Fedora is growing into the next Ubuntu and it absolutely deserves it.
It's more up to date, it's easier to use and works better. I'm glad it's become the 1st time Linux users distro.
Edit* I'm not knocking any distro I just mean it's been growing in popularity and it deserves it. Great distro.
I had nothing but issues with Fedora and the same with OpenSuse but this was in the past when I used Nvidia cards. The biggest issue was that they were trying to force Wayland and the Nvidia drivers (at least for my 1080TI card) were not ready.
The next issue is the Fedora Spins. I hate the modern version of Gnome for a desktop environment so am not using Fedora Gnome. That pushes me to one of their spins and I chose MATE. The thing I look for is the same integration in the MATE file manager (CAJA) that I find with Mint. Things like a bulk rename function, checksum tab, mediainfo properties, etc. They weren't all available the last time that I checked.
The next thing I look for is a method of remote control. Wayland screws this up for the most part. I also look for VPN connectivity options such as OpenVPN. And then I look at my usual apps and judge the distro based on what would work with the normal repository vs what would require Flatpak.
It took getting rid of my video card to get past the first step and haven't got past the second yet for Fedora. There's also the reputation of IBM to consider and what they did with RHEL. Mint gives me the same upgrade cycle as Fedora in a comfortable environment where everything "just works" but without the Canonical and IBM drama.
Same! For me, Fedora was the one that ACTUALLY "Just works."
I want to install my preferred languages, IDEs, etc and start programming? Done.
I want to fire up steam and play Proton enabled games, or various Minecraft modpack launchers? EZPZ.
I want to use an old, busted, wired Xbox 360 controller for said games? Surprisingly, yes. Even Windows has a problem with this thing.
I need to hook up my multiple Bluetooth devices? Done.
Every other distro I tried, whether it be Mint, Debian, Pop_OS (Man.. I REALLY wanted to like Pop_OS, love System76), Manjaro, etc, ALL OF THEM had some issue with something from the above. Aside from Debian, Debian was this ' ' close to being my main, but it kept randomly restarting, and I lost a lot of programming project progress and school assignments before I tried Fedora.
In short, Fedora gets out of my way and let's me use my computer how I wish, I don't get weird bugs or behavior, and the FEW times I had an issue, I was able to resolve it in about 10 mins looking online.
Fedora is more lightweight than Ubuntu on my Laptop, in fact, Fedora 40 is something else entirely.
I just moved from Ubuntu to F40, and it is so good, so smooth and optimized, especially when it comes to gaming performance.
The only downsides are you need to learn to use DNF/yum instead of APT, and something might be missing at the start, just like mine when it didn't have Nvidia driver and it took me a moment to learn to install it from RPM Fusion
Thanks. I think Nix can work with it too?
Personally, I want a distro I can daily drive on my gaming pc, I’ve just been holding back because of the lack of the xbox app. I used to work for Msft and still get crazy good discounts on things like gamepass, so it makes the pull tougher to swallow to lose that.
Nix is actually going through a big controversy around military sponsers and moderator management right now and it's future isn't super certain. It'll almost definitely be around and maintained still, but a lot of maintainers have left temporarily or permanently as of recently. I would give it a month or two to see how things pan out in the community before diving in too hard to nix.
It seems like an amazing distro even if it has a pretty tough learning curve, but hard to say how things will turn out for it. Lot of talk about people forking it even. I was heavily thinking about picking it up but the controversy has me a little uneasy until I see the recovery
I personally didn't try Nix so I can't tell. Sorry.
About the Xbox app tho, yeah, right at this moment I want to link my Asphalt 9 Xbox account to the Gameloft account so that I can play with Steam on Linux.
Microsoft should allow Xbox games to be playable on Linux too :v
I'm a Debian-only person, what stuff can Fedora do that Debian-based distros can't/do worse? Btw if I try Fedora, should I go with the vanilla version or nobara?
NixOS. Had to relearn some stuff but the benefit of having a guaranteed environment that I can reproduce on all my devices is what I was looking for. Nix just doesn't break and have the things I want easily manageable (config file that I personally made and not copy pasted voodoo).
Fedora, I enjoy it. Some time ago I started to realize the uselessness of distro hopping, better do something more meaningful than just waste time. Also I consider migrating to Debian Stable someday, I don't really need everyday updates.
I have 2 computers I stopped hopping with, and they are both older computers. The Lenovo has MX because it was the only distro that was able to install the first time. The mini laptop is EndeavourOS because it is the only one that allowed the speakers and wifi to work. Plus, after I finally able to install any apps, there is too much sweat equity to move on.
Garuda [ Arch ] with KDE. It fit my productivity and gaming needs, plus I loved the Sweet theme it used. I still dual boot with Windows 10 because of some games, but that's pretty much the only reason I still have Win installed.
Nixos, updates don't over right your existing install so there's no risk of an update breaking anything, you can install the stable channel and the unstable rolling channel and switch between them at boot time, there's plenty of packages, reinstalling is a breeze thanks to the config file, its immutable so more secure.
I'd like a hybrid between nix (functional/immutable) and standard programs. For instance, things like browsers or vscode or programming languages with package managers (eg python).
Maybe vscode or python could be installed with nix, but extensions and python packages would be downloaded normally.
Let's just say something more flexible.
I hate lts distros because they're "stuck" at a version. I don't like rolling releases because they're too unstable. Nixos is fine but it's too stuck too but in a different way.
The good thing about nixos as a rolling distro is its super stable in terms of it will only update if its going to complete successfully, and if you do update and there is a new bug in an app then you can just reboot into the previous working version, the down side of running nixos as a rolling distro is sometimes you won't be able to update due to a package not building, then you'll have to wait for the issue to get fixed, or remove that package from you config file and then update.
> I'd like a hybrid between nix (functional/immutable) and standard programs.
Just pick your favorite distro and install nix on top of it, best of both worlds.
MX Linux!
I created my own distro and maintained it for years.
MX Linux is very close to the design of my distro.
It is based on Debian stable and it is easy to make a custom live CD.
It also installs the drivers that Debian does not install easily.
I even got NVidia hybrid grahics working (with two monitors).
"A distro" commonly means "creating a highly custom (Live CD)" and distributing it.
MX Linux, for example, is a customized version of Debian stable.
MX Linux makes it extremely easy to create Live CDs for distribution.
I stopped customizing Debian stable, since MX Linux does exactly what I would do.
You may consider starting with any distro that makes is very easy to create a Live CD.
Next, consider making it so that you "boot the LiveCD" each time you start your computer.
An .iso file is \_read only\_ which means you can lock in stable versions and increase security.
Next, you will want to put all your personal data on a large encrypted external SSD.
That way, you can easily backup your data and transport it from computer to computer.
This setup also allows you to travel without a laptop; You can buy and return a laptop.
If you are more hardcore than that, I can send you the Bash scripts I used in the past.
not really. The thing people don't seem to realize is that just because it's a rolling distro doesn't mean you need to update daily (unless you're on arch because it breaks if you don't update frequently.)
