Okay why is your distro the best?
from POTOOOOOOOO@reddthat.com to linux@lemmy.ml on 09 Jul 09:46
https://reddthat.com/post/45354620
from POTOOOOOOOO@reddthat.com to linux@lemmy.ml on 09 Jul 09:46
https://reddthat.com/post/45354620
I made the unfortunate post about asking why people liked Arch so much (RIP my inbox I’m learning a lot from the comments) But, what is the best distro for each reason?
RIP my inbox again. I appreciate this knowledge a lot. Thank you everyone for responding. You all make this such a great community.
threaded - newest
Imo, the best one is the one that fits the user's needs the best. Though it sounds like a non-answer, distros are usually tailored for specific needs, so not necessarily the features or lack thereof from one distro disregard another.
My distro is not the best, I would rather say it is the least bad for me, because I don’t like any.
Why my distro (pop!_os) is the best? Well it’s probably not, but here’s why I went with it:
Aand that’s kinda it :3… at the moment it’s kinda behind all the other stuff cause they’re working on the new COSMIC DE, which im hoping is gonna be an upgrade to the GNOME with extensions the current version has
While COSMIC is certainly an upgrade, current gnome extensions won’t be compatible. COSMIC uses applets instead of extensions. Fortunately, there’s already an ecosystem of applets for COSMIC, many of which have been ported from GNOME extensions.
Ye :3… honestly as someone who doesn’t use that many extensions other than the pop-shell ones, im not too worried about the extensions, since basically all of that is coming as a base part of COSMIC’s interface… I think the only extension that im hoping gets a COSMIC applet soon after release is KDEconnect lol
Same. I think there’s one extension I run in my top bar that lets me individually stop, start, or restart specific system services. It’s very handy, and I’ll miss it.
My Debian is the best for my work laptop
My Arch is the best for my private laptop
My Asahi is the best so that I don’t have to deal with f*cling macos crap
Aeon desktop is the best indeed:
As far as desktop Linux goes, I don’t see why I would use anything else atm. Give it a try!
Or, if you want all the same features without immutability, just go with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed!
(Aeon is an OpenSUSE project, too)
I just want to learn more about what are the differences between distros, so that they will be better or worse? Are all the distros having the same GNU/Linux kernel so that if I replace all the Arch userland files into Debian’s, the system will become Debian?
Yes. Different distros have different versions, patches and so on, but the underlying kernel is the same.
If by “userland” you mean files which your normal non-root user can touch, then no. There’s differences on how distributions build directory trees, file locations, binaries, versions and so on. You can of course replace all the files on the system and change distribution that way, a convenient way to do that is to use distros installer but technically speaking you can also replace them manually by hand (which I don’t recommend).
Arch is the best, the arch wiki is massive, pacman is just amazing, no nvidia drivers bullshitting, and rolling release has only broken one thing once, life under the arch is pretty great
Arch wiki is the best! I reference often, even though I’m generally applying the information to other distros
Also PKGBUILD’s are the superior packaging format. Back in the day people use to talk about preferring debian or redhat based distros based on how much they liked debs or rpms. Building packages on Arch is easier than pretty much any distro I have ever tried to build packages on.
I recently needed to build newer versions of some packages for Debian. Now, they’re go based so the official packaging is super complicated and eventually I decided to try and make my own from scratch. After a few more hours of messing with the official tooling I start thinking “there must be a better way.”
And sure enough, after a bit of searching I found makedeb which allows you to make debs from (almost) regular PKGFILEs. Made the task a million times simpler.
EndeavourOS Bcause:
It’s Arch with an easy installer, with all of the most common administration tools already installed
With the Arch repo, AUR, and flatpak I have a wide breadth of software to choose from
I can easily install it without a desktop environment to install and set up Hyprland without the clutter of another DE
Not to mention it’s active and friendly community and excellent documentation
Is it possible to have both gnome and hyprland installed on EndeavourOS
.
Sorry, I misread your comment on my first reply. Yes, you can have gnome and hyprland installed side by side, you would just use SDDM to choose what session you’re starting at login.
But is it also possible to have the gnome login screen (so after startup) and then automatically login using Hyprland? Because I dislike any other login screen. (The gnome one is pretty asf)
Should be possible.
You can combine any desktop environments, really. Just choose which one you want when you’re on a login screen
My choice of distro is just a compromise and close enough to serving my needs. All distros have pros and cons, and I use different distros for different use cases.
Arch.
I’m vegan, german and into fitness. There really was no other choice. /s?
Also, it’s lightweight, you always get the most recent software, pacman is superb and it’s super stable. In about 10 years on multiple systems, I never had anything break. The worst of it are simple problems during updates, which are always explained on their website.
Lastly, there is the wiki. The single best source of Linux information out there. Might as well be using the distro that’s directly explained there, albeit a lot of information can be used on other ones as well.
