Which one(s) and why?
Gentoo.
Everything just works and I can configure everything the way I want.Fedora atomic GNOME aka silverblue
- It has very good defaults, works out of the box, I can switch anytime to another de or a ublue image without messing around with my setup
- selinux
- podman
- flatpak centric
- auto updates
- widely used
Current Cons (for me personally):
- openssl is not installed by default (for
- gnome-tweaks is not installed by default
- uses toolbx instead of distrobox. Toolbx is better for servers, distrobox better for desktop, imo.
- flatpak firefox isn’t used
Opensuse micro has distrobox as the default shell. It still needs some work before i daily drive it tho
And it uses firefox flatpak and iirc it installes gnome tweaks by default. Opensuse does right what fedora missed until today.
But, ostree is incredible. There’s no ostree on opensuse and what do I want with btrfs snapshots if I can have ostree’s image based approach? I love opensuse for tumbleweed but fedora rocks with ostree. I could switch to a ublue image but I can also just overlay the packages which isn’t that bad. It’s just bad for newcomers. And no newcomer should have to use ublue because the official image lacks stuff. But it is what it is.
OpenSuse (back then the “normal” one, then Leap and now the rolling release Tumbleweed). It just works really well and keeps on trucking. Updated my old machine for ten years through all the openSuse releases without reinstalling. The repositories are very well kept in order and the build service easily provides anything I might find lacking.
Also, I quite like using Yast for system administration. There are many areas that I rarely touch and having a GUI available is super helpful.
Started with OpenSUSE because it supported our Proprietary CAD software ( Choice was Redhat or SUSE ) As a bonus nVidia hosts its own repo for SUSE and OpenSUSE so no graphic issues with CAD. Then Arch because of the buzz. Manjaro EndeavorOS Ubuntu PoP!_OS Clear Linux Mint ElementaryOS Fedora NixOS
Now main machines run OpenSUSE and wifes 12 yr old laptop is NixOS.
Why? OpenSUSE is really dependable and updates are flawless, if i tinker and break something a rollback at boot is a quick fix, which is imortant since it is my daily work work-station. While you could set up btrfs and grub snapshots in other systems, I like that it comes baked in, and all the EFI/ TPM / Secure-boot stuff works with no messing around.
As for wife’s machine , she is not tech savvy and Windows was too complicated for her (and so damn slow), so GNOME on NixOS (fast) is a clear workflow; and since she likes things exactly the same in order to comprehend a system , the config files make it easy to re-replicate the exact setup.
I went Ubuntu -> Xubuntu -> Debian -> Manjaro -> Arch -> Nix
Arch is still the longest lasting and I’m dual booting with Nix right now, but Nix has been a dream when it comes to gaming stability and I think if it continues I’ll stay.
My journey was:
- Mandrake/Mandriva
- Debian (v2.4)
- Ubuntu (v6.04)
- Debian (8)
- Arch Linux
- NixOS
I left Debian for Ubuntu when it simply worked better and left Ubuntu when it became too restrictive and weird. I need a working system but my freedom to experiment. Then I discovered arch and never looked back. Still kept Debian on servers.
Currently using arch on desktop machines and nixos on my servers. But I use nix for Dev environments and dotfiles even on arch.
Not sure if I’ll stay with NixOS but for now that seems like the direction I’m going to. Still love Arch Linux for it’s freedom though, but I’m getting older and don’t have the time to fiddle with everything.
EndeavourOS.
I’m naturally a tinkerer and an avid gamer, with very recent hardware so an Arch based distro fits really nice.
It has just the right amount of pre-installed stuff. Not quite as bloaty as Manjaro or most ubuntu-based distros, but not quite as DIY as vanilla Arch. I know I can install and uninstall anything on Linux but when a distro already comes with just the right baseline for me, work smarter, not harder.
Ubuntu/Debian based distros didn’t quite suit me, I love the AUR to death, I love the Arch wiki (even if a lot of it can be used just fine on other distros), I love rolling release and having the latest everything. I do use PopOS on my laptop since I use it a lot less and therefore I want to update it less often.
Only issue is when they ship dumb defaults sometimes that break my workflow but I can diagnose and undo them I guess.
Was on Fedora for 3 yrs now and decided to distrohop to EndeavourOS like yesterday. Reason: jc141 releases were finnicky on Fedora; very very probably my fault lol.
Gotta say, I’m impressed with the system and makepkg is just so comfy to use wtf.
Might go back to Fedora eventually but EndeavourOS has been a smooth sailing so far. I think I’ll stay a while.
Right there with ya. EndeavourOS has been my distro for at least two years now. There really isn’t a reason to hop.
Also, if I need to reinstall for whatever reason (happens semi regularly because I’m a moron who moves fast and breaks shit), I just drop my package list from my home partition into the live-boot directory and it’ll download all my applications during install, and I’m back to where I was in less than half an hour.
Also the extras included like the update application, and mirror refresh, are very convenient.
