Linux's DistroWatch site stumbles

Summary: DistroWatch, one of the most popular Linux desktop sites, stumbled over the 4th of July.
 
Perhaps the most popular of all Linux desktop sites, DistroWatch went down over the 4th of July weekend.
 

The popular desktop Linux site, DistroWatch, is currently down.

It appears that DistroWatch went down because of some kind of account issue with its web-hosting provider. This would not be the first, nor last, time an important site went down because of a simple payment problem. The website's last update, a listing for the new version of Scientific Linux, was posted on July 4th.
 
The one thing we know for certain is that DistroWatch's dropping off the net at this point is not because its domain registration has expired. DistroWatch's domain doesn't expire until July 3, 2018.
 
DistroWatch, which tracks all Linux desktop distributions as well as many server and mobile distributions, is a one-stop destination for Linux fans. The site also covers other Unix-related operating systems such as BSD and Solaris.
 
On the site, each distribution is given a chart. These charts present a brief summary of the distro, its history, all its software packages listed in extreme detail, and links to all significant reviews.
 
DistroWatch, which is ranked as the 10,897th most popular website in the world by Alexa, was started in mid-2001 by Ladislav Bodnar. While Bodnar stopped doing major editorial work on the site in 2008, he is still listed as the site's maintainer. DistroWatch's current main writer and editor is Jesse Smith.
 
Bodnar, from the former Czechoslovakia, is a metallurgical engineer and has been a Linux user since 1999. In a 2005 interview, he explained that the idea for DistroWatch came from when he worked for the open source company Linpus Technologies.
 
Bodnar said, "My boss asked me to compile a feature list of all the main distributions on the market so that we can compare them with our own product. This was an easy task, I thought, and started searching the web for the information. To my surprise, I couldn't find any good and up-to-date Linux distribution comparison charts, so I had to do all the work myself by visiting each distribution's website and extracting all the data from their web pages. This took me several days. Once I collected the data, I decided to put them up on a webpage so that those who might need such information can get it easily. The page proved very popular right from the start and I soon found myself flooded with email and suggestions. I registered the distrowatch.com domain shortly after that."
 
I've attempted to reach Bodnar and the DistroWatch management for more details on the site's current state and when we can expect to see it back up. At this point, I have not received a reply.
 
~ Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

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