With arch-install, you don’t even need to learn much, but learning is never a bad idea and will be great if something does break. Every system can break. Arch prepares you for that.
having tried many distros over the years, Arch (and most derivatives) is best for me
pacman is the best i’ve used, packages are very up to date, and it’s pretty easy to troubleshoot with the enormous amount of info on the wiki and elsewhere
I (maybe) ended distrohopping last year when I gave NixOS a shot. I can’t recommend it for beginners but once you understand generally how things work on Linux (and have an interest in programming) it’s a superpower to be able to define your entire setup as a single git repository. If something ever breaks, I can reboot into an older commit and keep using my computer, or branch off in a different direction… I’ve only scratched the surface of NixOS and yet I can already make a live USB containing my setup with a single command, or deploy it (“infect”) to another machine and manage e.g my work desktop and my personal laptop sharing most settings. Also it taught me about Nix (the package manager, which also runs on any distro and macOS independent of NixOS) which I now use to set up perfect development environments for each of my projects… if I set up dependencies once (as a flake.nix shell), it’ll work forever and anywhere.
Same for me. I distro-hopped for about 20 years with OpenSuse, Ubuntu, Debian, Arch and Fedora being the most memorable desktop setups for me. While all that was a valuable experience, NixOS feels like graduation.
For the Nix-curious: I wish someone would have told me not to bother with the classic config and build a flake-based system immediately. They’re “experimental” in name only, very stable and super useful in practice.
Absolutely +1 for flakes. It’s got some annoying UX sometimes (make sure you
git addany new files before building!) but absolutely makes up for it by its features.Same for me, I stopped distro-hoping 2 years ago when I moved to NixOS.
It was tough at first, setting it up took a while and i genuinely felt stupid like i haven’t felt for a while; but now I love having the same config on my two laptops. I have one that stays at work and another one for traveling. With one word/line added into my config I can as a software, configure the VPN, change the wallpaper on both my laptop, or not. Some stuff like gaming goes only on the traveling laptop.
Also, another big thing for me is the feeling of having a cleanly built system all the time. I haven’t felt the urge to do a clean reinstall since I started with NixOS.
Some more points about Nix:
Nixos Is my first distro I use on desktop. I’m not sure why but I guess the fact that it won’t build till it checks Is a huge plus for me. I love to f up things to learn from them but I don’t like broken things and oh boy. Nix keeps me in the clean, safe. Don’t get me wrong im doing stupid stuff all the time but just cus i have a few configs written down i can learn a lot. Or a little that amazes me lol
NixOS is indeed probably the safest way to run an “unstable” distro. No matter what you do or mess up you can always reboot back.
Mint. Takes half an hour to install and set up. Doesn’t get in the way after that.
Endeavour OS is the best because you get all the benefits of Arch combined with a familiar and friendly installer, a good out of the box setup with the desktop of your choice. Not to mention the outstanding community that’s built up around it.
I really like CachyOS:
1. Arch based
a. Pacman package manager
b. AUR
c. Rolling release distro
2. Graphical installer
3. Extensive software repo. Things that I used to only be able to get as a flatpak are available in the repo, such as SurfShark VPN as an example
4. Super fast.
5. Updates are tested before they are made available and the delay is only a few days.
I wanted to try it but its installer kept hanging when it saw my LUKS on LVM setup :(
Debian (testing) is most suitable for me. If there were a universally best distro, all the others would cease to exist…
It isn’t made by a for-profit company and thus doesn’t have “features” I don’t want.
It pays attention to software freedom, though it isn’t so restrictive about it that it doesn’t work with my hardware.
It was very easy to install only the things I wanted and needed.
Mint. It just works and Cinnamon is a good DE (ui design peaked in the Windows XP days). Plus you also get all the software built and tested for Ubuntu without the bullshit of using Ubuntu.
For my server I use NixOS, because having one unified configuration is so nice.
MX Linux (Debian based), using it for almost 10 years now (before, it was Ubuntu). Based on Debian, very stable, always up to date for every kernel/apps, use native .deb no snap no flatpak no systemd. Also it is using Xfce by default, the best DE.
Xfce is ugly af
It is insanely configurable though, as shown by Zorin OS Lite.
my desktop is absolutely beautiful :)
<img alt="" src="https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/83344e87-61e5-4941-9d97-c3987f38a17b.png">
99% of screenshot is just wallpaper lol
But it’s a good one! Mind sharing original file?
does this work? it’s a 4K wallpaper
EDIT: link mega.nz/file/cpUnkLDC#6h8Jjv_3W-L5kOuBi3jZf3Cpm9v…
<img alt="" src="https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/e8d4c917-cfa5-4312-94aa-ec6cc4277d00.png">
Thanks!
Yep, works
For your info, it was a kind of “square” picture, I used yce.perfectcorp.com/ai-image-extender to extend it left and right, it created new clouds/flowers, not bad
So, sides were added by AI? Nice use!
yes, you can see a kind of different blue for the sky, this is the boundaries
Oh, yeah I see
Arch.
Do I need to justify myself any further?
Btw
My way of thinking and working is incompatible with most premade automatism, it utterly confuses me when a system is doing something on its own without me configuring it that way.
