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submitted 1 month ago by aleq@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

Title is quite self-explanatory, reason I wonder is because every now and then I think to myself "maybe distro X is good, maybe I should try it at some point", but then I think a bit more and realise it kind of doesn't make a difference - the only thing I feel kinda matters is rolling vs non-rolling release patterns.

My guiding principles when choosing distro are that I run arch on my desktop because it's what I'm used to (and AUR is nice to have), and Debian on servers because some people said it's good and I the non-rolling release gives me peace of mind that I don't have to update very often. But I could switch both of these out and I really don't think it would make a difference at all.

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[-] liliumstar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago

Arch on desktop/laptop because I'm very comfortable with it, and I can set it up the way I like.

Debian on servers because it's stable and nearly everything has a package available, or at least instructions for building.

Same as OP, but I'm not likely to change them out. I've tried a lot of distros over the years and this is what works best for me.

[-] savvywolf@pawb.social 2 points 1 month ago

For my main desktop I use Mint because it just works, widely supported and Cinnamon is good (sadly no Wayland yet. ;_;). I also use Home-manager for my configuration because it allows me to easily just specify my config as a set of files I can check into git.

For my server, I use NixOS, because having all my configuration in a few text files is very nice to get an overview of what my server is doing.

[-] haque@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago

I started off with ubuntu in 2009, switched to mint some years later, because of the cinnamon desktop environment which I liked better than the new ubuntu unity flavour.

This year I switched to manjaro with kde plasma. Just for fun honestly.

[-] UntouchedWagons@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

Debian because it just works. I am interested in trying NixOS though.

[-] chunes@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Ubuntu because it was the first distro (after Mint and PopOS) to boot on my eclectic hardware.

[-] the_citizen@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I used a bunch of distributions (like Gentoo, Arch, Slackware, Debian etc.). Then I created a distribution-like system with LFS -BLFS and now using itbecause I want to see how Linux works in a detailed way. It's a little painful but it's not a problem if you are a masochist person who doesn't have to do anything else.

[-] NutWrench@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

Started with Linux Mint. Added the KDE desktop. And I'm done. This distro does everything I want.

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[-] RivNexus@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago

Bazzite. Just works really Convenient updates, and more straightforward features

I started using Linux with Arch as first distro Fedora KDE and Arch would be my other picks

[-] Mwa@lemm.ee 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

PC: Cachyos love the aur and the compiler optimizations + they compile or put aur packages in their repos which saves time by not making you compile anything

Laptop: Linux mint easy to use and stable

Phone: Android (does it count??)

[-] communism@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

Artix as my daily driver because of the AUR, and I like runit. I no longer feel the need to distro hop; I'm happy here.

[-] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Home: Arch, because I'm a lazy ass who likes the AUR.

Work: Ubuntu, because the laptop they gave me came with it

Servers: I don't have a particular distro I use for all my servers, it depends on what's my frame of mind when setting the server up. But I'm considering learning NixOS for this use case.

[-] whaleross@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Variants and derivates of Debian on my servers and other headless devices because no reason except I know it, it is stable, it works.

Been trying linux for desktop every five-ten years for the last twenty odd years and went back to Windows every time because it was too bad experience despite I really tried to like it.

Except this time.

Fedora KDE on my laptop, soon on my stationary as well. No more Windows for me.

[-] Croquette@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago

Laziness. I used Ubuntu, then tried a few distros based on it, and Linux Mint worked well enough out of the box.

I have a few issues with it, but i have easy workarounds so that's good enough for me.

[-] ColdWater@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

Vanilla Arch, because for me it's the easiest to use and everything just works and never any had instability issue like other distros I tried

[-] yaroto98@lemmy.org 2 points 1 month ago

Garuda - because like endeavor it's arch for lazy people, plus I got sold on the gaming edition by how much I like the theme and the latest drivers. But that's just what got me to try it, what sold me on it is when I had a vm of it that ran out of hdd space mid kernel update. I shut it down to expand the drive, booted it back up and no kernels present. Fiddling around in grub in a panic made me realize snappertools auto snapshots btrfs before updating. I think only once in my life (out of dozens of tries) has Microsoft's restorepoints actually worked for me. Booting to the snapshot was effortless, clicking through to recover to that snapshot was a breeze. I rebooted again just to make sure it was working and it did. Re-updated and I was back in action.

That experience made me love garuda. I highly recommend snappertools+btrfs from now on and use it whenever I can. Yes, preventative tools and warnings would have stopped it from happening, but you can't stop everything, and it's a comfort to have.

[-] SolarPunker@slrpnk.net 2 points 4 weeks ago

Arch (EndeavourOS but it's the same with an installer, basically): AUR, great Wiki, great community and fresh packages. I'm always open to new stuff but all of this is really hard to beat.

