[PLUG] Slackware Essentials 2.0

Rich Shepard rshepard at appl-ecosys.com
Mon May 16 21:10:55 UTC 2005


On Mon, 16 May 2005, Paul Heinlein wrote:

> That brings up an interesting question: What metrics should be used to
> measure the depth and breadth of a distribution's installed base?

Paul,

   It all depends on what point you're trying to make. Or, on which side of
the F/OSS vs. proprietary debate you're on. I suppose you can use the same
metric as publishers do to estimate the number of second-hand readers beyond
their subscriber/news stand base.

> For instance, counting the distros I use at home is easy. There are three
> hosts in daily use, each running a different distribution: CentOS, Debian,
> and Gentoo.

> In other settings, it's a bit more difficult. Assuming that most sysadmins
> will try, for sanity's sake, to stick with one distribution for most/all
> machines -- should a server room with 50 hosts running some distro be
> counted as 50 (number of hosts) or 1 (manager/admin in charge of making the
> choice)?
>
> On the one hand, there are 50 machines running XXX distribution. On the
> other hand, at upgrade time, the manager/admin may switch them all to YYY.
> Should it count as 50 or 1?

   You've left off other factors: nfs-mounted partitions where the server and
client run different distributions, samba clients and so on.

   I think the best thing to do is use a pseudo-random number generator and
call a press conference to announce your results. Just make sure that Maureen
O'Gara and Laura DiDio are there. :-)

Rich

-- 
Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. (TM)
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com>   Voice: 503-667-4517   Fax: 503-667-8863



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