That’s why I have issues with many of the “easy” distributions like Ubuntu. Those want to be to helpful for my taste. Don’t take me wrong, I am not against automatism or helper tools/functions, not at all. I just want to have full knowledge and full control of them.
I used Gentoo for years and it was heaven for me, the possibility to turn every knob exactly like I wanted them to be was so great, but in the end was the time spend compiling everything not worth it.
That’s why I changed to Arch Linux. The bare bone nature of the base install and the high flexibility of pacman and the AUR are ideal for me. I love that Arch by default is not easy, that it doesn’t try to anticipate what I want to do. If something happens automatically it is because I configured the system to behave that way.
Linux is so great, because there is a distribution for nearly everyone out there (unless you are blind, then things are not that great apparently, but it seems to get better).
With Guix you have reproducibility, freedom, good docs and peace of mind, also when configuring things more deeply. You also have a powerful programming language (Scheme / Lisp) with which to define your system config as well as your dotfiles. This is my insight after years of GNU/Linux usage. I run Guix on laptops, desktops and servers, and I never have configuration drift, as well as the benefit that I have a self documenting system.
codeberg.org/jjba23/sss
Isn’t GUIX based on Linux-libre?
This must complicate installing nonfree software, including nonfree drivers if your computer needs any.
By default it is, but there are many non-free channels you can use to add the OG Linux kernel to your Guix install as well as nonfree drivers. A famous one is nonguix, which i also use in my config. They also make custom ISOs with the Linux kernel, which helps some hardware indeed. So the libre only policy is a non issue if you read into it a little, but unfortunately most people stay at surface level
Thanks for this! I guess the point is, people don’t want to dig deep into the system built with different approach as a base.
But you made me interested
Arch. I tried other distros and always came back to Arch. Other distros are very bloated and honestly I can’t be bothered with removing them manually. I also love the AUR and the wiki.
Another interesting distro was NixOS, but that is a bit of a pain in the ass to learn.
For newbies, Fedora KDE Plasma edition or Mint Cinnamon is my recommendation. Kinoite is Fedora KDE Plasma edition but immutable for the ones that keep breaking the system because they keep following some absurd guide online for whatever.
Debian.
With x11 gnome it can run the Rustdesk client and pass all the keys properly to the Windows host. And it doesn't boot to a black screen like many other distros on my Asus laptop.
Was on Fedora with similar results but it started taking ages to boot looking for a non existent tpm chip.
Mine is the best for me because I like it the best. It does what I need with a minimum of configuration or customization. My needs and preferences are probably different from yours though, so Linux Mint Debian Edition with Cinnamon desktop environment might not be the best for you.
Garuda - all the benefits of arch with an easy installer. And it’s prettier (in my opinion) than EndeavorOS. Gaming is pretty great.
There are dozens of us!
I use fedora silverblue for a couple reasons. After jumping from elementary to Ubuntu to Manjaro to Artix I got tired of dealing with distro specific modifications and weird issues. With the Ubuntu based distro I never enjoyed how out of date some packages were. I’d hear about a cool new update for a program I use and realize it would be a while till that would be in my repos.
I really liked artix and Arch’s rolling release nature and I would probably enjoy arch if I still used my computer daily like I used to but now I can be away from it for a couple months at a time and I need updates to be stable.
I’ve found Fedora (silverblue in particular) to be a perfect middle ground between rolling release and having a more regular update schedule. I use silverblue because I never wanted to have to worry about an update breaking my install ever again.
I will admit that because silverblue uses flatpaks almost exclusively, my appreciation for software being up to date could be achieved on almost any other distro, but the vanilla style of fedora is what keeps me now. I’m a big fan of vanilla gnome and not too many distros ship it like that.
Honestly, having tried both atomic and regular Fedora, I ended up with regular, as it allows you to do all the same things without limiting you to them.
Install flatpak? Sure. Use Distrobox? Of course. But if you have to use native package, you can simply install it without jumping through the hoops with rpm-ostree (which doesn’t even always work properly).
Fedora itself is great, though - a healthy release cycle, high stability, and mature base.
Gentoo works best for me because I’m a control freak. It lets me tune my system in any way I want, and I don’t mind leaving my computer on while I’m asleep so that it can compile its way through libreoffice, webkit, and a couple of browsers. Plus, based on complaints I hear from people using other distros, Portage beats other package managers in every way except speed.
This doesn’t mean that it’s best for everyone, mind you, just that it’s best for me.
Gentoo is the best, if you have a beefy CPU with enough RAM, it’s not even that slow. (Yes still slower, though dnf may be on par).
But it’s just the best thing for having control over your hardware and software.
USE flags are divine, I can’t imagine a life without them anymore.
I agree with Gentoo.
I had installed Arch for my wife, to get fast install times and more normal user friendly upgrades, but it kept breaking all the time.
It really opened my eyes to how incredibly stable Gentoo is while still allowing living on the bloodiest of edges at the same time.
