638)	KDE		120	Jornal do Brasil
77	267	(701)	IETF		121	People's Liberation Army	E1
78	262	(634)	Modest Hotel (amateur site)		126	Merriam Webster dictionary
79	256	(623)	Apple, Inc.		133	Health and safety site
80	245	(452)	Plan 9 from User Space		134	Amazon, Inc.
81	227	(485)	Singapore Ministry of Information		157	Plan 9 from User Space
82	217	(461)	GNU GIMP image manipulation		166	Constitution de la République française
83	214	(452)	Gandi Domain+Hosting, old site		183	Public Money Public Code
84	210	(442)	GNOME		186	Le Monde
85	210	(414)	WordPress		190	NRA National Rifle Association
86	204	(375)	Gaziello olive oil mill, Ventimiglia		191	Nobel Prize
87	183	(405)	Ruby programming language		208	Distrowatch Watcher
88	169	(351)	SiteBuilder		212	United Nations member states
89	128	(426)	Network UPS Tools		235	人民日报 (The People's Daily)
90	118	(260)	XFCE		277	Royal and Ancient Golf Club
91	105	(157)	The first web page (CERN)		351	eBay Inc.
92	77	(1213)	Правда (Pravda)		616	openSUSE Reference Leap 42.3
93	72	(372)	Yandex		965	Wix
94	65	(327)	FSB (ex KGB)		1167	Distrowatch
95	53	(179)	United Nations member states		1516	Daily Mail
96	36	(41)	Google, Inc.	E4	—	Salgueiro - Carnaval 2018	E6
97	0	(0)	Pinterest - jobs in India		—	Google, Inc.	E4
98	0	(0)	Drupal	E7	—	Drupal	E7
99	0	(0)	Salgueiro - Carnaval 2018	E6	—	Australian Gov. Find unclaimed money	E6
100	0	(0)	People's Liberation Army	E1	—	Trinity College Dublin	E6

The error codes are:

Error code	Meaning
E1	wget was unable to read the site.
E2	w3m was unable to read the site.
E3	w3m size greater than wget size. Incomplete download?
E4	The W3C validators were unable to read the site.
E5	The W3C validators were able to read but were not able to validate the site, possibly due to UTF-8 errors.
E6	The W3C validators report they cannot check the page because of a timeout, possibly due to DNS errors.
E7	The W3C validators were unable to read the site.
E8	No explicit result found in validator listing, possibly due to validator site-error messages.
E9	Not used.

© Copyright 2017 Roger Price < webmaster at rogerprice dot org >
In order to facilitate access from all browsers, now and in the future, these pages conform to the International Standard ISO/IEC 15445 and the corresponding W3C Recommendations. Last change: 2019-07-31 18:34:13