What is your preferred daily driver distribution?

Max_P , 10 months ago

10 years of Arch and counting.

sharktongue , 10 months ago

Vanilla ass Ubuntu. I spent 25 years finding the right distro, this is good enough. My first love was Mandrake.

kilkil , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

My journey roughly went like:

1. Mint + Cinnamon
2. Mint + i3
3. MX Linux + i3
4. Debian + i3

Right now I’m using Debian + i3. It’s pretty lit

My main reason is that Debian is a very stable, very popular distro, that isn’t a fork of another distro. The fact that it’s stable means issues are more rare; the fact that it’s popular means when issues do pop up, there are much higher odds that I’ll find others who ran into them before; and the fact that it isn’t a fork means that I can just prefix “debian” to any search, rather than say having to contend with it being potentially a “debian” issue, or an “ubuntu” issue, or a “mint” issue. In fact, debian is popular enough that most of the time I could just prefix “linux” to a search, rather than “debian”.

While there are distros that market themselves on other merits, it seems to me that the main goal of an operating system is to be a stable foundation. I wanted to pick something that would let me have a good time with i3; Debian seems one of the most straightforward choices. I considered arch, but in the end Debian seems like the lower-effort option.

trclst , 10 months ago

agree. you mention debian and arch. I have also tried both of them. the problem with arch (rolling distribution) is that you are forever updating and you never know what exactly has changed in the system and you have to look. You can still have so much experience and solve problems, but they always cost time. all this from a daily user perspective is crap.

from a security point of view, new software can contain security loopholes just like old software. i’d rather have a stable base where i can easily keep an eye on changes than daily updates.

rodbiren , 10 months ago

I try so dang hard not to use Linux Mint because I have been using off and on since 2008 but always come crawling back to it when I run into some esoteric issue on another distro. It just hits the sweet spot of what I understand computing to be. I have desperately tried to use various forms of arch. OpenSUSE, fedora, debian, and a whole host of others and eventually get frustrated for some probably solvable reason and go back to my sweet, my love, my wart covered X11 using, 5.15 running, stale boring life mate Mint.

j4k3 , 10 months ago

The biggest selling point for Fedora IMO is the way it handles UEFI and Secure Boot. I haven’t found anything comparable. Securing the proprietary garbage running on your main board is critical regardless of your OS.

UnsyllabledQuickies , 10 months ago

Can you elaborate or point me to some resources? I’d like to hear more about this because I’ve wondered for a while what to do about Secure Boot on my machine.

trclst , 10 months ago

Debian support it too. The kernel is secure boot ready and it’s very easy to sign nvidia kernel module with the default shipped key via mok.

potajito , 10 months ago

Endeavour os with kde! Used to run manjaro and I think it’s a good stepping stone, so you know what you like and not, what to keep… For example, I didn’t know about oh my zhs and p10k, and if it wasn’t for manjaro I wouldn’t have know about that and owils be running the default bash console.

s20 , 10 months ago

I’m the wrong one to ask because every time I try something else, I end up returning to Fedora.

But what you switch to depends on why you want to switch:

• Want to learn more about how Linux works? Install Arch the Arch Way, or try out Void.
• Want a different DE? Well, you’ve got Fedora Spins if that’s your main goal, but KDE Neon lets you try out the latest stable KDE stuff, which is fun!
• Looking for a rolling distro but don’t want the extra complexity of Arch’s minimalist philosophy? OpenSuse Tumbleweed is fantastic.
• Do you really want to dig deep and have total control of your system? Look into Gentoo or Linux From Scratch.

I’ve done most of these and more, and I’m happy to recommend something more specific, but I can’t without knowing what you’re looking for.

If you don’t know what you’re looking for, and just want to do something different, then do what I do when the distrohopping bug strikes: check out several distros’ websites, pick a couple that appeal to you, then research those a little deeper, maybe rum them on a virtual machine for a bit. If you find one you like, back up your critical data and go for it!

DarkUFO , 10 months ago

I’m the same, tried lots of distros but always end up back with Fedora. Running it now on my 3 desktops and 2 Laptops.

s20 , 10 months ago

I’m currently trying out Garuda on my gaming Desktop, and a already kind of want to ho back to my safe space after two weeks. Don’t get me wrong, I totally see why folks like it, but it’s not for me.

sharkfucker420 , 10 months ago

What’s void?

atomkarinca , 10 months ago

here

jg1i , 10 months ago

Arch, btw. With GNOME.

sharkfucker420 , 10 months ago

Seconded

sharkfucker420 , 10 months ago

Arch btw

jason123santa , 10 months ago

I use Debian with kde and its been great. Went from debian 11 to debian 12 without reinstall and then use void and devuan on my other computers and arch mobile on pinephone.

Markmus , 10 months ago

Trisquel GNU+Linux on my Librebooted ThinkPad X200

Defaced , 10 months ago

EndeavourOS, it just works really well and never breaks. The only time I had an issue was when I was using the Zen kernel and it locked up installing league of legends and watching a YouTube video at the same time. Using the mainline kernel though gives me no issues.

astroturds , 10 months ago

OpenSuse leap

DARbarian , 10 months ago

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed for now, with Garuda for gaming. Still working up the courage to combine all the best features of both into my first Arch install.

banazir , 10 months ago

I’m also on Fedora and love it, but I’m thinking of switching to OpenMandriva ROME. OpenSUSE’s Tumbleweed is another option.