I have been under the impression that GNU/Linux and Free/Open Source Software have been gaining popularity, especially within the last couple years. One trip to Google Trends proved me wrong.

Distrowatch has released some interesting stats about distribution popularity.

Linux is losing popularity. That is according to Google Trends, a tool from Google Labs that shows the most popularly searched terms from the beginning of 2004 to now. The graph below shows a downward curve.

This is the first of a sequence of posts where we’ll take a look at a few of the main Linux distros to find out which are the most welcoming to Linux newbies.

The first distro to be analyzed is Fedora 9 beta.

I have used more than eight distros — AntiX, Debian, Fedora, Fluxbuntu, gNewSense, Linux Mint, Wolvix and Xubuntu — but these eight are the ones that I use most, talk about most and would recommend to those looking for a distro.

A lot of us spend a lot of time talking about how we are preaching the value of Linux to our Linux using friends, but how hard are we collectively working to make sure others outside of our comfort zone understand that popular Linux distros are a viable OS alternative? If you are like me, you probably are not doing nearly enough.

Google trends is a cunning tool; one that can be used to show the query frequency of various keywords. Most people misuse it by comparing "Linux" and "Vista" in an attempt to show how one is better than the other - a comparison that's as foolish as it is inaccurate. So I'm putting my thoughts down and applying them to some Google trends searches and here is what I've found.

Every so often I wander over to Distrowatch to see whose at the top of the leaderboard (calculated byPC Linux OS page views on Distrowatch ) for Linux desktop "popularity". I fully expected to see Ubuntu at the top and maybe Fedora Core in second place. I was surprised to see PCLinuxOS in the number one position.

Is GNU/Linux RedHat Linux? Is it Ubuntu Linux? Mandriva? If one visits one of many a Linux distro community forum, you will hear countless accolades for that distros version or presentation of Linux and you will see many derisions of other distros in the forums.