What is your go-to Linux distro and why?

I’d like to settle on a distro, but none of them seem to click for me. I want stability more than anything, but I also value having the latest updates (I know, kind of incompatible).

I have tested Pop!_Os, Arch Linux, Fedora, Mint and Ubuntu. Arch and Pop being the two that I enjoyed the most and seemed the most stable all along… I am somewhat interested in testing NixOS although the learning curve seems a bit steep and it’s holding me back a bit.

What are you using as your daily drive? Would you recommend it to another user? Why? Why not?

cupcakezealot,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Don’t yell but Fedora/Ubuntu was my first exposure to Linux so I’m prejudiced toward them. I didn’t have a lot of exposure to 'nix in the 90s since the family only had Windows.

Ew0,
@Ew0@lemmy.fmhy.ml avatar

Gentoo, Void (Daily), Alpine or Antix (Bootable USB).

marmalade,

Used to be Arch, now I shill for Debian.

notfromhere,

What put you off Arch? I just started using it on an old (2015 era) notebook and it seems pretty decent so far

marmalade,

Nothing really. Arch is still great, I just kept having stuff happen where I’d suddenly find out there was a new bug in something at inopportune times. Just the nature of being bleeding edge. Nothing broke severely, but like if you want to join a Zoom call or play a game with friends or something, having something break randomly that you have to fix, even if it just takes a quick search or 5 minutes of troubleshooting can get tiresome.

Also, all of the customization stuff that Arch allows is not as appealing to me anymore since my skill level with Linux has reached a point where I can get super granular with pretty much any distro. Add to that flatpak reducing my need to depend on the AUR, and there you have it.

AstroLightz_,

Debian and Mint are my favorites. I love the included games in Debian, the UI for both (Using cinnamon), and their ease of use.

TheV2,

I’ve been using Arch Linux as a daily driver for about two years I believe. As with any other distribution, it depends on the user’s preferences, experience and needs, whether or not I’ll recommend them Arch.

What I like the most about Arch is the customization from the ground up, the rich, detailed and yet user-friendly Arch Wiki, the AUR (although one shouldn’t depend on it too much) and that after the installation everything seems more trouble-free than the distributions I’ve tried before. Arch almost never broke for me and even then fixing the issues weren’t a big problem. It’s not as difficult as it is often portrayed.

Nor is it as easy as it is often portrayed. A new user could be comfortable starting with Arch Linux, but it doesn’t hurt to have experienced another distribution that is intended to be user-friendly.

notfromhere,

Having spent years on Gentoo and done several installs, installing Arch the other day was a wall in the park and felt natural. I had to learn the new tech stack (nmcli, pacman, arch-chroot) but after that it was basically easy mode. You mean I don’t have to define compiler flags and feature flags and I don’t have to wait for it to compile or set up a cross arch compiler farm?

Ew0,
@Ew0@lemmy.fmhy.ml avatar

This is how I feel about Gentoo too but I use Void as a daily instead, no systemd and it feels more like what Arch used to be (e.g. Runit is like 5k SLOC whereas systemd is 100s of k’s).

Not bashing but everything seems well engineered with less cruft/bitrot than Gentoo. Of course there’s less customisability xbps-src is pretty decent at doing the job, or just write your own templates :)

TheFrirish,

Well I would have normally said Fedora but with the current RedHat issues I’m thinking of making a switch. but in my opinion Fedora was always rock stable and leading edge. currently looking at an alternative.

plasticbaginthes3a,

Tried a lot of distros and finally settled on openSUSE Tumbleweed. Rock solid for a rolling release. If anything ever goes wrong, there’s Snapper to rollback without a breaking a sweat.

CooperRedArmyDog,

Fedora XFCE, The only 2 times I ever have to touch the command line are for flatpak and for updateing, so I am not sure if I would recomend the XFCE spin, but I would recomend Fedora, probably the KDE, only because I for what ever reason cannot stand Gnome, I do not know why, but I just cannot get my workflow to work with gnome

Uno,

Ubuntu because it’s Linux Easy-Mode

I would only recommend it to Windows users looking to start using Linux. The average Linux user is a lot more tech-literate than me and can use the more difficult but more customizable and streamlined distros, and the average Windows user has no chance on Linux, not even Ubuntu which was already a lot of work for me to switch to

thinkyfish,

I would highly recommend EndeavourOS. Its basically Arch linux on easy mode. It takes care of updates without much fuss.

ronflex,

EndeavourOS is definitely my favorite desktop distro I’ve used. I’m pretty heavy on command line because my brain likes it and I really enjoy the lack of any graphical package manager where you just have to use command line to update/install stuff. Feels very clean and I haven’t had any stability issues that I haven’t seen in other distros.

Resolved3874,

It’s there no option to update things with a GUI or do you just prefer to use terminal. Currently trying to decide between mint and endeavor. Haven’t used Linux since Ubuntu way back in college in like 2011

bloodfart,

Debian stable, the os for 50 year old nudists.

It’s the stable branch of one of the oldest distributions around.

dinckelman,

I’ve tried basically every reasonably maintained distribution, and keep coming back to Arch. It just feels right. And it just works right too. The package manager is excellent, and that is one of the things that makes or breaks any distribution for me. I also love that it comes with nothing, so you know what you get, and it’ll be setup how you want it. With other major distributions, I spend a considerable amount of time removing things first, which is something I just don’t want to do.

I’ve been trying out NixOS recently. I really appreciate what it is trying to do, but the complexity of nix-command is quite overwhelming

SapienSRC,
@SapienSRC@lemmy.world avatar

Not to long ago I would of said Fedora but recently I’ve switched to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and I’m really enjoying it. Still learning the ins and outs though.

health437682,

draft - am I allowed to type “chromeos”

CooperRedArmyDog,

I mean you are allowed to, I just will have lots of questions, starting with Why, and moving on to no really why.

dadarobot,
@dadarobot@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

I use manjaro, if you like the up-to-dateness of arch, with the polish and ease of setup of popos, it may be a great candidate for you.

Ew0,
@Ew0@lemmy.fmhy.ml avatar

Not bashing but for awareness: github.com/arindas/manjarno

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