A brief comparison with 2014 will also help us whether those distros are actually experiencing sustained growth or not. Ready to start? Let’s begin.

To find out what are the most widely used distros of this year, let’s head to Distrowatch and check thePage Hit Ranking (PHR for short) table. There you can choose a wide variety of time spans that will allow you to check the ranking of Linux and BSD distributions in that period of time.

To begin, let’s take a look at the following comparative table, which lists the position of the top 10 Linux distributions from this year and from 2014:

As you can see, there hasn’t been much or remarkable changes during this year. Let’s now take a look at the 10 top Linux distributions with the highest ranking as per Distrowatch, in descending order, as ofDecember 9, 2015.

Advertised by its developers as “a fast and open replacement for Windows and OS X”, this nice-looking Ubuntu LTS-based Desktop Linux distribution was first made available in 2011 and is currently on its third stable release (codename “Freya“).

Since elementary OS is based on Ubuntu, it is totally compatible with its repositories and packages. However, an application manager of its own is, at the time of this writing under development. On a personal note, this is one of the best looking desktop distribution I’ve every seen.

Website: http://elementary.io/

Perhaps one of Arch’s most predominant features is the fact that it is an independent open source distribution (meaning it is not based on any other) and yet it is a favorite of thousands of Linux users.

Since Arch follows a rolling release model, you can get the latest software just by performing a regular system update using pacman, Arch’s native package manager.

Traditionally, Arch is not recommended for new users mostly because the installation process won’t make any decisions for you, so you are expected to have a degree of familiarity with Linux-related concepts in order to have a successful installation.

There are few other Arch-based distributions such as Apricity, Manjaro, Antergos, etc. for newbies who want to try out Arch derivatives without any trouble.

Read More: 3 Best Arch-based User Friendly Distributions of 2015

Website: https://www.archlinux.org

Although the Community ENTerprise Operating System is best known and most used as a distribution for Linux servers, its desktop version continues to improve.

In addition, its robustness, stability, and 100% binary compatibility makes it the number one alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux – specially on cloud VPS vendors – perhaps one of the main reasons for the sustained growth of this distribution.

Website: https://www.centos.org/

Based on Arch Linux, Manjaro aims to take advantage of the power and the features that make Arch a great distribution while providing a more pleasant installation and operation experience out of the box both for new and experienced Linux users.

Manjaro comes with preinstalled desktop environments, graphical applications (including a software center) and multimedia codecs to play audio and videos.

Website: https://manjaro.github.io/

Started in 2010 as a fork of the now disappeared Mandriva Linux, Mageia has since become a renowned, secure, and stable Linux distribution for desktops and servers alike supported by a non-profit organization.

One of Mageia’s most interesting features it that the full-installation DVD allows you to choose between a wide variety of desktop environments instead of imposing one on you.

As of today, a new version of Mageia is released every 9 months and supported for the next year and a half.

Website: https://www.mageia.org/

Built and maintained by the Fedora Project (and sponsored by Red Hat), a world wide community of volunteers and developers, Fedora continues to be one of the top used distributions for years now due to its three main available versions (Workstation (for desktops), Server edition, and Cloud image), along with the ARM version for ARM-based (typically headless) servers.

However, perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of Fedora is that it’s always on the lead of integrating new package versions and technologies into the distribution. In addition, new releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS are based on Fedora.

Website: https://getfedora.org/

Available both as a rolling release and a separate regular release version, openSUSE as per its developers is the Linux distribution of choice for system administrators, developers, and desktop users with all levels of experience (beginners and geeks alike). On top of all that, the renowned and award-winning SUSE Linux Enterprise products are based on openSUSE.