unless we're talking about my main machine, which runs gentoo, i'll always default to alpine. super solid base system and packages. super accessible when it comes to upstreaming packages. I only wish they had s6 as an option for init/service manager

Fedora is my daily driver.

I install Ubuntu LTS for family/friends, as the more stable software makes supporting them easier, and they should have a few years of no major problems if I get hit by a truck.

VanillaOS is pretty neat. It has an immutable (kind of) OS, lets you choose which package formats you want to use (flatpak, snap, appimage, etc) and leverages containers (a la Distrobox) and their package manager Apx to give you seamless access to packages on other distros. It's Ubuntu-based right now but the next release is switching to debian.

To be fair, I don't have much time on it. My daily drivers are a chromebook and a steamdeck, but I did dust off an old laptop just to check it out for a little bit.

Void linux, but if you're somewhat savvy and don't mind spending some time fixing your flow in the beginning, Gentoo/Funtoo is a nice flex

I keep coming back to Fedora and I used to hate GNOME but I've learn to appreciate it "just working out of the box". I used to be config tweaker master but now appreciate things just working for the most part without me touching it.

Fedora. Mainly because I work at a RHEL shop and I want a daily driver that is somewhat similar to my work environment.

Fedora XFCE, The only 2 times I ever have to touch the command line are for flatpak and for updateing, so I am not sure if I would recomend the XFCE spin, but I would recomend Fedora, probably the KDE, only because I for what ever reason cannot stand Gnome, I do not know why, but I just cannot get my workflow to work with gnome

I've been using MX, formerly known as Mepis, for over 15 years now. It's the most stable release I've ever used, and their repos are pretty up to date. The community is great also.

In general, Ubuntu is my go-to when I just want something that works and is reasonably stable. Just pick the spin with the Desktop Environment that you like. I'm using KDE Neon (I realize Neon isn't an Ubuntu flavor or spin) on my daily driver laptop, and Ubuntu MATE on my desktop. I also have an old netbook that usually gets Xubuntu, but currently has Fedora 37 XFCE as an experiment.

It sure is nice that we have to option to distro-hop, either on bare metal or in a VM.

Void Linux is the way to go, I've been using it for a few years now with no issues. Currently gaming with arch but I was gaming on void for a while, before I decided to hop. Might go back but switching over is such a hassle at the moment.

Xubuntu - great ootb configuration, lightning fast on my old thinkpad without compromising on functionality

Go to? Probably Mint. Such a good distro. Unfortunately I recently joined camp KDE Plasma and no other desktop environment can even compare.
I'm on Fedora KDE now. Solid distro for now at least.
If I need to return to monkee: EndeavourOS

So I use Arch for my personal work. I never had a problem with stability. I've also started to be interested in NixOS, but I'm gonna just use it as an Server OS, I feel like it makes sense with the infrastructure as code implications.

I have been a Linux user since the Red Hat Halloween release (back in the twentieth century) and have run SUSE, Slackware, Red Hat, Arch, Debian and countless of their forks. Currently I'm settled on Pop!_OS 22.04 NVIDIA for my daily driver laptop with a built-in Nvidia GPU. It is rock solid and can run my three displays, each with a different resolution and refresh rate, without ever missing a beat. For everything else I use Debian and most of my clients run either RHEL or Oracle SEL on their production servers.

TL;DR: Pop!_OS daily driver and Debian for everything else.

Don't yell but Fedora/Ubuntu was my first exposure to Linux so I'm prejudiced toward them. I didn't have a lot of exposure to 'nix in the 90s since the family only had Windows.

Solus - get updates all the time, don't have to think about reinstalling and don't have to pay attention if an update could break my system

openSuse. After my years of distro hopping ended over a decade ago I settled on openSuse Leap and never switched to something else again. It's reliable and gives me the least bullshit. And by now it's the one I have the most experience in.

//edit
Leap on my server and tumbleweed on my work laptop but Leap would be sufficient there, too.

Alpine Linux, repositories contain most software for a desktop and server, minimal base system, fast package manager. I would only recommend it to an advanced user that does not use proprietary software as most of it will not run because it is linked against glibc but alpine linux uses musl libc.

I use Pop_OS because I really like having so much much GUI control via the keyboard. I'm patiently waiting for Cosmic to update things a bit.

Lubuntu my beloved. Ubuntu enough for me to google myself out of anything but lightweight enough to make me feel good about what I'm spending cycles/battery on... and familiar enough that I don't need to learn a whole new desktop paradigm when all I'm gonna do with the desktop gui is start an app anyway.

draft - am I allowed to type "chromeos"

I use Gentoo for my daily driver, and Debian for servers.

Ubuntu because it's Linux Easy-Mode

I would only recommend it to Windows users looking to start using Linux. The average Linux user is a lot more tech-literate than me and can use the more difficult but more customizable and streamlined distros, and the average Windows user has no chance on Linux, not even Ubuntu which was already a lot of work for me to switch to

Right now I use pop_os. I bought a System76 laptop so it came with it. I like it because most things just work and I am lazy. Not the biggest gnome fan though. Previous to owning this laptop I tinkered with many distros but usually leaned towards lightweight DEs like xfce.

Debian and Mint are my favorites. I love the included games in Debian, the UI for both (Using cinnamon), and their ease of use.