Linux

NixOS. I've gotten so used to the declarative nature of NixOS, that I simply cannot go back to a "normal" distro anymore.

I use Kubuntu. It is defintly not the best Distro. I am just used to it and too lazy to get used to another distro. My days as a distro jumper lie 15 years back...

Tbh though, I might switch to Debian stable whenever Trixie comes out.

IDGAF if it's the best (mint), it was easy to install, easy to transition to from Windows, and in 6 months hasn't given me any trouble. I just wanna use my computer.

A bit of tinkering. Thoughts?

Obligatory "There is not a single distro that's the absolute best for each and every one." disclaimer aside, my personal favorite is definitely secureblue for being a hardened-by-default distro that adheres to the ~~'immutable'~~ reprovisionable, anti-hysteresis paradigm while enjoying a healthy stream of improvements pushed out by an active group of contributors.

I really like CachyOS:

1. Arch based a. Pacman package manager b. AUR c. Rolling release distro
2. Graphical installer
3. Extensive software repo. Things that I used to only be able to get as a flatpak are available in the repo, such as SurfShark VPN as an example
4. Super fast.
5. Updates are tested before they are made available and the delay is only a few days.

I use Nobara with KDE for my gaming computer, Mint with Cinnamon for pretty much everything else.

Mint is the closest to a "Just Works" experience for me. Cinnamon is rock stable, especially on Mint Debian Edition. I don't remember the last time Cinnamon crashed or had any major bugs for me.

I use Debian for most of my servers, stable and simple. Arch on a junker Thinkpad to test and mess around with new programs and window managers.

Windows, plays fallout 4 out the box.

OpenSUSE because rolling release and no IBM. Never used it though.

Currently I use Mint. It works but it's not the best.

Arch.

I'm vegan, german and into fitness. There really was no other choice. /s?

Also, it's lightweight, you always get the most recent software, pacman is superb and it's super stable. In about 10 years on multiple systems, I never had anything break. The worst of it are simple problems during updates, which are always explained on their website.

Lastly, there is the wiki. The single best source of Linux information out there. Might as well be using the distro that's directly explained there, albeit a lot of information can be used on other ones as well.

With arch-install, you don't even need to learn much, but learning is never a bad idea and will be great if something does break. Every system can break. Arch prepares you for that.

Mint. Takes half an hour to install and set up. Doesn't get in the way after that.

Debian.

With x11 gnome it can run the Rustdesk client and pass all the keys properly to the Windows host. And it doesn't boot to a black screen like many other distros on my Asus laptop.

Was on Fedora with similar results but it started taking ages to boot looking for a non existent tpm chip.

Mint. It just works and Cinnamon is a good DE (ui design peaked in the Windows XP days). Plus you also get all the software built and tested for Ubuntu without the bullshit of using Ubuntu.

For my server I use NixOS, because having one unified configuration is so nice.

EndeavorOS. It runs smooth, i dont get errors, all my games work, the taskbar and notifications work like I would expect them too. Switching from Windows 2 months ago, I cycled through a few distros but they all were giving something up until i found EoS.

LMDE because I get the robustness of Debian stable and the quality of life goodies of Mint.

It isn't. I'm on PopOS 24.04 Alpha 7 (soon to be Beta 1), because of COSMIC (and because I was having some bugs with Fedora a few months back).

I recently wanted to tinker with a piece of software that wasn't packaged, and I couldn't compile it because of outdated libraries. I could return to Fedora specifically to tinker with it but as an ex-distrohopper, I know it isn't worth the effort.

Even though Fedora or some version of it will likely be my forever distro, I will stick to PopOS for now because I can't be bothered to distrohop and back up months' worth of files, including game saves and a ton of stuff in my Downloads directory.

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed/Slowroll

Tumbleweed is the only bleeding-edge rolling release distribution that just works and never fails and is super easy to install and manage without any expertise. And it is massively underrated and forgotten for no good reason.