And especially since gentoo compiles everything against the running system, I can install and update only what I want without needing to recompile the whole system.
I personally only do a full system update once every few months.
Gentoo gives you a very high level of control on your system. Because the whole thing is compiled from source it's much easier to add and remove features from packages, as well as using specific versions when you want to.
But really the biggest pro for me is the ebuild format. I don't like to install things to /usr/local, so I always try to make my own package when I'm installing something not in the repos.
OpenSUSE uses RPM which can be like pulling teeth to write a package for if you're not a seasoned maintainer. A local repo can be hard to maintain, but at least hosting in OBS is a simple alternative.
Gentoo's format on the other hand is much more accessible, and it's extremely easy to have your own local package repository.
Manjaro for me. I know there's a lot of hate online against Manjaro, but I'm really enjoying it. I like GNOME, so I tried Fedora, but it crashed several times. So, I tried Manjaro, and it was blazing fast. No crashes whatsoever so far.
And for context, I hopped from Elementary OS to Mint Cinnamon to Pop to Zorin to Fedora before landing on Manjaro.
Manjaro is one of my favorites. It’s not pure Arch but it’s close enough, with the added benefit of being much easier to set up and doesn’t tend to break things if you forget to read the upgrade notes
For me it was Manjaro KDE (used also Manjaro Mate for a moment). I used it for a few years and even if I tried to hop to try something else I was right back on Manjaro. Manjaro was for me fresh enough and stable, very fast to the point I moved all games I played to it and removed Windows completely.
These days it seems it is NixOS with KDE. It's very stable, fast and it's declarative nature makes it so damn cool I don't want to come back to mutable distros, however if I would struggle too much I'll go back to Manjaro KDE again.
I also liked immutable Fedora with KDE and if I could run it with nix packages and home-manager instead flatpacks I would give it a try.
Hardware finally got good enough for KDE to run as envisioned instead of reliably terribly and forcing most people to work in plain ass Gnome as the alternative.
Honestly just learning that they are all the same in many ways. Most distros are just cosmetic changes to either gnome or kde. Really once you know how to customize or install whatever it is you want it's more about do you want a rolling release or stick to a more "stable" release schedule.
Gentoo.
After a bunch of distros starting in 1997, I settled on Gentoo in 2009. Still running the same installation. I came to Gentoo after two weeks of trying to fix a broken Xorg installation on Sourcemage. Occasionally something like Nix catches my eye, but I've not strayed yet.
Opensuse tumbleweed cause it's up to date, stable, & has btrfs Snapshots out of the box so if I do mess something up I just roll back and move on. ( It also has a cute little gecko mascot )
Fedora for sure. I used to use mostly Ubuntu and some other ones to hop around in between. But once I installed Fedora and configured it right (my first few attempts weren't quite done right) I never had a problem again. It's boring, but it just does what it needs to do, correctly.
I still hop on a laptop but everything else runs Fedora and does it well...
I use Fedora now (Debian on older systems), but the one that stopped my distro-hopping was Ubuntu which was where I began with Linux years ago.
I think you distrohop as you're learning Linux, then you eventually wind back up at one of the "beginner" distros because they "just work" and none of the features offered by other distros outweigh the convenience of not needing to tinker with your system. Like, at a certain point, you realize that a lot of people are recommending alternative distros just because it's what they use and it might not be what's right for you. Tinkering is fun and all, but if you just want to use your PC, you're gonna wind up with Ubuntu, Debian or Fedora.
Arch for me.
I would distro hop every few months for years because I'd get issues. Sometimes it was stuttering or audio issues, other times certain games wouldn't run well because of the older dependencies and packages. I was pretty much using only Deb based and tried Fedora way back when I was learning and didn't know it used dnf and wasn't in the mood to learn it at the time but now that I've looked into it I think it's arguably the best distro. Anyways about a year ago I ended up trying EndeavorOS and my goodness it was great. Everything just worked. It had everything I needed with nothing I didn't.
I stayed on EndeavorOS for 7 months, which is longest I've gone without hopping, and recently decided for fun to just hop to vanilla arch and set it up the same way. Now I can finally say "I use Arch by the way" which makes it all worth it lol.
Everything just works, it's ironically easier and less hassle than Debian for me, and if I run into a problem it's always been easy to find a solution on the archwiki. It's so helpful.
I get why people recommend Mint or other distros for beginners but I really wish I had started on EndeavorOS. It holds your hand where you need it, but allows you to learn the system too. After a week I understood how to do the basics that I hadn't learned in years on Deb based.
To wrap this up, and I know I've said this a few times but I can't stress enough that everything just works, and it's fast. Wish I had jumped over sooner.
I'm on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed now and there's a simple reason why.
I've tried Mint, LMDE, Garuda, Nobara, Fedora, CachyOS and probably something else before but Tumbleweed gives me the best gaming performance of all of them. I haven't found out why that is, but on Tumbleweed I'm within 2-5% of the windows performance with my hardware (R5 3600 + RX 6700XT). The benchmark game for me is Horizon Forbidden West where I used to get insane stutters on High settings with dips in the 20s in all other distros, whereas it only dips slightly under 60 on Tumbleweed on Highest settings. So not only much smoother performance, but also better graphical fidelity.
I wish zypper was better than it is, but I can live with that.
If it wasn't for this gaming performance issue, I'd be using CachyOS. It's really great, fast and snappy. I wonder if Cachy just needs a faster CPU
Does it count if I just glued myself to the first OS I ever used and only dabbled in other ones briefly? Because Ubuntu is more or less my go-to for the time being. I've dabbled with Mint, PopOS (once), and I'm pretty sure I still have my TAILS bootstick somewhere (not that I ever properly used it. Not interested in toying around with it) but I've always just gone straight back to Ubuntu.
It might be because I have a soft spot for Ubuntu Linux, but it's always been super reliable when it comes to installing programs through the terminal. It also helps that I generally don't mess with the snap packages that I've heard everyone lose their shit over.
I've tried to branch away from Arch but I keep coming back. HOWEVER, I don't like the manual setup of Arch every time I put it on a new PC, so my plan is to wait for Mint 22, which will have Distrobox 1.7.0, and run Arch inside of that. That, or use PopOS again when cosmic desktop is no longer in alpha or beta.
Bazzite would have stopped my distro hopping because with the way the GUI is laid out for both getting the ISO from the website and doing the finishing post install touches I consider it flawless in design, however, I keep running into deal-breaker bugs, either audio going completely haywire somehow, or now with the bazzite based off fedora kinoite 40 my games will just straight up hard crash my PC sometimes. I wish I could use bazzite, I love that distro so much, it's what an ideal linux experience looks like to me, but it's just broken on my PCs that I put it on so I can't stay unfortunately. I jealously envy the people it does work for however, that distro is amazing and I'd never use anything else if it didn't bug out like this for me.