[-] originaltnavn@lemm.ee 2 points 4 weeks ago

Debian Sid, the unstable rolling release branch of Debian. It has the worst of both Debian and Arch!

On a more serious note, it allows me to have a somewhat standard Debian system with bleeding edge tooling.

[-] iopq@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I can set everything up from two config files. If I want to set up something on my laptop I got working on my desktop it's just cut and paste.

Guess my distro

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[-] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

It was the first one using Wayland by default that worked on my machine out of the box.

[-] aurorachrysalis@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 weeks ago

I dual boot Fedora KDE and Arch.

I've used Mint before and I've little to no qualms with it, but I wanted to move away from X-11, which has no GUI isolation. Hence the switch to Fedora, which has a smooth Wayland experience and also happens to have SELinux out-of-the-box.

[-] ECB@feddit.org 2 points 4 weeks ago

I use opensuse (tumbleweed and slowroll) because I just wanted to try it out a few years back and it mostly just works.

If I were to reinstall today, I'd probably use fedora again, since it's much easier to use things like Waydroid.

[-] waspentalive@lemmy.one 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Debian/KDE because I like the way I can customize (1 panel on the left with everything) No features removed just as one gets used to them. (looking at you gnome) No breaking changes to the desktop gadget api every update (you gnome again) Nice big repo.

[-] ronflex@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

I primarily run Linux server distros for what I like to do. I usually do Debian since it's a nice base to just add whatever on to (sudo isn't even installed out of the box) so I have been working on a customized install script but if I don't feel like messing around too much I just go with Ubuntu and avoid using snaps for anything I care about (especially Docker, like wtf is with the snap version of Docker). I like the default toolset of Debian based distros and not having to screw with SELinux.

[-] LeFantome@programming.dev 2 points 4 weeks ago

I favour Arch because I prefer everything I want to install to be in the package repo and for it to be a version actually new enough to use.

But I actually use EndeavourOS because it is 99% Arch but installs easily with full hardware support on everything I own (including a T2 Macbook). It never fails me.

And now I have realized that I can use Distrobox to get the Arch repos and the AUR on any dostro I wish.

So, I now have Chimera Linux on 4 machines because it is the best engineered distro in my view. The system supervisor, system compiler, and C library matter to me (not to everyone). All these machines have the AUR on them (via distrobox). Best of all worlds.

[-] commander@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Ubuntu at work since it's well supported and we can expect any IT people to be able to deploy our packages.

Pop 24.04 because I think it'd be cool to see how performant and maintainable and customizable a desktop that isn't GTK or QT based. Something sparkly without the legacy choices of the past to consider in the codebase. Plus even though I've never touched Rust, it's so hyped that I'm interested to see how it all works out. It's my gaming desktop that also has a Windows VM for occasional trying something out. Also process RAW photos with Darktable. Every now and then use Alpaca to try out free LLMs, handbrake, ffmpeg, image magick, compile something

Fedora, stable to me and it goes on my minipc. I run Jellyfin on it and occasionally SAMBA or whatever. I like to see how GNOME changes.

On a Legion Go, Bazzite with KDE. Steam and seeing how KDE Plasma progresses over years. Bazzite introduced me to distrobox and boxbuddy which I now use on the gaming pop_os machine too.

An old laptop with Linux Mint on it. I like to see how Cinnamon is. Used to favor it when I first tried Linux from Windows.

It's been a long time but I also used to really like Budgie but I feel like everything is pretty solid at this point and I no longer care to chase modern GNOME 2 or Windows XP/7 UI design

[-] squid_slime@lemm.ee 2 points 4 weeks ago

I was running only arch on my surface pro 7 and my amd desktop, then last week after an update it seemed gnome and Linux surface kernel weren't playing nice and had bricked the install. I have switch the laptop to Debian but I tend to stick with arch, like op as I am used to it, I now run Debian as it is known to be stable.

I would love to find a new distro but for me its the sunk cost fallacy, I have put so much time into learning arch and to repeat all that - this new distro would need to offer something wildly different.

[-] randomcruft@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 month ago

Fedora… it took way to long to figure out how to remove all the software I didn’t need / want and still have a functional system. I will not subject myself to that pain again 🙂

[-] 0xf@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 weeks ago

Cachyos, since I like archlinux and the things it comes with I would install on arch. There's even a few things that would have to be compiled from aur that's in their repository pre-compiled.

[-] mintiefresh@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 weeks ago

I have been using Tuxedo OS for the past few months.

I just wanted to use something that was Ubuntu based with KDE.

KDE Neon sounded a bit too bleeding edge to be used safely as a daily driver. And Kubuntu is maybe a bit too conservative for me.

Tuxedo OS seems nicely balanced between that and so far it's been great.

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this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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