The Tale of the Dying Distributions

There's no doubt that the popularity of Ubuntu has been nothing short of overwhelming with Linux geeks and newbies alike. It's constantly on the number one spot on DistroWatch.com, and new releases are treated like the second coming for many eager Ubuntu fans. But some shocking news accompanies its success.

Though their means of deduction are far from scientific (unless you consider Google Trends terribly reliable), CodingExperiments took a look at the rising and declining search trends for the major distributions. In short, Debian, RedHat and Slackware seem to be declining dramatically, while openSUSE and Fedora seem to either have spikes during releases, or are showing some growth.

It gets interesting when we come to Ubuntu's history. You might have guessed that it has been growing more than any aforementioned distro, but its trends also show that it will overtake Linux as a search term. In time, this could mean a few interesting changes in the methodology and relevance of separate distributions in the Linux community, but it's too early to make any drastic predictions.

So, what does this tell us? First of all, Ubuntu is pretty close to being considered the face of Linux. Second, it’s the newer distributions like Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, and Fedora that new Linux users are going for. Of course, it’s mainly Ubuntu, but I believe that there could be plenty of new users arrinving at the Fedora and OpenSUSE communities if both distributions work hard to become more user friendly.

Source: CodingExperiments, Via: tuxmachines

OCZ Announces New, More Affordable SSDs

Today, OCZ released their plans to push out their new Core Series SSD lineup. The new disks, available in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB capacities, will sell for $169, $259 and $479 respectively, the cheapest we've seen so far. All of the drives will also have a two-year warranty.

The nice thing about these drives is their uncompromising speed. Read speeds are rated at 120 to 143MB/s, with write speeds at 80 to 93 MB/s. Though the technology is still fairly new, the SSDs are estimated to last for about 1.5 billion hours, rectifying the major complaint with the technology.

As SSDs continue to drop in price, we'll slowly but surely see more products begin to adopt them. Given the alloted time frame thus far, it's only a matter of time until we'll see these products phase out traditional hard drives.

OCZ is looking to trump Super Talent push down-market with faster SSDs at even lower price points. The company today announced its new Core Series 2.5" SSDs which are the most affordable, large-capacity SSDs that we've seen to date. The 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB models are priced at $169, $259, and $479 respectively -- the drives also feature a two-year warranty.

Source: DailyTech

July 1st Tech Roundup

• Super Micro C2SBX+ - Phoronix
• ASUS Maximus II Formula - Elite Bastards
• ASRock X48TurboTwins-WiFi - Hardware Canucks
• MSI P45 Platinum - Overclockers Club

• XFX GTX 280 XXX Edition - MetkuMods
• Diamond HD 4870 512 MB GDDR5 - techPowerUp
• Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 Ultimate - ASE Labs
• ASUS HD4850 512MB - Overclock3D
• ASUS EAH4850 - ComputerShopper

• Kingston DataTraveler HyperX 4GB - TechwareLabs
• HighPoint RocketRAID 2640X4 - TechwareLabs
• Mushkin XP2-6400 4GB DDR2 - Technic3D

• AcoustiPack Ultimate Sound Dampening - Tech-Reviews

• Zalman Reserator XT Liquid Cooling System - HardwareLogic
• SilenX IXTREMA Pro IXC-120HA2 CPU Cooler - Bjorn3D

• Antec Twelve Hundred - Tech-Reviews
• Zalman GS1000 - XSReviews
• Coolmax CUQ-1350B 1350W - JonnyGURU
• Thermaltake Xaser VI VG4000SNA - Tweaknews
• OCZ 800W EliteXStream - Virtual-Hideout

• Lenovo IdeaPad U110 - ThinkComputers