Lately, the page-hit rankings have provided a particularly vivid illustration: , which didn't even appear in the site's top 10 when I late last year, is now in the No. 4 spot for rankings over the past six months, behind only , , and .
With an average of some 1,630 hits per day, it also continues on an upward trend.
It's not uncommon for individual distributions to shift up and down slightly on the list over time, of course. Still, this is quite a big jump. If nothing else, it makes me want to give Mageia another look.
A Wealth of Desktop Choices
Longtime Linux fans no doubt remember that Mageia is a fork of Mandriva Linux that was launched in late 2010. Whereas its is a commercially run distribution--now at No. 27 on DistroWatch--the Mageia project is community-based and nonprofit.
Released in May, Mageia 2 is the latest stable version of the free and open source operating system, and it offers a number of compelling features.
Perhaps most interesting of all, in fact, is the plethora of desktop environments Mageia users can choose from. Not only does Mageia 2 include 4.8.2, , and 4.9 as desktop options, but it packs three others as well: LXDE, , and the lightweight 0.4.1.
Packed with Powerful Software
Mageia's look has also been updated in this second release of the software for "a smoother appearance regardless of desktop," the project team .
Among the many power-packed applications that come along with it are the new , , Digikam and Showfoto 2.6 photo-management systems, the VLC 2.0.1 media player, Amarok 2.5, Flash Player Plugin 11.2, Chromium Browser 18, and the business-oriented .
None of this is to say that the recently heightened interest in Mageia means that it's necessarily right for you, of course. I do think, however, that to have come as far as it has since its launch not so very long ago, Mageia must be doing something right.
Mageia 2 is available as a free from the project site. Could be a nice weekend project to .