Best Distro
from hpS95t@lemmy.wtf to linux@lemmy.ml on 09 Nov 17:38
https://lemmy.wtf/post/12636354
from hpS95t@lemmy.wtf to linux@lemmy.ml on 09 Nov 17:38
https://lemmy.wtf/post/12636354
I’m very curious of which distro users loves the most that they have it on their daily hardware?
threaded - newest
Debian for my daily workstation. Minimal terminal-only install, and then I piece together my environment.
For smaller, headless applications I like Alpine. Containerized projects, VPS, etc.
Okay. What are your thoughts of KISS linux? It’s pretty minimalistic and have a very tiny package manager which is written entirely in Bash script.
I’m unfamiliar with KISS. I don’t really distro hop, since what I use has satisfied all my needs to date.
Debian is KISS. Grab it and use, no need to overcomplicate things.
KISS-ish. Default init is systemd. Debian also provides customized configuration of services.
Building a deb package isn’t that straightforward as Arch’s PKGBUILD.
Sounds like a remake of Slackware.
Debian and Fedora. I use Debian on servers and Fedora on my desktop and laptop.
Arch because I like getting the latest releases of packages
Yeah. It’s a pretty good linux distro for Beginners. It was my first distro tho. 😁
I’m sorry but it’s not great for beginners. It’s a rolling bleeding edge distro that does not break often but when it does you need to know how stuff works to fix it.
I really love NixOS and use it on all my devices. Its not as difficult as people say and it really makes the linux experience a piece of cake once you get it down.
The single config file to control almost everything is just what I was looking for in linux and the fact that it solved any kind of dependency hell I have experienced in the past is huge. If I had to list a top 3 it would be NixOS, Fedora, and Arch.
Xubuntu on my desktop/laptop, debian on a server. Mostly because while I really like tinkering with things, I usually just want shit to work so I can get something done.
Vanilla Arch.
Debian, it Just Works.
Until it doesn’t /jk
If you need fresh version of some software, Flatpak is a nice solution.
You can also use Docker, it just works.
Props to the maintainers and developers.
Way too boring.
Sometimes that’s the goal
I use Arch for personal and gaming, Debian for self hosting and hacking, Alpine for containerized cloud deployments.
Pretty much the same for me: bleeding-edge Arch for my workstation, rock-stable Debian for my server.
Needs dictate preferences. An objective assessment isn’t possible even on an individual level, as circumstances change over time. Linux Mint serves as a common starting point, with many users eventually ‘graduating’ to other distributions. The opposite is also true; many eventually return to low-maintenance distros like Linux Mint, preferring something that ‘just works’.
I daily drive secureblue.
I default to xubuntu
Debian (desktop) and Mint (laptop), because I don’t need to use the latest version of every app I use and because it works so well.
If I had to chose a single one, it would be Debian but I don’t have to chose ;)
Personnaly, i’m using Fedora and i love it!
IIRC Torvalds uses Fedora.
(Debian for me.)
Me too
Over the course of the last 20 years, I’ve gone from Arch -> Void -> Pop!_OS -> Ubuntu, and that is what I use on all my machines (laptops, desktops, servers).
Nobody has mentioned immutables yet?!
I finally dipped my toes into trying a new distro over the summer and have been really impressed with Project Bluefin. All the familiarity of Gnome for existing Ubuntu or Debian users but with a completely hands off rolling update experience.
The main drawbacks are the slight complexity of how the fuck to install stuff on an immutable system. In theory you use Homebrew for CLI apps and flatpak for GUI apps but I’m really not a fan of installing from sources other than the original dev.
Bazzite is immutable, it worked generally okay for me but I swapped back to mint because I had to use a smart card reader and getting it to work on an immutable was a royal pain
You can also run a distrobox and install stuff normally from whatever distro’s repos, then export the applications so they’re available like native. Works really seamlessly in my experience
Manjaro for my laptop, Mint for my HTPC, and Debian for my servers.
I’m sorry but I can’t resist mentioning it. Manjaro implemented quite sus telemetry recently so you should keep it in mind when choosing and using it.
Good to know! I was considering switching back to Debian or Mint, maybe LMDE. I’ll look further into it. Thanks for the tip!
Try endeavoros and use flatpaks. That’s basically manjaro with the following differences:
I was thinking of switching away from Arch and back to something Debian-based. I’ve never been a big fan of flatpaks (I have a background of not having fast internet or much storage space, it’s just stuck with me) and I never used the AUR anyways.
I mainly tried Manjaro to try the bleeding-edge life, and while I do enjoy having more up-to-date packages, I do miss being able to install DEB packages. I think I might try Debian testing and see how that goes.
@owenfromcanada @Kongar
I've effectively gone that route of moving away from Arch to Debian and although it hasn't been without some minor inconveniences from not having the most up to date software, I've been really happy with the change. I try to avoid flatpaks and for the most part have been successful, with like 2 or 3 exceptions so even if you're not much of a fan, I'd wager you'd be fine for the most part without them.
Yeah, that’s my plan. I usually end up with a couple of flatpaks (or AppImages) for the things that I need up to date, but otherwise just go with most things from the repository.
LMDE is fucking fantastic
Gentoo, because no other distro offers as much choice.
I can’t define one favorite distro. I change my daily driver sometimes but it’s always something Arch based, even though I think OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is the ultimately best distro/base.
Nix and Bazzite
I switched to Zorin OS (from Windows) at the beginning of this year and never looked back. Great for newbies.
I personally use Alpine on my Thinkpad
Hell yeah, Alpine on older Thinkpads rules. What DE / WM are you using ?
Sway :3
Neat! I used it as well but I would rather use dwm or xfce recently.
I wanted a Wayland WM but also something lightweight
Tumbleweed was my favourite for years. I’m not currently using it, but I’ll always have a fondness for it.
I just installed Bazzite about a month ago and love it! Used Ubuntu in the past and it was ok, but eventually went back to Windows. I definitely don’t feel that way about Bazzite though, I think I might stick with it as my primary OS!
Endeavouraos, arch but also easy
Opensuse Tumbleweed. Sometimes I try something else, but Tumbleweed is the one I keep going back to. It is quite solid and rolling release.
OpenSuSE Tumbleweed is my current favourite. It’s user friendly with good system tools in Yast, it’s got good repos including community repos with lots of software.
Its also a rolling release but has been stable and reliable for me. Leap is their point release version if rolling is not right for you.
I’ve been using Tumbleweed for over a year, and it’s my main OS since I stopped using windows. I’ve dual booted Linux for many years but always mained windows up until Tumbleweed.
Previously I used to use Mint; it’s decent but switching to Tumbleweed (and in particular KDE) convinced me to completely switch from Windows. Everything “just works”, and I do a fair bit of gaming without issue with nvidia drivers, steam, and lutris.
For example I’ve been playing Stardew, Cyberpunk 2077, Distant Worlds 2, and Factorio recently - all in Linux and all without issue.
I use Gentoo and I love it. The installation process is a bit more complex than Arch but it doesn’t have to be if you choose the precompiled kernel.
The package management is extremely flexible and the community are great. I have a morning routine where I log onto my gentoo desktop before work and update everything; would compare it to raking one of those miniature buddhist sand gardens. Very theraputic!
Have got Debian on an old thinkpad too because it is too under resourced to compile everything. I think Debian is amazing for a solid, reliable distro if you have weak hardware.
Fedora, but I wouldn’t say I’m in love with it. It frustrates me the least. No Linux distro is perfect, but they’re all better than Windows.
I think Pop!_OS and Linux Mint are the best no brains required distributions.
I really like the tiling window support in Pop_OS!'s Cosmos desktop.
There isn’t a best distro, tho I stick to the root of a distro tree, meaning arch / debian.
Why are fedora and suse often not mentioned considering theyre not forks of anything? (as far as im aware)
I didn’t mention them, because I simply haven’t used them yet.
Historically, (at least for hobbyists/enthusiasts) Fedora and openSUSE have been a lot less popular compared to Arch, Debian and their derivatives. While not necessarily representative, Boiling Steam’s chart -in which ProtonDB’s data is used- does indicate to this as well.
Just my 2 cents.
Kinda crazy considering fedoras perks and accessibility tbh. Dont know much ab suse tho as i have very little experience with it
I don’t know why, but openSUSE has had difficulty garnering popularity overall (aside from Germany).
A possible explanation, which also ties in to Fedora, is how both are the open source variants to corporate distros; SEL and RHEL respectively.
Arch and Debian are more community-driven by comparison.
For Fedora specifically, people couldn’t regard it as anything but a testing bed distro; especially if you see how back2back they were with adopting new technologies like PulseAudio, systemd, Wayland, GTK 3/4, PipeWire etc. To be fair, openSUSE was the first to default to Btrfs and auto-snapshotting with Snapper*. Fedora was also facing competition from industry darling CentOS; similar code base, but a lot more stable.
Thankfully, since a couple of years now, Fedora has recognized that it’s not cool to expect your user base to be sadistic. And together with the (unfortunate) downfall of CentOS, Manjaro and Ubuntu - Fedora has amassed a very healthy user base. And with how quickly Bazzite is becoming the face of gaming Linux (at least until Valve releases SteamOS), I don’t think it has even peaked yet.
steamos? its going to have its own release detached from the deck? thatd be so cool
Yup; at least to some extent.
Aeon btw. Immutable, rolling, no bs. Everything in Flatlaks or Distrobox is really a killer combo imo.
Also only very little software comes preinstalled which does not apply to Silverblue for example if I remember correctly.
I started with Slackware in the nineties, have been through Redhat, Suse, Ubuntu, Arch, Tumbleweed.
I could use anything really but these days my focus have moved; I kinda just want functional and well configured up front. Using Pop!_OS 24 alpha on my gaming/dev laptop, it works well/is well put together and I’m having fun writing COSMIC apps. I’m using Ubuntu on a few servers, I picked it many years ago and they’ve been through a number of painless upgrades.
Are you gaming on that comsic alpha?
Yeah, GuildWars2, Valheim, Pathfinder WotR, etc. those sort of games… So I’m a bit niche, some gamers have more issues than I.
I got a gnome-session installed for games that have problems with COSMIC but fortunately haven’t needed it for a while now.
LFS
Mx
If there were a universal answer to this, there wouldn’t be any others.
I myself currently use Debian (testing), have for some years now, but I have used other distros in the past too.
The best for my user cases atm
For work bluefin For general stations mint For gaming cachyos or bazzite
Fedora Atomic, especially Bluefin, Bazzite and Aurora.
Nearly unbreakable, very reliable and stable in everyday use, needs no maintenance (updates itself, etc.) and more!
GNU Guix
Really depends on what you do and value. I use lots of kde software, so kde distros are my go to. then one big diffrence between distros is how they get updated. do you want the latest updates asap on the costs of stability, or do you want an effing never crashing distro but lag behind in updates a few months/years, or a middleground.
These are the two points i considered when i choose.
MX Linux is the best, obviously. Otherwise it wouldn’t be #1 on DistroWatch, right? /j
I got arch cus its light af basically, id just install what i want/need myself
I use fedora-based atomic distros for the reliability and security. Nothing else really runs SELinux out of the box and I care about security so that’s a necessary baseline. I roll my own distro though using BlueBuild, and base it off the SecureBlue image of Silverblue. Just using SecureBlue gets you nearly to what I use though
Debian Stable. Predictable, low-maintenance, and well-supported. From time to time, I think about switching over to Alpine or even BSD, but the software selection and abundance of Q&A posts for Debian and its derivatives keeps me coming back. Having been a holdout on older Windows versions in the past, I’m quite used to waiting for new features and still amazed at how much easier life is with a proper package manager.
Screw distros, just use Arch
And we all know Arch isn’t a distro right?
Arch (cachyos) on my desktop, Debian on my server.
Doesn’t really get any better than those two in my opinion
Fedora. Any kind.
I use Bunsenlabs and like it a lot
Gentoo, it just works