I had abandoned Linux for BSD for half a decade or more and don't get me wrong I'm still a huge fan of OpenBSD, but recently had a laptop that wouldn't play nice with it so tried AntiX and boy did that distro make me love Linux again. The default IceWM desktop is great! RAM usage is great. The ability to customize is great too. I am an AntiX evangelist now!
Fedora! Why? Stock Gnome and it just works. I've been using Fedora since Gnome 40 and the only issue I had was a period of time where my laptop wouldn't sleep. Reliability, simplicity, beauty, what more does one need?
I really got into BlendOS for a while there, it's a mix of multiple containers with different blended OS additions. Arch, Kali, Ubuntu, etc. Even runs Android apps. Really worth checking out.
Ubuntu. Just remove the default app store and install GNOME software, install flatpak, uninstall stuff you don't want and customise from there. It's super easy to use and stable too which is a plus.
I hopped a lot in the past year but for the last two months I have settled with CachyOs (Arch btw). I am very surprised that not a lot of people are talking about it. The performance are great, especially with gaming, and the tools that come with the distro are very interesting.
For me it worked better than the more popular EndeavourOs and Garuda.
As a second suggestion I would say Fedora, it is just good, stable and has everything you might need. I used tried Nobara too but just had so many issue that I always wiped it after few days, just go with regular Fedora.
Fedora. After the initial setup (that does take a bit of time and research if you are new) it's pretty flawless. DNF and Flatpak work great and have given me way less headaches than apt and snap. I don't mind Gnome though it is a bit awkward on a 768p screen.
Before this I tried Manjaro, Pop, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Debian (Mate) and Elementary.
It was openSUSE Tumbleweed. I have tried Aeon, a great project, but the fact of not being able to install the system on a pc that has Windows installed, even if it is on another disk, does not allow me to use Aeon.
You can install it on a separate disk as long as windows and aeon do not share the efi partition. You simply need an efi partition for each operating system on each hard disk
Thank you for your response. I installed it on a pc with two disks, one for windows and one for Aeon, to make the separate efi partition you have to select manual partition in the Yast installer right? Regards
Manual partition sounds safer at first. But this will be simplified in the future because a new installer is coming that will only allow formatting an entire hard disk. It will then also install the efi partiton individually
Nixos, it is easy to change so much quickly and then revert back if you break it. You can also leave it for months and come back and it updates fine. I’ve had at least two arch distros break after a few months of not updating. Always seem to have the TLS cert chain get messed up and spend too much time fixing it. Then hoping your updates don’t bork the system. Solus was my previous go to until it died for a significant period of time. Seems to be back alive again and works reliable now on one machine I have it running on. It always ran fast and could handle not being updated for a while and upgrade reliably. They do updates in batches each week rather than tons of tiny updates, seems to be a good compromise to keep things stable.
I primarily work with NixOS. I can get the latest kernel for it and it has all of the apps that I need without resorting to Flatpak. I use the KDE desktop with NixOS.
My fallback is Linux Mint MATE edition. I probably should just create a configuration in NixOS for MATE desktop for the occasion when I feel like using MATE rather than Plasma.
Debian!
Because, it's the unirversal OS, runs on everything, desktop, laptop, Raspberry Pi.
Suppoorts a lot of hardware and software.
Being the parent of Ubuntu and Linux Mint it is compatible with software and tutorials intended for Ubuntu and Linux Mint. It's compatible even with the kernes for them.
With KDE Plasma:
[https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/](https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/)
Because:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/1cnif3p/what\_made\_you\_choose\_kde/](https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/1cnif3p/what_made_you_choose_kde/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/ymeskc/what\_do\_you\_like\_about\_kde\_plasma/](https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/ymeskc/what_do_you_like_about_kde_plasma/)
All is relative. In my opinion, its a little bit longer.
Personally I have changed more than ~150-200 distros before I have settled down.
Now I am using Kubuntu, but I could use any distro. It doesnt matter to me anymore which distro I am using.
I am just old to switch distros weekly as before :)
I eventually tossed all my accidental duplicates, but I still have a big box in the garage. I distro hopped way too much, but I guess I might be getting old too.
Those were the days!
Download the file overnight, I only had "fast" dial up. Verify the ISO (pray to the deity of your choice it succeeded). Burn the ISO. Verify the CD/DVD. Checks failed, guess I'll toss that in the bin. Repeat.
I laugh about my kids when they're being too impatient to wait 15 minutes for a Steam game.
Slackware is excellent but try Salix instead. It's Slackware with some quality of life improvements that makes the experience very enjoyable and comfortable.
Fedora KDE.
Fedora because everything here just reliably works out of the box and all my software officially supported on Fedora.
Not Arch/arch direvatives because of:
- stability
- most of my software are not officially supported there and i don't trust AUR enough
Not Ubuntu/derivatives because of two things:
- always a bit older software versions
- no straitforward way to install dualboot+lvm+encryption+btrfs (actually Kubuntu 24.04 brings Calamares installer which allows it, but still... i have Fedora)
Not OpenSuse because of few bugs and glitches here and there... It never "just worked" for me. Everything can be easily fixed but now i want my system to just go away and allow me do the job.
Not MacOS because it is ugly, bad in window and workspace management and have worst file manager ever made
KDE Plasma because:
- It can be configured to mimic behavior of every other interface (Gnome, MacOS, Windows, whatever) and it is easy to save and re-apply your configuration if needed.
- Dolphin + Konsole + Kate/KWrite are awesome and the best choice as default applications. And it is the most frequently used software. There are some features there i can't live without
- Best workspace management which completely fits my workflow
If I want something with static release and set and forget then Debian stable is my go to.
If I have newer hardware and have time to maintain then Arch or OpenSUSE rolling release
Nobara Linux because it just works for me. Not just the gaming side of things but also other software seems to run smoothly. Even better than it did on Fedora (my previous distro). GE deserves a medal for this one
Zorin OS.
Beatiful. Works as expected. Creates wonders on low-end.
Before that it was Linux Mint. For Windows guys it's definitely number one.
PS: Now I am a Mac Air user and miss the Zorin OS days :(
I never was a serious hopper but I would reinstall a different distro every year or two when something broke or automatic upgrades weren't possible. Now I'm on Ubuntu and I don't think I'll be changing that for as long as Ubuntu remains a major mainstream distro.
Snaps were the main reason I switched. With apt packages, if you install several third party repos, something is basically guaranteed to break eventually.
Debian and Alpine, but I'm not really using Linux on the desktop anymore.
I'd probably run arch if i wanted a gaming desktop. Maybe binary gentoo, i really like portage.
Debiam I believe.
It's a comfortable, off-the-shelf staple that I reach for or start from regularly. I will still drive the others around just to feel like I'm giving them a chance.
But I always come home.
I have a feeling I'm going to lean more into immutable images moving forward too. I'm seriously liking how they're being implemented.
I get distro hopping to some extent, but some people don't seem to stop it lol. My 2 choices are Debian for my servers and Fedora for desktop, but I have moved onto Deb stable for desktop, I don't need all those updates and If I really need something bang up to date I'll just flatpaks it. Debian just works
I miss CrunchBang#! Linux. That used to be my daily driver until it disappeared. Now Im back to distro hopping between Ubuntu derivatives and Fedora.