ZorinOS is the best for me, because it works out of the box, looks a lot like Windows which i’m used to, is relatively configurable and is free (the paid version is just cosmetics and prebundled additional software). I consider looking into Arch though, thanks to your post and the comments there ;)
Not very exciting or interesting but I prefer xubuntu. All the things I need from mainline Ubuntu, none of the things I don’t.
I use Fedora. I like that it’s very up to date and that it doesn’t change the GNOME defaults. It also has a big community and many resources to look into if anything goes wrong.
media.tenor.com/…/jenn-jenn-robbins.gif
Any RPM-based system has exemplary validation and, as long as we don’t throw it out with flatsnappimages, it presents a very clean and maintainable install.
Extra points for PCLinuxOS which has avoided lennart’s cancer.
No points for SuSE as they continue to exist as the over engineered bastard child of slackware and RPM, like slackware met 73deJeff on a trip and let the tequila do the talking. Mamma mia!
Mac OS is my favorite Linux distro.
OpenSUSE because rolling release and no IBM. Never used it though.
Currently I use Mint. It works but it’s not the best.
You should certainly try OpenSUSE, it’s as good as it says on the tin
It’s my plan. Not in the mood to distro-hop on my laptop right now, and I got to get through my Epic Games backlog (and also the Steam demos I can’t be bothered downloading again) before I swap over my Windows 10 desktop.
Sure, no rush there!
Fedora Atomic because I don’t fucking care what package manager and whatnot sits underneath.
I just wanna relax in my free time and not worry about all this fucking nerd stuff.
Touching grass > Troubleshooting a broken system
Arch users here, just touched grass for the first time. Felt like bloat, had my lawn paved.
Arch. I think when people say “bloat” they don’t mean it in the traditional sense of the word. Most people are installing plasma or gnome and pulling all the “bloat” that comes with them. To me at least it’s more that no one is deciding what they think you’re likely to need/do, and overall that makes the system feel much more “predictable”. Less likely to work against what I’m trying to do.
Ignore all the comments about Arch being hard to install or “not for beginners”. That view is outdated. When I first installed Arch when you had to follow the wiki and install via the chroot method. Now it’s dead simple to install with the script and running it isn’t any more difficult than any other distro.
Mainly though it’s because of the AUR.
With something like EndeavorOS, you even get a graphical installer.
Nix, it just works, built in rollback sane defaults, super customization. Super easy to package for
.
Since I’m old and need to deal with administrating a bunch of machines for work, I settled on the most dull and unsurprising distros of all: debian. Sure, when I was younger and eager to learn and with much time on my hands, I used gentoo (basically what is now arch) and all the others too.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed/Slowroll
Tumbleweed is the only bleeding-edge rolling release distribution that just works and never fails and is super easy to install and manage without any expertise. And it is massively underrated and forgotten for no good reason.
All Tumbleweed packages go through extensive and to this day unrivaled automatic system testing that ensures no package is ever gonna bork itself or your system.
If you’re still worried about stability, there is Slowroll - currently testing, but in my experience very stable distribution. It makes rolling release updates…a bit slower, so that they’re only pushed after Tumbleweed users absolutely ensure everything is great and stable (not that it’s ever otherwise). It does the same job as Manjaro, but this time around it actually works without a hitch.
Both deliver great experience and will suit novice users.
Ubuntu is the best because I can copy and paste commands from programming tutorials.
Ubuntu.
Why? - I guess I’m too lazy for distro hopping now :(
Besides, this was the 1st Linux distro I tried back in 2005. After the usual ditro hopping phase was over, I settled on it; somehow (irrespective of snap and other controversies) I feel at home.
For me its Linux Mint, I’m no longer in position really to do distro hopping, so long as Linux Mint keeps working I will keep using it, I see no reason to change right now. I’m glad and happy that you have settled on Ubuntu, have fun, enjoy and be happy huuuugs 😉
My experience with Mint: “Guess I should research a solution for that minor annoyance - oh, they fixed it in an update.”
I agree. I tried Fedora first, then Pop!OS, and then settled on Kubuntu.
Kubuntu has been the most stable so far, no big issues. I chose it for that and its Wayland support. Snaps can be disabled or even have auto update turned off which is what I did and I had no real issues with Ubuntu past that so overall a good distro.
Widely supported, plenty of tutorials, has my favorite DE as a spin, it just does what I need it to.
Debian stable.
Everybody think they are a special snowflake who needs bleeding edge, or a specific package manager or DE or whatever. Truth is 99.99% do not. They just like to believe they do, claim they do, try it, inflict self pain for longer than they need, convince themselves that truly they are, because of the pain, special.
Chill, just go with stable, it’s actually fine.
Edit: posted from Arch, not even sarcasm.
As someone who ran Debian Stable for a while, this is not a distro for “99.99%”.
First, Debian, while very stable in its core, commonly has same random issues within DE’s and even programs that may likely just sit there until the next release comes along.
