Fedora looses position in Germany

[Claus Schwarm <c schwarm gmx net>]

Hi!

I thought, some of you may find it interesting: Starting with
the new edition 08/2005, Germany's magazine for Linux beginners called
"EasyLinux" drops Fedora as a supported distribution. [1] (in german)

Rationale is an online poll about used distributions answered by 700
participants: The results are as follows

Suse Linux         94,4 %
Mandrake Linux     11,5 %
Fedora Core         7,3 %
Knoppix + Kanotix  27,3 %
Ubuntu Linux       13,9 %
Debian GNU/Linux    3,5 %
Misc.               2,3 %

Numbers don't add up to 100% due to multiple choices.

'Supported distribution' means that an article discussing software in
the magazine needs tested packages for all supported distribution.

>From now on, this will be just SUSE and Mandriva. The addition of DEB
packages is currently discussed.

To remove installation instructions from articles completely, EasyLinux
started in 06/2005 to ship an additional DVD (sic!) to update the
supported distributions. The usual CD for discussed software remains.
The price for the magazine raised from 3,90 Euro to 5,50 Euro.


My 2cts:

1.) Linux beginners do know Knoppix, obviously. ;-)

2.) Linux beginners still have problems installing third-party software,
    and they need a journal to get started -- mailing lists discussions,
    outdated informations on web sites, etc. makes google almost useless
    for a beginner.

2.) Maintainers of end user relevant applications such as Evolution,
    Totem, Sound-Juicer, etc. may think about using and thus promoting
    autopackage if that hasn't happend yet -- not for themselves but to
    help GNOME's smaller FOSS ISV's.

Cheers,
Claus

[1] http://www.easylinux.de/Artikel/ausgabe/2005/08/003-edi/