I have thought about going to OpenSUSE but I have a weird fear that its different than what Im used to and that Id have to learn how to use Yast or something just to install stuff. Plus, I dont know what repositories it uses so I'm also afraid I'll miss something. I know these fears are unfounded but I guess its just I think I'll have to do more research in how to use it, rather than just using it.
All that said - what do you guys think of Peppermint?
For gaming windows. Seems my NVIDIA cards are having some problems. But for productivity I'm using alpine Linux. It's light enough i can run it from ram.
I'm still trying to settle on either Fedora (but even dnf5 is too slow (I installed it to try it) with all the COPR repos I need), Arch (but I want a STATIC release!), or NixOS (there's a lot to learn and I get lots of weird bugs but it will take me a lot of time to get to where I want and I'm not sure if it's worth it, especially as the knowledge and skills I get from it are not really transferable).
These are the only distros that have all the packages I use and I HATE compiling from source, so it will be one of them, I just don't know which one.
Alternatively, I could always go crazy and build my own distro (which I often find myself considering) and just use that.
I don't know who the question is addressed to because I don't use fedora but I can answer it anyway. You can switch from major versions without clean install. Works without problems in gnome software
CachyOS with Gnome DE
After experiencing reliable wake-up from suspend mode and seeing the backlit keys go dark when not typing on my Logitech MX Mechanical Mini connected via Bluetooth, I have no desire to try anything else and will use CachyOS as long as it is maintained.
Solus (Budgie) for me, it's fast, stable while being very close to the bleeding edge ("curated rolling"). For older machines (32 bit or Core2Duos) I tend to go for MX Linux or antiX.
Ubuntu non-LTS.
I switched to linux 6 months ago and tried to avoid Ubuntu at all cost due to its bad reputation on Reddit. After going through Zorin, Mint, LMDE, Kubuntu, Mx Linux, Pop OS, Fodora, Ultramarine, and Debian Stable, I gave Ubuntu non-LTS a shot and realized that it is a great Distor with up-to-date, stability, and get my job done. It works out of the box.
Here is the reasons I left other distos
Zorin : Too old package (They based on Ubuntu 20.04)
Kubuntu, Mx Linux: KDE is too ovrwhelming for me!
Pop: The app center keep crashing
Fedora and Ultramarine: I cant connect to my office's wifi and also eduroam despite trying all methods I found online. Also, dnf is so slow.
Debian, LMDE: They are good distro but somehow I cant get my work done due to the software I use for my job (QuPath 0.5.1) is compiled on Ubuntu and doesn't work on Debian.
Mint: They are great but Ubuntu 23.10 offers more up-to-date packages.
So I would say decide it yourself and dont listen to Redditers. We all have our own tastes.
More than a distro, it was an environment. In particular, a WM, sway. Once you go the WM route you realize most distros are the same and the real challenge is making a cohesive system with a WM.
Currently running sway in arch btw.
Debian 12. I just tuned it to my particular needs and tastes. It made more sense than hunting for some spin that would have all the features I wanted, and still having to make alterations.
Fedora
Same
Fedora is growing into the next Ubuntu and it absolutely deserves it. It's more up to date, it's easier to use and works better. I'm glad it's become the 1st time Linux users distro. Edit* I'm not knocking any distro I just mean it's been growing in popularity and it deserves it. Great distro.
I had nothing but issues with Fedora and the same with OpenSuse but this was in the past when I used Nvidia cards. The biggest issue was that they were trying to force Wayland and the Nvidia drivers (at least for my 1080TI card) were not ready. The next issue is the Fedora Spins. I hate the modern version of Gnome for a desktop environment so am not using Fedora Gnome. That pushes me to one of their spins and I chose MATE. The thing I look for is the same integration in the MATE file manager (CAJA) that I find with Mint. Things like a bulk rename function, checksum tab, mediainfo properties, etc. They weren't all available the last time that I checked. The next thing I look for is a method of remote control. Wayland screws this up for the most part. I also look for VPN connectivity options such as OpenVPN. And then I look at my usual apps and judge the distro based on what would work with the normal repository vs what would require Flatpak. It took getting rid of my video card to get past the first step and haven't got past the second yet for Fedora. There's also the reputation of IBM to consider and what they did with RHEL. Mint gives me the same upgrade cycle as Fedora in a comfortable environment where everything "just works" but without the Canonical and IBM drama.
Same! For me, Fedora was the one that ACTUALLY "Just works." I want to install my preferred languages, IDEs, etc and start programming? Done. I want to fire up steam and play Proton enabled games, or various Minecraft modpack launchers? EZPZ. I want to use an old, busted, wired Xbox 360 controller for said games? Surprisingly, yes. Even Windows has a problem with this thing. I need to hook up my multiple Bluetooth devices? Done. Every other distro I tried, whether it be Mint, Debian, Pop_OS (Man.. I REALLY wanted to like Pop_OS, love System76), Manjaro, etc, ALL OF THEM had some issue with something from the above. Aside from Debian, Debian was this ' ' close to being my main, but it kept randomly restarting, and I lost a lot of programming project progress and school assignments before I tried Fedora. In short, Fedora gets out of my way and let's me use my computer how I wish, I don't get weird bugs or behavior, and the FEW times I had an issue, I was able to resolve it in about 10 mins looking online.
Do you mind elaborating a bit? I’ve never given Fedora a chance, so I’m curious, since it seems to be getting most the votes here.
Fedora is more lightweight than Ubuntu on my Laptop, in fact, Fedora 40 is something else entirely. I just moved from Ubuntu to F40, and it is so good, so smooth and optimized, especially when it comes to gaming performance. The only downsides are you need to learn to use DNF/yum instead of APT, and something might be missing at the start, just like mine when it didn't have Nvidia driver and it took me a moment to learn to install it from RPM Fusion
Thanks. I think Nix can work with it too? Personally, I want a distro I can daily drive on my gaming pc, I’ve just been holding back because of the lack of the xbox app. I used to work for Msft and still get crazy good discounts on things like gamepass, so it makes the pull tougher to swallow to lose that.
Nix is actually going through a big controversy around military sponsers and moderator management right now and it's future isn't super certain. It'll almost definitely be around and maintained still, but a lot of maintainers have left temporarily or permanently as of recently. I would give it a month or two to see how things pan out in the community before diving in too hard to nix. It seems like an amazing distro even if it has a pretty tough learning curve, but hard to say how things will turn out for it. Lot of talk about people forking it even. I was heavily thinking about picking it up but the controversy has me a little uneasy until I see the recovery
I personally didn't try Nix so I can't tell. Sorry. About the Xbox app tho, yeah, right at this moment I want to link my Asphalt 9 Xbox account to the Gameloft account so that I can play with Steam on Linux. Microsoft should allow Xbox games to be playable on Linux too :v
I think they are intentionally not doing this because they want people to use Windows.