Second, a release cycle of 2 years is actually a giant and incredibly noticeable lag. You may love your system when it just releases, but over time, you will realize your system is old, like, very damn old. It will look old, it will act old, and the only thing you can do is install flatpaks for your preferred programs so that they’d be up to date.
This isn’t just programs. It is your desktop environment. It is Wine (gamers, you’re gonna cry a lot unless you work it around with flatpaks like Bottles, which will feel like insane workaround you wouldn’t have to have with a better fitting distro).
It is the damn kernel, so you may not even be able to install Debian on newest hardware without unsupported and potentially unstable backporting tricks.
Don’t get me wrong, Debian is absolutely great in what it does, and that is providing a rock solid environment where nothing changes. But recommending it for everyone? Nope.
I feel like a lot of your points were true at one point, but are becoming lest relevant.
For one, at least with XFCE, I found myself not really running into DE bugs.
Also, I don’t think two years is as obnoxious anymore. During the era of the GTK 4 transition a couple, it drove me nuts, but now that a lot of APIs like that have stabilized, I really don’t notice much of a difference between Debian Testing and Stable. I installed and daily drove Bookworm late in its lifecycle on my laptop, and in terms of DE and applications, I haven’t noticed anything. I get the feeling Debian’s gotten better at maintenance in the past few years - I especially see this with Firefox ESR. There was a time where the version was several months behind the latest major release of ESR, but usually it now only takes a month or two for a new ESR Firefox to come to Debian Stable, well within the support window of the older release.
Also, I don’t think Flatpaks are a huge dealbreaker anyway - no matter what distro you’re using, you’re probably going to end up with some of them at some point because there’s some application that is the best at what it does and is only distributed as a Flatpak.
Frankly, I probably am a terrible reference for gaming, as I’m a very casual gamer, but I’ve found Steam usually eliminates most of these issues, even on Debian.
Also, the official backports repository has gotten really easy. My laptop had an unsupported Wi-Fi chipset (it was brand new), so I just installed over ethernet, added the repo, and the install went smoothly. There were a few bugs, but none of these were specific to Debian. Stability has been great as ever.
In conclusion, I think right around Bookworm, Debian went from being the stable savant to just being an all-around good distro. I’ll elaborate more on why I actually like Debian in a comment directly replying to the main post.
I might disagree with 99.999% like you - maybe I’d put it in the 50-75% range.
As a KDE fan, I had some bugs on some devices (like on one of the laptops, wallpapers did not install correctly and the setting to always show battery charge didn’t work) even on Debian 12.
XFCE is well-known for stability, but seems to be increasingly irrelevant for the average/newbie user because the interface looks outdated and configuring is relatively complicated.
Interesting you mentioned Firefox ESR - iirc, even at release the version shipped with Debian 12 was considered very old, prompting many to install Firefox as a flatpak. Two years later, it’s two years older.
Flatpaks are good and suitable options for many tasks - no argument here! But some things are just better installed natively, and there Debian just…shows.
Steam is a godsend, but there are many non-Steam games and, importantly, programs out there, and launching them through Steam often feels like yet another bloated and slow workaround; besides, you cannot choose Wine over Proton, and sometimes (granted: rarely) you may want to use Wine specifically.
To conclude - it’s alright to choose Debian anyway, it is good! But I just feel like newbies and casual users could save a lot of trouble and frustration simply going with something that doesn’t require all that - say, Fedora (non-atomic), or OpenSUSE, and then go from there to whatever they like. There are plenty of distributions that are stable, reliable, but without the tradeoffs Debian sets.
If you feel like stability is your absolutely biggest priority ever, and you have experience managing Linux systems - by all means, go Debian. But by that point you’ll already know what you want.
Debian Stable actually updates Firefox ESR through the typically on by default security channel.
The current ESR version in there is 128, which is about a year old, which replaced the 115 that came with Debian 12 by default.
The newest ESR, 140 just came out 2 weeks ago. 128 still has 2 months of security updates, and 140 has already been packaged for sid. I have no doubts 140 will come before those 2 months are up.
Now the KDE thing actually sounds like it sucks.
Oh, didn’t know, thanks for sharing on the Firefox side!
I already posted on this a while ago but that’s is a recurring misconception. No distribution, literally 0, provides all software to the latest version or to the version one expects. Consequently IMHO it is perfectly acceptable to go beyond what the official package manager of the distribution offers. It can be flatpaks, am, build from source, etc but the point precisely is that the distribution is about a shared practical common ground to build on top of. A distribution is how to efficiently get to a good place. I also run Debian stable on my desktop and for gaming, I use Steam. It allows me to get Wine, yes, but also Proton and even ProtonFix so that I basically point and click to run games. I do NOT tinker to play Elden Ring, Baldur’s Gate 3, Clair Obscur, etc and my hardware is well supported.
So… sure if you consider a distribution as something you must accept as-is and NOT rely on any of the available tools to get the latest software you actually need, can be games but can be tools e.g. Blender, Cura, etc, then you WILL have a tough time but that’s the case for all distributions anyway.
