license: cc-by-nc-sa-4.0
Dataset Card for Dataset Name
A collection of user-submitted reviews from DistroWatch, a website focused on Linux distributions. The dataset contains tabular data that captures users' ratings and reviews of various Linux distributions, along with metadata such as the project name, version, and popularity votes.
Dataset Details
Dataset Description
- Shared by: Diego Hernández Jiménez
- Language(s) (NLP): English
- License: cc-by-nc-sa-4.0
Dataset Sources
- Repository: A previous version of the dataset can be found in this repo
Uses
Direct Use
Sentiment analysis (binary or multiclass classification). Rating prediction (regression). Exploratory data analysis.
Dataset Structure
date(datetime64[ns]): Date of review in YYYY-MM-DD format.project(string): Project/distribution.version(string): Version of the reviewed distro.rating(integer): Numerical value given by the user to distribution. Scale 1 to 10. It can be used as target in a sentiment prediction task.votes(integer): "Popular support" of the review, represented by number of votes.review(string): review of the distribution.
Dataset Creation
Source Data
DistroWatch is a website dedicated to talking about, reviewing and keeping up to date with open source operating systems. This site particularly focuses on Linux distributions and flavours of BSD, though other open source operating systems are sometimes discussed. There is a lot of information out there on Linux distributions and this site tries to collect and present that information in a consistent manner to make it easier to locate.
Data Collection and Processing
- A list of target Linux distributions was selected from the DistroWatch popularity page.
- For each distribution, review data was retrieved from the URL pattern:
https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=ratings&distro={distro}
This endpoint lists user-submitted reviews and metadata for each distribution.
Each request retrieves up to 50 of the most recent reviews per distribution. To expand coverage, data was extracted at two distinct time points:
- August 4, 2023
- April 6, 2025
These snapshots were combined to form the current version of the dataset.
There is no additional filtering or normalization applied to the review text apart from the removel of leading and trailing whitespaces. Metadata is preserved as-is, and all reviews are included regardless of length or rating.
Who are the source data producers?
The source data is created by anonymous users of DistroWatch. These users voluntarily submit reviews and ratings for Linux distributions. No demographic or identity information is associated with these reviews, and the contributors are not verified.
Personal and Sensitive Information
The dataset does not appear to contain personal or sensitive information such as names, addresses, or other identifiable data. All reviews are posted anonymously on DistroWatch.
That said, user-generated text content can sometimes inadvertently contain personal opinions, political views, or other sensitive remarks. No additional anonymization techniques were applied beyond what is already present on the source website.
Citation
If you use this dataset, please consider mentioning this repository or my Hugging Face username :).