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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.

MischievousTomato ,

Nixos. For all its complexity and dilemmas and issues it has given me, it’s the comfiest for me and gives me really cool features

gustulus ,

Congrats for making it to the treasure! I’m like half way in and not sure if I can fight through…

MischievousTomato ,

just keep on going. i cant be happy on any other distro, so i have to use nixos

amanwithausername ,

It still blows my mind that with nixos, setting up and continuously renewing an ssl cert is literally just two lines in the config file. I use nixos on my homeserver, thinking about switching my laptop to it too (currently Void linux).

yanutta ,
@yanutta@mastodonapp.uk avatar

@amanwithausername got an older laptop celeron processor running xubuntu? Any better ideas?

amanwithausername ,

Hmmm never used xubuntu per se, but XFCE already seems like a good option for a low-spec computer. You could probably chip away at the resource usage some more by building your own desktop environment around a bare window manager, but honestly at this point the gain is negligible. If anything, you might want to look into tiling window managers just because they can offer a much more fluid and customizeable desktop experience as opposed to floating WMs. I’m using BSPWM right now, but considering switching to wayland with hyprland or qtile.

As for choice of distro: Not sure if NixOS would run well on your machine – my homeserver is also a pretty low-spec computer (dual-core Intel Atom), and nixos-rebuild switch takes ages to run. Otherwise, go for Debian Testing if you want stability, Void if you want to not have systemd. There’s also Devuan, which is basically Debian without systemd, but iirc it’s not as popular as Void. But honestly if xubuntu works for you, then it’s fine.

Also, some miscellaneous tweaks for improved performance:

  1. IF YOU BOOT FROM A HARD DRIVE REPLACE IT WITH AN SSD! Solid-state drives are pretty cheap nowadays, and the upgrade from hdd to sdd is the single biggest performance improvement you can do for an old laptop
  2. If on x11, disable compositing. On XFCE, there should be an option for it somewhere in the settings. If on a bare window manager, simply don’t install any compositing manager (picom, xcompmgr, etc.). The downside is screen tearing and no proper window transparency, but it does put less strain on the CPU.
  3. Consider looking into a custom linux kernel? I boot linux-tkg on my main laptop and it gives some pretty good performance improvements. But I’m not so sure whether it would translate well to a low-spec system.
  4. Again, not exactly a performance tip, but consider formatting your boot partition as btrfs. Apart from all of the other cool features that you get with BTRFS, transparent file compression can, in some cases, be a win-win-win situation: less disk usage, faster file access, and longer SSD longevity. On low end system tho it may actually be the case that the CPU is the bottleneck as opposed to the disk, so transparent file compression may actually slow things down. Here are the settings I use for btrfs on my laptop (thinkpad with a core i7-5600U, mSATA solid state drive): lazytime,noatime,autodefrag,compress=zstd:3,discard=async,space_cache=v2,ssd. Again, not sure how well these translate to a low-end system, you should do your research.
  5. If your system supports uefi, consider using EFISTUB as opposed to Grub. Much faster boot times. Another option is to add two efi entries: one for EFISTUB (and have that be the default), and a second one for Grub, for when you need to change boot options or boot into recovery mode.
yanutta ,
@yanutta@mastodonapp.uk avatar

@amanwithausername comprehensive and good advice. Thank you. I tuck a look at linux, because other laptop isn't win11 compatible "soon".

Corngood ,

Since you mentioned slow build times…

You can do nixos-rebuild --target-host to build locally and deploy over ssh. You can also use something like nixops.

amanwithausername ,

No way, that’s awesome! I’ll give it a try for sure!

linuxduck ,

Manjaro. It just worked on any device I installed it on. And wifi just worked with no fiddling.

Then I installed it on surface tablet. What didn’t work, I found kernel fixes I could implement.

Of all the distros, for me, it was the easiest to use, install and manipulate!!

HulkSmashBurgers ,

Manjaro is my main distro too! The package manager is great!

linuxduck ,

Manjaro friends unite!

please_lemmy_out ,

Switched to Manjaro after running vanilla Arch for several years and haven’t looked back. I appreciate the slightly less bleeding edge updates and extra added stability around it.

