The Linux Counter Relaunches 113
psychonaut writes "Long-term readers of Slashdot may be familiar with The Linux Counter, which attempts to measure (through surveys and statistics) the number of people using GNU/Linux operating systems. The project started in 1993 and shot to fame six years later, largely as a result of three Slashdot articles (two of which brought the Counter to its knees). After four years of stagnation, project founder Harald Tveit Alvestrand has handed over the reins to a new maintainer, Alexander Mieland. Over the past few months, Mieland has completely redeveloped the project, with a modernized design and support facilities (including a bug tracker, mailing list, RSS feed, and Twitter account). The New Linux Counter is now up and running, with all the data for active users from the old counter. The old site will continue to operate for a time but will soon be shut down and requests redirected to the new site."
Uh... make that three times... (Score:3, Informative)
"The project started in 1993 and shot to fame six years later, largely as a result of three Slashdot articles (two of which brought the Counter to its knees)"
It's down.
Re:Pointless... (Score:3, Informative)
The reason I don't offer Linux is because every 6 months your drivers break
No they don't.
I've been running Fedora for the last 5 years on my desktop machine, which I use for my business administration as well as personal use, so it's pretty mission critical. In five years, I've only once had my "drivers break", and that was because I was trying the ATI Catalyst drivers rather than the free drivers from my distro. Using the drivers from the distro, I've always had a functioning system. This is something that Just Works. Printer, webcam, bluetooth headsets, audio cards, all work out of the box with the default installation with no extra administration needed.
I've not used Windows since XP, but my memory of adding new hardware to that system was having to install drivers from a CD, reboot the system, plug in the new hardware, reboot the system a couple of more times, search the internet for updated drivers, download them from a website and install them by hand, reboot the system again. How is that better for Joe or Sally to manage than plugging a bit of kit and having it work first time?