Top 10 Distros of 2015, Microsoft a Great Start

by Ostatic Staff - Dec. 09, 2015

Today in Linux news, Tecmint posted a look at the top 10 distributions of the year. Jim Zemlin said today that Linux Foundation and Microsoft's partnership is off to a "great start." KDE Plasma 5.5 was released yesterday "with beautiful new artwork" and The Linux Homefront Project gave it the once over. Elsewhere, Clement Lefebvre posted the 17.3 upgrade process and Chris Hoffman reviewed 17.3 for PCWorld.

Tecmint.com today published a rundown of this year's most popular Linux distributions. They pulled their entries from Distrowatch.com's Page Hit Ranking. Their list begins with Linux Mint and concludes with Elementary OS with brief description. Also included are distros like Debian, openSUSE, Mageia, and Arch.

Clement Lefebvre today said that users of MATE and Cinnamon editions of Mint could go ahead an upgrade through the Update Manager if they wished. As usual, he seems to try and talk folks out of upgrading first before explaining how to do it. Xfce and KDE users will have to continue to wait.

In other Mint news, PCWorld's Chris Hoffman today posted a review of Linux Mint 17.3 saying this release brings "polish, polish, and more polish." Also highlighted are better hardware support, improved high-DPI support and new backgrounds, and the software management improvements.

Jonathan Riddell yesterday announced the release of KDE Plasma 5.5 with new artwork and lots of improvements. Others include a new default font, new KDE Discover design, and new Network Manager front-end. Pavlo Rudyi at The Linux Homefront Project today posted a rundown of the new features accompanying his video review.

Elsewhere:

* Linux Foundation and Microsoft: A Great Start to a Great Partnership

* Not a typo: ​Microsoft is offering a Linux certification

* Getting a Linux box corralled into a DDoS botnet is easier than many think

* How Red Hat saved Cox Auto nearly $5M

* Desktop Fun: Christmas Tree For Your Terminal