Fellow Linux users, why did you pick the distro you're currently on?
Posted by absolutecinemalol@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 634 comments
Actually wondering, most distros I saw people here using are normal. Arch, Debian, some occasional OpenSUSE or Fedora. But then there are people who use AlmaLinux or Rocky on A DESKTOP. There are also people DAILY DRIVING some variant of BSD for some reason? All of this just makes me wonder WHY, so I'm asking this question here.
DaromaDaroma@reddit
My first was Debian - but too many obsolete packages, hard to use newest software, and unstable was really unstable. Gentoo was too edgy - always build everything multiple times and not enough info about how to use all these flags. Ubuntu - too many bells and whistles. Arch - became a perfect one - installation is customizable enough, just works after installed once, almost never reinstalled on a same machine again, and for me it never breaks after updates. Also works well on some old laptops.
WeWeBunnyX@reddit
openSUSE Tumbleweed coz its both rolling release and has snapshot feature. So in case I mess up something I can safely revert to previous state. I initially was about to go with Fedora but yeah. Other option was EndeavourOS which I think is really good but I don't want such rolling release which can break and mess up my stuff and I don't want to keep fixing everything on my own every time. So Tumbleweed just works for me. Rolling release too and stable too.
Visible_House8948@reddit
First baby
Danrobi1@reddit
VoidLinux: Very stable rolling release. Provide a very minimal base install image.
smb3d@reddit
Because most of the software I use for my job is/was .rpm based. I'm a CG artist, so historically, most things I needed to use like Maya, Nuke etc. were .rpm based.
A lot of them are no longer that way, Nuke, Houdini etc. but that's what I've always used for years and I love Fedora so here we ware.
joedotphp@reddit
Same. We used CentOS, but when they put the downstream version on ice, we switched to RHEP.
andatoshiki@reddit
I missed the yum! 😋
Time_Way_6670@reddit
Yeah a lot of pro apps use RPMs because of RHEL.. I was already using Fedora when I found out that the official Linux version of Davinci Resolve runs natively :)
OneDayCloserToDeath@reddit
Nobara because as opposed to popular opinion, mint does not just work. Tried Cachyos through the summer, pain in the ass updating every few days in the terminal. Tried fedora before that, better than both. Nobara because it's fedora without the work.
imransurroor@reddit
Came from windows, wanna try Linux as per the recent hype but struggling to get those normal things in windows that people call features in Linux world, Firart tried antix in 2008 laptop and i was surprised ny how lightweight it is and laptop vot new life than i installed zorin os in laptop and in my main pc, tried it to setup as per my daily usage needs in windows 11 Tried everything that i was can try, asked AI, googled, but then try to install arch and skipped at boot mdnu because it was all sudo/terminal thing😂 Then installed Linux mint cinnamon and was like ok its will work but then when i tried to setup it as per my preference it started to give same bugs/missing features that we take for granted in windows, then tried KDE Neon that AI was suggesting me from day one that is same as that u wanted, scripts/extensions, i liked it and mostly it worked as per my needs but it started to show some bugs mainly to its store app so now today i installed Fedora KDE Desktop and setting up as per my preferences, Wish me best luck 😂
lKrauzer@reddit
What features are you missing from Windows?
imransurroor@reddit
See my reply above
WokeBriton@reddit
Which part of it details the features you miss from windows?
"the normal things that people call 'features' in the Linux world." This bit? "tried to set it up to match my daily usage needs from Windows 11." This bit? "my mom needed to watch YouTube." This bit? "the same bugs and missing features that we take for granted in Windows." This bit?
It's difficult for anyone to give advice on the linux-stuff you couldnt get working or stuff you miss from windows if you don't say what these are. This sub tends to be helpful (some of us can be obnoxious at times) when a person explains their problem, what they've searched for, what they've tried.
imransurroor@reddit
I already explained, bro. I'm still trying to set it up. If you can help me, DM me, and I'll explain what I want to fix.
WokeBriton@reddit
I asked which part of your comment was the bit you wanted help with, and instead of answering the specific question, you now just say you already explained. You didn't explain.
Please state what your problem is. If you don't, and you haven't yet done so, nobody can help you.
Think of it like this: You go to the Doctor and say "I'm unwell." The Dr asks what is wrong, and you say "I already explained."
imransurroor@reddit
Dude... Lemme explain 1. It's not remembering the last position of different windows/apps. 2. There's also a glitch in the taskbar with pinned apps/web apps. When you click on an app you have pinned, instead of just taking you to that app's window in the same place, two windows open up. Then, when it's fully loaded, one window closes on its own. Anyway, after this, when you close that web app, its name disappears from the pin, and the browser's name shows up again in its place, but without an icon. 3. It doesn't remember the last sound device. I often use Bluetooth headphones, but when they are charging, I have to manually select the monitor sound. And when I connect the Bluetooth again, I have to select it again manually. I couldn't find any option in the settings to select a default sound device.
Haunting_Laugh_9013@reddit
Fedora with KDE is a good pick, and I have had great experiences with that setup. I'm not sure why LLMs would suggest to you KDE Neon, it is not very big distro with a lot of support, although I haven't experienced it myself.
I'd try to look at it with a different mindset. Linux is not just "free windows", it is its own thing, with different tradeoffs and benefits that might make it appealing to different people.
imransurroor@reddit
The problem is (not a problem btw) i wanna use Linux and i love that control of my pc that Linux offer with scripting and things like that, i consider my self a power user but i didn't used any os other than Windows before, i mean i can use terminal when it needed but not for every time, all the time, for file management, media player like mpv, that is better on Windows, that basic thing like remembering individual apps/settings size n position, dealing with pinned pask bar apps or web apps etc Is it too much to ask?
Haunting_Laugh_9013@reddit
Hmm... Is this with KDE plasma? I have never experienced issues like that, like forgetting app positions. As for a media player, maybe it didn't come preinstalled on the other distros you have tried, but VLC is the de facto default option for almost everyone. KDE's default file manager (dolphin) is also somewhat strange, and I would recommend an alternative like Gnome Files(formerly know as nautilus).
imransurroor@reddit
Not really. I mean, KDE Neon had this issue with the taskbar where I struggled to pin web apps individually. For window position remembering, a Kwin script was working, but I'm now trying to set up the window rules feature for that instead. I haven't been able to set it up perfectly yet; sometimes it remembers the position, and other times it places the app completely below the taskbar boundaries 😂. It's probably my mistake for not configuring it correctly.
As for the media player, I know everyone prefers VLC, but I don't like it. It doesn't offer what I want. I've mainly used MPC-HC my whole life, and for the last few years, I've used SMPlayer, which uses mpv as a backend. Then, back in October, someone suggested I use mpv with scripts. I tried it on Windows and loved it, configuring it to my liking. But then... 😂 I moved to Linux and my struggle started all over again.
free_help@reddit
Weird... You don't even need an independent script for that. KDE offers the feature out of the box
imransurroor@reddit
"out of the box" u said?, its not working by default I said above that i installed a kwin script that was working mostly then i find out that Windows rule thing, i configure it little but sometimes windows go out of taskbar boundaries, thats actually a "weird" thing. Btw can u please explain me hot to set it to working for every widows like browser widowss, settings, files manager etc
free_help@reddit
I don't know, it just works for me. I close windows and when I run the software again the windows come back in the same place
imransurroor@reddit
Maybe ur windows coming under the mouse pointer, that in settings
free_help@reddit
I don't get it
imransurroor@reddit
this https://ibb.co/G4fq8653
ronron6665@reddit
I use a 2tb sdcard and it only works with AnduinOS or CatchyOS. So I am using Catchy cinnamon. I have tried formatting it in a phone and my Steam Deck but it can only be seen on those two.
TxTechnician@reddit
Opensuse Tumbleweed.
Very stable, newest possible packages with little to no effort.
Simple tool for adding 3rd party repos and common packages (vscode, edge, chrome).
Built-in snapshot feature.
Teutooni@reddit
Seconded. The on by default snapshots are a killer feature. Just last week a distro update broke the desktop manager for me. No biggie, just boot up in recovery mode and run a few commands to restore previous working state. Back up in 5 minutes.
It's almost like the safety of an immutable because you can always return to a known working configuration, but in a bleeding edge rolling release.
I'm sure other distros can set up something similar but I wasn't at least aware of them being on by default.
klyith@reddit
Yep.
CachyOS and Garuda have automatic snapshots, but IMO have an inferior setup to snapper.
Status_Detective5043@reddit
I wish OpenSUSE's mirrors were faster coming from the USA -- Arch's mirrors simply feel so much snappier in comparison on this side of the world. But if I lived in Germany and could read German documentation for OpenSUSE better, I would probably have it on at least one system permanently tbh
klyith@reddit
Have you tried recently? For a long time the major problem was not the mirrors, it was that zypper didn't thread / parallel download. So grabbing one 100mb file took a few seconds, and getting 1000 10kb files took multiple minutes.
They fixed that, updates are much snappier now.
TracerDX@reddit
Arch got me addicted to bleeding-edge Linux. Tumbleweed made me a functional addict.
UrbanGothGentry@reddit
I've got into it recently, and it's glorious. Best mix of bleeding edge and stability.
punkbert@reddit
Also a european distro. Of course not the main reason why I use it, but these days it's a nice plus.
livinin82@reddit
I know it's rather trivial, but the name is the reason I don't use that lmao. It just doesn't sound cool to me. Maybe I need to grow up. But EndeavourOS is going perfectly well for me.
LancrusES@reddit
This, I used nearly all distros, even gentoo, very fun one I must say, and I learned a lot with It, but opensuse tw is adictive, It works, Its bleeding edge, once you use It some time, theres no turning back, we are minority, but who cares.
MattyGWS@reddit
Fedora, is minimalistic and up to date while still being stable. It’s also backed by IBM
joedotphp@reddit
Fedora with KDE. 🤌
Yuven1@reddit
I use bog standard fedora 43
What would be the difference by switching to kde? Is switching hard? Does it have tge potential to break anything?
I just looked up kde, and i do like the customizability of it
joedotphp@reddit
As the other person said, I just like how much smoother KDE feels. It's way more customizable on top of that.
And there's always the reason that I despise the GNOME developers. They're the biggest a-holes in the FOSS community.
Pugs-r-cool@reddit
Switching DE is about as simple as logging out, selecting a different desktop from a dropdown, and logging back in. You don't need to reinstall your OS or anything too complex, just install whatever new desktop you want to try.
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/switching-desktop-environments/
It has the potential to break things visually, some programs designed to fit in and look like standard / GNOME apps will look and feel out of place on KDE, but the functionality should be unaffected. It won't be anything that cannot be fixed.
Yuven1@reddit
Thank you 😊
Ok_Course8095@reddit
Yup, it just works
painkillerweather_@reddit
My people
UpstairsRegion@reddit
Yeah I started with Debian, but it was so far behind. Fedora is staying ahead of the curve where it counts, and not trying to hard where it doesn't matter, or gets in my way.
Puzzleheaded-Law6490@reddit
Debian for servers and Fedora for desktops is what I do. Seems to work well.
S0LUS_____@reddit
Cachy Os. It's arch but very beginner friendly and the optimization is a plus even if it can be marginal atleast when it comes to games. My experience with it has been amazing. Cachy is very lightweight and fast compared to my experiences on a ton of other distros. So far no update has broken my system.
untamedeuphoria@reddit
NixOS. Ruthless, unapplogetic ...control.
That being said, there's a lot about it I am not happy with.
Kelzenburger@reddit
Rocky and Alma are RHEL clones -> basically its like using Debian with RHEL tools. They are really good desktop distros. Why is that written with caps?
absolutecinemalol@reddit (OP)
idk, just dauly driving enterprise distro + the fact that it gets packages out of Fedora 40 (pretty much)
Kelzenburger@reddit
As I said, its kinda like using Debian or older LTS ubuntu. Everything is robust and security updates come fast. Theres also flatpak build in so things like browser can be updated instantly when new version comes out.
Gone2theDogs@reddit
You choose a distribution to fill your needs and wants.
Cinnamon Manjaro
Wanted the cinnamon desktop. Liked Mint but wanted the easy preconfigured setup and access to AUR with almost latest version (arch is more bleeding edge) updates.
absolutecinemalol@reddit (OP)
Manjaro stable? Or testing?
Gone2theDogs@reddit
Stable
absolutecinemalol@reddit (OP)
also, maybe start calling it CinnaManjaro :D
Gone2theDogs@reddit
No. There is no value in it and adds more confusion. Everyone knows cinnamon and Manjaro separately.
absolutecinemalol@reddit (OP)
/j if that wasn't clear. Might b useful if you post at r/unixporn tho
Gone2theDogs@reddit
It wasn't clearly a joke because your post is asking a question you should already know with experience.
Weird that you got offended because your following comment sounded equally unaware.
tdreampo@reddit
Because of the great and holy JR Dobbs.
Bad-Mouse@reddit
Slackware because it’s just the best.
Ok_Spite_9138@reddit
Rocky, because I work on centos and rocky servers. So it made sense?
defragc@reddit
Debian, because it works and I don’t have to mess with it for years.
TRKlausss@reddit
Plus if you want to mess with Linux, you can do it with Debian too! :D
Floturcocantsee@reddit
Debian stable with Flatpak (and snap for commandline apps if needed) is penultimate Linux, rock solid with the newest apps.
McGuirk808@reddit
I've been messing with Linux since 2006 and I always end up back on Debian. There are many other great distros and Debian is not without flaws, but something about the way it just seems like the perfect mix of respecting Linux, Unix, and GNU philosophies all in the right ratio and just generally trying to stay out of your way and be a sane, free operating system before anything else just feels perfect to me.
Debian is not the forefront of innovation, and it is great that there are other distros that are. Debian is the rock solid heartbeat in the background that is always there, consistent and reliable.
a_southern_dude@reddit
Same here. To add a little spice I am now running Debian Sid (unstable) which means that like Opensuse Tumbleweed I get new upstream packages as soon as they are accepted into the Debian ecosystem queue. It requires a little more attention to updates/upgrades, but even using this unstable branch hasn't borked my computer...yet.
Nothing-ever-works-@reddit
took me 25 years to settle on Debian. And I make my money on RedHat
WhippingStar@reddit
Debian is probably the best tested across all ARCH and has the most sane and consistent package naming standards and maintainers. I use every distro and love to explore, some are better than others, but Debian is the one that is always consistent.
joedotphp@reddit
Best distro for servers. You boot it up and pretty much never worry about it again.
tinuzzehv@reddit
But do they really? My experience with RH support dates back 5 years, but I wasn't thrilled.
Besides, if my job as a systems engineer boils down to creating support tickets at Red Hat, I'd rather quit 😉
joedotphp@reddit
Do they really? Yeah, they did it for us. We did have a technician we could call in, but it had to be pretty serious for that. The way we saw it was that we're paying Red Hat for this service. Let's use it.
requion@reddit
Thats probably the main difference. RHEL is targeted at enterprises, which changes the perspective almost completely. But the users have to accept this mindset.
I've personally never had issues with Debian and do use it for ever server i have. But i can also understand why RHEL is used by companies / enterprises.
joedotphp@reddit
I also use Debian. Mostly because I don't have to pay for it, but it's also pretty much a "press start and leave it" OS. It will run.
punkesp@reddit
Universal Distro! This is the way!
pierreact@reddit
Same. Rock. Solid.
scepticore@reddit
Same but with Ubuntu.
SmoollBrain@reddit
Arch. I wanted to squeeze out the last bits of performance I could out of my 2gb ram shitbook. It kinda worked. I love arch, still use it after ~4 years.
applecore53666@reddit
Arch, because I wanted to learn how a computer works. I'm not too sure if I learned anything, but it does everything I need, so I stick with it.
Siegranate@reddit
You might end up learning more when trying to install Chimera Linux or Gentoo, honestly.
The archinstall script makes Arch pretty painless to install nowadays.
4rseny@reddit
Archinstall breaks at some point, if you want an arch installation that stays a bit long, you have to install it yourself
McKain@reddit
Can you please explain how and why an Archinstall is more susceptible to breakage than a manual install?
_aurel510_@reddit
I'd like to know as well, I've tried it a few times already and still no breakage after a few years on those systems, not much difference compy to the manually installed systems I got, IMHO.
Christopher876@reddit
No it doesn’t. I feel like you guys talk out of your ass sometimes. I’ve had an arch install desktop running for the last 4 years with it and still going strong with KDE 6.5.
The caveman days of installing Arch aren’t necessary
kuroimakina@reddit
Top comments are Debian and arch. The duality of Linux users lol
natheo972@reddit
You can do that on any distro. But if you want a deeper understanding, Gentoo might be a better choice.
applecore53666@reddit
All I know about gentoo is you have to compile everything leading to long install times. The next distro I might transition to is nixos. I've tried once, though it's such a pain to configure everything,
JockstrapCummies@reddit
You can actually do that with any OS/distro if you put in the effort to be curious.
The "installing Arch" experience really doesn't force you to do anything that much different from installing other distros. It's just that, e.g. on Ubuntu, I pick my timezone with a mouse, and on Arch you create a symbolic link from /usr/share/zoneinfo to /etc/localtime. Or that on Arch you do partitioning by typing a bunch of parted commands, and on Ubuntu I just, you know, click on a sizeable bar.
natheo972@reddit
I should have read your comment first before writing mine, it would have saved me from repeating the same thing.
applecore53666@reddit
Yeah. The great thing about Arch though is that it's sink or swim, and I think that being forced to work out how things work was a great experience as my first distro. The best thing I took from it was probably reading documentation. Would not recommend unless you have excessive free time, are very stubborn, and just need your computer to work, though.
bjh13@reddit
Are you really being forced to work things out? Let's be honest here, most people are not typing out much of anything in a "This is the command, figure it out" kind of way, they are retyping things from the wiki character for character (essentially copying and pasting). There is some learning that happens from this, but I'm not convinced it's much more learning than happens with most other distros.
And I have found this is what Arch really teaches. It doesn't teach much of linux any better than any other distro, but the wiki is incredibly well written and detailed when it comes to the base install, better documentation for the OS than anything else I have seen except maybe OpenBSD. The wiki is so good in fact that people using other distros are likely to check the Arch wiki for answers.
It is important to note, Arch has never been about "This will teach you to be a hardcore linux hax0r" but rather about allowing you to install a clean linux system with no bloat, using upstream defaults, and with software that you don't have to wait 6 months to be updated to use the latest features. When Arch first showed up, the only other distros that could compete with it on those principles were Gentoo and others like it, I remember Source Mage for example, which would literally take you days to install at the time and updates would often take hours.
Zzyzx2021@reddit
"No bloat", yeah, except for systemd
kaplanfx@reddit
I think it’s more that Arch base install is an absolute minimum set of packages and then you have to decide. Like, I got to pick which network daemon I was going to use, which prompted me to compare network daemons. Then I got to pick a boot loader, so I researched those, etc.
syklemil@reddit
I kinda more did that with Slackware, but then I wanted an ergonomic package manager, more recent software, and this rolling release thing sounded neat.
I'm not sure how long ago that is, but I suspect something like 15+ years.
Catadox@reddit
On a long enough timeline, every Linux user ends up on arch.
AffectionateCut2004@reddit
Or mint.
herrfrosteus@reddit
I did distro hopping for quite a while before I finally landed on Mint :-)
gliese89@reddit
Arch for personal computers (just 2, desktop and laptop). And then I use Debian for servers, vms, and containers. They both have extensive and good documentation.
Ismokecr4k@reddit
I just picked Arch because it does what I need it to as well. I like the fast updates because I'm a gamer, my desktop is a hobby machine, not a work machine. The arch package repository is great and I have no complaints.
endoparasite@reddit
Exactly, Arch saves one from maintaining their own packages. I used to be long time Slackware user but maintaining own packages was big overhead. Moved to Debian, was great, until I moved from analog photography to digital. Then Sid helped me a lot but there are issues when you are playing around mixing testin and Sid and pin packages. Also some stuff I had to still package my own. Then moved to Arch, as its package selection is wide enough and as rolling release it offers always very fresh state of software. I have been using same install on my desktop (hardware has changed multiple times) more than 10 years. Moved from Xorg to Wayland and pulseaudio to pipewire and all these things. Excellent choice for multipurpose desktop. Currently in use as digital multimedia station + development platform with Podman and sometimes gaming happens.
SupermarketAntique32@reddit
I’m also on Arch, but because
— https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_compared_to_other_distributions
Before Arch, I was on Ubuntu and Fedora, and had to add quite a few external repos for some software and driver.
reaznval@reddit
exactly the same for me
t40@reddit
Arch is unmatched as a developer!
Itchy_Journalist_175@reddit
For me, it was simply the most viable choice back in 2004: Ubuntu
… and I’m too lazy to reinstall 😅
Rare_Wallaby_6913@reddit
Devuan, because, Debian + System V
SteelmountainSS@reddit
Debian broke for me so hard I went all the way to arch. Then did Endeavour when I got a new machine. Best distro ever.
Substantial_War7464@reddit
PopOS, it works well, it’s fast, and it looks good.
Ponnystalker@reddit
I tried arch linux because of the hype ... ended up liking it more than the hype
but i still enjoy fedora kde on my portables
debian for servers cause its stable simple and just good for set it and forget it
-LushFox-@reddit
Fedora, because it has new enough updates for my taste, and almost every time it's broken it was entirely my fault. I have used Tumbleweed and liked it but it didn't have much for me that Fedora didn't. I'm playing with Arch in a container so might try switching at some point for 'fun'.
arderoma@reddit
I LOVE Manjaro's console and I don't know how to install that on other distros. That's the only reason currently. Usually I try to look for a distro in which installing the tools I need for work doesn't require any extra work.
Fine_Yogurtcloset738@reddit
Arch, perfect level of control with minimal time commitment.
Kahless_2K@reddit
I use Fedora because its upstream from RHEL.
Most of the critical systems I encounter and maintain run on Rhel or one of its many clones, so using Fedora on my personal laptop serves as a nice little tech preview.
ijwgwh@reddit
Valve pre-installed it
_extragigabite@reddit
I got zorin os on my family computer because I need something that isn’t too hard to learn and is user friendly. However, arch Linux is clearly the superior distro. I use arch btw.
GarbageHoomen@reddit
Arch because I like new software
thelastusername4@reddit
This is easy... Ubuntu, because I'm a rookie, and ALL of the Google results for my questions were for Ubuntu. Now running a very reliable Ubuntu server for years on the back of that info! I still can't use a Linux desktop lol
gt24@reddit
Not a primary Linux user (I live in Windows land). Still, I use Linux on several laptops that can't run modern Windows and appreciate Linux for what it is and what it can do (just not enough yet to replace Windows on my main PC).
Linux Mint is what I currently use on most things. It has a GUI I can work well with (Cinnamon) and the base has decent stability (Ubuntu LTS) while removing all the stupid things that base distro does (like Snaps). Cinnamon is the most up to date on this distro and Cinnamon will keep being updated even as the distro base updates far less frequently.
Cinnamon is made for Linux Mint. As such, if something is in the GUI (like automatic updates) then the feature will certainly work in Linux Mint (because it wouldn't have been put into Cinnamon otherwise). KDE, being that it is made for any distro to use, tended to have certain things (like automatic updates) that didn't work (where the GUI indicates that it is turned on but the base distro didn't update since you have to do automatic updates in a completely different way in that distro). I'm not saying this KDE issue is a problem with every distro out there but it was a problem that KDE seemed to have in many distros that I tried.
Basically, the Cinnamon GUI is updated frequently and everything presented in the GUI will work in Linux Mint. This is better than KDE with "most things" working except for those things that the distro is not quite supporting correctly.
On a very limited laptop (16 Gb soldered in storage, 2 Gb memory), I am using MX Linux with XFCE. MX Linux works well here because distro upgrades (when they happen) is done by using a USB drive and then installing a new MX Linux over the prior installation (keeping your /home intact and reinstalling what applications you had custom installed). This works well enough considering the very limited space I have to work with. As such, that computer can be a browser on a stick (for the most part).
Now for the "meh" list of distros below that didn't work too well for me.
I will say that I was using Fedora for a while which has a great implementation of KDE. That being said, I also ran into a few major Linux kernel bugs in a very short amount of time (hardware bug with my laptop that made booting take 5 minutes, broke ipv4 networking which can be an issue if you don't have ipv6 networking, I also heard that they had a major file system bug with btrfs which is the file system that they use). It seems like Fedora isn't interested in running an LTS kernel (which would have avoided those issues and made mitigating those issues easier) and it also seems like Fedora is more made for people to experience the latest things as well as all the bugs that come with those too. Fedora is just a bit too unstable for my tastes.
Fedora as a general idea seems fine (updating every 6 months, very recent userland software, presenting GUIs as their developers intend, etc). The kernel instability is just not worth it for me. I would prefer others run into bugs face first so those bugs can be fixed before I encounter them.
I will say that new hardware will have issues unless you run a very recent kernel. For those people, they are sort of stuck living with the latest kernels and experiencing all the fun bugs that come with that. Once your hardware works great with an older kernel (from like Ubuntu LTS) then it is best to just stay with that.
Also had experiences with Ubuntu. Ubuntu tended to have some major bugs when new distros released and they tend to have strong opinions with regards to rather unpopular things (like Snaps). Linux Mint removes all of that nonsense and I believe they also wait until Ubuntu removes any huge bugs before Mint uses them as a base.
Debian updates too slowly and tended to not set up certain things to run too great out of the box (like XFCE) meaning it took more effort to make this distro feel like home. It took far too long for me to figure out that you can use sudo for commands as opposed to root by simply not setting a root password during the Debian install... which wasn't easy to figure out. Debian is great for what it is but I can certainly see why many distros are built upon them.
LN-1@reddit
Fedora Workstation. Latest toolchains and kernels for newer hardware.
Scanicula@reddit
NixOS, 'cause I love solving problems, but usually only once.
Legitimate_Date962@reddit
I have chosen mine, because it supports latest hardware 'out-of-the-box' and is stable, doesn't require tweaking if I don't have time - and it's important to me, because it's installed on my main workstation computer.
Also installed it on all other machines (other PCs, laptop) - for easy configuration (one system - don't need to manage few different distros).
PacketSmeller@reddit
CachyOS. I got frustrated waiting on packages to get updated and used Arch between 2003 and 2011. It feeks like home. And I have come to enjoy using KDE Plasma.
lanjelin@reddit
Arch without a DE.
I like to tinker/code.
I remote in from whatever machine I'm currently on.
haruame_@reddit
Arch, because I've been using it for so long I can't get used to any other distro.
Dazzling_Lab_4886@reddit
Debian, Ubuntu for me... workd always on everthing easily...
Avitar_X@reddit
I use primarily Raspberry Pi OS or Steam OS due to the hardware that I have.
I have pretty much moved my life over to the Steam deck now though, so don't really use the Pi at all.
I tend to like XFCE with a 2 panel layout for my desktop (I really miss Gnome 2 with compiz, I don't think desktops have gotten back to that level yet), but it's been a while since I've worried about it and I doubt I'll own anything more PC like than a steam deck for a while.
NinaMercer2@reddit
Depends on which computer i'm using. My recording and editing studio? CachyOS because it's great for gaming and using kdenlive. My main PC? Linux Mint because it just works 90% of the time.
LolMaker12345@reddit
I use arch because I found a cool rice on Reddit and I wanted to recreate it and it used arch, so I uninstalled fedora and got arch. I do still forget sometimes that is PacMan not apt cause I have Debian servers
mikeymop@reddit
Fedora.
Because after trying all the major distros, it's the best balance of everything. And has been the most reliable for me.
KatzenSosse@reddit
I picked Mint because it's green and Pop! because pop > soda. That's literally it.
Inner-Boysenberry925@reddit
Debian for servers, Fedora for desktop
Why? I'm a chuddy sheeple who googles everything /j
fdnytyler162@reddit
Kubuntu. I like plasma
Background-Item-2818@reddit
Was planning switching my desktop from Win to either Debian or Ubuntu for gaming support. Normally * use Fedora + KDE so I'll definitely check out Kubuntu. Thanks!
fdnytyler162@reddit
I switched from Nobara (which is fedora based) to Kubuntu and I haven’t looked back. Nothing wrong with Fedora before I get attacked, I just prefer Debian as I use Debian for work and I know it better.
DoubleOwl7777@reddit
yeah same. i wanted debian based but something simple. and i prefer kde.
cat_in_the_wall@reddit
same. kubuntu doesn't get enough love. it's easy mode, which i appreciate.
worddodger@reddit
I like easy
delafuente23@reddit
Glad I found my people. I just moved from Mint to Kubuntu after giving it a lot of thought, and the thing that got me was that everyone kept saying that going from Mint to Kubuntu will give more customization, which is something I'm truly a fan of.
Besides that, I'm not a fan of the Gnome tablet-like environment either...
And to be honest, I was between Kubuntu and Debian Plasma (since "All Roads Lead to Debian") but I ultimately decided the former since I wanted something more Plug-And-Play and less DIY.
AlternativePaint6@reddit
This is me but on Fedora Plasma.
Out of Fedora and Ubuntu, I picked Fedora due to less anti-FOSS practices like Mir, Unity, and Snaps. It feels ro me like Fedora is trying to unite everyone while Ubuntu is trying to invent something of their own.
LordXamon@reddit
Bazzite. I play games and I want a system I don't want to have to mess with.
KDE environment because it looks similar to windows.
heylookatthetime@reddit
Ubuntu Mate. Because I'm old and I liked gnome 2
I started with: Red hat 7.3 The dreaded redhat email after RH9, then Fedora (1-3 were awful) Suse enterprise 10 Ubuntu 8.10 Ubuntu 10.10 (best release ever) CentOS 5-8 in all my production stuff Rocky Still Ubuntu Mate on my desktop. Stable as hell.
I tried everything along the way... Gentoo, mandrake, mandriva, mint, elementaryOS, pop, Arch, you name it. Ubuntu Mate just works flawlessly for me.
Also I think shuttleworth ruined a lot of things, but Ubuntu is still a great OS.
xipetotec1313@reddit
Kali Linux formerly known as BackTrack. Trying to get into pen testing.
ImpossibleBanana42@reddit
I'm on Manjaro since years. Wanted something lightweight and fast but didn't want to ness with kernel stuff. Imho the best of both worlds, Arch wiki and easy to use 😅😉
Time_Faithlessness45@reddit
Zorin OS, simply because I don't mind donating to a dev team that preconfigures all of the apps that I'm just going to spend time installing on my own anyway.
xte2@reddit
NixOS, because I write the configuration (albeit in an indigestible language) and every change or update is a fresh-install, a poor man's version of IllumOS's Boot Environments; because creating a custom ISO is a breeze, ZFS root is supported first class, so I can deploy and redeploy my home infra in human minutes and little machine time, all with a handful of text files. IaC built-in into the OS.
rogersaintjames@reddit
Endeavor because I get the benefits of Arch without having to set it up on every computer I have.
Zamarok@reddit
because i was told it would be hard to install Arch Linux for my first distro and i like a challenge. stuck with it.
i also use ubuntu for the ease-of-use when coding and because the package manager repos have EVERYTHING.
SunlightBladee@reddit
NixOS pretty much just because it seemed cool tbh
thomaspeltios@reddit
arch because it is the first distro i ever tried and it is good looking
Chemical-Regret-8593@reddit
wait, do you mean the customizability is good looking? or the logo?
thomaspeltios@reddit
both i guess, im using arch but i meant more KDE or hyprland or all of those kinds of things.
DunyaSikime@reddit
Ubuntu, simple
SweetGale@reddit
Ubuntu made Linux simple. It felt polished, user-friendly, stable and it just worked. When I decided to switch to Linux as my main OS in 2019, I spent several months looking at different distros and desktop environments. In the end, I just went with vanilla Ubuntu. It has always served me well and I like the look and feel of Gnome with the Ubuntu Dock. When issues do crop up, it's a popular distro so it's easy to find information and solutions.
SimonL169@reddit
Same here. WiFi on my laptop worked immediately, so I stick to Ubuntu also on my other systems
talexbatreddit@reddit
Same. I just want to get stuff done, and don't want to recompile the world to get started. It's quite solid, and I'm happy with it.
GeneticsGuy@reddit
For me, I put Ubuntu MATE on my old iMac thst ages out of Apple updates. It feels like a new system again. It's just so plug and play and thoughtless.
accelerating_@reddit
I was using Debian but found I was getting all my config info from Ubuntu doc and wiki so thought I may as well. That was 7.10 IIRC.
I'm tempted to move to something declarative but I also don't want to screw around maybe being on the wrong horse.
FoxOxBox@reddit
But Ubuntu made a bad decision ten years ago! How dare you!
zomgwtflolbbq@reddit
Also more recently with the bugs and missing features in the rust replacements of ancient tooling.
Lasivian@reddit
I am in this boat as well. I'm not using Linux for rocket science, I'm using it because I need it to do shit.
denim_skirt@reddit
Yeah I picked Ubuntu because I've used a million distros and just didnt feel like thinking about it anymore
Beneficial-Owl-4430@reddit
real. but i went with mint:debian over ubuntu just because i don’t fw canonical myself but everything is targeted for .deb
Consistent_Claim5214@reddit
When I was a teenager, I used all sort of wacky distros, gentoo was great. Now, would not touch anything that isn't Ubuntu.
flexeuYT@reddit
alpine because its lightweight
InfiniteSheepherder1@reddit
Fedora, I got tired of blowing up my Ubuntu install during upgrades with PPAs, and I had issues with the Ubuntu kernel on some hardware.
At work we were increasingly implemented RHEL servers and just made sense to match that.
Fedora is up to date, they run stock GNOME which I prefer and i think they are where most of the innovation is happening in Linux desktop with bootc.
Typeonetwork@reddit
MX linux with Xfce DE. Based on Debian Stable and has a good program installer. Let's me do business and pleasure without the friction.
Upstairs-Comb1631@reddit
Can MX Linux handle the upgrade yet?
Typeonetwork@reddit
Yes if you mean Debian 13 Trixie base. They just released MX 25 Infiniti. If you mean something else let me know.
Greeley9000@reddit
OpenSUSE tumbleweed.
Why? Snapshots. They get their funding from major corporations, so they probably aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, and they probably aren’t making significant changes soon either.
Upset_Bottle2167@reddit
Now Ubuntu, Is the best with the touch screen of my HP.
daninet@reddit
Im on fedora 43. I started with ubuntu, i figured out i dont like chrome, i than had some weird issues with kubuntu i could not resolve. So i went to tumbleweed and i rocked tumbleweed for a year. It is an awsome distro BUT... the problem I had is that its rolling relatively quickly (no shit), and qemu (the virtual machine engine) was broken multiple times in the morning when i sit there and wanted to do work. I had enough after like the 4th time and jumped to fedora. No issues ever since. Tumbleweed is awsome and the distro itself is rock solid but the third party packages that are coming in a rolling fashion are a mixed bag in quality. It was a raffle all the time what will break next
drunken-acolyte@reddit
My own desktop: Debian. Because I don't enjoy troubleshooting as much as I used to. I just want a drama-free experience.
My elderly mum's desktop: AlmaLinux. She wanted something that was zero maintenance and dnf-automatic is less prone to breaking than trying to run apt on a chron job. The ten year service life means it will likely outlive her hardware. She only has basic computing needs, so the scanty repos aren't a huge problem and I've set up flatpaks (updating on a chron job).
os98CDr@reddit
the debian 13 wallpaper looks cool i guess-
Quick-Distribution29@reddit
Currently using fedora 42(gnome) and Cachy os(gnome). I was using fedora full time but was getting some issues while gaming which I thought cachy might help resolve but it didn't. Fedora is amazing stable. Working fine since 2 years. Gnome ui is amazingly good.
neckyo@reddit
I've been a Unix user since SCO and Solaris times. Started using Linux since 2004. Found myself comfy with Ubuntu. Had some troubles testing arch and made it my personal goal. I've been been using Arch last 5 years and found the rolling release and the Aur perfect for me
mr-dum-guy@reddit
Ubuntu, because it's one of those distros that just work. Fedora also could've worked for me, but I didn't know about it at first. But I'm happy I didn't because Ubuntu has way more app support. So ++ for Canonical! :D
jar36@reddit
Garuda Dragonized Gaming. Gaming focused and beautiful DE. I did, however, remove the garish borders
Agreeable_Poem_7278@reddit
I chose Ubuntu for its extensive software compatibility and reliable long-term support releases.
paintarose@reddit
I use NixOS for its declarative system configuration and reliable package management.
Forsaken_Owl_9577@reddit
switched to linux 3 years back. was using ubuntu until a few months back and it was a positive experience and ubuntu forums were very helpful to learning linux as a beginner, but a few month back from now i was frustrated about some games i wanted to play not running on steam that should be running according to other linux users, gnome was also just not being easily customizable and boring atp and i was trying to get on hyperland for that but lacking time to make a config. i switched to arch to run those games, they ran. tried to distro hop to cachyos a month later just cause i heard it was fast and all but it didnt run on my machine for some reason despite it fulfilling reqs- back to arch but with kde this time and then it felt like a complete experience due to the customization being there too. also then i got increasingly comfy with pacman, aur and the arch wiki after that. i don't think i will ever switch atp but just mod my arch setup for anything i need\~
xd-sudo@reddit
kiss because i like being different
Mean_Mortgage5050@reddit
AUR
DataBooking@reddit
I used to use Arch but I get busy with work and I no longer had the time to mess around with things so I switched over to Mint.
gegentan@reddit
Fedora on my pc because I want it to be stable. Arch on my laptop because I like to tinker with it a lot.
theodiousolivetree@reddit
Because it is the only distro working well on my arm computer. Armbian
Anime_rushInChicago@reddit
kali for the cybersecurity,on a half external dual boot rn,Kali live boot on a 150GB 3.0 USB and then windows for games and on a VM recently really i have Artix,seems clean,minimal,works nicely,experience from the install is good since i do need to get better at bash and not js focus on the 7 programing languages
Sr546@reddit
Switched from debian to cachyOS, I was tired of old packages and the mess required to get something that requires a newer version working, also really wanted to try out hyprland. So far it's been treating me well, although it's not perfect
MessyMuryokusho@reddit
CachyOS for the CPU/kernel tweaks, basically arch with some optimization.
SufficientSpite4274@reddit
Debian, because... i don't know, it just feels right 😅
jNayden@reddit
Games...
shanehiltonward@reddit
Drivers, access to software, choice of desktops, ability to handle dual kernels: Manjaro
SupremeOHKO@reddit
I picked Arch because I'm a CS student and IT technician, and I want to learn more and more, and what better way to get a really good feel for computer architecture than to have to assemble your own operating system like LEGOs?
I also use Kali because I'm a cybersec noob and want to practice more.
NemGoesGlobal@reddit
Ubuntu because I found a book in my local Bookstore about it that was 2008.
OnyxAbove@reddit
Arch because it strikes a balance between stability, customizability, and being up-to-date. Also, the AUR is awesome.
UrbanGothGentry@reddit
After using Linux Mint for some years, until LM20 Cinnamon - it made sense to use the O.G. that Mint and Ubuntu is based on.
Which is, Debian. I use Debian 13 KDE. This is on my main tower PC.
The laptop is on OpenSuse Tumbleweed. I wanted to try a rolling distro that had the best form of stability (even though such a thing in the Linux world is a contradiction), so I can check out new features and apps. So far, it's been brilliant apart from having to do one rollback to a previous system snapshot one evening.
adithyasrivatsa@reddit
I went through that typical linux user phase of distro hopping... I used bare debian, kali, arch, tails and everything.. I enjoyed arch a lot, I used arch for almost an entire year..I loved its AUR repository and it's strong community, tbh arch was fun ..and that title of "I used arch btw" hits so hard ... But now I moved on... I started to feel routine and I felt like I am not actually doing things in a productive way but rather just stressing myself out.. tbh I didn't feel like a dev... But was more focused on arch things... But now I switched back to kali... Not for hacking obv... But for dev and easy going... It has a solid community, and also has that hacker vibe...and doesn't have a steep learning curve...(And arch users..nope..stop...don't judge me..and don't hate me, I had my deal done)
Hex166@reddit
Nix because I wanted to inflict most possible pain to myself and no I am not going to try gentoo or whatever distros you might pull from somewhere and tell me they are harder to use
Agent_Monkey537@reddit
I use Gentoo because I found Debian too old for what I want to do and I didn’t want a bleeding edge Arch Linux install. I like how Gentoo allows me to use newer software without going bleeding edge and still allows me to pick even newer software without having to mess with repositories with Debian.
Ronald0581@reddit
In my case I have Zorin OS and Linux Mint because in both cases they seem very beautiful aesthetically, easy to use, they take up little space on the hard drive, I find everything I need in terms of video games, the applications are very complete I have been using Linux for more than 5 years I started with Ubuntu and I have tried several of them including deepin, mx Linux and in the future I want to try others and draw conclusions from them
natheo972@reddit
Well I've been using Ubuntu for 17 years now, it's my first distro and I've never felt the need to make a change. Until Snap come in the picture and was shoved into our face. I'm thinking about trying Gentoo now, but if not for Snap Ubuntu still a pretty solid choice.
onlyappearcrazy@reddit
Didn't want to go to Windows 11 and picked the Mint distro because it's similar to Windows
bierbo@reddit
Started with redhat 4.2, switched to fedora core after redhat 9.0, Ubuntu felt much user friendlier, turned back to fedora after Ubuntu introduced their weird new crappy UI instead of gnome 3.
SubstanceLess3169@reddit
CachyOS because it's quite stable and fast as fuck
BlenderLietuva@reddit
Mint because it works
jerdle_reddit@reddit
I'd heard a lot about NixOS from Arch users, so wanted to check it out.
Affectionate_Fig9084@reddit
I like Debian and Ubuntu. Currently using Fedora 43 on my gaming set up since it’s a very seamless distro for both gaming and video editing.
TechRage_Linux@reddit
Kubuntu. Stable and has all of the KDE apps. Highlt customizable. Great widgets ans theme integration. It still suprises me what other KDE app I find.
TheBariSax@reddit
I'm on Fedora today.
I've tried several distros over the years, but RedHat was my first in the late 90s, so something about it feels like home base. I'm also now starting to do more Linux support for work in addition to the MS crap I've always supported. Our non MS workloads are a mix of RHEL and AIX, so being on Fedora is also a natural move.
Of course I have nothing against any other distro. I was on Ubuntu for a long time, too. I'm just happy to see people choosing Linux and seeing just how useful it can be.
Mindless_Courage1476@reddit
Debian, i use it for uni while studying engineering, so i want something that works, so when something fails, i know it's my fault.
Also, i really like 'apt' as a package manager and i need be able to use a graphics card properly so the fact that the nvidia drivers are just a package is very, and i mean VERY, neat
Nothaphoebe4030@reddit
Zorin, because I like the UI. It is also one of the few GNOME-based distros that works well in my somewhat old 2-in-1 PC that I wanna save.
AlwaysSuspected@reddit
I like having the latest packages, and Fedora won't boot on my device.So I chose Arch.
Artistic-Release-79@reddit
On my primary machine I ran Slackware from 1995 to 2004, and then switched to Ubuntu.
On and off I've also owned a couple of Sun workstation, and a few Macs.
I've got 2 laptops I use now, one is running Ubuntu and the other is a Chromebook with Debian. I spend more time on the Chromebook.
I guess at the end of the day Linux all Linux distros are running a similar kernel, gnu untils, and some customized version of the same desktops. Who's particular desktop and config tools feel the nicest to you?
For me it was slackware because when I was starting out it was very basic and easy to understand. Also ran Dropline Gnome on it because I liked it as a desktop. When Ubuntu came around I spent time learning the Debian tooling in it, and liked their customized gnome desktop as well. Felt comfortable and stuck with it.
Inevitable-Depth1228@reddit
Mint. Just because it gave similar UI to windows which gave familiarity to settle
MoobyTheGoldenSock@reddit
Debian because it’s pure upstream. It just feels so much more unburdened compared to Ubuntu.
TheSWATMonkey@reddit
Arch, since it's a balance of customization and speed
jjoesmama@reddit
Vanilla Arch, If you set it up just once, it can last you for some long time, it simply just works as soon as you finish your config, it's also nice to play around and can be configured to a lot of different use cases at once, like work, gaming etc, but one thing is for sure, don't mess around with the things you don't know! I've heard so many people talking about how their arch install got messed up or just doesn't boot up, but to be fair, if it broke, it's probably because of YOU, my arch install is turning 1 year old this month iirc, and it broke twice because of me using gparted
brunoortegalindo@reddit
Arch, I just like the freedom and love to know what is running, why it's running and how to change anything that I want.
I was using budgie but now giving a shot to gnome 49 and customizing a Hyprland environment, gonna test some things and can even change the UI with .css files and stuff
Icy_Definition5933@reddit
Debian, because it just works and doesn't nag me with updates all the time. When I tell it to shut down, it does it immediately, no "waiting for updates" nonsense.
jonasanx@reddit
I use Fedora because my current workflow requires stability, and Fedora is a great OS for that. I don't care about fancy features; I just want to get the work done.
Narrow_Victory1262@reddit
one of the things is that the OS I use is also the most used one at work.
Next is the tooling. That is the most compelling reason. And do not forget
the community/company behind it. Also standards are important. FHS is.
Have recently new updates is for me a plus. And support. Real, insureanceable
(is that a word?) support.
I never end up with any debian/based distribution. In fact we almost fully eradicated them at work now.
Erdnusschokolade@reddit
Arch. I came for a working KDE installation without errors (looking at you Kubuntu 24.04 and 24.10) And stayed for the freedom, pacman and the AUR.
SheepHair@reddit
I'm a new user, but I chose ChachyOS because I play games, I want as fast/low latency as possible, it has a lot of the benefits of Arch, and I saw a lot of people commending it for actually being surprisingly very friendly to new users despite being Arch. I haven't used it to much yet (experimenting with it on a laptop until I put it on my PC) but there's also a lot of people who talk about how it's incredibly stable as well. I like always having things be up to date, so it being a rolling release but still be rock solid is appealing
udi503@reddit
Mint because support secure boot
azrael4h@reddit
Through chaos I do all things.
For daily driver I look for ease of use and stability, as well as ease of access to software I use.
For projects? Well I have a micropc running TempleOS. Because 640 by 480 is the holy resolution. I will run just about anything for fun depending on how much time I have to tinker.
I think the very first Linux I ran was OpenSUSE, back when the Vista Virus was just out. I bought a boxed copy that is probably in a box packed away somewhere. Never got the sound to work so I found another one, and then Sheiky Baby became the people’s champion.
sidusnare@reddit
I'm using about 4 different ones. Use the right tool for the job.
ShadowQuill_812@reddit
Fedora, ChatGPT recommended it and it worked on my laptop even better than Windows 11 with official drivers and just got used to it
rafe092@reddit
Ubuntu, no time for tinkering. Computer just works, snaps are great, system is stable and fast.
DDelion@reddit
Debian, social contract, thousand of developers around the world, now I am contributing too finally, and their package system, dpkg and apt keeps my systems clean.
I have been a Linux user since 1994, I tried many at the beginning. Debian user since 2001.
Celer5@reddit
I'm on gentoo. I chose it because its package manager (portage) is very powerful and because the distro as a whole gives the user a lot of control over how to setup their system. And it's also pretty stable so I'm not worried about it breaking.
TheBlackCarlo@reddit
At home: Arch, because I want the latest packages for gaming. Technically heroic is running in flatpak, so there would not be the need to do so, but I am keeping Steam separate, as a native package, so this still applies to SOME games.
At work, in WSL2: debian 13, because I want everything to be as stable as possible. Also for my projects i just spin up dockers for the dependencies, so the WSL2 distro is largely irrelevant. Still, those dockers have debian 13 also.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
I use bluefin (or other atomic variants) so I don't have to think about the base OS much at all and i can keep the focus on my applications and development setup.
Any-Singer-5239@reddit
This. I spent years on Gentoo and Debian and “paid my dues”
Now I enjoy an OS that works great and stays up to date without being micromanaged. My dev stack is in containers.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
gentoo was the first distro i stuck with. used it for like 8 years and then switched to regular Fedora.. and now i'm on bluefin since last year
Amit7985@reddit
Very easy and I can actually feel I am doing stuff
Phatold_Geezer@reddit
My M.O: put a few distros on a ventoy (currently featuring PopOS, Mint, Debian, Endeavour & Kali)
Make an educated guess on wich one should work best on the machine and try installing that. If its not a smooth ride, try another. Hint: it's never Kali.
Whatever runs best out of the box on that specific hardware stays. Currently Debian 12 on my homelab/mediaserver/nas built from old junk. EndeavourOS on my main rig and Mint on my touchscreen HP laptop. I have an old busted Lenovo Legion i'm fixing up right now wich i'll try PopOS on first...
It's all just Linux in the end.
Arbeit69@reddit
I'm sticking with Zorin. Easy to use, doesn't break every two seconds, I can feel confident while using it
aybarscengaver@reddit
debian, stable and secure.
aledrone759@reddit
Debian, most of documentation of my software advised to it, so I did. Used Linux Mint before, so that wasn't much of a stretch.
The_Casual_Noob@reddit
On my main gaming PC, Fedora, because it is kept up to date, but is more user friendly than Arch. Also KDE is easy to adapt to when coming from windows 10.
On my dedicated game server and other computers at home like my HTPC, I'm running Linux Mint, because it's using old hardware anyway so I know it will be stable, especially since I don't need those computers for anything advanced.
VisualSome9977@reddit
NixOS. I just like declarativity and I use multiple machines so it's nice to be able to write a new config on one machine and just propagate it to the rest with no effort (like my vim config)
svxae@reddit
i started using linux with ubuntu back in 2007-- as it was the hottest shit in town back then. but i quickly got tired of their PPAs. so i switched to debian for their large repo. i've been using it since. if it ain't broke dont fix it i guess.
casep@reddit
Fedora, because I started using RedHat (20 years ago) so it was the natural transition. RedHat because that's what was used in Uni back then.
Journeyj012@reddit
Mint, because it was my first, and it hasn't broken yet
fellipec@reddit
Because it is the best, no questions.
Lapis_Wolf@reddit
Mint: Easy to use, things work
Survive2Win1234@reddit
arch because of end 4 dots // hyprland.
j-brn@reddit
NixOS because it's almost impossible to break it, and I like using the exact same setup for all of my systems. I also really like to use Nix flakes for the dev environments of all my projects, so I would install Nix anyway.
okktoplol@reddit
Arch; simple and fast.
it does what I need it to do. It has also been my main distro for 5 years at this point, so familiarity overall plays a big role
drlongtrl@reddit
Bazzite on my main "PC" and Fedora Onyx on my Thinkpad.
Bazzite was basically a given, since my main PC is actually a gaming handheld with a dock. And since I came to appreciate the fact that it is a fedora atomic distro at core, I opted for another fedora atomic for my thinkpad as well. Chose the budgie version just to mix it up a bit. Very happy with both.
turtleghandi@reddit
Distro hopped for many years (started with Fedora Core 1). I’ve stuck with Debian-based for a long time because I had too many issues with RPMs and dependency hell. Settled on Ubuntu for my work computer for stability and vendor support for commercial applications I need for work.
My personal laptop is running yiffOS because it’s very funny to me. Dual booting with Nyarch for the same reason plus the crazy amount of packages in AUR makes it easier to test things out.
_theWind@reddit
Manjaro! Everything worked out of the box on the first try. Audio, video, Bluetooth, graphics everything, Up-to-date packages. Back then in debian/ubuntu based distros you could have two versions of python; python 2 and 3, outdated packages etc etc. And most importantly I like bmenu, that's what has stopped me from switching to fedora. My terminal is everything, updating packages, playing media files, IDE, text editor. Fedora guys do you have bmenu in your repos?
Latter-Firefighter20@reddit
gentoo, it does what i want
zomgwtflolbbq@reddit
Can’t believe how far I scrolled to find gentoo. Two hours and no upvotes for you too. That database disaster really ended thst distro. It used to have all the best details about all the latest stuff. I still love it and it’s still the fastest if you tune it right. And the slowest if you accidentally recompile gnome or something daft.
free_help@reddit
I didn't know about that incident. They didn't recover the lost pages? Where can I find more about it?
zomgwtflolbbq@reddit
Happened in 2008. They had an amazing wiki. It got lost and there were no backups.
It used to be when you googled an esoteric Linux issue that forum would come up instead of stack overflow.
Then one day it was gone.
I can’t find any articles weirdly but I did find a Reddit thread with others talking about it
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/4ys03i/why_did_gentoo_peak_in_popularity_in_2005_then/
Latter-Firefighter20@reddit
despite the massive loss of users some time ago, gentoo does seem to be on a steady rise over the past 5 or so years. not sure if thats due to a growing interest or lower barriers to entry or something else, and its still not nearly as popular as it was in the earlier days, but it definitely has its place still. i only switched about 6 months or so ago, but the community feels pretty active, especially for such a niche distro.
i think a lot of people get the wrong impression of it due to the sheer number of people massively overstating the difficulty, which puts them off, so i see a hell of a lot of proper gentoo discussion get drowned out by "lol gentoo hard and useless, use arch" which annoys me. but yeah i love it. with a little effort, it can be made to do pretty much exactly what you want and perfectly tune to your hardware too. me and a small group of friends almost swear by it at this point :p
Wongfunghei@reddit
Linux lite. It works, so I stay with it.
BarryMT@reddit
It works well and is stable on my older and newer hardware.
AxolotlGuyy_@reddit
Fedora because its amazing for everything
Lesser_Gatz@reddit
I started with Fedora because it seemed like a nice blend being both updated and stable.
I switched to NixOS because I think it's neat.
die_Eule_der_Minerva@reddit
I use NixOS, Debian and Fedora on my different machines but in slowly transitionitioning everything to NixOS because I like the idea of only having to things once. On my desktop gaming pc I run nix and I am slowly building a nice config. On my study laptop I run Fedora with KDE because I need something that just works but is relatively up to date and on my servers I run Debian (TrueNAS Scale) and regular Debian because of the stability.
White_Wolf_21@reddit
Tuxedo OS, because I wanted a distro based on Ubuntu, with KDE, and with recent drivers and kernel.
Th3casio@reddit
Arch. Coz programmer socks?
Stunning-Mix492@reddit
I've always revolved around Debian, Fedora and Arch. I choose Debian for servers and critical desktops. Fedora for development and Arch for tinkering.
Big-Moose565@reddit
Bluefin - I like that the OS is super stable and auto updates. Am happy using flatpaks.
Used to be Arch, then my reasons were... Because I can do anything I need to on it, backed by an amazing community and documentation that is the best out there.
kastermester@reddit
I’m using NixOS, because I want my entire setup to be contained in code, meaning I can be somewhat confident that I can always get my system into a well known functioning state, and in the rare times issues do pop up I can revert back and figure out exactly what the issue was while using a functioning system.
It also let’s me share a good chunk of my setup for my servers.
Haghiri75@reddit
When I was on Desktop (from 2011 to 2020) I was mostly on Ubuntu, although I used openSUSE, Calculate, Fedora, etc as well. Since 2020, as I only use Linux on embedded devices, containers and servers I'm on Debian and Alpine.
Odd_Brain7492@reddit
Cachy.
i run an almost 10 year old laptop. enough said
Upstairs-Comb1631@reddit
Are you sure? Because since the summer, on my v2 CPU only Cachy OS won't boot.
Camo138@reddit
My 10 year old desktop runs arch really nice
Upstairs-Comb1631@reddit
Nice, but Cachy OS isnt Arch Linux.
Camo138@reddit
It’s built on arch Linux
Upstairs-Comb1631@reddit
That's true. And yet they are different. ;-)
ExPandaa@reddit
Initially picked arch because I love the bleeding edge nature and tinkering. Just moved to nix, the idea of a declarative system and perfect reproduceability and multi system config in one config sounded amazing too me.
Currently spending time rebuilding the system I had before, and doing it properly using flake and making modules. It’s a lot to learn but it’s very enjoyable
LcLz0@reddit
I started with Gentoo back in 2005ish because it seemed fun and like a good way to get a crash course, and I've just stayed with Gentoo since then. I've tried many other distros on my desktops, but there's always something that makes me miss Gentoo and go back to that. I have Fedora on my desktop right now, and Gentoo on my laptop, and although Fedora is nice I suspect I'll go back to being a 100% Gentoo household pretty soon.
It's just kinda hard to switch to another philosophy when you're used to how Gentoo handles it. And the amount of available packages is insane compared to many other distros. I know it's a meme that Gentoo users talk about package managers so much, but damn it Portage truly is a fantastic piece of software.
For servers I don't really care all that much, but typically prefer to avoid rolling releases there. I've worked with Ubuntu and different Red Hat flavours. I have a Tumbleweed server at home now, and a Proxmox with a couple of Rocky VMs. I'm planning on giving Fedora CoreOS a try soon though. When it comes to servers I just go with what fits the current situation.
einval22@reddit
My corporate runs on RHEL farm. Therefore I'm deeply RHEL trained. Therefore I'm also using Fedora DE at home.
indvs3@reddit
I started with ubuntu because of the widely available information as a result of years being the most popular distro. I figured that more use would've resulted in more documentation. I wasn't wrong, though the documentation wasn't better.
I then made the move to debian, enjoyed the manual work to get things up and running and then never had to think about any of it again. It's a relief to just be able to use a computer again for nothing other than what I want to use it for.
themeadows94@reddit
archinstall takes the laboriousness away from installing Arch, and the Arch Wiki is amazing. On Ubuntu I could never fix issues - which happened more often that with Arch! - but with Arch there is amazing documentation and I've been able to fix all but one problem myself in around 3 years of being on it. The Arch Forum came through for me on the last one.
ikbah_riak@reddit
Arch to learn and because it's default has no shovelware.
Aginor404@reddit
On servers: Debian because I know it best.
On most desktops: Mint, because it just works and there is a lot of software that runs on it (from Debian and Ubuntu) Also pretty stable and runs on most hardware, and reasonably close to Debian that I understand it fairly well.
On my gaming rig: CachyOS because of new hardware compatibility and performance.
lululock@reddit
I picked Debian because I was sick of constantly having to fix Arch on my 10+ computers.
Illya___@reddit
Arch becaus I want latest updates/support/improvements. It bites sometimes (Nvidia I am looking at you) but otherwise pretty good. Tbf not plain Arch, CachyOS cause additional optimizations and easier setup.
tsykinsasha@reddit
Linux Mint. Because it's easy to use, has all I need built-in and doesn't require tinkering. I was done with Windows BS, turns out most things work faster and better on Mint, especially multi-language keyboard.
It has been my daily driver for about a year now, not going back
glha@reddit
Mint, because cinnamon is what I expected gnome 2 to evolve. But it grew in my heart for being a really good and stable distro. Pretty happy with it.
QuickSilver010@reddit
I tried Kubuntu because it looked the nicest. Then fairly recently, switched to debian because i didnt like snaps and thought I can just eliminate the need for a debian based distro and just go straight to the source.
Chemical-Regret-8593@reddit
how is debian going?
QuickSilver010@reddit
Really good so far. Only issue I ran into is I had to install an additional app to use an old printer. I checked all available printer drivers on both Ubuntu and debain and seems like Ubuntu has a much larger list of them preinstalled. Other than that, no difference really. 10 months into debain 12. I'll switch to 13 pretty soon.
ImTheRealSlayer@reddit
Debian is bangin' I like how out of the way it is.
seeker_two_point_oh@reddit
That's how I felt for the first 6 years! I moved from Kubuntu to Arch then Arch to Fedora.
ang-p@reddit
Your mum told me to.
Naive-Low-9770@reddit
Fedora because I have a life outside of just Linux and honestly it's stable and everything works and I can ngaf
I use jakoolit's hyprland these days with a clean minimal config, gnome is near flawless with a few extensions
Though unfortunately I'm going to be traveling and going to need to go back to Mac OS bc nothing on the Linux/Windows space has anything comparable to a MBP rn with the power efficiency
I will miss it I can't lie but till I get a new base I will need to just go with it
UrbanGothGentry@reddit
After using Linux Mint for some years, until LM20 Cinnamon - it made sense to use the O.G. that Mint and Ubuntu is based on.
Which is, Debian. I use Debian 13 KDE. This is on my main tower PC.
The laptop is on OpenSuse Tumbleweed. I wanted to try a rolling distro that had the best form of stability (even though such a thing in the Linux world is a contradiction), so I can check out new features and apps. So far, it's been brilliant apart from having to do one rollback to a previous system snapshot one evening.
arf20__@reddit
Debian. Because I found Ubuntu too annoying to use, and I figured Debian wouldn't have that bullshit, and I stayed because it just kept working so fine and good
hakko504@reddit
I switch around every now and then, but I mostly use three distros, Xubuntu, MX Linux, and Alma Linux (which replaced CentOs)
My favourite is Xubuntu. Almost anything that works in normal ubuntu works, but with a better desktop.
MX was something I installed to check the difference between sysV init and systemD. Also on XFCE
CentOS/Alma Linux I used when I was working at a place that used exclusively Red Hat, and to get more aquainted with it, I installed the free versions at home.
tripanossoma_cruzes@reddit
I mostly use Fedora, but i prefer other distros.
I love Chimera Linux, but being musl and a hobby project have some drawbacks. So I dropped it.
I love Void and used it for years, but too being a small community have some drawbacks, mainly some important packages lagging behind. Dropped.
I love Gentoo and it tickes all my boxes, used for years, but can't afford waiting for compilation these days. Dropped.
I am probably end up using Arch, because while I prefer Fedora and OpenSuse Tumbleweed, with Arch I don't have to deal with package conflicts because of codecs and third party repositories.
But for those who want a minimal distro I vastly recommend OpenSuse and Fedora over arch because there is a flag to not install unnecessary dependencies (install_weak_deps on Fedora and onlyRequires on Suse) and it pulls way less packages than Arch. You can make as minimal as you want.
SG-3379@reddit
It's the one I was i am currently in the mood to use don't worry I will probably get board of looking at it in while
King_of_the_light@reddit
OpenSUSE, because of the music: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6sYHytyKN2-X93TurF3JptW8qSVm0DzA
neoneat@reddit
I tried almost 70 distro. Then I ended up with list 16 distro that I can use for all of my task. For your question...IDK. Really. Maybe when I was more noobie/newbie, I could answer it with more confident. But example, I have 3 PC, 1 run debian 1 run fedora 1 run gentoo. That's it.
LeeHide@reddit
Arch, because it just works and gets out of my way. Have not had to reinstall, dist-upgrade, or really mess with it unless I want to make changes. If I wanna make changes, I can just make them, no matter what it is, and there is no extra friction.
MyAltAccountNum1@reddit
Arch, because I like to have nearly full control of my computer
SamSualehh@reddit
Fedora 43, its just good I came from ubuntu > mint > kde plasma
SamSualehh@reddit
Tried all, i just find it more intuitive and everything i use just works on it
xAsasel@reddit
EndeavourOS. It’s just arch with a nice installer and some nice tools that I’d install anyhow. Easy to get up and running, works flawless.
myusernameblabla@reddit
Alma, as desktop, because rhel is my industry standard.
vulgar1171@reddit
EndeavourOS, I like arch and windows 10 stopped being supported
OkCarpenter5773@reddit
cachyos, because of all of the arch benefits mentioned above + a tiny bit of speed with heavy workloads + cachy repo with optimized packages
ObligationFit400@reddit
I chose arch due to the rolling release feature.
Super-Carpenter9604@reddit
Endeavour Arch but simple
Business_Bluejay8597@reddit
Void idk why
TwntyKnots@reddit
Xubuntu - cos it’s Ubuntu with XFCE. Stable, light, and highly customisable.
Vast_Umpire_3713@reddit
Ubuntu, for the simplicity and GUI.
HengerR_@reddit
CachyOS was recommended by a tech youtuber (SomeOrdinaryGamer channel) for gaming and I gave it a shot. I prefer it over Bazzite so I use it as my main OS.
Jwhodis@reddit
Mint, I like how it looks and dont have any major issues with it, no reason to switch.
ThingWeBreatheBender@reddit
Nobara. It has been pretty stable for me. And the guy who makes it also makes proton-GE which i like and use. Also the nobara driver manager has made using nvidia gpus very easy.
razorree@reddit
kubuntu - KDE looks good, ubuntu has biggest user base (tested by more people, easier to repair/fix if smth goes wrong)
Normal-Confusion4867@reddit
projectbluefin.io because immutable is honestly a really cool concept. Realistically, I'm probably going to move back to Ubuntu or Fedora or Tumbleweed or something soon just because I need engineering applications to "just work" instead of distroboxing.
hendrix-copperfield@reddit
Mint, because it was my first and it just works. Had a Toshiba Mini Click - which has 64 bit processor and a 32 bit bootloader, which is a pain. At the time there was one guy who made a customised distro that could actually start on the Toshiba Mini Click. Been a fan ever since.
XenonXZ@reddit
Gentoo, was a steep learning curve but i think that’s the best way
Fun-Future2922@reddit
NixOS — even though I don’t consider myself an advanced Linux user, I can say this distro makes things easier. I have a list of everything I installed in a single file, switching desktop environments is simple, and replacing the kernel is even easier — you just write its name. The distro runs smoothly, no bugs, and nothing has broken. For the first time, I don't feel the urge to switch to another distro.
mittfh@reddit
Arch - because it has no defaults (other than systemd) and as long as you can explain what your were doing when things went haywire, the community won't berate you for ruining a "non-standard configuration".
I started off with Mandriva (+ Xfce and Compiz), smoothly migrated to Mageia when that was released as the company behind Mandriva failed, but by v2 things were starting to break and v3 even more so - not helped by me trying to force everything to use ALSA as I liked having more granular control of my sound card mixer rather than just a single volume control (which didn't have any effect on my rear pair of speakers). The Conmunity didn't like my esoteric configuration.
I'd already visited the Arch Wiki numerous times, the Beginners Guide (as the Installation Guide was called then) seemed comprehensible, so I created an install media on a USB stick, and barring one hiccup (forgetting to make the stick bootable) haven't looked back since November 2012 (According to pacman.log).
Oh, and now I have Pipewire: what Pulse should have been, and I can easily direct stereo audio to both front and rear channels with qpwgraph. Still running Xfce + Compiz, with Cairo-dock in addition to the Xfce panels, Caja as my file manager, and Zsh for my terminal.
Data_Used@reddit
Nobara for gaming 🐀
Leather-Ad3618@reddit
Linux Mint because it does everything I need and gets out of my way, spiritually I yearn for slackware
Queasy-Sense2276@reddit
Bazzite I Switches from Windows 10 just a month ago. I play a lot of games and wanted a care FREE distros with good Nvidia gpu Support. So I Endes up with nobara am bazzite and choose bazzite for the first trial. So far it's a pleasant expiriance.
Psion537@reddit
I could use anything with a browser and emacs since I mostly type, code and browse.
But I mostly pick my workstation based on drivers and pain: - no NVIDIA? Fedora, since I work with .rpm and I have RHEL at work - NVIDIA? Arch based garuda for gaming and manjaro for everything else
My servers are fedora but the oldest hardware runs debian for ... survivability
DaylightAdmin@reddit
Fedora because it is new enough for gaming, stable enough for work. My PC needs to do both of this things.
If I want to tinker, I will use Arch.
If I want to not think about anything I use debian, that is why it is running on my servers.
Wheeljack26@reddit
Fedora offers good mix of updates and stability and i specifically run nobara with all gaming stuff already baked in on top of fedora
ElectronicFlamingo36@reddit
Debian. Because it's a VERY good entry point for beginners too whereas it's not overly automated and bloated like many other 'user-friendly' distros.
I learned Linux on this distro ('potato' back then), it gave some challenges in those early days where I needed the help of Yahoo (lol) and Google but it matured soooooo much meanwhile that I think it's a fully capable distro for beginners too while also satisfies advanced users due to not being a bloatware.. it's insane how small of a footprint a "fully fledged desktop distro" can have, my old retro P3 runs it while it's serving as a daily driver on my Ryzen config as well.
It just works out of the box and the 'stable' release with non-free + backports enabled is a joy to work with.
I use Cinnamon, I'm a traditional guy and I like how it's resembling a Windows 7 (or whichever you want 'til W11) feeling. Dualboot with a W10 for some gaming and the Adobe stack but that's all, the main companion is Debian on my daily PC (also serving as a NAS with ZFS, has ECC UDIMM installed and my Ryzen supports it).
No corporate shit, no bloatware, just a pure community distro which I'm VERY thankful for all the developers' efforts put into such an amazing ecosystem, with so many packages out of the box with apt (nala) :)
_ppaliwal@reddit
Kubuntu, it just works, I don’t have to worry about anything else and can get on with my work/life
MOVx86@reddit
Arch - I wanted to move from Windows to Linux and learn how to properly make use of what Linux can do. Had close to no knowledge about it besides recognising some distro names. Then I heard about that „Arch” thing and that it’s hard for beginners. Decided that the best way for me to learn would be to just dive straight into deep water. It worked and I just sticked with Arch after that.
IntangibleMatter@reddit
Pop!_OS, because it has sensible defaults for how I like to work, and if something breaks I know it’s my own fault rather than something to do with an update, and as such I’m able to fix it
Weekly_Victory1166@reddit
ubuntu, because at the time (now?) it was the most popular, so I figured it would be around for awhile.
soripants@reddit
i can install anything and everything on arch and i fine their file structure and package management the least infuriating
LotlKing47@reddit
As silly as it sounds, I went with opensuse because my dad uses it
And it was probably one of the first OS I ever interacted with when I was a child before switching to Windows for better gaming compat, so I roughly knew what I was getting myself into.
Now Windows 10 is slowly dying so I am bad on opensuse and so are my dad nd my siblings
I am considering trying out other OS on a virtual machine perhaps and Messing around because I love-hate tinkering with stuff
razerfang23@reddit
Bro surely farmed a lot of karma from this post😭🫡
drakata27@reddit
Switched from Ubuntu and Debian to Arch with Hyprland to try using a WM but not sure if I would stick with it might go back to Ubuntu
hurtfulthingsourway@reddit
Fedora KDE! HDR, VRR, Drag and Drop + I'm on bleeding edge, hardware Ubuntu has very bad issues with newer hardware. Fedora does not care like a much like a Honey badger.
Bennup@reddit
Ubuntu, because it was my first introduction to Linux (almost 20 years ago now) and I don’t currently have the time to muck around trying something new.
I would like to try arch or Debian one day, just gotta find the motivation
meowiec@reddit
I use Ubuntu because I have an old PC my friend put Lubuntu on, then I didn't use it for a couple years, couldn't update because EOL, made a bootable USB, forgot the L of Lubuntu, now Ubuntu.
1mmortalNPC@reddit
Arch because I like simplicity and control over my machine but then I installed omarchy because I didn’t want to customize it all myself, I lost a good part of the control over my machine but I achieved another level of simplicity.
snajk138@reddit
I'm on Fedora KDE since I like new things and a "modern feel", but I don't want to be on the bleeding edge and spend so much time troubleshooting. Also learning the Red Hat way to do things could be a good thing. At work we support Red Hat, Ubuntu and SUSE for the software we build, but I already feel pretty confident in Debian/Ubuntu, and SUSE is less common.
So far it works pretty well, though I have had some freeze-ups when waking from sleep and connected to a screen/dock through TB.
I have been using Debian for a while before on another machine, and it's rock solid, but a bit boring after a while.
I am planning to do a trial installation of Arch on an old X1 that I have lying around (without a keyboard since it broke, otherwise I'd probably use it a lot), mostly as a learning experience, but I need a longer period of free time to do that, and that hasn't happened yet.
Equivalent-Silver-90@reddit
Tiny Linux,like how really do all from scratch than have all prebuilt things
Realistic-Pepper-992@reddit
I use EndeavourOS. I found it to be the best balance in terms of general usage. Most of the things I need can be found on the AUR, everything just works, etc.
Stray_009@reddit
Fedora because.. err idk i'm a half mac user now and fedora works fine for me and i dont need to constantly update it
themanonthemooo@reddit
Depends on my hardware setup. Anything newer than 2020, I use Fedora KDE as it offers mostly up to date packages, stability with the large supporting backend and KDE is just "chefs kiss". For older hardware, I go for Linux Mint XFCE, Bodhi or Void.
Delicious_Recover543@reddit
From Ubuntu to Pop! to Manjaro. Been running that for three years now. Reason: it works great on my system. But at this point I could probably make most of the distributions work just as well..
Browncoatinabox@reddit
Debian, because I always used Ubuntu based distros but got annoyed at Ubuntu.
Imaxaroth@reddit
Fedora, because it's the first I found that I could make work out of the box (or at all) on my setup when I switched from windows last summer.
I tried Mint, as it was often recommended at the time, couldn't install the drivers for my 9070xt. Then pop! Os, it probably didn't like my 3 different displays, including one vertical, for on my main display the mouse was shown 20cm from where it really was.
PirateVilGB@reddit
I use Ubuntu on my laptop because it looks good on a laptop… not like a stock Mint where it looks like windows 95 😁🤷🏻♂️
valerielynx@reddit
Fedora because uh it works on my machine
NordschleifeLover@reddit
Arch on my desktop, because I like new features, and it's just easier to get any software with their fat repos + aur. Debian on my laptop, because it has to be stable and reliable.
Tough-Smile8198@reddit
I picked Fedora because I didn't want to waste my time tinkering with my system. And Manjaro I already had it installed on my main system 4 years ago, I stopped using it, but now it's my main OS again and I never tinker again.
autisticpig@reddit
I started with Slackware in the 90s. Found Debian and never left.
...I did flirt with free and open bsd, Gentoo, redhat, and others here and there but I always went back to slack and Deb.
Gdiddy18@reddit
Debian, stability and support was needed
CarryOnRTW@reddit
I'm on EndeavourOS as I wanted to run Arch but also wanted an easy install. Totally happy with it and the resources of it's vibrant community.
jnd-cz@reddit
Many years ago I ended up with Arch because it was the next step in tinkering with Linux, it was already the cool choice, and it had large community around with forum, wiki, irc (freenode days) support. Nowadays I slightly upgraded to EndeavourOS because it has nice and simple gui installer and one click updater which is more convenient.
On servers I tried Debian. Install images are readily available everywhere, support is universal, it runs without hiccups for months and years. Updating is quick and easy, also bevause there are no breaking changes within the release. And upgrading to major version is almost the same. If you stick mostly to the official repos then it's question of pasting couple commands, waiting 5-10 minutes while giving couple confirmations and it's done. I tried FreeBSD upgrade and it's a pain, not very efficient!
offline-person@reddit
fedora workstation
i had installed and used many linux distros earlier with dual, 3 and 4 boot on bare metal, where windows 10 pro was my primary os.
one fine day i decided to switch to linux as my primary os. i always had the thought of doing it. but it was delaying. i have done some research to choose a good linux distro which will be there withstanding my craziness.
then i ended in fedora workstation. i am a kde lover but i just want to make use of my laptop resources for smoothness. so i went into it.
i also had an option on atomic flavours but it was too high for me to have such patience. then i dropped it.
BeefyMiracleWhip@reddit
Desktops? Fedora KDE (Or SteamOS in the case of my deck)
Almost anything else (servers, rpi/sbc, embedded)? Debian/Armbian/Raspbian. Shits stable and hella compatible…
imwhateverimis@reddit
EndeavorOS, mainly because it was the first thing suggested to me after my debian install killed itself for the third time over nvidia-persistenced.service or something at 1:30am. I plan on moving to CachyOS as soon as I get my hands on a 1TB internal SSD (cheaper than external SSD, easier to install than M.2) bc my HDD is painfully slow
porridge111@reddit
Ubuntu, because its the only free distro supported by Microsoft Intune, which I need for work
WesternPonderer@reddit
I was on Arch for years and I loved the possibilities and freedom it provided. It was also very good for my work (software development). But after the years passed I realized I don't have the time to keep all my configs up-to-date, which affected my work. I also realized I no longer needed the extra freedom and possibilities.
So I changed to Fedora and I've made very little changes to the system. Mainly I have customized the DE to suit my workflow, but those changes are very minimal and they should create no issues after installing updates. Frankly, Fedora just works for me perfectly.
But using Arch taught me a lot of how computers and Linux work, it was very cool. I might come back to it some day.
catsoph@reddit
i chose endeavor because it's arch but easier
merdaReddit@reddit
Linux Mint because it's easier and I don't like Ubuntu tablet like GUI
UnfairDictionary@reddit
Debian I chose for the stability. I don't want to deal with things not working properly. But it lacked some of the features, so I installed Ubuntu on my second PC. It is a good compromise between painless, feture rich and stable. While I am a nerd, I do not enjoy fighting my systems every day I want to do something.
kolpator@reddit
If its not bleeding edge hardware, Debian is the way. If its bleeding edge then arch variants.
Phydoux@reddit
When I switched to Linux full time, I started with Linux Mint Cinnamon. I was most familiar with the Debian/Ubuntu command line structure through using Linux part time before the big.move in 2018.
Then I was watching these videos on YouTube about this thing called Arch. It starts out as a basic, completely stripped down system with just the kernel and some basic applications to make it function. That's it. No GUI, not a whole lot of terminal programs. Just a basic shell of Linux. I kind of liked that premise a lot. Building your own system from the ground up. Having an empty shell to start with. Essentially like building a computer (which I've done this plenty of times since my first PC). So, I was quite attracted to that.
I also switched to a Tiling Window Manager when I switched to Arch. I'm the type of person who, figuratively speaking, likes to jump through the fire, covered head to toe in gasoline. Not knowing how to put the fire out but finding a good but quick solution for doing so.
friciwolf@reddit
I started with Kubuntu. Ubuntu, because it seemed a standard choice and KDE because I never really liked GNOME and wanted to try something new (beyond XFCE, Cinnamon). I loved it, until Canonical started pushing snaps and I became more and more confident with linux.
I hated snaps. Also, the system was misbehaving after some time -- I don't really like some Ubuntu philosophy choices. On Kubuntu, all (probably with some exceptions) systemd services are enabled by default, which increased my system's startup and shutdown time enormously. Then, the non-LTS upgrades were released broken. PPAs are a hit-or-miss. I realised I need something more cutting-edge and stable; a system which ships the most updated software regularly and does not break on the way.
So I moved to Arch. And I love it, it's the perfect system for my taste.
robinator18pro@reddit
Running Mint on the work laptop. Linux because the type of development I do was traditionally alot easier on Linux. Kinda still true, but other platforms have gotten a lot of support the last 10 ish years. So they have sort of caught up. Mint because I need my work laptop to be stable and just work, and I like it.
Mk3d81@reddit
Debian, because Debian, you know..
More_Dependent742@reddit
Mint because why make complex when simple do job
LowIllustrator2501@reddit
OpenSUSE Leap https://get.opensuse.org/leap/16.0/ because of:
it's based on SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE), benefiting from extensive testing and enterprise-grade stability.
great out of the box experience. I don't have to do a lot after installation. I like KDE integration, BTRFS, snapshots, flatpak . The only issue are codecs.
Large community, long standing brand - meaning that if I have an issue there is high chance to find a solution and less likely developers will get bored with it and stop developing.
Updates are frequent enough, so I don't feel like I'm missing on features, but not constant flow like in rolling releases.
SUSE is German company, I prefer EU based companies over US based Redhat
Grobbekee@reddit
I went to Kubuntu because Linux Mint dropped the KDE edition.
michaelpaoli@reddit
Debian Social Contract, The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG), excellent quality distro and track record, and (I) highly well researched and tested, etc. That was 1998. Zero regrets, still far and away my top choice. Though I do sometimes put up with others, e.g. like when well paid to do so, and not uncommonly helping various Linux folks with their various Linux distros, etc.
r/lostredditors
SnillyWead@reddit
Debian Xfce. Stable not old. I don't need the latest and greatest. I want something that gets out of my way and for me Debian Xfce does that.
yahbluez@reddit
As a long time linux user and less desktop hopper, i moved from arch/manjaro back to debian with my new PC.
I did that because i do not like the windows like weekly or more often updates. If you take updates seriously you need to read the release notes and take that time.
Beside of rare security critical bugs there is no need to update system stuff frequently.
packof_cards@reddit
Debian. Because it just werks from the get-go and doesn’t randomly break down the line.
Dorian-Maliszewski@reddit
Started on Debian, then Arch because it has more up to date packages (and install challenge) then I thought I wanted more GUI tools to update so I switched to Fedora then I missed my old "yay -Syu". I think I will stop hopping because Arch is my go to now. But distro hopping between Arch based may be just because I love test and compare
nomad01290@reddit
centos/almalinux - started with the vps provided debian/ubuntu images didn't have the required packages to compile something I needed(ironically the centos 7 was released earlier than both the versions offered (16 or 18 for Ubuntu and 8/9 for debian)
Learning on centos actually made me understand the basics and security considerations a lot better and the docs usually translate better to centos than debian.
cthart@reddit
Debian. I started using Proxmox at work a decade ago, and since then have standardised on Debian for new VMs and containers since Proxmox is just Debian with extra packages. So now we have one less OS to worry about.
JohnDuffyDuff@reddit
Ubuntu LTS for work because it is stable, simple, has great native driver management (even updates my laptop bios when there is a new update), and Gnome is just perfect for work, with dynamic workspaces and very natural shortcuts.
CachyOS with KDE for my gaming machine, I tested a lot of distributions and DE and this is just the best in terms of overall gaming performance and smoothness (with Intel + Nvidia RTX 3080), and also the most lightweight (takes twice less VRAM as Fedora KDE after login for instance).
Happy_Phantom@reddit
A mouse appeared and chose to live in my back yard. It stared at me through my bedroom window. I thought my German Shepherd dog would kill first chance she got, but that hasn’t happened as expected.
It was clearly a sign from heaven that my time distro hopping was at an end and that I should choose….
xubuntu
_Arthxr@reddit
Wanted to test out the nixos hyprland combo back while I was using kde. Decided to fulltime the nix setup. I can't deal with the alt tab hell
da_peda@reddit
Endeavour, because I wanted Arch with a bit of polishing. SteamOS, because it came with the Deck. Debian (Proxmox), because I run a home lab server. Alpine, because I want to run my Docker Swarm on something lightweight.
NBGReal@reddit
Fedora. It's easy, modern and pretty vanilla when it comes to DE additions.
Darnassiano@reddit
Ubuntu user for years, but I was getting deeper into oper source and I felt like canonical was driving the project to opposite direction. It was the right time to take the next step and switch to Debian.
Vidanjor20@reddit
after ruining my arch installation I decided to just install fedora but new version is so buggy and messy I just installed ubuntu lts, just configured it to my liking and everything works.
Aleix0@reddit
Just out of curiosity what issues were you having with Fedora? It's been the most polished distro for me and I have gone through several major updates without issue (I'm on GNOME workstation edition).
Vidanjor20@reddit
thats the thing, most of the time its super smooth but whenever a new version releases it stays buggy for at least a month. happened to me from 40-41, 41-42 and now I cant even boot the iso unless I disable my nvidia gpu. After the installation it still feels clanky tho. Other than that fedora repos feel really small when there is a deb or ppa for almost everything and flatpaks are still not perfect for some packages.
Aleix0@reddit
It's not bad advice to wait a month or so before upgrading to a new release to avoid those early bugs. Nvidia drivers will always be a little clanky on linux unfortunately, especially on bleeding edge distros that constantly update the kernel.
The Ublue and Bazzite projects seem promising if you want to distrohop. They are based on Fedora atomic. These specifically have images with nvidia drivers baked in, and the nature of immutable should make upgrades a breeze. Been considering the leap myself for a while now.
Upstairs-Comb1631@reddit
Look at COPR (Fedora). Some packages you can find in Suse OBS. ;-)
Kelzenburger@reddit
Maybe you should try Rocky? Its like using Debian but with RHEL tools and native flatpak support for latest versions of apps.
Inevitable_Score1164@reddit
EndeavourOS. It just works. Been using it on my gaming PC for years and have never had an issue. Tried it after repeated issues on PopOS and never left.
nevon@reddit
Same. I wanted a rolling release distro that would work out of the box but still allow me to customize it over time.
T0ysWAr@reddit
For security reasons: QubesOS
It is not strictly Linux but I run mainly Linux Qubes
Tiliche_Oax23@reddit
Yo uso Knoppix en una USB y con eso tengo para trabajar todo lo necesario.
Configuré un espacio de almacenamiento y tengo todo en una memoria de 32 Gb, además de poder subir a mi cuenta de Google archivos que deseo tener a la mano en otros dispositivos.
on_a_quest_for_glory@reddit
I picked Alpine Linux because I want to dedicate the maximum amount of resources to the programs I use
ThePi7on@reddit
Arch because I like the DIY aspect, I like the idea of choosing every single component of my OS, I like pacman and love the AUR. I like spamming
yayand updating everything at least once a day.And one of the things that I love about Linux in general, is that the (few) times that something breaks, I learn so much fixing it.
For example: I didn't know you're supposed to rebuild -git packages explicitly or they will happily drift out of date, and because of that I ended up with Hyprland unable to start 😂
Inevitable_Gas_2490@reddit
Fedora, because I'm a software dev that needs modern dependencies and packages. Initially I was trying to use NixOS for a while but I quickly learned that it doesn't play nice with cmake so Fedora, as an up to date, well tested distro was my choice
One-Transportation4@reddit
I use openbsd because I wanted a unix system with only the very basic defaults, no bloat, secure, and an easy ability to enable/insall what I need. I spent YEARS distro hopping only to have my distro include a bunch of unnecessary shit I never used/needed and a bunch of crap enabled by default. I found that I just much prefer the philosophy of *bsd over linux, and I actually think MOST power users that use linux would be happier with BSD if they took the time to learn it (which isn't difficult if you know basic linux sysadmin tools).
OpenBSD was like a godsend when I actually took the time to try it.
kurmudgeon@reddit
I've been using Zorin OS for nearly 10 years now. The original reason was I wanted a very lightweight, yet feature complete and good looking distro. Zorin OS Lite fit that bill perfectly for use on all my VMs. Then when I started using Linux full time on my other PCs, I naturally went with Zorin OS and haven't had any reason to look elsewhere. This OS is amazing looking, easy to configure, smooth, and has one of the best out-of-the-box desktop experiences of any distro I've tried.
DigitalDunc@reddit
LMDE because everything works, it’s feature complete and there’s no drama.
masutilquelah@reddit
CachyOS. I don't remember. it was a year ago but I chose it over EndeavourOS. EndeavourOS had something I didn't like but I don't remember what it was.
heslia@reddit
Debian because it is stable
Leniwcowaty@reddit
LMDE. I just wanted to try it out after the release of LMDE 7, and it just so happened that it works out of the box with no problems, and I don't have to worry or fix it ever.
Revolutionary-Yak371@reddit
Alma Linux has the best localization for other language like Serbian, Hebrow, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Bulgarian, and other Unicode.
Rocky, Fedora and OpenSuse has not that.
Alma Linux is official CERN distro.
FreeBSD is very good alternative to Linux. FreeBSD is very light, very close to Void Linux RAM usage.
Farnhams_Legend@reddit
Nobara, because the dev said he wanted to make gaming easy for his dad
Alaknar@reddit
Garuda Linux (Mokka edition). Because I'm a gamer, had issues with Kubuntu and Tuxedo OS, and this one just worked out of the box. Also: looks pretty.
drostan@reddit
I needed out of windows, I did was many do, dual boot mint
Mint was a little too windows-y and gave me plenty of trouble (likely due to the dual boot and nvidia) and when Trixie came out it felt like serendipity.
Debian works, kde is super nice looking, fixing stuff feels normal while in mint it felt like if you had to change something you failed somewhere
I don't need anything bleeding edge, I don't need complete handholding, I need something that works and that I can play with and break on my own term...
I am a happy debian user.
gotkube@reddit
Slackware. Saw the word “slack” and thought it might be easier for beginners. I was very wrong, but I’ve learned a ton about Linux by doing so. It’s been my daily driver for over 20yrs now.
ImEatingSeeds@reddit
CachyOS is great because it combines the best of Arch Linux while being easy to install and use. It's really fast, thanks to their optimizations, and getting Steam and your favorite games up and running only takes a few clicks.
renghen_kornel@reddit
Cachy os
chris32457@reddit
I'm just getting back into Linux again, for like the fourth time. Let me know if I should be doing something different...
I just installed Rocky Linux on a laptop for sys admin practice. I'm thinking about going Linux Mint on another laptop for general use. I'm probably getting a Pine64 PineTab 2 and putting either Kali or BlackArch on that for offensive security.
D-S-S-R@reddit
Tumbleweed on my laptop cause I want the newest plasma packages right away and fedora on my main pc because years back I bought an NVIDIA gpu and for some reason the driver acted up the least on fedora
erdbeerpizza@reddit
Fedora + KDE: Security features (Secure Boot, SELinux, activated firewall etc.), rather cutting edge and well maintained (pushing updates not too early), well-known. Non-free and Nvidia support are rather on the downside but with a few extra steps well manageable. KDE for the ability to customize and being rather Windows-like than Mac-like (this is pure personal preference). Negatives: Automatic roll-back functionality integrated from scratch would be great. Update cycle may be too fast for some people.
LadyPerditija@reddit
For my gaming rig: Bazzite. I want something that just works with the least amount of tinkering possible and is hard to break. It has fantastic hardware support and KDE environment. I don't use fancy RGB, a simple full HD monitor and no VR, and the games I play work flawlessly.
For Server I use Alma Linux / RHEL for special stuff. It's just what I'm used to, I can work with selinux fine and I like the other programs that comes with that distro.
codingzombie72072@reddit
Ubuntu, back then it was Ubuntu = Linux for me.
After a while, did a lot of distro hopping and eventually stuck to Ubuntu. There were hatred towards Ubuntu for multiple reasons like snap, amazon fiasco. It just worked for me and i liked how it came out of the box with little of customisation with Gnome, You could have thousands reason to hate Ubuntu and i am not going to defend it. Everybody has their choice.
Dodahevolution@reddit
My home machines with Linux (gaming desktop/ P50 Thinkpad) both run Arch. Gaming desktop gas a w11 partition but that's for a twice a week game session at night (arma3), m2 MacBook air and M1 studio run whatever latest macos is, but they are pretty much solely for DAW work.
Homelab servers run proxmox. VMs run Ubuntu LTS releases. I do have a windows and arch vm that use gpu passthrough on one of the homelab servers but that's not a frequent use.
Lopsided-Match-3911@reddit
It booted others didn't
GoldenCryer101@reddit
Currently on Arch with KDE, jumped between that and fedora for a bit and committed to Arch with a friend (because hehe i use arch btw, we are morons) and never looked back. Slapped the cachyos bore kernel on and pretty happy with gaming performance.
ItsMelodyy@reddit
Ubuntu. Its what I was first introduced to by a family member. I haven't really tried any others until i had to for school. Which was Mint if I remember right, or OpenSUSE.
For me Ubuntu just works. I haven't had any issues with it that werent user induced so I'm fine with it.
augustuscaesarius@reddit
Mint, because it's got the goods of Ubuntu without its crap. And because it's X11 which I need for very frequent remote desktopping.
livinin82@reddit
Endeavouros, because I have owned a Steam Deck the past few years and fell in love with Arch and KDE.
retardedGeek@reddit
Endeavour OS - arch but not arch
Hrafna55@reddit
As a desktop OS, LMDE7 because I like the desktop environment and I don't need the Ubuntu layer. Yes, I know you can get the same DE in Debian proper but it is not as good looking.
For a server OS it is Debian all the way. Boring in the best way.
Puzzleheaded_Move649@reddit
cachyos => primary gaming and arc based because steam deck is arch based. My goal was as equal as other as other distros I use
ericcodesio@reddit
NixOS because I was tired that my OS installs eventually collapsing over time by my tweaking.
I've run Linux on my personal machines for 25 years and every install eventually becomes covered in the detritus of old packages. I'll install packages that I tried once and forget to uninstall. I'll configure a service, eventually stop using it, and forget to clean up /etc/.
It gets to the point where the best course of action is to claim OS bankruptcy and start over with a new install.
This doesn't happen as much on NixOS. The system space is all managed declaritively. NixOS makes good on the promise that tools like Ansible and Chef failed to deliever on. In
Unfortunately, NixOS is weird. It is sometimes a pain to use when software doesn't work well with its way of doing things. Sometimes I'll try to do something that is trivial on another distro, but is a whole distraction to get working in NixOS.
NixOS is paradigm shifting. NixOS is hard to go back from. I wouldn't recommend it unless you need what it is selling, and can live with the curse of never being content with another distro ever again.
NPC-3662@reddit
Ubuntu, I like being boring. 💁♂️
seeker_two_point_oh@reddit
Fedora, because I administered Ubuntu servers for 4 years and I wanted to install Arch on my NAS/Desktop to have something fresh. After 6 years I got tired of Arch needing manual intervention for some updates. I installed Debian on my desktop. After 4 years, I got tired of packages being too out of date for the biannual hardware update and a driver update being 6mo down the road.
I've been on Fedora for 2 years now. I don't know what the last straw will be for me. I updated to Fedora 42 and 43 via GUI and it worked fine.
FraserYT@reddit
Fedora. Because it seemed the best balance of stability/cutting edge. I like shiny things and don't mind getting my hands dirty when things break but mostly need it to get out of the way and just work
niiiiisse@reddit
Tumbleweed! Fast, modern, stable, great KDE support, great community
Commercial-Mouse6149@reddit
MX Linux XFCE.
It wasn't my first, but I first stumbled across the DE, and it's context menu (right-click), and its bottom Applications menu. But MX Linux struck me as a very well put together distro with a very handy tool box for all sorts of admin tasks, not to mention the Conky desktop widget, and an overall straight out-of-the-box great first impression.
As a mid-weighted distro, I also found it to be the only distro that installed on just about everything without any problems, with everything working OOTB. You really, really can't go wrong with it, and its prolonged pole position on distrowatch's ranking up until sometime earlier this year, was well deserved, as its obvious that its maintainers go out of their way to make it a first class distro. And don't get me started on its documentation. It's one of the most comprehensive that I've seen so far.
Phreakears@reddit
Debian because of their loyalty to free software. I also use freeBSD on a backup machine, just because I wanted to try that. Ok I started with Corel Linux 😆
toyfreddym8@reddit
So I was semi taught how to install arch, but I really didn't want to deal with trying to, so I just installed Bazzite, and mostly because I wanted to try it out, even if the laptop I use can't really play games
datscubba@reddit
CatchyOS because I bought a new computer and didn't want to set it up Arch wise. Catchy because I heard it works well with games and has its own gaming repo.
Repulsive-Pen-2871@reddit
I use fedora because I like it
Mordynak@reddit
Picked arch years ago out of curiosity.
Really enjoy the simplicity of it, and the damn things rock solid.
r4ppz@reddit
"Every docs leads to Arch wiki so why not use Arch" Thats me 9 months ago
Stickhtot@reddit
Fedora, because the name sounded cool and after touring Debian and Arch distros, my next stop was Fedora.
stormdelta@reddit
Gentoo, because where Arch treats flexibility as throwing the pieces on the floor and yelling at you, Gentoo has actual frameworks for customization and flexibility with thoughtful CLI tooling and a much nicer community.
Easily mixing stable + unstable package sets is also way nicer for having a stable system over time while still being able to have support for newer features when you need them, and portage in general is a much more careful package manager than pacman is.
OneBakedJake@reddit
Gentoo, because I can everything I want, and then some.
OpenRC + Hardened Profile & SELinux with absolute butter smoothness and stability.
liberforce@reddit
I had a couple of failed attempts back in 2002. Redhat 6.2, Debian... Mandrakelinux 9.1 got me in the train. Mandrakelinux got renamed into Mandrva Linux. Then the company went out of business and community based forks emerged. I got into Mageia and did stick with it. The distro throughout the years was rock solid, and rarely breaks. I don't need all the new stuff, I want something that just work, with a vanilla GNOME, and Mageia does it well.
Crimson_Kang@reddit
From long time non-IT windows user who went straight into Bazzite with only a vague idea of how linux works I love it but I swear the permissions issues are going to give me a stroke. I get why they're on a gaming based OS but damn it feels like it causes more issues than it prevents. Staying here for the moment but going to try other OSes on my old windows SSD I reformatted.
thegreenwonder@reddit
CachyOS. I wanted something gaming focused cause that is my main use case. After distro hopping I realized I Ioved the parts of it that are Arch as well. I like to tinker.
duva_@reddit
Also landed there after years of manjaro
MONGSTRADAMUS@reddit
I still haven't found if I want cachy os or bazzite as my main distro in mostly gaming setup. Right now leaning more towards cachy os , but I do like simplicity of bazzite where I don't need to add a bunch of launch options when I launch games. I am still trying to figure out if immutable distro is safer for me or not. Cachy os does a lotl of snapshots with almost every change i make so maybe that should be enough if I mess things up, I already use pikabackup to backup my home directory.
joeyb908@reddit
You really don’t need to make changes for most games. They both are going to heavily rely on Proton for 99% of your games.
MONGSTRADAMUS@reddit
somehow for the two games I play the most somehow resolution isn't correct , I have to use game scope to have it run at 1440p , it defaults to 4k for me it happens in both path of exile 2 and arc raiders for me. So i need to use game scope to fix it in cachy os. In bazzite it somehow recognizes my monitor properly 2560x1440 144 hz. I have tried multiple version of proton to see if thats the issue proton-cachy, proton experimental , and proton-ge.
I will admit it could be user error where I am doing something wrong since am running a dual monitor setup , so I also need to set up to make sure mouse stay only on the main monitor.
joeyb908@reddit
Odd issue, I don’t think I’ve run into it but interesting to see it doesn’t happen on Bazzite.
MONGSTRADAMUS@reddit
I am trying to do some testing day to day which I like better, I can't really tell that much of a difference game play wise between the two to be fair. I think both are pretty good at playing most games on either steam or heroic.
It comes down more to if I want an immutable distro where I am using mostly flatpaks most of the time with the occasional distrobox, as opposed to cachy os where I have more options with official repos and flatpaks. I am still wary of AUR because i don't really know what I am supposed to be looking for which could blow up my system or security wise.
torfeld6@reddit
Fedora has the latest Gnome version
abel_maireg@reddit
Manjaro, because it just works.
Riponai_Gaming@reddit
Arch because i wanted a completely customized experience that is tailored to me and only me, each short cut or program installed has some value and isnt randdom bullshit i will never use, each script has a purpose i have it fulfilling and so on. I have absolute control over my system, it will do every process as i command it to do. Also the speed at which my system moves, the ram efficiency, battery efficiency etc, its been a year since i moved to arch and my system has NEVER crashed, not even once, all programs run extremely fast and except some games, nothing misbehaves or has some wacky woohoo issues.
Tldr, i need absolute control over my system so its tailored for me and only me and i enjoy the better performance.
gliese89@reddit
Arch for personal computers (just 2, desktop and laptop). And then I use Debian for servers, vms, and containers. They both have extensive and good documentation.
ZunoJ@reddit
Gentoo because I want more control than pacman has to offer while still not having to handbuild everything
ShadowFlarer@reddit
Is kinda of a long story, but basicaly i had audio or video/drive issues eith all the distros i tried, i was almost giving up the idea to try Linux for good but out of spite i installed Arch and everything just worked so i stayed.
Henry_Fleischer@reddit
It was pretty arbitrary. I didn't really understand what getting newer packages would actually do for me, and I wanted something stable I'd barely have to touch for years, aside from actually using the thing. So I picked Debian.
Marth-Koopa@reddit
It has a Chameleon mascot
lateralspin@reddit
Maybe people get bored for some reason.
absolutecinemalol@reddit (OP)
sure, but as a daily driver?
Playful-Hat3710@reddit
I've done it before.....if your hardware is supported and the software you want is compatible, it's perfectly fine.
that being said, for linux/bsd, I would usually go debian before anything else
Steve_Streza@reddit
If you search "why" on r/freebsd you'll get a bunch of people answering why they use it. Probably will get a better answer there than here.
One recurring theme BSD likers say in those threads (based on what I see) is that BSD feels more like a complete operating system and Linux feels more like a bunch of parts that are bolted together by a distro.
myrsnipe@reddit
Early 2000s I ran Slackware, then fedora after getting using it at university, later Ubuntu because it was what worked on my laptop at the time. I've used Debian on older systems and finally jumped onto arch after deciding to redo my entire setup.
There was an attempt to use pop!_os but I had two separate incidents where it fully corrupted my HDD after updates, first time in nearly 20 years of using linux, and twice in a short timespan as well.
veryidioticly@reddit
Linux Mint. Everything that I need is usable OOTB.
Tamaaya@reddit
Because, at the time, no other distro had anything like apt-get.
ChrisofCL24@reddit
I have chosen bedrock Linux with an arch btw base, I chose it because I get to play Frankenstein with the package formats.
HijackedDNS@reddit
I was told to use Redhat by a college professor I a programming class in the 90s in order to get full credit on assignments. So I used it and then one day, it went private and added a fee to use it so I moved to Fedora. Been on that ever since.
Feuge I can’t stand programming but do realize that I need to program my system to make it do what I want.
tacomato@reddit
Arch on the computers I use everyday, the extensive documentation makes it easy to solve problems.
Debian on the server stuff, it's the most stable and never needs need attention.
___Cisco__@reddit
I come from a Slackware background. Used it many years (since version 13.37, until early days of version 15) in fact I love Slackware, but it is very "time consuming." I've tried Void but finally sticked to Arch. I love a minimal installation and being able to fully customize it, yet I don't want to spend weekends and afternoons compiling and setting up some app/driver, reason I left Slackware behind.
1369ic@reddit
Also started out with Slack, but with 8.1. Used it for a bunch of years, but also distro hopped on a second computer. I stuck with Void because it's a lot like Slackware but also a bit like Arch with the frequent updates and really good package manager. I also stayed with it because it's a no-drama distro. It doesn't break on me, there's no Internet drama from its users or people who hate it, and I don't have to worry about systemd. I've obviously used distros with systemd, but I find the arguments against it compelling, probably because I started as a Slackware user.
mudslinger-ning@reddit
I have been through a few over the years.
Mint: simple, windows-like, stable, convenient fallback if nothing else works as expected.
Manjaro: desired it for the rolling release feature to keep more up to date on software.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed: continuing the rolling release experience but with a more slower/stable update cycle.
Then back to Mint for returning to overall simplicity.
For the projects on the side:
MX Linux: lighter on memory use, live session integrates automatically to VirtualBox guest utils (bidirectional clipboard, auto screen resizing) when in virtual machine. Great for sandboxed web browsing.
Upstairs-Comb1631@reddit
Look at OpenSuse Slowroll.
https://www.reddit.com/r/openSUSE_Slowroll/
The_frozen_one@reddit
Different distros on different devices:
Zealousideal_Break_7@reddit
I used cachyOS for now, I switched from fedora because I was curious why it got so popular but everything works and I have no interest in leaving for a while. Fedora wasn't bad by any means either. I liked fedora over the other distros I tried which were MX linux, Debian, and Ubuntu. Linux mint didn't install when I had first gotten the g14 and the drivers and everything were new. But they likely have a fix for it now but I don't plan to distro hop. I had audio issues with the others for basically the same reason and they didn't sound as clear as the speakers in windows 11 at the time. Those issues are likely all fixed but I haven't gone back to check.
R3volt75@reddit
Got recommended to use arch, nothing works really well, but i like using pacman.
Fistofpaper@reddit
Aside from work servers, I have 3 laptops running ParrotOS (pentesting), Ubuntu Budgie (Intel MacBook), and Linux Mint Mate (intro to Linux machine/guest pc).
punkwalrus@reddit
Kubuntu. One, Ubuntu infrastructure is supported by major vendors. Two, KDE is my favorite DE.
phillip-lfg@reddit
Bazzite. I was dual booting Ubuntu 2404 and Windows 11 since last year with Ubuntu as my main. Kept having issues with new updates breaking grub/secure boot or display issues on my Nvidia card.
Decided to give Bazzite a shot and have been using it has my daily for everything, gaming, school work, web browsing, coding...its incredibly stable and has been working out of the box for myself.
Installed on my wife's 2019 Macbook T2 Ubuntu and its been really great for her and giving new life to an aging laptop.
AlphaAcraze@reddit
i use ubuntu because i like gnome. used omarchy for few days i liked it but couldn't stay on it for long and switched back to ubuntu 24 lts. daily driving it for more than 2 months
imacmadman22@reddit
My Linux timeline:
Corel Linux with WordPerfect - a command line installation, what an utter waste of time. It was kludgy, slow and full of bugs. The primitive PC I had to run it on didn’t help much and it crapped out shortly thereafter.
Mandrake Linux - absolutely night and day difference from Corel, an absolute joy to use, fast, easy to use and all of the hardware worked like it was supposed to. Of course, having a new computer to run it on made a big difference.
SuSE Linux - it required a little more effort to install, but the results were about the same as Mandrake.
Red Hat Linux - easy to install and endlessly customizable, it was fun just to spend hours playing with different desktop environments and windows decorations. The downside was that you needed proprietary drivers for whatever kind of media files you wanted to use and that meant a lot of time spent in the command line.
Ubuntu Linux - Now I could play video and music properly without poking around endlessly searching to find out what I needed to watch video and hear sounds on my computer.
Linux Mint - Now everything just works like it’s supposed to work.
I also tried several other Linux distributions, but none of them became the main one, they were just experimental and not really going to replace Mint on my computers permanently. I have also tried Slackware, Puppy, Debian, Peppermint, BlackBox, CrunchBang, Damn Small Linux, Tiny Core and more.
PBJellyChickenTunaSW@reddit
Endeavouros because I wasn't arsed setting up arch from scratch
Temujin_123@reddit
Pop OS. Ubuntu based and like the bells/whistles for the laptop it comes with.
zootbot@reddit
Have you tried cosmic yet
Temujin_123@reddit
Not yet. But looking forward to it. Don't want to be early adopter on my daily driver.
joedotphp@reddit
Agreed. I use the beta on my laptop and it's pretty slick. Really looking forward to the stable version!
4xtsap@reddit
What's wrong with Alma and Rocky on a desktop?
I use Alma since I use RedHat products for more than 20 years.
nbtm_sh@reddit
Fedora. Our servers at work run RHEL so it’s just personal familiarity
wav10001@reddit
I actually started on a now-defunct distro called ChaletOS. It was based on Ubuntu and marketed as a good “Windows-to-Linux” transition option. At the time Ubuntu 16.04 was the current LTS, and ChaletOS made the switch pretty painless. Everything worked, and I eventually found solid Linux replacements for all the Windows programs I depended on.
After getting comfortable, I decided it was time to try the distro ChaletOS was built on, so I moved to Ubuntu directly. I started with 18.04, stuck with it for quite a while, and eventually wiped everything and installed 22.04. That was about four years ago—and now I’m just about due for another upgrade. :)
Hairy_Subject_1779@reddit
I used KDE, mostly because most of the applications that I like were developed by various KDE teams, then I was like yeah these work on all the other distros too, so trying out Ubuntu because it just works and I don't have too much to tinker with. I am also waiting till some more developments in the UBports realm because I would like to keep using the phone I have.
Chemical-Regret-8593@reddit
how is ubuntu going so far?
Hairy_Subject_1779@reddit
I am liking it simple and easy to use, no sweat installation and great community for questions.
sinfaen@reddit
Kubuntu, I like plasma and almost everything works on ubuntu
joedotphp@reddit
Pop! was on hiatus while they were creating Cosmic. Which is fine, but a few of my apps started misbehaving or not working altogether.
Fedora seemed like the obvious choice to switch to while they wrap up development.
theunquenchedservant@reddit
I'm on Omarchy, but why i'm using it revolves around CachyOS. I got Cachy for gaming specifically, and because I wanted to try out Arch, when setting up Cachy I found hyprland and thought "eh, why not?" and fell in love pretty quickly with that setup for a while. Then saw stuff about Omarchy so I threw it on a spare laptop to play around with and liked some of the things it did with Hyprland so just shifted my config around to use Omarchy instead.
crak720@reddit
Í started with ubuntu because it was a friendly transition from windows, stayed there for 5 years, and then moved to Arch because I wanted to have a minimal set up
KernelKrusher@reddit
Distro hopped via VMs for a few months and picked endevourOS. It just worked the best on my system and its pretty lightweight. I picked it over vanilla arch because I did not want to spend hours installing it. I highly recommend endevourOS if you want to use AUR, want to learn your system (but not install).
theironrooster@reddit
Mint bc I’m a noob
ImTheRealSlayer@reddit
Looked at popular distro Mint Mint runs Ubuntu Looked at Ubuntu Ubuntu runs Debian Looked at Debian It's old and stable and doesn't run on top of anything
Debian my beloved.
FizzBuzz3000@reddit
Fedora, as it keeps the packages that matter most for end users up-to-date between major releases. Plus after dealing with gentoo for 10 years, I just wanted a change of pace.
Natetronn@reddit
I picked the distro I'm on after using the other distros.
burntout40s@reddit
Fedora for my work because its relatively stable/predictable and still has updated packages.
Arch for my gaming/personal, because I can do things my way and when it breaks, I know pretty much how to fix it.
Debian for my home lab, because It's what we've used at work for years and I got used to it, didn't have a reason to look for anything else.
hatlevip@reddit
The first distro I installed was red hat in 1998 and quickly discovered dependency hell! I then moved on to Debian and have never looked back!
Automatic dependency resolution seems like a trivial thing for a package manager today but in 1998 APT was REVOLUTIONARY!
slowbowels@reddit
opensuse had the "suse-prime" package which was the easiest thing i could find for my old laptop to fucking shutdown the goddamn nvidia card with the propriety driver because it kept the fan on, and i could switch to nvidia easily and just log out and log in, now that nvidia stopped supporting the driver i am using nouveau but the setup only works with x11
Frossstbiite@reddit
On fedora
We.use red hat at work
JenovaJireh@reddit
Started with Ubuntu for work then went to CachyOS and have been loving it. I wanted something lightweight and customizable. Also do a bit of gaming so it’s a plus that a lot is already supported out of the box.
littypika@reddit
Linux Mint, because it just works, and I can spend time actually using my PC, rather than tinkering or fixing things on my PC (although nothing wrong with the latter).
WeinerBarf420@reddit
This for me too, plus cinnamon is the only DE I don't hate and I don't want to have to bother with installing it on a distro that doesn't bundle it
daemon_hunter@reddit
Void for the zfs support
Ebalosus@reddit
Fedora, because of both newer technologies (BTRFS, zram, etc) and it's always been the distro that has given me the least amount of grief or issues to deal with.
LookAtYourEyes@reddit
Mint, because I just wanted something user-friendly and that's what popped up when I searched.
gesis@reddit
I use Alpine for my "desktop" [laptop] because
apkmakes it simple to replicate installations and KISS principles prevent the need to uninstall a lot of software I'll never use.Not having systemd is not a big loss, and most stuff plays fine with musl.
SujanKoju@reddit
Arch. I switched to it from linux mint and arcolinux. I generally like to have a very clean desktop environment. Arch comes with basically nothing, so it allows me to cherry pick everything I need to install for me. Having used other distros with different DE (mint, ubuntu, mx linux) or window manager setup (arco linux), I already had idea about what i wanted and what i don't. Arch and nixos gives that kind of control. Nixos was just complicating for daily use because it works very differently from general linux but i like it as a server setup.
jack_k_ca@reddit
Debian because I just want my computer to work reliably. Debian does what I need without hassle or drama. Plus, it's what I'm used to. :)
digital_buddha123@reddit
I use Kubuntu 25.10 on my desktop because I like KDE Plasma with the stability of Ubuntu. I use Ubuntu 25.10 on my laptop because Gnome looks good on a smaller display. Both distros work out the box and are stable and reliable.
aggravati0n@reddit
Fast, light, extensive capabilities, easy, looks purdy: Linux Mint.
bobthebobbest@reddit
Ubuntu, because I needed it to just work while I got back into the groove of using Linux.
red-death-dson89@reddit
I wanted something that was easy and somewhat stable, I have a "old" laptop. So I went with Linux Mint, I wanted a Debian base with a GUI in between KDE and Gnome.
No_Internet8453@reddit
I currently use alpine since I really hate glibc, and don't have any hardware that depends on proprietary out of tree drivers. I also really like the option to have staged or rolling release (just switch the repos you're using) without reinstalling. Apk is also a really simple, just works package manager that doesn't give me any problems. I as a whole do not like any variant of the gpl, and as a result, I plan on switching to netbsd to complete my vision of a gpl-less system. I just have to spend more time using netbsd in a VM before I'm comfortable installing netbsd on bare metal
ReptilianLaserbeam@reddit
I picked Ubuntu as my first distro because they were giving away free CDs (yeah CDs). I jumped to OpenSuse because my ex was OBSESSED with it but it didn’t quite fit me. I went to Debian to try something more stable but didn’t like that most of the things I wanted to try were not available or outdated. I tried Arch but I was clumsy and followed a blogs guide instead of the official wiki so I didn’t really understand it. I went back to windows because most of my uno tools at the time required windows, and finally went back to Arch but did it right this time and I really enjoyed taking it from a minimal approach and started building it around what I was using and nothing else. In the end you can do that with pretty much any distro, make it as minimal as possible and just setup what you feel is indispensable.
Working-Limit-3103@reddit
Fedora GNOME, now KDE
was thinking of switching to linux for years, decided to switch close to uni being started to went for the most polished one out there, people suggested fedora hence i tried it, stuck with it cause it works, but in the future ill probably mess around with other
VisunnlSockHatm1720@reddit
arch because im not an idiot
I_AM_GODDAMN_BATMAN@reddit
Arch, because it just works. Install once, keep running it for more than a decade.
I don't want outdated packages, snap or flatpak. I don't like Debian based, because I don't want the packages to be split between headers and libraries. I also don't want to install a new version every year.
Few_Presentation3639@reddit
Ubuntu Mate - seemed like an easy one to navigate, similar to windows. 10 year user. Last install this past Feb new AOI Dell, overwrote windows.
Dr_Brot@reddit
Mint user here, in my case I came from ubuntu, but I saw the clean interface of Mint and I loved it, also it feels more familiar if you come from windows OS.
I don't know if this is true, but some people say Mint does not have the telemetry Canonical hide on ubuntu OS, so the privacy and freedom is another reason for Mint usage.
Sad_Window_3458@reddit
I picked Debian because we used it in the office and wanted something similar at home. Took well over a month and there were times I was ready to give up. More than ready. Thought I'd never get a working xorg.conf and dial-up internet connection but then all of a sudden there it was and that rig lasted for years.
Debian has been a good friend over the years and never doubted it. Tried most if not all major distro's but always came back to good old Debian.
If there's one distro I can see myself ever switching to it's Arch. Love how simple it is and the Arch Wiki is the best Linux documentation out there.
TroPixens@reddit
Arch because it’s arch there truly isn’t a real reason I just like it I could definitely achieve what I do with my pc on other distros it just felt right to do it on arch I geuss
Chemical-Regret-8593@reddit
i like arch, because i can pick what i want in my system, and the control and customizability i can get with it. its actually simpler to use than to install. i use the lts kernel for arch btw.
GhostVlvin@reddit
BSD is not bad btw. It is like complete OS with it's own nice package manager, with ports, and all default stuff in bsd is written as a bsd, not as another project like systemd
TheWholeSandwich@reddit
I use EndeavourOS. I picked it because I wanted Arch but didn't think I would have the time to tinker with it if it broke. But Endeavour just works with no effort at all, so I've been thinking maybe people are just whining about nothing and I should hop to Arch. How much harder could it be?
GhostVlvin@reddit
I used arch because I wanted to go minimal having less bloat than linux mint gives me. And then I switched to cachyOS to get optimizations and well configured packages on exchange gaining some bloat as oh-my-zsh, that is standard in zsh config, but I am trying to replace it properly
SethConz@reddit
KDE neon on a Surface pro 2 (my go getter tablet), it just works while having a great touch screen friendly interface, tried Fedora but it did not like the Surface’s detachable keyboard
A plain old Mint install on the workshop laptop, its technically available to use by a few people who aren’t loontards so i needed to keep it simple
razerfang23@reddit
Mr_Lumbergh@reddit
I run a few, depends on what I use each for.
Global-Eye-7326@reddit
Arg I can't choose. I daily spin Fedora and Debian, but I also love Arch!
firelemons@reddit
I'm on Debian now cause I went with Ubuntu for ease of use but then they made something called snap that broke firefox for my password manager. Their philosophy of not changing things too often really makes sense to me. All the other software sits on top of the OS. It makes sense for the os to be stationary. It feels kind of inappropriate for a person to be very aware of their os. Like didn't you get your computer to run things on it? Who is doing things with their os instead of interacting with any other software?
miked5122@reddit
Doesn't look like anyone has mentioned Parrot. I chose Parrot because I am a cyber security student, dabbling in Pentesting. Seems logical to just use a distro loaded with all the tools already.
CaptionAdam@reddit
I was on arch/arch based for ~3 years. I ended up there cause the steamdeck was gonna be arch based, so it would be good for gaming.
I just recently switched to Fedora on my laptop. I wanted to try something different, and see what a "reliable" distro based on "enterprise" Linux was like. I also wanted to see what this container stuff was all about. So far I'm really happy with the experience, and I'm seriously contemplating switching my tower over.
asdfjfkfjshwyzbebdb@reddit
Finding software is a ballache, so I use Arch for AUR. Saves me so much time from having to manually compile stuff if I find some niche stuff I'd like to use as well.
gr33fur@reddit
I have used: Caldera, Slackware, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Fedora, Gentoo (briefly), and now Debian 13.
I am lazy, I want a distro with a huge repository and which doesn't need baby-sitting.
Thonatron@reddit
Fedora Workstation with GNOME.
Ran Arch/Debian-based for a decade plus. Got tired of unstable systems once I started building on it and old crusty software. I just want a distro that doesn't make me old my breath between update reboots and has up to date packages in the repos.
Fedora does that.
Cute-Excitement-2589@reddit
I use Fedora Silverblue on my laptop and KDE on my daily desktop. They just work. Simple as that.
Installed Zorin 18 on my wife's laptop as she wanted a simple to use, and stable experience coming from using Mac for 10yrs.
Again, it just works. For those who don't need or want the latest, Zorin is very good.
Hot-Employ-3399@reddit
Because garuda supported hardware of my then-top-tierish laptop in 2022 (raider ge76). I tried several other distros and they either didn't see intel wifi or nvidia gpu or both and I had no desire to take of it figuring out.
It also uses preconfigured btrfs, so I can rollback the system easily.
It also uses own script over pacman to update the system, so they can take care if there's something extra in arch repo needs to be done manually, script can take for you (like split of linux-firmware package which broke simple upgrades).
It also comes with steam preinstalled. It's extremely effortless to use and fits "just works" more than other distros I tried in 2022.
Dear_Studio7016@reddit
I run Debian on Servers and just decided to stick with it for Desktop as well
Miss-KiiKii@reddit
Linux noob here. I want to try my hands on Arch Linux, as it follows a DIY approach, which offers both freedom and the chance to learn more about computers :)
YourFavouriteGayGuy@reddit
NixOS, because I value stability and failsafes over pretty much everything else, and I find declarative configuration really satisfying. Being able to share some config between my Linux and MacOS systems (because Nix also supports Darwin) is also a huge plus as someone who has to switch systems regularly for work. Having all my configuration in one place, rather than dozens of files scattered across like 5 different directories, is also really nice.
rewgs@reddit
Ubuntu because “it’s easy for beginners.” Moved to Debian because it’s the OG. Moved back to Ubuntu for newer packages. Moved to Manjaro because “it is to Arch was Ubuntu is for Debian,” moved to Arch because it’s the OG. Now run Arch on workstations and Debian on servers.
blurredphotos@reddit
I had used Ubuntu in the past (because of media drivers) but switched back to Windows for Adobe (yikes). When I finally dropped Abobe I had no reason to stay on Windows and looked back into Linux. Ubuntu had turned into a complete sh*tshow, so I looked around and Redhat was the second distro I ever tried (after Mandrake), so I decided to give Fedora a try. Everything went flawlessly, zero driver issues (zero issues at all) and I dont get ads, telemetry or Snaps. WIN/WIN. Loving Fedora. Love the huge userbase and community. It does everything I want.
Never again Windows.
Samiassa@reddit
I picked arch mainly because I heard it has full control and I was already familiar with the terminal from using Ubuntu on my server. I also thought hyprland looked pretty damn cool. Looking back I probably should’ve started with something simpler and kde for the tiled wm but I already know arch now so I might as well stick with it
insertcotku@reddit
Fedora workstation because I ran out of money for a windows license when building my PC, wasn't crazy about the direction they were going with 11, and a buddy in infosec was like "how about fedora workstation" and has been very helpful when I do run into problems I can't find the answers for on my own.
Fohqul@reddit
CachyOS on main (gaming) computer for the optimisations and performance tuning, Ubuntu everywhere else (and also prior to Cachy) for the immense software support (with debs and PPAs, along with it simply being the most commonly supported distro), it just working, interim releases, and mostly because I grew up with it and am used to it.
lunakoa@reddit
Rocky, my Linux boxes are servers and been my using it for over two decades since Redhat 5.1, so mostly momentum.
lenojames@reddit
I chose Fedora after bouncing around for a while. I like Gnome a lot, and I wanted to purest Gnome experience out there. As a test I threw it on a semi-decent laptop, and I was very impressed with how well it performed. So I put it on my daily driver laptop and i haven't found a reason to complain yet.
baiano_ano@reddit
Because I'm superior (Arch btw)
myownalias@reddit
Kubuntu. I was looking for a KDE alternative to Mandrake/Mandriva a couple decades ago, that had working out-of-the-box experience, and I preferred Debian based distros. I'm getting kind of annoyed with Ubuntu (and so Kubuntu) use of snaps, so starting to look at other distros. I prefer stable distros that don't need constant updates.
FengLengshun@reddit
NixOS. I want the stability of an atomic setup, the configurability of a traditional setup, and I want them all as a trackable as a git project.
NixOS does it all.
liss_up@reddit
I recently switched to Arch from Fedora. I picked both of them for the same reason: up to date (read: bleeding edge) scientific tools and libraries, bleeding edge development tool chains. What pushed me to Arch from Fedora was that fedora had some issues running Cities: Skylines 2 due to a less up to date mesa stack. If not for that, I'd still be in fedora.
From 2005 to 2023, though, I used Ubuntu because I was a scaredy cat and it just worked.
TestingTheories@reddit
Linux Mint because it’s stable and works. 6 mths on and I haven’t used Windows at all.
Mohtek1@reddit
Kubuntu because I wanted latest , Rocky because I didn’t like how Centos was going upstream.
srivasta@reddit
Debian, since it was so much better than software landing systems. Not the bsd's since the theo de randy flake wars. And debian allowed easy ways to just be as changers and fixes to make Linux behave like a Univ system ought to feel.
DD since October 1995
mephisto9466@reddit
I picked bazzite because it was meant for gaming and it’s also more secure due to it being immutable
FG205@reddit
I picked Fedora because KDE plasma and because I would have more customization than if I chose Bazitte. However, I have had nothing bit trouble getting steam to work.
My laptops run Linux Mint Mate or XFCE as they are simple to use, light weight bit have an interface closest to Windows.
lKrauzer@reddit
Latest Ubuntu, I don't stick to LTS, the reason behind this is because this is the most used distro, I don't need to think about if it'll have support for any software, if something exists on Linux, it has a version for Ubuntu, and I don't like to have to build from source or anything.
Despite all that, there is also the stability reason, as much as I like Fedora, Ubuntu uses less bleeding-edge software in comparison, and therefore is less prone to face bugs, every six months I get a new version, while on Fedora I get new versions of things every single day.
Cat5edope@reddit
Bazzite because I does the 1 thing I want the easiest. It’s when I try to do literally anything else that I run into a bunch of issues
StrengthThin1150@reddit
omarchy for now, I like regular arch and hyprland because they feel new and different, but i think building all of that from scratch isnt really practical for me for day to day stuff. Omarchy gives me space to learn how it all works while also beijg slick and fast. love the theming and waybar config, and i love learning how to tweak it.
Angel_Blue01@reddit
I used openSUSE 2007-2020 because it wasn't as cutting edge as Fedora or Arch, as sleazy as Canonical or as small as AntiX and other Debian forks, and I thought Debian was for servers.
But eventually I got sick needing to reinstall with every upgrade and have lots of user-provided repos for packages, so I tried Debian and have been using it from 2020.
thekiltedpiper@reddit
I technically didn't pick my current distro, per se. I installed ArcoLinux in 2023 after using Pop and Manjaro.
In June of this year the developer, Erik DuBoise, decided to stop the project. He pushed a script that turned Arco into a full Arch install. It removed his custom repos, and even changed the release file to Arch.
So I've been on full Arch since then.
diablo75@reddit
LMDE to try and found it to be very fucking stable.
shaloafy@reddit
I can setup Debian and then basically forget about it. I do the occasional update and that's the extent of time I spend on system maintenance. I use my laptop for work, I don't need the latest software, I just need to be able to reliably use my computer without really thinking about it. I've used and enjoyed other distros, but if I'm generally never in the mood to mess with that sort of stuff anymore. I used to have basically a custom DE in Arch, which was actually really cool, but I had to pay more attention to updates and stuff than I wanted, I'd sit down to work and end up having to tweak or fix something. I eventually had an issue where I somehow borked my wifi so bad that I had to completely set it up again after every reboot, and simply did not have the time to figure out how to get it working again - much better use of my time to just install Debian and forget about it
doolijb@reddit
Debian for severs.
CachyOS for gaming, performance is great. Latest Fedora based distros were having driver or kernel issues preventing installation, so CachyOS it is for a while. I didn't feel like digging into fixes.
SteamOS because steamdeck.
Zorin OS for daily driver. Just works. I hate cinnamon and kde and don't want to spend 5 hours tinkering just to make it look like Zorin. My days of installing custom themes are over.
ExaHamza@reddit
Manjaro, I wanted to know why everyone speaks so badly of it. I resisted testing it for a long time, and when I finally did, in my own way, I can only thank not only the Manjaro team but especially the Arch Linux developers and users. Without you, Manjaro wouldn't exist.
oldendude@reddit
PopOS because System76 aims to have hardware and software work well together. And it works as intended! I’m on my 2nd laptop from them in about six years, and I’m very happy with their products. The OS is polished and just works, including across upgrades.
Their hardware could use some improvement — battery, speakers, camera — but I’m very happy with the overall experience.
Also, their support is fantastic.
Intelligent-Rip-2270@reddit
I’ve used a lot of distros over the years. I started in the 90s with Slackware 2. I used Ubuntu for a long time on my laptop but eventually decided to go to Debian, which I had used sporadically. I still run Debian on one laptop, and just got an old used laptop and went with Slackware for that. Just wanted to try it again. 15 was much easier to install than 2.
Moarkush@reddit
Arch, because I'm "that guy." Don't tell me not to press the button.
MechanicFun777@reddit
Ubuntu, it runs in my old Surface pro 7. Others don't and I don't like debian.
DSPGerm@reddit
Raspberry Pi was the first Linux desktop I regularly used and it’s based on Debian so Debian derived distros are what I prefer. And I dislike Snaps so I didn’t stick with Ubuntu for long. Also proxmox is Debian based and I use that for my homelab.
Plain, vanilla Debian with Xfce does everything I need and it’s what I feel most comfortable with. I’ve used Arch(and derivatives), other Debian derivatives, and very briefly tried Fedora. But I’m just so used to Debian that switching feels uncomfortable. It’s like being right handed but then trying to learn how to write with your left.
wackyvorlon@reddit
It doesn’t really matter. Just pick one and dig into the command line.
DFS_0019287@reddit
I started out on Slackware, ventured into very early Debian (like around 1.2.) Then switched for a while to Red Hat and then Fedora.
I started a company and then hired someone who just loved Debian, and he convinced me to standardize on Debian; this would have been around 2003-2004. And since then, I've stuck with Debian because it's stable and familiar and does what I need.
jasonscheirer@reddit
I used Debian for 25 years, to the point where I just reached for it uncritically when I had a decision to make. I worked for a company where the technical cofounder came from working fairly high up at Red Hat.
At first I thought his choice of Rocky as a base for containers over Alpine or Ubuntu was quaint. Then I realized it didn’t matter. Then some ding dong on the garbage YouTube channels I listen to for white noise brought up Nobara. A Fedoralike that plays games, a perfect thing to try a Fedora and replace Win10 on my gaming rig.
I’m on Nobara. I’d probably be better off on Fedora proper but it’s fine!
FindorGrind67@reddit
EndeavourOS. Tired of the bloat and immutable distractions of the "Evil Twins" and wanted a stripped down interface that still had sort of a safety net while i learn more of the bones of well. Arch, btw.
Mister08@reddit
EndeavourOS, because it was almost identical to how I'd configure Arch if I was doing it myself, but saved me a bit of time by coming preconfigured, with a few QoL niceties. I just run Arch + Hyprland on my laptop, since I prefer having tiling when I'm limited to a single screen — and would rather configure Hyprland myself.
Nervous_Bunghole@reddit
Cachy OS. One to piss off Arch users who believe I'm not worthy of I don't build my installer out of assembly and perform a sayonce to ward off snap packages and Two my distro of choice Clear Linux was EOLed.
I love Arch btw.
vaynefox@reddit
Same reason as why Linus Torvalds choosed Fedora, it happens to be the distro around....
ConductorJacob@reddit
Ubuntu….Just decided that’s what I wanted.
SilkBC_12345@reddit
Fedora because with its 6 month release cycle, it seems (to me) to be the perfect blend of stability and bleeding edge.
PurpleKush69420@reddit
Recently got a new Lenovo laptop and tried several distros but settled on Fedora (KDE) - Has a newer kernel version than most of the previous distros I had used in the past such as Linux Mint. This was crucial as my new laptop has as a AMD AI 300 series CPU. Several other distros locked up / froze after using for 10 minutes or so. Still unsure if its truly kernel related or GNOME/Cinnamon related. Fedora has been by far the most stable and has not locked up once. Really nice change of pace from what I've used in the past.
hath0r@reddit
because its the one i started on
LeCroissant1337@reddit
Arch because it's simple. It does everything I want it to do and nothing more, nothing less. Its main repository has almost everything I need and for the more niche use cases there's almost definitely some AUR package.
MaybeTheDoctor@reddit
It came with my raspberry pi.
Office-Ninja@reddit
Fedora is my go to. Simple, just works and is up to date enough to do everything I want/need.
momoajay@reddit
Fedora workstation. Very straightforward to use and update. Always the latest improvements. No hassle.
FrogMonkey55@reddit
I went with Mint kde for a Windows transition for my son's. My PC is in the living room as we use it for everything. I wanted something simple for my son's to use. It's been a year or so now it's time to move in to cachyos. I believe they are ready now.
Shutter_Encoder@reddit
I started on Linux Mint for about two weeks, but after I told my friend what I didn’t like about it, he suggested I try CachyOS instead. I ended up switching because I really like the customizability, and Cachy has been a much better fit for the way I like to use my system. Same friend who recommended Mint got me into it too, so shout-out to them.
dethb0y@reddit
Easy to use and a screen layout similar to what i was already used to, so it was frictionless to learn.
elijaaaaah@reddit
Mint, heard it was easiest to pick up. Regardless of whether that's true, I don't think I have any major complaints that could be solved by switching distros, so I'm happy to stick with it. I might go Arch if I had to choose over again, but really not worth the effort of switching when I'm pretty happy with Mint.
shegonneedatumzzz@reddit
despite a lot of claims that it’s hard, the ability to basically do what you want on arch since it’s bleeding edge, ironically made it the easiest distro for me
sunsetRz@reddit
I use Ubuntu the Budgie flavor, as it is a good and modern design.
the-johnnadina@reddit
Cachy because it comes with cosmic in the installer and i kept being frustrated i couldn't get the latest features of X and Y packages on fedora unless someone made a COPR. Cachy is easy, comes with neat configs out of the box, and has all the arch and AUR stuff so i dont have to worry about packages existing anymore
libra00@reddit
I tried 2 versions of Ubuntu plus Pop and Mint and all of them refused to work correctly with my pretty bog-standard RTX3060 GPU. In frustration I went looking for something not Ubuntu-based, stumbled across Nobara, heard it was good for gaming because of frequent updates, and installed it. Unlike Ubuntu it just worked, so I've stuck with it ever since.
bagkingz@reddit
Kali, because I’m Mr. Robot. Jk, changing careers to cybersecurity.
Ptolemaeus45@reddit
OpenSuse - works rock solid, rolling release, not a derivation of arch/debian/fedora, exists for a long time
(Ubuntu just to see something else)
debacle_enjoyer@reddit
Debian because it works and will continue to work for years without regressions, has no corporate daddy, and is whatever I want it to be.
And it’s a common platform for my desktops, laptops, server, non-technical family and friends computers, my steam box, raspberry pi, and I even use it for cloud machines to dev. It really is the universal os.
Known-Watercress7296@reddit
Laptop & cloud server Ubuntu LTS Pro
Home server Gentoo + nixpkgs + docker + stuff
Desktop MX
Rpi4 - Rpi OS
and a ton of AntiX custom systems floating around on old storage and frugal installs, which are rather cool to play with.
Yurij89@reddit
Windows broke. A reinstall didn't fix it for either 10 or 11.
I found a USB with ventoy and some ISOs. Manjaro was one of them. It looked nice and a bit different than I was used to (mainly Ubuntu), so I installed that and I just stuck with it.
It has worked great so far.
Gullible_Response_54@reddit
Tumbleweed, BCS I was feed up with older software on Ubuntu 😂
Next step: arch btw
AndyGait@reddit
As a distro hopper, I've tried all the big names and played around with some of the smaller ones too. But my PC never runs better, than when it's running Arch. I have two drives in my PC. One, my main drive is running Arch with KDE. My second drive is my distro hopping drive. That currently has Arch with Gnome.
For me, Arch is king.
exodist@reddit
Arch. It was a long journey. Started in the late 90s first withba redhat demo cd, then purchased Slackware + the slackware guide. Spent a few years on slackware. Then moved to gentoo cause I wanted a deep knowledge, and was already doing custom kernels and installing a ton of things from source anyway. After nearly a decade I got tired of compiling everything and tried ubuntu for a couple years. Ubuntu was a royal pain because it assumed too much and I had to fight it on everything I wanted. Then I tried arch. Arch is the perfect balance between the unopinionated freedom of gentoo, and the "it just works, but only our way" of ubuntu. Been on arch for a very long time now, probably close to a decade? Love it.
I have also installed mint on my wifes computer, and bazzite on the laptops for my kids. Mint and bazzite are perfect for their needs, but I could not live with either on my daily drivers, only arch will do :-D
Ok_Management8894@reddit
I have decided that I do not need cutting edge Linux anymore since I am no longer running cutting edge hardware. So from Arch, I am now using Linux Mint.
Wrathgate@reddit
Fedora here. Originally was on Pop!_OS as i purchased a System76 desktop PC (came pre installed), but after around 6 months or so i began hitting an issue with shitty FPS with gaming. Did a ton of troubleshooting on Pop!_OS but lots of people on forums suggested i switch to Fedora. It did end up solving my poor FPS issue and I am of the mindset of "If it all works fine, no need to swap distro".
That said, if I encountered issues and some other distro will fix my problems id jump to that distribution. I also like the fact that Fedora is in a sense run and maintained by Red Hat.
henfiber@reddit
I picked Fedora back in 2013 (version 17 I think), assuming that any learning would translate to Centos and RHEL. Still using it.
AnsibleAnswers@reddit
Fedora. The good SELinux defaults are worth the extra hassle and upgrading is usually so seamless that you only need to go through enabling the extra repos once.
bswalsh@reddit
I ended up on Arch about ten years ago after distro hopping since 1998. I got tired of removing all of the software I didn't use after installing and having to jump through hoops like using PPAs or compiling from source so I could have up-to-date Firefox
natguy2016@reddit
Two actually. Mint on my mini pc. I just want something stable that works and gets out of my way. Ubuntu based Mint plays nicely with the graphics so I can do some light gaming.
Laptop? MX Linux XFCE. Lighter than Mint with plenty of tools. I can install TLP with a GUI easily and tweak to get good battery life.
Sarithis@reddit
Arch, because saying "I use Arch btw" was actually respected back in the day (like 2012-2014)
Jimlee1471@reddit
I didn't do too much distro hopping. I first experimented with using a Linux-based OS as a server before using PSLinuxOS as a daily driver just to see if I'd like it. Once I determined that I was going to ditch Windows for good I simply asked myself a couple of questions:
After looking around for a bit while keeping those two points in mind, I almost immediately settled on Debian. 20+ years later I think I made a good choice.
mgaruccio@reddit
Garuda b/c I was too lazy to set up arch myself
cultist_cuttlefish@reddit
I started with Ubuntu because it was the only distro I had heard of (my sister's highschool had Ubuntu on their computers). I liked it a lot and used it for several years
then my cousin gave me an Acer switch that I installed Ubuntu on and ir worked ok except for a bug with the audio, sometimes the audio just stopped and the speakers would start to whine at full volume for a few seconds.
So thinking that it might be a problem with something on Ubuntu I decided to go looking for options, I discarded anything debian based just in case the problem was from the upstream. Didn't like the way the fedora installer handles partitions, so I had arch and suse left from the big ones not based on Arch.
While using Ubuntu I got sick of having to hunt down ppas and had heard that the AUR made installing things easy, did a manual install of arch and it was so tedious, I like to wipe my computers every semester and the thought of having to do that every single time made me sick , but I did enjoy the arch experience
So I looked into arch derivatives ans stumbled into endeavourOS, which is basically pre configured arch with some killer wallpapers, liked it so much that I installed it on my laptop and desktop and haven't looked back since
HaloDezeNuts@reddit
Ubuntu idc what anyone says. 1, it’s the most popular so it has the most community support + the most compatibility.
2) compatibility. Some tools ported to Linux will only really work on Ubuntu because of the community base
Yall can fight me on this but I don’t have time to load kernels or write drivers from scratch. I have a life but I also want to break free from shitty windows 11
Swooferfan@reddit
Mint. It just works.
Buddy59-1@reddit
Garuda Linux, wanted arch, but couldn't decide what should and shouldn't be in the same btrfs subvolume, or snapshot, so went with Garuda and then uninstalled the GUI and rebuilt around hyprland
el_lley@reddit
It all started when they hacked our old SCO Unix mail server. Our best CS student gave us a RedHat CD… at some stage I moved into Fedora due to not wanting to pay for something it was free the day before. Went for Ubuntu, and Linux Mint for a few years, but I am back at home :)
Brief_Tie_9720@reddit
Hyprland
sr_maxima@reddit
(Ubuntu) came preinstalled on my computer.
sublime_369@reddit
I've used a bunch but I settled on AerynOs which is pretty niche at the moment, unsurprisingly since it's still an alpha release.
Why?
Tried it a month ago because I liked the sound of it and realised it already did everything I want and better than anything else I had used.
Things I hated about other distros-
- Grub is clunky
- Updating the system between major releases often caused some kind of breakage or issue to deal with. Sometimes I've found the simplest solution is a reinstall.
- The balance between stability and up to date packages. Distros that get the newer packages tend to have more chance of something breaking in my experience.
Aeryn has been designed from the ground up to tackle these issues. It does away with grub and employs an atomic update model, meaning you won't be left with a breakdown mid update - it's all-or-nothing; either the whole system is updated or it fails and no changes have occurred. Update introduces a bug, or you managed to accidentally delete your /usr directory? Simply roll back to one of the last 5 system states via the boot menu.
The package manager is also the best I've used. Really simple and easily memorable commands.
Bottom line, I can have pretty up-to-date packages without the fear of breakage with every update, and since it's rolling, there are no major version updates.
Being alpha, the number of packages are limited so flatpak is used to round the system out, but for example Firefox, Thunderbird and Steam are already available as native packages. They work flawlessly without some of the headaches of Flatpak and they're quicker to launch.
nuclearpickle88@reddit
On my Legion 7i, Bazzite (GNOME 49 version) was the only distro that had all of the components of the laptop work out of the box... including the internal speakers. The Bluetooth works without the weird crackle I experienced in Ubuntu 25.10. The screen backlighting FN keys work consistently unlike Mint. To be fair it's a gaming laptop so I'm not too upset about using it.
On my DYI desktop, Mint was the first distro I tried and it works perfectly. It's very easy to install and the guided setup boxes are really good. Eventually, I'm going to move to Fedora (KDE Version). The terminal commands are different from the Ubuntu based Mint, but I just like the Windows-like feel of KDE...and it's more customizable...and modern looking.
I don't know what magic or wizardry the team at Bazzite are doing, but they are awesome. I'm donating to them later this month when I have some extra cash.
Attunga@reddit
It has been a number of reasons over the years.
Sometimes it is because of the range of packages and the excellent KDE support, that was Manajaro.
When in a company that focused on Ubuntu .. well I used Kubuntu
And these days Fedora for familiarity with RHEL which most of the companies I work with use. On the other hand Fedora Plasma edition is just solid these days, so I might use that anyway.
I am also investigating Aurora and uCore for greater familiarity with RHEL 10 image mode. Have been experimenting with these on VMs .. but may try them on Laptops or secondary PC's.
Encursed1@reddit
I like cloning my config between my laptop and desktop with nixos
GinDawg@reddit
It does what I need an OS to do and gets out of my way.
StochasticCalc@reddit
Ubuntu because I figured it would be fine as-is for my needs. And it was.
I spend so much time solving tech issues for work I wanted to just turn on my laptop and not debug anything.
donnaber06@reddit
Arch is what I use on my laptops. Ubuntu on servers or iot.
oromis95@reddit
I distro hopped a lot. Stopped on Manjaro because it just worked compared to many others, and when it did break, there were easy fixes. Been with it for 10 years now with no major issues.
Kochon@reddit
I wanted to move away from recommending anything debian-based to my less tech-inclined friends and famile and figured it was time to give fedora a shot. Man, life is good on this side of linux. My gaming pc found solace in bazzite. It’s great, it just works and is really stable. I still run cachyos on my non-gaming pc’s though. Old habits die hard.
Fast_Ad_8005@reddit
I use Arch Linux and NixOS.
Arch Linux is what I use when I need things to just work. I usually want the latest software and have eclectic software needs/wants and Arch satisfies those needs very well.
NixOS I like because of benefits that come with its unique design. Like it has rollbacks, allows multiple versions of the same package to be installed on one's system, has vast repositories, declarative configuration, and is programmed using a functional programming language.
I've tried Debian, openSUSE, Fedora and FreeBSD as my daily driver, too.
FreeBSD's hardware and software support was insufficient for my needs. There was a psychological appeal to running a distro whose symbol was a cute daemon though.
Debian's software was too old for my liking. But I do still use it in some contexts due to its stability (I have noticed bugs in it though, like Cisco's Anyconnect Client has had webkitgtk2 bugs since I upgraded to Debian 13) and vast repositories.
Fedora's software repositories were not vast enough to meet all my needs and I also found it buggy. I used to use for similar VPN uses as I use Debian, but updates frequently broke the Cisco Anyconnect Client.
openSUSE Tumbleweed largely met my needs, although sometimes I found it easier to get the software I needed on Arch Linux. I also had bizarre issues with Btrfs that rendered my system unbootable no matter how diligently I tried to manage my root file system space, but that was easily fixable by switching to an ext4 root file system.
openSUSE Leap I've tried. I don't think I used it for long as a daily driver though as I usually like having the latest software which it definitely doesn't have.
Fantastic_Mirror_345@reddit
I mostly stick to Ubuntu based distros since I work with robots. Currently on the POP OS 24.04 cosmic beta and having a blast.
absolutecinemalol@reddit (OP)
pun intended?
Fantastic_Mirror_345@reddit
I shall say yes 😎
DerekB52@reddit
I distro hopped for a few years. I have daily driven Arch for 7 now though. I still distro hop on my laptop(currently typing this on Tumbleweed), but my daily driver needs to be an Arch box. the AUR is just too good. The default repos are already better than most. I like having up to date software, and Arch has caused me like 2 tiny problems in the over 7 years I've daily driven it. With my beautiful i3 setup. I plan to do more testing with Sway and Hyprland in the new year.
I'm also considering giving Gentoo, Nix, or FreeBSD another try. But, Arch is so simple and so powerful.
Knik-DerMuf@reddit
For me it was Window$, nuff said