EndeavourOS. I like the simplicity and minimalism of stock Arch, bloated distros bother me. I have been thinking of trying out Linux Mint again though, I used it for years and it was really good.
EndeavourOS is way too opinionated on i3 for my liking, and the theme is not great. Still it is very stable and offers a reasonable out of the box arch experience.
Do they customize it too heavily away from its defaults? I use KDE so I don’t bump in to that issue myself.
Not sure about KDE. On i3 they have it customized a lot and there’s some things I don’t like: when opening a terminal it will always open in a workspace assigned, by them, for terminals. The same with file manager windows, browsers, et al. I find it to be extremely irritating
This is precisely where I am at. Endeavor for when I need a newer kernel and Mint for when I want something that just dang works without too much config and driver work. I suggest Mint to friends but love having AUR and yay.
The just dang works part of Mint is so nice. I do like learning and tinkering, but I have to say setting up my printer in endeavourOS was brutal! I had all the right software installed, but it ended up needing a single line of code pasted in to a file I never would have guessed on my own. I’ll paste the info here on the slight chance it will save anyone else from the trauma I went through 😅
Reference article: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Avahi
2.1 Hostname resolution
Avahi provides local hostname resolution using a “hostname.local” naming scheme. To enable it, install the nss-mdns package and start/enable avahi-daemon.service. use sudo instead of doas if that’s the tool you prefer.doas systemctl start avahi-daemon.serviceThen, edit the file
/etc/nsswitch.confand change the hosts line to includemdns_minimal [NOTFOUND=return]before resolve and dns. It should look like:hosts: mymachines mdns_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] resolve [!UNAVAIL=return] files myhostname dns
Either Debian or Fedora + flatpak & KDE. I’m familiar with both and they just work for me. Distrohopping and messing around with my computer feels like a chore more than anything else these days.
arch with gnome. arch because pacman and AUR, gnome because I messed around with tiling window managers for an unnecessarily long time but I don’t have infinite time to customize and personalize every aspect of my computer and map every action to a keyboard shortcut and memorize them :) I need to det stuff done. I sort of forced myself into using the least amount of customization. that’s why not KDE.
I think I’ll settle down with Void + XFCE
Debian, settled down few years ago and my fallback would be Fedora.
Nice thing about Debian is, I can use it for servers, desktop and raspberry pi on am64, arm7 and aarch64. This is a real killer feature for me, because I’d rather do interesting things with my devices instead of learning n different ways to accomplish the same tasks. (e.g. using different distributions for server/desktop/pi and having to figure out 3 times the names of the same packages or where the configuration file in which version is expected.)
Beginning: mint.
Later on: bunch of Debian and red hat based distros. After that: arch (4 years straight).
Now: debian kde.
Here’s summary of my 8 year of Linux distrohopping. why? Because “I’m tired boss”Debian. It always works until it doesn’t and when it doesn’t there’s information at my level of understanding that allows me to correct it.
Arch. Minimal, fast, rolling and it doesn’t break. Plus, the AUR and the Wiki are unvaluable.
Had been on: RedHat (199something), Mandrake, Slackware, Ubuntu and Debian before.
unvaluable
You’ve edited this post and left this in (or added it!?) so I suppose you mean it!
I just made a mistake, sorry :-P English us not my first language.
Sorry, I was just joking; it’s clearly a typo and I don’t think anyone misunderstood (or maybe even noticed).
No problem, man ;-) I didn’t take it as an offense. Have a nice day!
I thought Arch was notorious for breaking all the time? Is that a specific version of Arch?
I tried Manjaro for awhile and had some major system breaks. Manjaro is/was often pitched as newbie-friendly arch, so having it break made me think arch was going to be even worse.
Been running endeavour for a few years now though, and haven’t had any real issues. Much smoother than my Manjaro experience.
Agree about manjaro they doing really weird things about their system and it’s breaking.
Dunno, during 8ish years I have only hada couple of minimal problems due to updates (and the solution was promptly available on Arch homepage). Can’t speak for other, though.
We’re using Arch 2
(No it doesn’t, it just has some bugs here and there, e.g. my media keys don’t work after a couple days of uptime (gnome). I stopped actively looking for and reading the release notes years ago as it just works… and if it doesn’t, I still have a btrfs snapshot from before the update)
That’s not my experience - have been using arch for around four years and it broke only once by not letting me log into the system after I failed to update pam configs after the system upgrade.
This is a misconception. Arch breaks only if you mess enough with AUR. If you keep with official repo and maybe Flatpaks, you’ll be fine
You can use AUR with moderation as well and you’ll still be fine
Oh I completely forgot about RedHat! Yes, that was my first one too. Then Ubuntu was kinda the thing to go to and it worked for a good while until it just didn’t work for me anymore.
Today I’m on Mint because it was the first distro I tried that was able to get the Wifi working on my super old/bad HP Laptop. I started to like it and then also moved to Mint on my desktop. Running it for a year now and since my PC isn’t the youngest anymore, I doubt I will switch distro again anytime soon.