TL;DR: a distribution is the base layer to build on. Its package manager, on Debian and elsewhere, is not the mandatory and sole way to get the software you need.
Debian. Truly the universal operating system. Runs on all of my laptops, desktops, servers, and NAS with no fuss and no need to keep track of distro-specific differences. If something has a Linux version, it probably works on Debian.
Granted, I am a bit biased. All of my hardware is at least 5 years old. Also came from Windows, where I kept only the OS and browser up to date, couldn’t be bothered with shiny new features. A package manager is already a huge luxury.
I know. Stop worrying about your computer and install Debian! It just works. It updates without a problem.
Because I don’t have a fickle heart, and My distro is the best, right now, for me. There’s nothing more to it. I do like Mint - but a few apps are out of date, and that’s annoying. But it’s stable, looks great, and works like a charm.
Open suse leap, because it’s the only one I could install on my computer that would go to sleep and then wake up without locking up.
Glad you said that. I had that issue on my fedora computer.
Should be within your DE’s settings, might just be the default there.
It’s probably not the best but I have it set up and it does what I need it to do 🤷 Fedora KDE
It’s what I use!
NixOS.
slackware the og linux distro. super stable, sane package management etc. i’ve wanted to try void/arch/gentoo/crux for a pretty long time but still haven’t because this just works perfectly
Fedora, because it just works, it’s familiar, and I’ve got things to do.
IDGAF if it’s the best (mint), it was easy to install, easy to transition to from Windows, and in 6 months hasn’t given me any trouble. I just wanna use my computer.
Yeah I was gonna say, I dunno if my distro is the best (Arch BTW) but it’s the best for me. Doesn’t give me any nonsense and lets me tinker as much as I want. Other people just want their OS to get out of their way, which of course is equally valid. Whatever works for you!
NixOS makes me feel so safe making low-level changes to Linux and making sure that my work laptop, gaming desktop, and personal laptop all have the exact same shit on them and I’m gonna use them the exact same way.
I wish that nixlang was decoupled from the concept of a build system bc it’s such a great DAG config DSL and I can think of so many cooler uses for it but I just don’t have time to focus on it.
Because it uses the best desktop environment (GNOME) and im the most familiar with
(I wonder how many downvotes i will get)
Hopefully none, why do you like Gnome? I thought it was okay, but I really love KDE more. I don’t hate Gnome. It seems really good for anyone who uses a touchpad or touchscreen.
I can’t speak for anyone else but I can tell you what I personally love about Gnome.
I like that it’s Spartan. I like that it looks good without me having to customize a thousand different settings.
I like that It has client side decorations, so every window doesn’t have to have an obscene, chunky, mostly useless title bar.
I don’t miss every single application having 100 different options packed into a menu bar. Once you get used to it, you realize that it was mostly getting in the way the whole time.
It’s just a really streamlined workflow for 98% of what you do. The problem is that 2% where it’s too spartan and God do you wish you had some options.
But I also think KDE is a great desktop environment. If I were more of a gamer I’d be using KDE. I think XFCE is an excellent desktop environment for aging hardware and Windows converts. It is very much a matter of taste, Use cases, and your preferred workflow.
Thank you. All very good points.
I’ve discovered that I don’t much care which distro I’m using, it’s the DE that matters most. I have Fedora GNOME, Debian GNOME, and openSUSE GNOME running on different machines. I can’t really tell much difference until I enter the command line or package manager, and even then, it’s the front end of the command that changes while the backend stays mostly the same. Flatpak has made the difference between distros even fewer.
While I still care somewhat of distro differences for functional reasons, I completely agree that DE’s are the most important part in terms of user experience.
Both my machines use KDE, and while they run two different distros, they look and feel pretty much the same since I use a very similar layout on both of them. This, along with file sync through my NAS and similar apps, makes switching from one computer to the other a breeze (pun not intended), despite some differences under the hood.
I’ve been using Ubuntu for years and I like KDE, so I’m using Neon. Ubuntu is familiar, easy to fix, easy to find out how to fix, and neon doesn’t come with snaps.
My distro isn’t the best, but it’s at least a good starting point: Debian + XFCE.
Was using Ubuntu from about 12.04 through 20.04, but it is getting too snappy and support contract happy for me these days.
Mint Cinnamon.
It’s easy, stable and gets out of my way.
I haven’t seen the need to dostro hop for years.
EndeavorOS. It runs smooth, i dont get errors, all my games work, the taskbar and notifications work like I would expect them too. Switching from Windows 2 months ago, I cycled through a few distros but they all were giving something up until i found EoS.
I am a debian person but when I tried EndeavourOS i relegated debian to my homeservers only.
Almost 1 year in EndeavourOS, I fucked it up once and was very easy to recover.
I wanted the awesomeness of pacman and like the way Gardua comes pre-configured as well as packages it installs from the get go. The only thing I hate about it is the “gamer” universal KDE theme it comes with.
