LQ Poll Results Expected and Unexpected

Linux Questions — the place you go where you really need a Linux or FOSS question answered because, well, most of the smart FOSS folks are there answering them — released the results of its Members Choice Awards for 2015.

So when the membership of LQ speaks — or at least votes on FOSS programs — you should probably listen. Don’t take my word for it: Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols thinks so, too.

There were some expected results: For example, LibreOffice wins the Office Suite category by a ton, garnering 86 percent of the vote. To break this down, that’s nearly 9 in 10 folks favoring LibreOffice to the second-place finisher, Apache OpenOffice, and the others.

Same with categories like Browser of the Year — Firefox, need we say more? — with the blazing vulpini taking 57 percent in a crowded field. Same for Android, the Mobile Distribution of the Year which finished 40 percentage points ahead of the second-place finisher. Even vim, at 30 percent in a crowded field, heads up the Text Editor category with three times the votes of Emacs.

But elsewhere in the poll, it gets interesting.

Desktop Distribution of the Year gets a three-way tie between Linux Mint, Ubuntu and — wait for it — Slackware. Yes, Slackware — surprising perhaps, but no less deserving than the other two. An equal number of votes were cast for these three distros, making up 66 percent of the voting in that category. We get that Linux Mint deserves the crown it wears and that Ubuntu will always be popular due to, well, whatever keeps that distro relevant. But Slackware — one of the original three main roots in the tree of Linux — shows its longevity and resulting popularity with those for whom Linux and FOSS are more than just a hobby.

But wait, there’s more: Desktop Environment. The fact that KDE walked away with this category at 33 percent of the vote comes as no surprise. The real surprise here is which DE finished second: That’s right, Xfce, at 26 percent; just seven percentage points south of KDE. This is the same Xfce which some have rumored to be on the way out, but really isn’t, handily leaving in its dust GNOME (11.13 percent), Cinnamon (10.41 percent), MATE (8.98 percent) and out of rearview mirror range, Unity (5.92 percent).

What should also be noted in the Desktop Environment category are the strides that Cinnamon and MATE are making, and chances are they will be moving up as time goes on.

Other categories provided interesting results and are worth a mention. Server Distribution of the Year was a close one in 2015 polling, with CentOS squeaking by Slackware to win the category. Debian finished third here. Database of the Year had MariaDB out ahead, followed by PostgreSQL and MySQL.

The entire poll is worth a look and let us know your favorites in the comments below.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero, a.k.a. Larry the Free Software Guy, is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate. He is involved in several FOSS projects and serves as the publicity chair for the Southern California Linux Expo. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero