My Linux Distro tier list, any thoughts and opinions???

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Ptolemaeus45@reddit

Replace everything in D excluding opensuse, slackware, debian, arch & fedora. flavors are just unnecessary taste discussions

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For most normie Linux users, the flavor is the OS. I think having distros that cater to them is a good idea, even if they don't make sense to veterans! Just put them in the same tier as the base distro unless that flavor specifically has issues

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IvanMalison@reddit

If we're being descriptive about the reality of how normie users use and install linux, then yeah, this is the right take. However, I think that this is a pretty sorry state of affairs.

As a NixOS user, all this distro hopping stuff is pretty hard to understand. From my perspective it looks like people installing a whole OS to do what I could essentially do with a config file.

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Tstormn3tw0rk@reddit

I agree wholeheartedly.

Which is why we have both

Ive never used Nix (arch), how would you recommend it?

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IvanMalison@reddit

see my comment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1swj99m/comment/oig7f8z/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I truly have a hard time understanding why NixOS is not eating the world. Now that you can use codex/claude-code/an agent to help you understand the nix language/concepts etc, its easy to get started. Even if there are things you need to package, its incredibly easy to coax them into doing it for you in a servicable enough way.

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Tstormn3tw0rk@reddit

Eh, Im not that I to LLMs from an environmental standpoint, but I see where you're coming from. Nix is one of the few distros I have interest in checking, I'm already pretty married to Arch and the like, so it would take something like Nix's package manager to move me.

Its gonna suck loosing the AUR, though

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Ptolemaeus45@reddit

one among dozen points why normies don‘t even touch linux. a lot of redundant choices which don‘t even differentiate in the end instead of „one windows“/„one ios“. Where‘s the bsd flavor list btw 😂

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nullptr777@reddit

NixOS and Gentoo as well. Everything else is a derivative I think.

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Quietus87@reddit

Void should be S++.

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blue_horizon_x@reddit

why?

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Quietus87@reddit

See above.

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Tail_sb@reddit (OP)

Why?

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Quietus87@reddit

It does what Arch originally meant to do, but does it better. It follows the KISS principle, it's a rolling release distro, but it's also pretty damn reliable - that's why many say it's a stable rolling release distro. The current installer image is still from 2025.02.02. and the update command updates it without any errors, while the Arch community keeps saying "update every week or something will break". Besides these, it uses runit instead of systemd, so booting up is blazing fast.

There are two things I would improve. The TUI installer is great, but lacks btrfs subvolume handling, so you have to fidget around with that if you want it. Luckily there is a script for that on git. They are also pretty picky about what goes into the repositories and there is no AUR equivalent. Luckily the community can manage their own repos and you can always resort to AppImage and Flatpak if needed.

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Swizzel-Stixx@reddit

My thoughts and opinions are that tier lists in general are basically trendy engagement bait that gets a lot of people arguing about nothing

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cassepipe@reddit

Surely that will lead to an interesting and productive discussion

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Chonamalus_@reddit

Why Nix in B tier ?

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Tail_sb@reddit (OP)

I just don't get the Hype around it, would you care to explain it please?

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IvanMalison@reddit

spicy take:

not "getting the hype" around it is kind of a self report that there is a skill issue.

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IvanMalison@reddit

NixOS is great because everything is declarative and reproducible. It has a massive package archive, rivaled only by Arch, that stays extremely up to date. It also combines the best parts of binary distributions—speed through caching and avoiding unnecessary builds—with the best parts of source-based distributions, since you can overlay changes onto derivations and drop into source compilation when needed.

It supports just about any DE or WM you might want. Home Manager is incredible, and its first-class OS-level integration makes managing user environments feel seamless. You can also write derivations and set up caches for things outside of nixpkgs pretty easily with flake.nix or shell.nix.

I agree with u/Ptolemaeus45 above: “Replace everything in D excluding openSUSE, Slackware, Debian, Arch & Fedora.” Except I’d add NixOS to that list.

Really, Nix can reproduce almost any “distribution” you want from a configuration file. Once you actually understand NixOS, distro hopping starts to feel kind of dumb. Which is ironic, because NixOS is not really aimed at ricer/distro-hopper types, but it happens to solve that problem better than almost anything those users usually reach for.

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IvanMalison@reddit

i mean if you don't have nixos S tier, you're JUST wrong.

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Zakiyo@reddit

Artix? We need to get rid of systemd 🫨

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j0seplinux@reddit

Systemd hate is so forced

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Zakiyo@reddit

They recently implemented age verification structure… thats when i went from euhhh not great but tolerable to fuck that i need an alternative.

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j0seplinux@reddit

Optional age bracket, which can be disabled by the distro maintainer.

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Zakiyo@reddit

🫨

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Tstormn3tw0rk@reddit

I dislike systemd as much as the next person (mildly annoyed me trying to disable its network service while installing arch so I could connect to wifi with plasma's gui), but none of my friends use distros that require you to care.

I keep systemd around so I can give them tech support and remember the commands, but I'd switch if they did.

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Repave2348@reddit

Ah right I see, we are throwing hand grenades today.

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Tail_sb@reddit (OP)

🤣

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jermygod@reddit

did you tried them all?
for how long? for an hour?

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varsnef@reddit

Are you posting in r/Linux because you forgot to include Hanna Montana Linux and thought nobody would notice?

Wrong sub.

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Tail_sb@reddit (OP)

https://pissandshittium.org

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varsnef@reddit

zombo.com

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blue_horizon_x@reddit

Arch and Debian should be on the top (S+).

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Tail_sb@reddit (OP)

Well Arch is already in the S+ plus,
also i would not consider Debian as a great distro for daily desktop use, but if we were ranking Distros based on Server use instead than Debian would definitely be S+

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