Easy installs are probably less of a big deal nowadays after Arch overhauled their installation process.

funk ,

Arch. I can’t live without the AUR at this point.

NakedGardenGnome ,

Seriously, the ease of installing any and all programs from the main repo’s or the AUR is such an extreme advantage over all other distros!

And it makes keeping your system and programs updated a breeze.

Contend6248 ,

It is nice to install much normally harder to install crap, but there are so little trusted devs on there, that i rather not install something than getting it from a untrusted source.

It is nice to play around, but i also switched from Windows to have a more secure platform

NakedGardenGnome ,

We cannot forget about the wiki, which is a great resource for not only the Arch distro, but for any Linux install.

SexualPolytope ,
@SexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Seriously, I realize this every time I have to install something on my server (running AlmaLinux). Now I’ve manually set up a personal LURE repo for some software that I use.

Jao ,

Garuda Linux

speckonsponge ,

Siduction

speckonsponge ,

Debian testing

speckonsponge ,

KDE Plasma

kelroy ,

This has probably changed but last time I gave KDE plasma a go around 2019 it was a raging dumpster fire.

speckonsponge ,

BTRFS Snapper GUI preconfigured

snoopa ,

Only Opensuse ships with this, right?

speckonsponge ,

Siduction does too and also have a good documentation

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.

Pe4rl ,

Arch Linux

Pe4rl ,

My current isn’t vanilla arch, but Endeavour OS, because as an unexperienced user I wanted to have the least trouble while installing, … I regret it ever since, because I began with a Plasma desktop and ended up with i3, mainly because of tiling, problems with some utilities, keyboard switching, etc. In the end, I still love the system, one can get quite minimal with it.

jemorgan ,

I love that you talked about regretting it. Using one of the arch-based diaries that obfuscates the installation process honestly destroys a lot of the benefit of using arch. Having to vaguely understand how the system fits together makes fixing issues a million times easier.

Pe4rl ,

Yep. And I still forgot to mention one thing. It is a 2016 Macbook Pro, which basically means just more work fixing.

festus ,

My favorite too. For me on other distros I was typically running into bugs that I’d find had already been fixed upstream months previously - and then I had to either live with the bug or do some hack to manually install the newer version. Somewhat related to this, but as Linux gamer it was also frustrating to have the older Mesa drivers all the time because it couldn’t support the older kernel version the distro shipped or something.

CalcProgrammer1 ,
@CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml avatar
  • Packages are kept up to date so it’s often the first distro to support new hardware, APIs, etc.
  • AUR provides a huge library of software that isn’t often in package manager repos.
  • Rolling release so you don’t have to deal with repository upgrades every 6 months to 2 years.
  • btw
wxboss ,

Debian

kafka_quixote ,

Perfect for running servers

TableCoffee ,
@TableCoffee@lemmy.ca avatar

I’ve been trying to convert to linux since the mid-2000’s. Ubuntu and derivatives, fedora, and SUSE. Gaming and my lack on knowledge always brought me back to Windows.

In 2018 I tried Manjaro and loved it. But I broke it without the knowledge to fix it multiple times. The Arch BTW memes were strong at the time so I took the plunge and studied the wiki, and documented my own installation process and really learned a lot in the process. Proton was released and suddenly gaming got WAY better. I didn’t remove my windows install completely until 2022 but Arch has been my home on my main machine.

I have since put together a proxmox cluster and run many distros for various things but that’s a whole other rabbit hole!

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.
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

oromis95 ,

Manjaro, it’s just very stable, has access to the AUR, actually looks good and feels like a modern OS should feel.

Raphael ,
@Raphael@lemmy.world avatar

Do I need to roll back my system clock before downvoting this?

hobbsc ,

MX Linux

hobbsc ,

Great set of custom tools

hobbsc ,

Good overall appearance

hobbsc ,

Great community

hobbsc ,

Option for no systemd

Fafner ,
@Fafner@yiffit.net avatar

YiffOS

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