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Share Your Favorite Linux Distros and Why You Love Them

So we can clearly see the most popular distros and the reasons why people use them, please follow this format:

  • Write the name of the Linux distro as a first-level comment.
  • Reply to that comment with each reason you like the distro as a separate answer.

For example:

  • Distro (first-level comment)
    • Reason (one answer)
    • Other reason (a different answer)

Please avoid duplicating options. This will help us better understand the most popular distros and the reasons why people use them.

kafka_quixote ,

DietPi on my ARM devices

Eke ,

zorin os

Eke ,

it looks good af

wxboss ,

Debian

kafka_quixote ,

Perfect for running servers

Paralda ,

CachyOS

Paralda ,

It’s not Manjaro

hexagonwin ,

Slackware

  • the most rock stable distro imo. No systemd or snap stuff. Packages are almost (if not fully) vanilla version from upstream. Simple yet efficient unix-style approach to everything like package management, slackbuilds are really good too.
downhomechunk ,

Slackware gets a lot of hate, especially from the btw bros. People are spooked about having to manage their own dependencies. But I couldn’t agree with you more on simplicity and stability. I’ve been daily driving slackware since 99 or 00, and I don’t think I’ve ever broken something I couldn’t immediately roll back and fix.

I tried to install Ubuntu on a sbc recently. And within an hour of installing this and that with all the different dependencies, I had a completely unusable system. And I had no idea how to fix it. It was totally my fault but reminded me what I love about slackware.

qjkxbmwvz ,

Slack got me through undergrad on an IBM 600e ThinkPad (which was really old even then — around the time of the early 2.6 series kernels iirc). Great distro, fond memories.

Cralex ,

PostmarketOS

Cralex ,

• Android-free Linux distribution specializing in supporting older smartphones.

• Up-to-date software based on Alpine Linux and focused on privacy and security.

• Highly portable construction centered around a single software base regardless of what device it’s running on.

  • Goal of keeping a given device running and updated until it physically falls apart.
CalcProgrammer1 ,
@CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml avatar
  • Has the widest supported device list of all mobile Linux projects, supports a ton of old Android phones to varying degrees.
tetris11 ,
@tetris11@lemmy.ml avatar

Runs all your favourite programs, on your phone, bells and whistles included

speckonsponge ,

BTRFS Snapper GUI preconfigured

snoopa ,

Only Opensuse ships with this, right?

speckonsponge ,

Siduction does too and also have a good documentation

rankshank ,

NixOS

rankshank ,

Rollbacks

rankshank ,

Home Manager + Stylix

rankshank ,

Ez dev shells

lgo ,
@lgo@feddit.nl avatar

declarative configuration

lgo ,
@lgo@feddit.nl avatar

immutability

sntx ,

Reproducible

sntx ,

As stable as you need it to be

sntx ,

Dependency Hell, begone

sntx ,

A great selection and amount of packages and modules to build/install/enable

sntx ,

Do it once, do it right. Save work be redeploying the same configuration (or submodules) on mutiple machines or the same machine multiple times.

sntx ,

Easily build packages with custom compile flags

sntx ,

Can turn basically any distro into nixos in minutes

sntx ,

Very good with containers and VMs

sntx ,

You get it for the low price of loosing all fun/motivation in setting up, customizing and mintaining machines with other distros

sntx ,

Overlays

sntx ,

Easy and fearless updates

sntx ,

A cool logo, meaningful rolling release version names and stickers

sntx ,

Many different and interesting community projects

sntx ,

Single command to compile & install packages from many git repos

mvirts ,

Makes me feel cool again 😎

iopq ,

Easy to mix and match package versions with different dependency versions

loggy ,
@loggy@infosec.pub avatar

I have been thinking to give NixOS a spin but feel like it’s above my brain capacity for me to handle. Do you also use homemanager and Flakes? Homemanager kinda makes sense (manage packages for non root users) but what does Flakes do?

fabian_drinks_milk ,

I am already trying it and I am still no expert. How I understand flakes is that it is a file with inputs, like nixpkgs and other flakes or repos you might depend on and some outputs that can be things like a nixshell with packages and environment variables, custom packages and configs like your NixOS configurations and home manager. When you use your flake for the first time, by entering a nix shell with nix develop, building a package with nix build, rebuild your NixOS system with nixos-rebuild --flake .#<hostname>, etc, nix will generate a flake.lock file that stores the hashes of all of your inputs and thus pinning the input versions. This means that if you ever run any of those commands again, you should get the same result because the inputs are pinned and the same version. If you want to update, you just run nix flake update and it will regenerate the flake.lock file with new hashes for the newest version. The advantage with flakes is that it is fully reproducible, even if one of your dependencies changes, because the hash is specified and centrally managed in the inputs of your flake.

