To each its own in accordance to their needs. Debian is great unless you want to add proprietary stuff like GPUs. That's the whole reason so many distros (e.g. Ubuntu) raised to fame and gained popularity while being based on Debian... That, and the fact that until recently Debian installation guide was not updated and called to download an ISO to be burned in 1-2 CDs... that was so f*ing unclear. Of course you can use a pendrive, but if the guide talks about CDs... that's just confusing to newbies. None pointed that out, but to me is like being even less friendly than Arch :P Just my opinion. That said, I have been using Debian based distros for most of my time, even today (desktop PC with MX 'ahs'.)
I use Arch, btw, but I don't consider it the best (yes I do.) I could easily transition to Fedora, for example (I would never do that,) and be completely happy (I would rather continually hit my head with the metal stapler gun on my desk.)
NixOS. My entire config is source-controlled and I can easily roll back to a previous boot image if something breaks like cough Nvidia drivers. I also use it for my home router and all self-hosted services.
Out of all the ways that I have tried in the past, to reproduce not just the initial state, but also the ongoing changes of a disto (ansible, saltstack, chef, bunch of Shell scripts) — nix is by far the shortest. With all of these technologies I would never have dreamed to do this for a single Maschine. But now it’s not only possible, but actually gasp enjoyable!
Mind you, if that is not the problem you want to solve, maybe install just the nix package manager in addition to your distribution, and learn to enjoy it without having to run your whole distribution this way.
Bazzite just works, it runs every game I have with zero fuss, it's easy to run Windows programs / emulators / local LLMs, AND it's basically unbreakable.
Bazzite has a KDE version too. I think it is more popular then the GNOME version of bazzite actually. At least according to the results of the latest steam survey
I haven't bothered to actually search or troubleshoot yet, but since I'm here - have you had any problems with power management failing to automatically turn screens off when idle?
I don't get consistent behavior there it seems (AKA it leaves them on when it shouldn't), but that's I think the only significant oddity I've found in the ~7 months or so I've been running Bazzite. And like I said I've done basically nothing yet to try to solve it, just wondering if you've seen it. I have the issue on a desktop and a laptop, using entirely different monitors (not even same brand) FWIW.
I haven't had any problems like that, but I generally don't leave my screen on. So perhaps I would have this issue, but just never notice it because of how I use the device.
I'm very conscious of energy use, I almost always manually set my laptop to sleep if I'm leaving it idle for a while.
I've been enjoying EndeavourOS over the past three years. It works wonderfully out of the box at default settings, and was really easy for me to use and set up to my liking with minimal know-how needed.
It also works really well on the variety of machines I have in my home. My desktop, modded Chromebook, and my husband's laptop.
It's allowed me to get more familiar and confident with the command line, and enough so that I've switched to Sway from XFCE (and previously KDE).
*From what I remember**, there was always some rough corner. Such as the wi-fi, or the graphics card. Sure, Stable was rock solid, but you always needed something from Testing; and Testing in general was overall less stable than Ubuntu or Mint.
*This was years ago, so it might be inaccurate as of 2025.
I did use the first LMDE for some time, and I loved it, it's a great distro. I don't recall why I went for the Ubuntu-based Mint later on, I think it was the PPAs?
All the good parts of Ubuntu have long since been integrated upstream. And Debian's release cycle has increased a lot so you're not stuck with old versions anymore.
This week alone I've used Arch, Ubuntu, OpenSuse, and Fedora. Its Arch. By a short way, and mostly thanks to the wiki. Tbh they are all converging, and I go with KDE variants when I use a GUI and no distro does too much to customise it
openSUSE Slowroll and Secureblue are my favorites ATM. Slowroll for gaming, Secureblue for mobile device. Both are hardened for security because that matters to me.
For a long time I considered Gentoo the best, because I know my things around there. A month ago I said goodbye to my last Gentoo installation in favour for Debian trixie (the next stable release). Gentoo was too time consuming despite the binary repo.
If it would be my job to maintain a Gentoo system I would gladly accept, but there should be a need for it by the users. Otherwise I would just recommend Debian stable or Fedora.