Man, I wanted to try Garuda a couple of weeks ago and the thing would never even boot into the live environment. Went ahead and installed Cachy OS and it’s been great.
I dunno what to say. It 100% worked on install for my laptop, even the weird ASUS stuff that can be finicky.
Mint Cinnamon. All my hardware works, and it can do the few things I require my work PC to do. It even remembers things like my default audio device - something Ubuntu refused to do for years.
I like the way Pop!_OS looks. Not gonna pretend it’s the best. But as far as default UIs, it clicked with the most. Default gnome seemed too spartan and all of the Windows-like DEs remind me too much of Windows. Which I don’t like. If that makes sense.
Same. PopOS works well for me, is easy, totally free, and looks very pretty. I really don’t need much else.
Bazzite.
Super easy install and setup. Ready to start installing games at first boot. Just a wonderful OS to use.
wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_is_the_best
Devuan + Trinity Desktop
Moved over there since Debian switched to Sytemd. It is boring, dusty… but it works and stays out of my way.
It isn’t. I just don’t feel like swapping
As with others, I love Debian Stable.
Most packages have sane defaults, and it’s so stable. It’s true that it sometimes means older software versions, but there’s also something to be said for behavior staying the same for two years at a time.
If hardware support is an issue, using the backports repo is really easy - I’ve been using it on my laptop for almost a year with no problems that don’t exist on other distros. If you really need the shiniest new application, Flatpak isn’t that bad.
It also feels in a nice position - not so corporate as to not give a darn about its community, but with enough funding and backing the important stuff gets maintained.
I just moved to Debian trixie (soon to be stable) because I needed an upgrade after ~15 years of Gentoo.
I was a proud Gentoo user. I learned a lot about systemd and kernel configuration. Many advances in portage made it possible to find the time to maintain my Gentoo setup. On my laptop I gave up Gentoo even earlier, because updating my system was just too time consuming. I actually learned less and less about the software I was using, because I was trapped in dependency conflict management. The new binary repos did save some compile time, but the actual time sinks are decision for your systems, use flags and the forementioned dependencies.
So, I installed Debian on my main workstation (two days ago). I am already using Debian on on my Raspberry Pis. I did choose a more challenging way using debootstrap, because I want to use systemd-boot, encrypted btrfs and have working hibernation. I am still busy with configuring everything.
One could argue, that I could’ve used the time on Gentoo to solve my current python_targets_python3_13 issues and do a proper world update. No, this is a future investment. I want the time to configure new stuff, not wait for dependency resolution or waste time solving blocking packages.
The main reason to switch from Gentoo to Debian is being able to install security updates fast without blocking packages in the same slot.
A bit of tinkering. Thoughts?
Obligatory "There is not a single distro that's the absolute best for each and every one." disclaimer aside, my personal favorite is definitely secureblue for being a hardened-by-default distro that adheres to the
*'immutable'*reprovisionable, anti-hysteresis paradigm while enjoying a healthy stream of improvements pushed out by an active group of contributors.NixOS. I’ve gotten so used to the declarative nature of NixOS, that I simply cannot go back to a “normal” distro anymore.
I love Pop OS because it got me back into Linux after ditching it for windows for the last 10 years, partly to do .net development and partly because I hated the state of Ubuntu/Unity.
As soon as cosmic is stable and easy to install on Nix I’ll switch to it.
the mouse is cute
Arch btw, only been using it for a couple of weeks, only installed it because of the meme. Got my hands on a few years old thinkpad for practically free, so why not. It’s actually quite good so far, been struggling a bit with external monitors, but I don’t miss windows
Yast, actual stability.
Fedora is quite unremarkable, no issues of late. Or ever, for that matter. It’s glorious.
Fedora is just a no-drama distro that works, and I love it
Its actually a high drama distro, they push new changes before many other distros. For instance they were one of the first to go to Wayland by default and there is an upcoming vote to remove 32bit stuff In the next release, which would make it so steam only works as a flatpak because steam on Linux is 32bit
Fedora is my distro of choice also
Fair!
The vote resulted negatively, BTW, as far as I’ve heard. 32-bit are there for now.
Good to hear, I was hoping that wouldn’t get approved by the engineering and steering committee
Arch, everything it does provide works extremely well, I can configure everything how I want it without having to fight a distro maintainer trying to be clever, I get new features and bugfixes whenever they go in without having to worry about a distro maintainer deciding whether it’s relevant or whether I should just live with crashes and security issues for another two years because they figured it wasn’t important or critical enough.
OpenSUSE tumbleweed: Up-to-date, unbreakable due to Btrfs+snapper, very secure defaults (firewall), based in Germany. It works perfectly on my Thinkpad, so I couldn’t ask for better.
Linux Mint because it’s extremely simple and has caused me no issues for over a year. It’s the best distribution to get someone who is afraid to switch from Windows or MacOS to understand that using Linux can be just as easy.
It’s not.
I use Kubuntu. It is defintly not the best Distro. I am just used to it and too lazy to get used to another distro. My days as a distro jumper lie 15 years back…
Tbh though, I might switch to Debian stable whenever Trixie comes out.
