thelinuxlink.net

Not sure if this has been done before in the forums here but since you are all linux experts to say the least, I could use some help coming up with a top 10 linux distro list for a buddy of mine. Kinda of like what Lifehacker does is what I am looking to do. Any help would be appreciated.

Since most distros are based some other distro. I can only think of 5 major ones Everyone else is a johnny come lately.
Slackware http://www.386server.info/
Redhat
Debian
Arch
Gentoo

What is the criteria for making it in to the top ten?

As eddie says, there are a lot of derivatives out there.

If you just want a top ten of popular distros, try Distrowatch

Even though Ubuntu is based on Debian, I would recommend it for the list because Ubuntu has become it's own thing. Some Debian packages are even incompatible with it. I don't think it would be a bad thing to include some derivatives that stand on their own. Even Slackware is one. It's based on SLS. A look at the Linux distro timeline might help you out some.

http://futurist.se/gldt/gldt93.png

Well it could be anything. He needs someone to write a top ten list of Linux distro's for his site gives the promise of a lot of hits back to the site of your choosing if you do it. I could be an ass and copy & paste distro watch but that would be wrong. If you can do it let me know so I can put you in contact with the guy. Thanks

Distros seem to leapfrog each other, if you d not have a feature in your distro, wait ten minutes and you will. The sky is not falling. a bit of patience is needed.
In case of emergency:

When I put "top 10 Linux distros" into google, I get lots of hits. Looks like the answer is out there.