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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.

LeafyBirch ,

EndeavourOS

LeafyBirch ,

It's arch. It just happened to be the composition i had my previous arch setup as. Yay for AUR stuff, KDE Plasma for DE. Includes a couple of useful tools and makes for a very solid OS.

Anyone who has been in the Ubuntu sphere of things with Linux, should take a moment to try arch. EndeavourOS is perfect for these people.

00 ,
@00@kbin.social avatar

Easy to set up, very helpful community. If you liked Manjaro or think Manjaro is sketchy but like the idea of a slightly pre-configured arch, check it out.

ClonedPuffin ,

This, basically Arch but quick to install with all the most important things installed and ready without being bloated.

unwillingsomnambulist ,

Same. I’ve done the vanilla Arch thing and it’s alright, but the quality of life enhancements that come with EndeavourOS make it a great daily driver.

It’s the only distro I could get DaVinci Resolve Studio, Blackmagic Intensity Pro 4k, and my Radeon RX 6750 XT working with, consistently.

minorsecond ,

Gentoo

minorsecond ,

Control

ctr1 ,
@ctr1@fl0w.cc avatar

Excellent package and dependency management with a wide variety of up-to-date software

ctr1 , (edited )
@ctr1@fl0w.cc avatar

Out-of-box security configurations supported by the organization (SELinux, hardening)

ctr1 ,
@ctr1@fl0w.cc avatar

Encourages hardware-based optimization and kernel specialization

minorsecond ,

Yep, these are all true. Throw in overlays and the package availability is unbeatable.

ctr1 ,
@ctr1@fl0w.cc avatar

Absolutely! I haven’t had any problems setting up dependencies for various projects and have only needed overlays a few times. Sometimes USE flags can be tricky but most things are pretty well documented

boonhet , (edited )

There are dozens of us! And you can join us at !gentoo if you haven’t yet!

I love it because it’s super configurable, lets you choose compiler optimizations (and through USE flags, features that you need in your packages - you don’t have to include everything).

My Linux knowledge has skyrocketed compared to before I used Gentoo. Which of course means it’s NOT the distro for people who want something that just works, but honestly, now that it’s working properly, I feel it’s actually pretty hard to break, and when it does break, I know how to fix it! Versus with Linux Mint a decade ago, if I broke it, I had no idea where to get started and just reinstalled it.

Of course, about half a year ago I decided to move from x11 and OpenRC to Wayland and systemd. And I use KDE. And have Nvidia graphics. Soooo it was a fun ride both relearning how my init system works, and also running into problems with Steam, etc.

I also try to keep my kernel in single digit megabytes, but occasionally I find something missing and have to recompile with more “bloat”. So right now I believe it’s around 11 MB, but I’ll see about improving it over my next vacation. Not that 11 MB takes long to load off a gen4 NVMe drive, but the ePeen needs to be stroked! Also no initial ramdisk, to save even more boot time.

minorsecond ,

I just reinstalled Gentoo and switched to a Systemd setup as well. I held off for as long as I could but it’s just so nice!

I’m using the binary kernel for now, but I’ll compile my own when I find the time. 11MB is nuts!

boonhet ,

Great to hear! Though I will admit that it took me HOURS of reading the kernel config options I was disabling. But it was also very informative so it didn’t feel like a waste of time at all.

minorsecond ,

I usually run some commands while running the binary kernel that will disable every module not currently running in the config file, and then build the kernel from that.

I’m guessing you prefer building everything as a module if your kernel is that small?

QuazarOmega ,

We’re looking to create a comprehensive list of the most popular Linux distributions and the reasons why people use them.

I’m curious, do you intend to put up the results somewhere?

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!

evadzs ,

Garuda Linux

evadzs ,

A lot of people think it’s just Arch with an installer and lots of bloat and a neon theme but it’s a lot more than that.

evadzs ,

Bootable Snapper snapshots enabled by default

evadzs ,

This really is my favorite Garuda feature - it’s saved my install more than once so that I can roll back a messy update, figure out what broke and why it broke, and then make sure the next update works

evadzs , (edited )

Fish shell by default with auto-complete previews as you type and lots of great aliases

cashews_best_nut ,

You can get pretty much everything Fish Shell does with a well configured Zshell pus more. Fish also smells.

20gramsWrench ,

And you can get pretty much everything garuda with a well configured Arch plus more but that would take ages to do

CohortCzort ,

That why i like garuda, its roughly where id want my arch settup without the hassle.

evadzs ,

Post install wizard for easily adding common applications

evadzs ,

Nvidia driver installation options that correctly set the mode setting, dkms drivers installed ootb, common apps like GreenWithEnvy ootb, great Nvidia support

evadzs ,

Besides Wiki and AUR that all Arch derivatives share, they have their own wiki that documents the changes they’re made to Arch and a very good forum for help

Headbangerd17 ,

Fedora

  • it’s up to date
  • little to no bloat
  • stock gnome shell
  • uses latest technologies
  • just works
feacesfea ,
@feacesfea@kbin.social avatar

