I rebuilt my server a few days ago...well the software side of it anyway. The machine was running Ubuntu Edgy Eft (6.10) Desktop edition since it used to be my main use PC until I recommisioned it. The trouble with that version of Ubuntu is simple - support ends this month.

So I had a bit of a dilemma over what to replace it with. I could wait a couple of weeks and install the latest LTS (Long Term Support) version codenamed "Hardy Heron" (8.04) or install the older LTS "Dapper Drake" (6.06). I opted for the latter due to it still being supported until 2011 and that it should have less flaws than the latest release.

So after plenty of backing up, I did a fresh install of the Server edition of Ubuntu. This means there's no GUI and any associated applications to slow the machine down. It's a text only machine. For anyone who's not familiar with Linux, the screen looks like what DOS looked like back in the day (it's better than DOS though).

As part of this rebuild, I decided to install the website log analyser 'AWStats' so I can keep a closer eye on what's going on and the statistics from the last 5 days are interesting - well to me at least.

The summary is broken down into various sections, and three of these intrigue me the most - the operating system of the visitor, the web browser and any search strings used to find my site.

Starting with the operating systems, there's the usual suspects present - Windows XP at the top of the list, followed by Windows NT, ME and Vista. Win 98 and 95 both come in higher than Windows 2000 and at the bottom of the list as far as Windows is concerned is Windows 3.xx with 4 hits. There's also hits from visitors running various Linux distributions, Mac OS, FreeBSD, Sun Solaris and RISC OS.

As for the browsers, Internet Explorer tops the list. Versions 6 and 7 are at the top and version 5 has a few hits too, but so does version 2.0, 3.02 and 4.01. The earliest Firefox version shown is 0.10 and Netscape shows a visitor with version 0.6.

I know that these stats can be forged by users simply changing the contents of their browser's UserAgent string but if they are accurate I'd love to know who is still running these ancient version of software and what brought them my way. In the off-chance that such a person is reading this, please do leave a comment saying hi.

The final part of the statistics that I'm interested in is the search strings. I'm quite pleased to find that my blog entries are turning up on Google and that people are looking at them in response to a search. Such search strings include:

• the bitter end romford

• flac iaudio 7 problems

• bbc science moon mining

• icdl exam from london

• new wimbledon theatre legroom

• oxjam bitter end

• cutty sark restoration timetable

I was particularly pleased with the New Wimbledon Theatre one. Maybe it was someone who, like me, has restricted leg movement and needs a bit of legroom when going to the theatre. Maybe that blog entry reassured that person that the New Wimbledon was good in that regard. I can only speculate, but if that person comes back and reads this, do say hi!

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