It isn’t. I’m on PopOS 24.04 Alpha 7 (soon to be Beta 1), because of COSMIC (and because I was having some bugs with Fedora a few months back).
I recently wanted to tinker with a piece of software that wasn’t packaged, and I couldn’t compile it because of outdated libraries. I could return to Fedora specifically to tinker with it but as an ex-distrohopper, I know it isn’t worth the effort.
Even though Fedora or some version of it will likely be my forever distro, I will stick to PopOS for now because I can’t be bothered to distrohop and back up months’ worth of files, including game saves and a ton of stuff in my Downloads directory.
I use debian cause it just works.
I was a Nix user (more specifically, nix-darwin user) but after being away from the computer for like one year (to study for the university entrance exam), I completely forgot how to use it and resulted in erasing the computer. Nix/NixOS is fun, but it was too complicated for me.
ubuntu for similar reasons
I use Nobara with KDE for my gaming computer, Mint with Cinnamon for pretty much everything else.
Mint is the closest to a “Just Works” experience for me. Cinnamon is rock stable, especially on Mint Debian Edition. I don’t remember the last time Cinnamon crashed or had any major bugs for me.
I use Debian for most of my servers, stable and simple. Arch on a junker Thinkpad to test and mess around with new programs and window managers.
Been using Nobara KDE for about a year, it’s been awesome Mint Cinnamon is also great
EndeavourOS is the best because.
It’s currently on my system and said system hasn’t burst into flames yet, so I’m too lazy to change it.
Also, its space themed which makes it automatically the coolest.
Tumbleweed. Rolling release with automated testing (openQA), snapper properly setup out of the box.
Honestly the entire openSUSE ecosystem. Tumbleweed on my main PC that often has some of the latest hardware, Slowroll on my (Framework) laptop because it’s rolling but slower (monthly feature updates, only fixes in-between), and Leap for servers where stability (as in version/compatibility stability, not “it doesn’t crash” stability) is appreciated.
openSUSE also comes in atomic flavors for those interested. And it’s European should you care.
With all that being said, I don’t really care much about what distro I’m using. What I do with it could be replicated with pretty much any distro. For me it’s mostly just a means to an end.
The fricking AUR
Nothing I don’t _actually_ need
Pacman
Everything is the latest version available–ALWAYS.
ArchWiki
LMDE because I get the robustness of Debian stable and the quality of life goodies of Mint.
Gentoo because it is as stable as Debian, less bloated than Arch, has more packages than Ubuntu, is rolling release, can mix and match stable, testing and unstable on a whim.
Even its one downside, compile times, is now gone if you just choose to use binary packages.
And less stable than Arch, and more bloated than Ubuntu… If that is something you want for whatever reason! It is the most versatile distro in existance because it’s literally anything you want it to be - clean and nice, or total chaos. What is there not to love?
Gentoo <3
Ubuntu because they provide kernel live patching and they fix issues quickly and my system doesn’t go down if I procrastinate in doing system updates
Since I mostly use computers for entertainment these days I keep coming back to Bazzite. It’s fast, stable, kept up to date, reliable, and “just works”. I’ve created custom rpm-ostree layers to faff around, but it’s not actually necessary for anything I need.
I used to keep a second Kubuntu Minimal partition around but I realized I just don’t need it. If I wasn’t so happy with Bazzite, I would probably go with openSUSE or Endeavor.
Arch, because I get to say that I use Arch. /s
.
Windows, plays fallout 4 out the box.
Even Linux plays Fallout 4 out the box? Am I being ragebaited?
Yes, but also I had to run through proton off steam and the modding process is less streamlined. I unironically have had a less complicated time running windows and dealing with its “special” features than running Linux and having a custom setup for every other game.
Since I was tired of distro hopping I just use MX Linux.
I’ve been using (X)Ubuntu for ages. I just wanted something that “just works”. Tired of too much tinkering and there’s plenty of (non commercial) support. Mixing it with i3 as my window manager.
Roast me ;)
Gentoo, because if it exists - compile it.
For me it’s openSUSE Tumbleweed on my Desktops/Laptops and openSuse Leap on my Servers. The killing Feature for me was the propper BTRFS integration with Snapper for seamless rollbacks in case I borked the system in some way.
One “downside” for me is the mix of Gnome Settings and Yast on my Desktop. But I like yast on my servers for managing everything (enabling ports in firewall, network config, enable autoamtic isntall of security updates, etc.). Also openSuse is not that common, so sometimes it is hard to find a solution if you have a distribution specific question.
Personally never looked to closely into openSuse Build Services (OBS). But I know some people who really like it.
I am using Bluefin, based on Fedora Silverblue. I realized that I was already exclusively using flatpaks for everything except one random app, so I thought why not go all-in?
Haven’t had to worry about updates or system breakages since, and it’s been great so far.
I used to use Debian Stable, but since doing SysAdmin work I’ve just become used to the way Fedora / RHEL does things.