Nix flakes can be used for your NixOS system by adding the nixos configurations in the outputs of your nix flake and adding the dependencies like nixpkgs to the inputs. You can also combine it with home manager by either specifying it as a separate output or adding it as a nixos module inside the nixos configurations output. You just copy your existing nixos and home manager config to the folder with your flake and reference them inside the flake.nix. If you added home manager as a nixos module, you only need to run nixos-rebuild switch --flake <path-to-flake>.#<hostname> and it will automatically rebuild both your NixOS configuration and home manager configuration. You can then backup the folder with your flake and configurations by uploading them to GitHub for example.

The best resource I found was this 3 hour video by Matthias Benaets: youtube.com/watch?v=AGVXJ-TIv3Y&feature=share7

loggy ,
@loggy@infosec.pub avatar

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer. It does sound complicated haha. I should probably follow along the YT video. Thanks again!

CosmoCrow ,

Fedora Workstation

CosmoCrow ,

Looks good with gnome and has been stable for my pc.

CosmoCrow ,

Has flatpacks for app security and has some other options for security like selinux.

dartanjinn ,

Fedora KDE.

juliette ,

Linux From Scratch

juliette ,

Puts you in control of everything

bslinux ,

I did that once, probably 20 years ago now. Never again.

fzacq9td ,

Gentoo Linux

fzacq9td ,

Being a source based distro, programs are compiled and optimized to your system configuration. Additionally you can add/remove features you dis/like using USE flags.

count0 ,
@count0@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

It allows me to run any weird combination of applications I feel I need on a given day, (fairly) easily integrating basically all open source packages with a custom/local overlay and have those managed as part of the system just like everything else.

Vikthor ,

It has an option to use Open RC init system instead of systemd. Systemd probably isn’t as annoying anymore but I can’t be arsed to make the switch.

peterjsefton ,
@peterjsefton@mastodon.social avatar

@InternetPirate I've been happy with Ubuntu since 2007, I don't always like Canonical's choices, but they're easily changed. Recently tried Vanilla OS, easy install and seems solid, good alternative to Nix I think.

manpacket ,

undefined> Ubuntu

With each release unsnapping gets more annoying... Now I have to get Firefox from alternative sources...

peterjsefton ,
@peterjsefton@mastodon.social avatar

@manpacket I prefer Flatpak, but Snaps do seem to be getting better, then again I have a history of foolish optimism 🤔

manpacket ,

https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/using-flatpak.html

$ flatpak run org.gimp.GIMP

They still haven't figure out how to make console experience not miserable, maybe one day...

StantonVitales ,

how is that miserable?

manpacket ,

From what I understand from this page and other sources - you have to type that to run gimp or other app. At least that's the impression I'm getting from the documentation. I run most of my stuff from the console and don't like to use aliases.

Raphael ,
@Raphael@lemmy.world avatar

Fake news.

flatpak install gimp, in terminal, try it.

gortbrown ,

Debian

-Simple distro free of too much bloat without being too bare-bones

-Stable, but can also be changed to be a bit more updated if you want that instead-

Raphael ,
@Raphael@lemmy.world avatar

Now now, saying Debian is free of too much bloat is going way too far, dude, even as as Debian enjoyer I cannot allow such statements to pass.

gortbrown ,

Haha fair, I guess that is a pretty objective statement. In my opinion, compared to some other distros and operating systems, it’s pretty bloat free, but I guess if you’re used to something else that is even more bloat free that you would probably disagree.

Cralex ,

Manjaro

Cralex , (edited )

• Supports a wide variety of hardware, including ARM devices such as the Pinebook Pro.

• Up-to-date rolling release.

• Multiple DE’s available with customized, clean interfaces.

Raphael ,
@Raphael@lemmy.world avatar
  • Recommends rolling back system clock when they forget to update security critical website components.
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