Universal Blue / ublue-os

feacesfea ,
@feacesfea@kbin.social avatar

Based on Fedora

  • Fedora uses the latest technology and is quick to adapt new features such as PipeWire, BTRFS, Wayland and etc, yet remains very stable.
  • Free and Open Source
  • Created by the Community
  • Sponsored by Red Hat.
  • Strong security and follows good practices
fugepe ,

why your comments are all over the place

feacesfea ,
@feacesfea@kbin.social avatar

Cloud-native approach

  • Reliable, atomic updates with built in rollback
  • Known-good state and fewer failures
  • Significantly reduced configuration drift
  • No compiling or building Nvidia drivers on the local client, they come premade on the image
feacesfea ,
@feacesfea@kbin.social avatar

Clean separation

  • The base system is separated from applications and user data
  • Integration of Flatpak applications via Flathub
  • Toolbox and Distrobox support, run applications from any distribution in a containerized environment
feacesfea ,
@feacesfea@kbin.social avatar

Built-in container tools for developers

  • Consume packages and software from any repo without risking breakage on the client
  • Easy consumption of other OCI images, if it's on the CNCF Landscape it's a first class citizen thanks to Podman!
feacesfea ,
@feacesfea@kbin.social avatar

Nvidia support

  • Multiple Nvidia driver streams (525xx, 520xx, and 470xx)
  • CUDA support
  • Container runtime support
  • Secure boot
  • Hardware-accelerated video playback
  • Selinux support
  • Multiple Fedora flavors and releases
  • Post-install setup with just
  • Multi-GPU support with supergfxctl (optional Gnome Shell extension)
Teon ,
@Teon@kbin.social avatar

Kubuntu LTS

TimeSquirrel ,
@TimeSquirrel@kbin.social avatar

KDE Neon

TimeSquirrel ,
@TimeSquirrel@kbin.social avatar

Based on Ubuntu, is KDE's "flagship" OS (so I trust they know what they're doing with their own DE), and is the first to get bleeding edge KDE updates. Everything else is pretty much standard Ubuntu.

GustavoM ,
@GustavoM@lemmy.world avatar

Arch linux (btw). Because it’s easy to install and has the most accessible package manager of em all.

…

…before you shoot rocks at me and try to burn me alive… download an arch iso, run it, and then type “archinstall”. Thank me later.

“Oh, but its still veeeeeery hard to inst-”

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/e1207b59-0960-4780-910c-85736cbfc883.mp4

vikingtons ,
@vikingtons@lemmy.world avatar

Fedora

I want to preface this by saying that Red Hat absolutely deserve your ire in light of the recent news.

I appreciate that Fedora has relatively recent packages for a fixed release distribution. I really appreciate how they’ve pioneered in desktop-oriented technologies to help make Linux a more palatable experience for regular users, and I’m glad to see these gradually be adopted by others over time.

I’m happy to hear that the Fedora project still mostly operates Independently under redhat / IBM, but I’d be lying if I said the IBM acquisition didn’t worry me to the point of looking into alternatives.

starryoccultist ,
@starryoccultist@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Agreed. I’ve been using Fedora Silverblue for about a year. I love the immutable OS paradigm but IBM/Red Hat’s recent actions have left me feeling uneasy and I want to find an alternative.

vikingtons ,
@vikingtons@lemmy.world avatar

Silverblue is cool. I’ve been playing around with it on a portable NVMe drive. Planning on making the switch soon.

artkub , (edited )

I’ve also been using silverblue for about a year, it works well. Didn’t know about IBM acquiring Rad Hat, sad news.

For a similar experience there is Vanilla OS that I tried briefly and that seams to have similar immutability features and hastle free setup with a vanilla gnome desktop. It’s based on Ubuntu.

There is also NixOS which takes the immutability to another level. The entire system with all packages are configured in a config file. Which is nice if you want to have an identical setup on multiple machines but makes it a bit less user friendly imo.

athlon ,

Mint. Easy to setup, fast to run, and very reliable.

hobbsc ,

Mint

Generally works in cases where Ubuntu would and you don’t have to deal with Canonical’s choices.

athlon ,

Yeah, but I rarely if ever leave those constraints, so it does not matter to me at all. Day to day, I use macOS anyway, and Mint only comes on my desktop PC.

fugepe ,

OpenSuse, Fedora second.

tuto193 ,

Pop!_OS

DarthVi ,

I agree, it’s great!

  • image with baked in nvidia drivers which work out of the box without too much fuss
  • if you encounter problems, you can refer to the system76 website or use a solution provided by the community, since it’s based on Ubuntu
  • installation with full disk encryption enabled by default
  • right now it uses a slightly customized version of GNOME as DE (with “normal”/traditional windows and optionally a tiling wm), but system76 is working on a Rust-based DE, named Cosmic DE
zybir ,

I’ve been using Pop for about 2 years. I have yet to run into an issue that I couldn’t fix. It’s the first distro that made ditching windows easy.

los_chill ,

I feel the same coming from Mac. Things seem to just work. I’m not a Linux wiz so minimal headaches while learning to tinker make it perfect for me.

Lamy ,

Debian

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