All Tumbleweed packages go through extensive and to this day unrivaled automatic system testing that ensures no package is ever gonna bork itself or your system.

If you're still worried about stability, there is Slowroll - currently testing, but in my experience very stable distribution. It makes rolling release updates...a bit slower, so that they're only pushed after Tumbleweed users absolutely ensure everything is great and stable (not that it's ever otherwise). It does the same job as Manjaro, but this time around it actually works without a hitch.

Both deliver great experience and will suit novice users.

My distro is not the best, I would rather say it is the least bad for me, because I don't like any.

Why my distro (pop!_os) is the best? Well it's probably not, but here's why I went with it:

• ubuntu based, so lots of applicable tech support online
• looks nice out of the box (imo)
• comes with nvidia drivers. Not a major point cause they aren't hard to get, but it was one of the things I considered when I unintentionally ended up with with nvidia
• tiling (the big one imo)

Aand that's kinda it :3.. at the moment it's kinda behind all the other stuff cause they're working on the new COSMIC DE, which im hoping is gonna be an upgrade to the GNOME with extensions the current version has

Arch. I tried other distros and always came back to Arch. Other distros are very bloated and honestly I can't be bothered with removing them manually. I also love the AUR and the wiki.

Another interesting distro was NixOS, but that is a bit of a pain in the ass to learn.

For newbies, Fedora KDE Plasma edition or Mint Cinnamon is my recommendation. Kinoite is Fedora KDE Plasma edition but immutable for the ones that keep breaking the system because they keep following some absurd guide online for whatever.

NixOS makes me feel so safe making low-level changes to Linux and making sure that my work laptop, gaming desktop, and personal laptop all have the exact same shit on them and I'm gonna use them the exact same way.

I wish that nixlang was decoupled from the concept of a build system bc it's such a great DAG config DSL and I can think of so many cooler uses for it but I just don't have time to focus on it.

With Guix you have reproducibility, freedom, good docs and peace of mind, also when configuring things more deeply. You also have a powerful programming language (Scheme / Lisp) with which to define your system config as well as your dotfiles. This is my insight after years of GNU/Linux usage. I run Guix on laptops, desktops and servers, and I never have configuration drift, as well as the benefit that I have a self documenting system.

https://codeberg.org/jjba23/sss

Arch, everything it does provide works extremely well, I can configure everything how I want it without having to fight a distro maintainer trying to be clever, I get new features and bugfixes whenever they go in without having to worry about a distro maintainer deciding whether it’s relevant or whether I should just live with crashes and security issues for another two years because they figured it wasn’t important or critical enough.

Mint Cinnamon.

It's easy, stable and gets out of my way.

I haven't seen the need to dostro hop for years.

Nix, it just works, built in rollback sane defaults, super customization. Super easy to package for

Arch. I think when people say "bloat" they don't mean it in the traditional sense of the word. Most people are installing plasma or gnome and pulling all the "bloat" that comes with them. To me at least it's more that no one is deciding what they think you're likely to need/do, and overall that makes the system feel much more "predictable". Less likely to work against what I'm trying to do.

Ignore all the comments about Arch being hard to install or "not for beginners". That view is outdated. When I first installed Arch when you had to follow the wiki and install via the chroot method. Now it's dead simple to install with the script and running it isn't any more difficult than any other distro.

Mainly though it's because of the AUR.

slackware the og linux distro. super stable, sane package management etc. i've wanted to try void/arch/gentoo/crux for a pretty long time but still haven't because this just works perfectly

NixOS.

• I have access to more packages than with any other package manager.
• everything to get my setup in the exact state I want is in my config, which is 90% useable on any other distro thanks to home manager
• My config is all in one place and easy to share
• If I ever break something, I can always roll back
• I don't need Docker

Ubuntu.

Why? - I guess I'm too lazy for distro hopping now :(

Besides, this was the 1st Linux distro I tried back in 2005. After the usual ditro hopping phase was over, I settled on it; somehow (irrespective of snap and other controversies) I feel at home.

Mac OS is my favorite Linux distro.