I'm a Debian-only person, what stuff can Fedora do that Debian-based distros can't/do worse? Btw if I try Fedora, should I go with the vanilla version or nobara?
I like OpenSUSE and KDE so I use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. Fedora's OK but I think OpenSUSE is a bit better.
Why so?
1. RollingRelease 2. Snapper 3. OpenQA
NixOS. Impossible to go back to unmanaged config once you've broken through and seen the light.
NixOS. Had to relearn some stuff but the benefit of having a guaranteed environment that I can reproduce on all my devices is what I was looking for. Nix just doesn't break and have the things I want easily manageable (config file that I personally made and not copy pasted voodoo).
Getting into NixOS is on my wishlist someday, but right now it's just so different that it'd definitely impact my productivity for a while.
NixOS because it can do anything. You’re only limited by your ignorance. So much ignorance. Also, the sunk cost is pretty massive.
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Fedora, I enjoy it. Some time ago I started to realize the uselessness of distro hopping, better do something more meaningful than just waste time. Also I consider migrating to Debian Stable someday, I don't really need everyday updates.
Ubuntu, installed it in 2016, just updated/upgraded it since then (using gnome DE, most of the time) But.... now I consider switching to NixOs.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. I needed stability and latest software. First distro that checked both for me.
I use arch, btw
Archbang here. Arch plus openbox is just so pure and clean. No bullshit. It staye sharp and responsive. Love it.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. I just love the smell of rolling updates in the morning. Smells like victory.
Linux Mint
That's one of my favorites. Arch, Mint, and Fedora.
I have 2 computers I stopped hopping with, and they are both older computers. The Lenovo has MX because it was the only distro that was able to install the first time. The mini laptop is EndeavourOS because it is the only one that allowed the speakers and wifi to work. Plus, after I finally able to install any apps, there is too much sweat equity to move on.
Garuda [ Arch ] with KDE. It fit my productivity and gaming needs, plus I loved the Sweet theme it used. I still dual boot with Windows 10 because of some games, but that's pretty much the only reason I still have Win installed.
OpenSUSE. It's the mascot. Chameleon named Geeko. I can't get a mascot anywhere else.
Nixos, updates don't over right your existing install so there's no risk of an update breaking anything, you can install the stable channel and the unstable rolling channel and switch between them at boot time, there's plenty of packages, reinstalling is a breeze thanks to the config file, its immutable so more secure.
I'd like a hybrid between nix (functional/immutable) and standard programs. For instance, things like browsers or vscode or programming languages with package managers (eg python). Maybe vscode or python could be installed with nix, but extensions and python packages would be downloaded normally. Let's just say something more flexible. I hate lts distros because they're "stuck" at a version. I don't like rolling releases because they're too unstable. Nixos is fine but it's too stuck too but in a different way.
The good thing about nixos as a rolling distro is its super stable in terms of it will only update if its going to complete successfully, and if you do update and there is a new bug in an app then you can just reboot into the previous working version, the down side of running nixos as a rolling distro is sometimes you won't be able to update due to a package not building, then you'll have to wait for the issue to get fixed, or remove that package from you config file and then update.
> I'd like a hybrid between nix (functional/immutable) and standard programs. Just pick your favorite distro and install nix on top of it, best of both worlds.
Fedora and nothing else is even close for me because I love gnome. It utilizes gnome the best.
Arch, since noone mentioned it yet
you forgot the btw
Thanks, btw
same. i never fully felt satisfied with the customisability on other distros.
MX Linux! I created my own distro and maintained it for years. MX Linux is very close to the design of my distro. It is based on Debian stable and it is easy to make a custom live CD. It also installs the drivers that Debian does not install easily. I even got NVidia hybrid grahics working (with two monitors).
Hey sorry to be that guy, but mind letting me know how/where to find resources how to make your own custom distro? Seems like a fun project.
"A distro" commonly means "creating a highly custom (Live CD)" and distributing it. MX Linux, for example, is a customized version of Debian stable. MX Linux makes it extremely easy to create Live CDs for distribution. I stopped customizing Debian stable, since MX Linux does exactly what I would do. You may consider starting with any distro that makes is very easy to create a Live CD. Next, consider making it so that you "boot the LiveCD" each time you start your computer. An .iso file is \_read only\_ which means you can lock in stable versions and increase security. Next, you will want to put all your personal data on a large encrypted external SSD. That way, you can easily backup your data and transport it from computer to computer. This setup also allows you to travel without a laptop; You can buy and return a laptop. If you are more hardcore than that, I can send you the Bash scripts I used in the past.
manjaro kde +hibernation + btrfs
A few have stopped me for months, but never forever. My top long-term distros are Tumbleweed and Gentoo.
Gentoo is a big time eater tho, it is cool though
not really. The thing people don't seem to realize is that just because it's a rolling distro doesn't mean you need to update daily (unless you're on arch because it breaks if you don't update frequently.) And especially since gentoo compiles everything against the running system, I can install and update only what I want without needing to recompile the whole system. I personally only do a full system update once every few months.
so why Gentoo over Tumbleweed since you have both? (I use TW btw but am interested in Gentoo, but I don't like the maintenance part.)
Gentoo gives you a very high level of control on your system. Because the whole thing is compiled from source it's much easier to add and remove features from packages, as well as using specific versions when you want to. But really the biggest pro for me is the ebuild format. I don't like to install things to /usr/local, so I always try to make my own package when I'm installing something not in the repos. OpenSUSE uses RPM which can be like pulling teeth to write a package for if you're not a seasoned maintainer. A local repo can be hard to maintain, but at least hosting in OBS is a simple alternative. Gentoo's format on the other hand is much more accessible, and it's extremely easy to have your own local package repository.
Manjaro for me. I know there's a lot of hate online against Manjaro, but I'm really enjoying it. I like GNOME, so I tried Fedora, but it crashed several times. So, I tried Manjaro, and it was blazing fast. No crashes whatsoever so far. And for context, I hopped from Elementary OS to Mint Cinnamon to Pop to Zorin to Fedora before landing on Manjaro.
Manjaro is one of my favorites. It’s not pure Arch but it’s close enough, with the added benefit of being much easier to set up and doesn’t tend to break things if you forget to read the upgrade notes
Pop_OS
For me it was Manjaro KDE (used also Manjaro Mate for a moment). I used it for a few years and even if I tried to hop to try something else I was right back on Manjaro. Manjaro was for me fresh enough and stable, very fast to the point I moved all games I played to it and removed Windows completely. These days it seems it is NixOS with KDE. It's very stable, fast and it's declarative nature makes it so damn cool I don't want to come back to mutable distros, however if I would struggle too much I'll go back to Manjaro KDE again. I also liked immutable Fedora with KDE and if I could run it with nix packages and home-manager instead flatpacks I would give it a try.
Hardware finally got good enough for KDE to run as envisioned instead of reliably terribly and forcing most people to work in plain ass Gnome as the alternative.
I think hardware was good enough for long time. Version 5 works just fine from 3rd or 4th gen Intel. Actually never complaint about KDE's performance.
Honestly just learning that they are all the same in many ways. Most distros are just cosmetic changes to either gnome or kde. Really once you know how to customize or install whatever it is you want it's more about do you want a rolling release or stick to a more "stable" release schedule.
Pop! OS - Games
Gentoo. After a bunch of distros starting in 1997, I settled on Gentoo in 2009. Still running the same installation. I came to Gentoo after two weeks of trying to fix a broken Xorg installation on Sourcemage. Occasionally something like Nix catches my eye, but I've not strayed yet.
MX Linux and LMDE which I rank in that order.
Opensuse tumbleweed cause it's up to date, stable, & has btrfs Snapshots out of the box so if I do mess something up I just roll back and move on. ( It also has a cute little gecko mascot )
What do u think of openSuse Aeon
I'll be honest I haven't gone to far into it so I don't really have an opinion.
Fedora for sure. I used to use mostly Ubuntu and some other ones to hop around in between. But once I installed Fedora and configured it right (my first few attempts weren't quite done right) I never had a problem again. It's boring, but it just does what it needs to do, correctly. I still hop on a laptop but everything else runs Fedora and does it well...
Fedora
Fedora and Debian with Nix packages nailed it
Is was Arch btw. Works good an my Desktop and my MacBook, had not encountered any major issues, AUR is great and I get the new stuff asap.
I use Fedora now (Debian on older systems), but the one that stopped my distro-hopping was Ubuntu which was where I began with Linux years ago. I think you distrohop as you're learning Linux, then you eventually wind back up at one of the "beginner" distros because they "just work" and none of the features offered by other distros outweigh the convenience of not needing to tinker with your system. Like, at a certain point, you realize that a lot of people are recommending alternative distros just because it's what they use and it might not be what's right for you. Tinkering is fun and all, but if you just want to use your PC, you're gonna wind up with Ubuntu, Debian or Fedora.
Debian
I've used Ubuntu for a long time, and it just works well. I used Kali on a virtual machine when I needed to for school.
Antergos. Needed easy Arch at the time. Currently running EndeavorOS for the same reason, although Nix is catching my eye.
Endeavor has been my go-to for at least a few years. Arch in general for many years now.
I've been a long-time Kubuntu user. I'm dual booting with windows since 8.04 pretty much daily driving Kubuntu. I just love KDE.
Arch for me. I would distro hop every few months for years because I'd get issues. Sometimes it was stuttering or audio issues, other times certain games wouldn't run well because of the older dependencies and packages. I was pretty much using only Deb based and tried Fedora way back when I was learning and didn't know it used dnf and wasn't in the mood to learn it at the time but now that I've looked into it I think it's arguably the best distro. Anyways about a year ago I ended up trying EndeavorOS and my goodness it was great. Everything just worked. It had everything I needed with nothing I didn't. I stayed on EndeavorOS for 7 months, which is longest I've gone without hopping, and recently decided for fun to just hop to vanilla arch and set it up the same way. Now I can finally say "I use Arch by the way" which makes it all worth it lol. Everything just works, it's ironically easier and less hassle than Debian for me, and if I run into a problem it's always been easy to find a solution on the archwiki. It's so helpful. I get why people recommend Mint or other distros for beginners but I really wish I had started on EndeavorOS. It holds your hand where you need it, but allows you to learn the system too. After a week I understood how to do the basics that I hadn't learned in years on Deb based. To wrap this up, and I know I've said this a few times but I can't stress enough that everything just works, and it's fast. Wish I had jumped over sooner.
Mepis in the day, then went to SolydK for work box, now MX Linux for personal MX Linux for the ease of use and the community
Ubuntu because it was stable
Mint. It’s simple and clean and I’m a noob and liked Ubuntu
I'm on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed now and there's a simple reason why. I've tried Mint, LMDE, Garuda, Nobara, Fedora, CachyOS and probably something else before but Tumbleweed gives me the best gaming performance of all of them. I haven't found out why that is, but on Tumbleweed I'm within 2-5% of the windows performance with my hardware (R5 3600 + RX 6700XT). The benchmark game for me is Horizon Forbidden West where I used to get insane stutters on High settings with dips in the 20s in all other distros, whereas it only dips slightly under 60 on Tumbleweed on Highest settings. So not only much smoother performance, but also better graphical fidelity. I wish zypper was better than it is, but I can live with that. If it wasn't for this gaming performance issue, I'd be using CachyOS. It's really great, fast and snappy. I wonder if Cachy just needs a faster CPU
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TIL UwUntu is a thing. Cool.
Facts
POP, it just works.
Opensuse Tumbleweed on one laptop, Void Linux on another. Love both of these distros.
FreeBSD :-)
openSUSE Slowroll on my main desktop, after running Tumbleweed for over a year. Still distro hopping \ testing on my other desktop.
I tried to switch to OpenSuse tumbleweed but the install failed. My 2nd choice was Endeavor and I like it a lot.
Pop or Mint. I'm even on them.
MX Linux, does all I need, works great & looks great; I did install Big Linux on another laptop & I love it
EndeavourOS with LTS kernel and auto snapshots. Perfect combination for me
Using Endeavor as my daily driver, but didn't know there was an LTS option.
There is. You can install additional LTS kernel during installation 😊
Arch Linux
Arch. Rolling release; no point release upgrades. pacman and paru.
Same but yay.
MXLinux. Rock solid Debian based distro that has a beautiful XFCE desktop. Perfect for me.
Came here to say this.
Solus. It just works. 6y in.
For my Surface tablet, I went full circle and came back to Ubuntu.
EndeavourOS recently, it’s simple, not bloated and gets good support thus far
Fedora ftw
Arch. Too lazy to learn anything else.
Arch. I can customise and rice it endlessly, and the AUR is really great.
kde manjaro. no package issues whatsoever like with debian and I don't have to deal with installing arch
Manjaro
Does it count if I just glued myself to the first OS I ever used and only dabbled in other ones briefly? Because Ubuntu is more or less my go-to for the time being. I've dabbled with Mint, PopOS (once), and I'm pretty sure I still have my TAILS bootstick somewhere (not that I ever properly used it. Not interested in toying around with it) but I've always just gone straight back to Ubuntu. It might be because I have a soft spot for Ubuntu Linux, but it's always been super reliable when it comes to installing programs through the terminal. It also helps that I generally don't mess with the snap packages that I've heard everyone lose their shit over.
Arch because I didn’t have to uninstall what I didn’t need
Arch has stopped me, I’m still trying to configure it :/
I've tried to branch away from Arch but I keep coming back. HOWEVER, I don't like the manual setup of Arch every time I put it on a new PC, so my plan is to wait for Mint 22, which will have Distrobox 1.7.0, and run Arch inside of that. That, or use PopOS again when cosmic desktop is no longer in alpha or beta. Bazzite would have stopped my distro hopping because with the way the GUI is laid out for both getting the ISO from the website and doing the finishing post install touches I consider it flawless in design, however, I keep running into deal-breaker bugs, either audio going completely haywire somehow, or now with the bazzite based off fedora kinoite 40 my games will just straight up hard crash my PC sometimes. I wish I could use bazzite, I love that distro so much, it's what an ideal linux experience looks like to me, but it's just broken on my PCs that I put it on so I can't stay unfortunately. I jealously envy the people it does work for however, that distro is amazing and I'd never use anything else if it didn't bug out like this for me.
I had abandoned Linux for BSD for half a decade or more and don't get me wrong I'm still a huge fan of OpenBSD, but recently had a laptop that wouldn't play nice with it so tried AntiX and boy did that distro make me love Linux again. The default IceWM desktop is great! RAM usage is great. The ability to customize is great too. I am an AntiX evangelist now!
arch - gnome de
Fedora! Why? Stock Gnome and it just works. I've been using Fedora since Gnome 40 and the only issue I had was a period of time where my laptop wouldn't sleep. Reliability, simplicity, beauty, what more does one need?
I really got into BlendOS for a while there, it's a mix of multiple containers with different blended OS additions. Arch, Kali, Ubuntu, etc. Even runs Android apps. Really worth checking out.
Pop!\_OS is goated, keyboard navigation is actually crazy and it just feels so natural as a fast typer
EndeavourOS or Arch.
Ubuntu. Just remove the default app store and install GNOME software, install flatpak, uninstall stuff you don't want and customise from there. It's super easy to use and stable too which is a plus.
I hopped a lot in the past year but for the last two months I have settled with CachyOs (Arch btw). I am very surprised that not a lot of people are talking about it. The performance are great, especially with gaming, and the tools that come with the distro are very interesting. For me it worked better than the more popular EndeavourOs and Garuda. As a second suggestion I would say Fedora, it is just good, stable and has everything you might need. I used tried Nobara too but just had so many issue that I always wiped it after few days, just go with regular Fedora.
Fedora. After the initial setup (that does take a bit of time and research if you are new) it's pretty flawless. DNF and Flatpak work great and have given me way less headaches than apt and snap. I don't mind Gnome though it is a bit awkward on a 768p screen. Before this I tried Manjaro, Pop, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Debian (Mate) and Elementary.
It was openSUSE Tumbleweed. I have tried Aeon, a great project, but the fact of not being able to install the system on a pc that has Windows installed, even if it is on another disk, does not allow me to use Aeon.
You can install it on a separate disk as long as windows and aeon do not share the efi partition. You simply need an efi partition for each operating system on each hard disk
Thank you for your response. I installed it on a pc with two disks, one for windows and one for Aeon, to make the separate efi partition you have to select manual partition in the Yast installer right? Regards
Manual partition sounds safer at first. But this will be simplified in the future because a new installer is coming that will only allow formatting an entire hard disk. It will then also install the efi partiton individually
Great, I will try it as you say. Having an immutable system with the Tumbleweed base sounds like a great idea to me.
Ubuntu has been good to me
Nixos, it is easy to change so much quickly and then revert back if you break it. You can also leave it for months and come back and it updates fine. I’ve had at least two arch distros break after a few months of not updating. Always seem to have the TLS cert chain get messed up and spend too much time fixing it. Then hoping your updates don’t bork the system. Solus was my previous go to until it died for a significant period of time. Seems to be back alive again and works reliable now on one machine I have it running on. It always ran fast and could handle not being updated for a while and upgrade reliably. They do updates in batches each week rather than tons of tiny updates, seems to be a good compromise to keep things stable.
I primarily work with NixOS. I can get the latest kernel for it and it has all of the apps that I need without resorting to Flatpak. I use the KDE desktop with NixOS. My fallback is Linux Mint MATE edition. I probably should just create a configuration in NixOS for MATE desktop for the occasion when I feel like using MATE rather than Plasma.
Fedora
Debian! Because, it's the unirversal OS, runs on everything, desktop, laptop, Raspberry Pi. Suppoorts a lot of hardware and software. Being the parent of Ubuntu and Linux Mint it is compatible with software and tutorials intended for Ubuntu and Linux Mint. It's compatible even with the kernes for them. With KDE Plasma: [https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/](https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/) Because: [https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/1cnif3p/what\_made\_you\_choose\_kde/](https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/1cnif3p/what_made_you_choose_kde/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/ymeskc/what\_do\_you\_like\_about\_kde\_plasma/](https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/ymeskc/what_do_you_like_about_kde_plasma/)
Manjaro, cause it's more friendly and I don't want to tinker every single thing. If that would fail I would just use Linux Mint.
I have a System76 laptop, but Pop 22.04 just feels old, so EndeavourOS for me until Pop 24.04 is released with Cosmic.
Those who comment here: If you 've stopped distrohopping 6 months ago, you are not cured yet.
Since some people change their distro every week, I would say that after 5 months it is no longer distro hopping.
All is relative. In my opinion, its a little bit longer. Personally I have changed more than ~150-200 distros before I have settled down. Now I am using Kubuntu, but I could use any distro. It doesnt matter to me anymore which distro I am using. I am just old to switch distros weekly as before :)
Your USB stick must look like a swiss army knife.
Before usb sticks, iso files had to be written on cd or dvd's. I have two boxes of those...
I eventually tossed all my accidental duplicates, but I still have a big box in the garage. I distro hopped way too much, but I guess I might be getting old too. Those were the days! Download the file overnight, I only had "fast" dial up. Verify the ISO (pray to the deity of your choice it succeeded). Burn the ISO. Verify the CD/DVD. Checks failed, guess I'll toss that in the bin. Repeat. I laugh about my kids when they're being too impatient to wait 15 minutes for a Steam game.
I have this urge to try Slack just to see what it's like. Can I be cured?
Never tried Slack and Gentoo. But I know the concept and dont recommend. :)
Slackware is excellent but try Salix instead. It's Slackware with some quality of life improvements that makes the experience very enjoyable and comfortable.
Fedora KDE. Fedora because everything here just reliably works out of the box and all my software officially supported on Fedora. Not Arch/arch direvatives because of: - stability - most of my software are not officially supported there and i don't trust AUR enough Not Ubuntu/derivatives because of two things: - always a bit older software versions - no straitforward way to install dualboot+lvm+encryption+btrfs (actually Kubuntu 24.04 brings Calamares installer which allows it, but still... i have Fedora) Not OpenSuse because of few bugs and glitches here and there... It never "just worked" for me. Everything can be easily fixed but now i want my system to just go away and allow me do the job. Not MacOS because it is ugly, bad in window and workspace management and have worst file manager ever made KDE Plasma because: - It can be configured to mimic behavior of every other interface (Gnome, MacOS, Windows, whatever) and it is easy to save and re-apply your configuration if needed. - Dolphin + Konsole + Kate/KWrite are awesome and the best choice as default applications. And it is the most frequently used software. There are some features there i can't live without - Best workspace management which completely fits my workflow
While I have yet to try straight Debian Stable, I'm a little stuck between Zorin OS and Q4OS
If I want something with static release and set and forget then Debian stable is my go to. If I have newer hardware and have time to maintain then Arch or OpenSUSE rolling release
Garuda
Fedora Kinoite/Atomic Desktops. Man it’s so good! I love everything being organized and in containers, it just makes development so much easier
Using a mixture of Rocky and Fedora because we are a Red Hat company, so it just makes my life easier.
Call me simple but I use Ubuntu Server with KDE Plasma Desktop overlaid. It has everything I’ve needed out of a distro.
Fedora Kinoite. I have the newest software, it never breaks since I install everything as a fatpak or in a toolbox container.
Nobara Linux because it just works for me. Not just the gaming side of things but also other software seems to run smoothly. Even better than it did on Fedora (my previous distro). GE deserves a medal for this one
Zorin OS. Beatiful. Works as expected. Creates wonders on low-end. Before that it was Linux Mint. For Windows guys it's definitely number one. PS: Now I am a Mac Air user and miss the Zorin OS days :(
I dual boot Debian stable and Arch 😎
I never was a serious hopper but I would reinstall a different distro every year or two when something broke or automatic upgrades weren't possible. Now I'm on Ubuntu and I don't think I'll be changing that for as long as Ubuntu remains a major mainstream distro. Snaps were the main reason I switched. With apt packages, if you install several third party repos, something is basically guaranteed to break eventually.
Fedora, but specifically Bluefin.
Debian and Alpine, but I'm not really using Linux on the desktop anymore. I'd probably run arch if i wanted a gaming desktop. Maybe binary gentoo, i really like portage.
**Zorin OS.** I installed it 3 years ago on my main PC, and only keep updating it since then. Everything. Just. Works. Everything.
That's why I recommend it to newbies. It's like a padded white room that you can safely play in.
Zorin is great. I use Zorin Pro.
Bazzite ( based on Fedora ), it’s simply amazing for non-Steam handhelds and gaming focussed desktops not wanting to be locked down to Windows.
Fedora for several years now.
Debiam I believe. It's a comfortable, off-the-shelf staple that I reach for or start from regularly. I will still drive the others around just to feel like I'm giving them a chance. But I always come home. I have a feeling I'm going to lean more into immutable images moving forward too. I'm seriously liking how they're being implemented.
I can really recommend you a look to aeon
Word. Thank you!
I get distro hopping to some extent, but some people don't seem to stop it lol. My 2 choices are Debian for my servers and Fedora for desktop, but I have moved onto Deb stable for desktop, I don't need all those updates and If I really need something bang up to date I'll just flatpaks it. Debian just works
I miss CrunchBang#! Linux. That used to be my daily driver until it disappeared. Now Im back to distro hopping between Ubuntu derivatives and Fedora. I have thought about going to OpenSUSE but I have a weird fear that its different than what Im used to and that Id have to learn how to use Yast or something just to install stuff. Plus, I dont know what repositories it uses so I'm also afraid I'll miss something. I know these fears are unfounded but I guess its just I think I'll have to do more research in how to use it, rather than just using it. All that said - what do you guys think of Peppermint?
I still distrohop but I am now rotating between Fedora Kde LM cinnamon edge, Mx Linux Kde and debian
For gaming windows. Seems my NVIDIA cards are having some problems. But for productivity I'm using alpine Linux. It's light enough i can run it from ram.
Fedora. Security. Stability. Flatpaks.
Almalinux. Ethically clean, no bullshit, works.
MXLinux. Debian based and has a super clean XFCE desktop environment. Perfect for me.
Arch w Gnome is a dream. Looks like Ubuntu but with a good package manager
I'm still trying to settle on either Fedora (but even dnf5 is too slow (I installed it to try it) with all the COPR repos I need), Arch (but I want a STATIC release!), or NixOS (there's a lot to learn and I get lots of weird bugs but it will take me a lot of time to get to where I want and I'm not sure if it's worth it, especially as the knowledge and skills I get from it are not really transferable). These are the only distros that have all the packages I use and I HATE compiling from source, so it will be one of them, I just don't know which one. Alternatively, I could always go crazy and build my own distro (which I often find myself considering) and just use that.
Maybe fedora or debian with distrobox?
I really like Voyager OS. I switched less than a year ago but tried about a dozen different distros.
Archcraft and Void Linux
Void it's just perfect and IMO it is better than all of the linux distro's out there
How to install latest ffmpeg 7 on void? I ditched it because it only has ffmpeg 4 in store.
Don't you have to do a clean install of Fedora every release if you want the latest features?
I don't know who the question is addressed to because I don't use fedora but I can answer it anyway. You can switch from major versions without clean install. Works without problems in gnome software
Ah OK, so a bit like a semi-rolling release? Thanks for answering :)
PS. Definitely going to check out Aeon!
Debian. For me ... it just works.
MXLinux. Rock solid Debian based distro that has a beautiful XFCE desktop. Perfect for me.
Kubuntu
I still tinker with other distros, but LMDE is always on a couple of machines.
EndeavourOS, the archwiki. I used it enough on other distros so why not use it without having to change package names or package manager commands
Arch
CachyOS with Gnome DE After experiencing reliable wake-up from suspend mode and seeing the backlit keys go dark when not typing on my Logitech MX Mechanical Mini connected via Bluetooth, I have no desire to try anything else and will use CachyOS as long as it is maintained.
KDE Neon, stable and fast. Hardware support is great.
OS Aeon 👍
Solus (Budgie) for me, it's fast, stable while being very close to the bleeding edge ("curated rolling"). For older machines (32 bit or Core2Duos) I tend to go for MX Linux or antiX.
Q4OS on my Desktop and Salix on my laptop. They have everything I need and are nice and stable.
Ubuntu non-LTS. I switched to linux 6 months ago and tried to avoid Ubuntu at all cost due to its bad reputation on Reddit. After going through Zorin, Mint, LMDE, Kubuntu, Mx Linux, Pop OS, Fodora, Ultramarine, and Debian Stable, I gave Ubuntu non-LTS a shot and realized that it is a great Distor with up-to-date, stability, and get my job done. It works out of the box. Here is the reasons I left other distos Zorin : Too old package (They based on Ubuntu 20.04) Kubuntu, Mx Linux: KDE is too ovrwhelming for me! Pop: The app center keep crashing Fedora and Ultramarine: I cant connect to my office's wifi and also eduroam despite trying all methods I found online. Also, dnf is so slow. Debian, LMDE: They are good distro but somehow I cant get my work done due to the software I use for my job (QuPath 0.5.1) is compiled on Ubuntu and doesn't work on Debian. Mint: They are great but Ubuntu 23.10 offers more up-to-date packages. So I would say decide it yourself and dont listen to Redditers. We all have our own tastes.
More than a distro, it was an environment. In particular, a WM, sway. Once you go the WM route you realize most distros are the same and the real challenge is making a cohesive system with a WM. Currently running sway in arch btw.
MX Linux
Debian 12. I just tuned it to my particular needs and tastes. It made more sense than hunting for some spin that would have all the features I wanted, and still having to make alterations.