My favourite is Debian over Fedora, because I often don't need the latest versions of a software. And there is flatpak.
Tried CalculateLinux or any of the other Gentoo respins?
Toorox was the best Gentoo respin. Nothing more than a pure straight gentoo respin. Sabayon was superb before they started to try too hard. Redcore started to try too hard too. Calculate did a little bit of try-hard, but managed to retain enough modest sanity to remain good (at least, still true of the last few times I saw it). Even Funtoo started to go a little wonky.
But if you ever start to think Gentoo’s too easy and not taking up enough of your time, you can always go the other way, and jump ship to Exherbo.
I have seen at least one person moving from Gentoo to Exherbo. Would I leave Debian behind for it? No, not currently, but maybe there is time for an experiment in the future.
I’ve tried Sabayon briefly, but not seriously. At the time, it was interesting to have more pre-built binaries. Looking back now, the Gentoo binrepos are the better solution, I think.
I’ve tried Exherbo more times than I can count, but never managed to make it my daily driver. It really needs that kind of commitment to make the best of it. With Exherbo, you’ve really got to go from 0 to >9000, with nothing between, becoming a developer of it straight away.
And yeah, +1 Gentoo+binhost. Though I do miss the USE="-*” approach to gentoo (like I did in 2011(ish)), adding things only as needed, per package. Great education. And keeps the system very tight to just meet needs, and no more.
Hrmm. While I’ve never bothered with containers, I don’t see why bedrock wouldn’t work in a container. Could be easy to test… set up a container with whichever distro, and try run the BedrockLinux hijack installer script on it… Don’t blame me if somehow it escapes the containment and eats your whole system … (~ I don’t see why/how it would ~ should be safe ~ but like I say, I don’t have experience with containers.)
Can't say it's the best, but I love Alpine. It's light, fast, versatile and easy to use, runs on anything, and despite it being used mostly in containers and VMs, it makes for a great desktop distro aswell. :)
I use Arch since approximately 2006 or so. I like its stability (yes!), performance, rapid updates and technical simplicity. It never stands in my way and it's fairly simple to understand, administer and modify. It's probably the most convenient OS I've ever used - sure it takes time/effort to set it up but once you're past that it's smooth sailing. It also doesn't change dramatically over the years (it doesn't need to) so it's easy to keep up with its development. Plus, I have a custom setup script for it that installs and sets up all of the basics, so if I ever need to reinstall, I'm not starting from zero.
I am eyeing NixOS as "the next step" but didn't yet experiment with it too much. Arch is just too comfy to use and the advantages that NixOS brings aren't yet significant enough for me to make any kind of switch to it, but I consider NIxOS (as well as its related technologies like the Nix package manager) to be the most interesting and most advanced things in the Linux world currently.
If you're reading this as a newbie Linux user: probably don't use any of the two mentioned above (yet). They're not considered entry-level stuff, unless you're interested in learning low-level (as in: highly technical) Linux stuff from the start already. NixOS/Nix in particular is fairly complex and can be a challenge even for veteran Linux admins/users to fully understand and utilize well.
Start your journey with more common desktop distros like Mint, Fedora, Kubuntu.
Omarchy because it installed in under ten minutes. Also it has a well riced Hyprland setup from the start. A complete install of LazyVim, OBS, and KDEnlive. I was able to start doing real work in the time it takes on other distros to read the installation instructions, let alone add nonfree packages or install lazyvim. It’s the most fun and productive Linux installation I’ve experienced since Ubuntu sent out CDs for free.
DHH is a bit of a douche. However the number of unsavory character and unpleasant people in the Linux community has always been non negligible. Starting with Stallman’s pedo chatter to Greg Kroah-Hartman banning Russians.
I started with Mandrake back in 2000 and used Red Hat at school. In 2004 Ubuntu was released and I adopted it for life. I switched from Ubuntu to Xubuntu to Ubuntu MATE to Kubuntu up to this day. It’s the best because of all the quality of life additions, the stability of the LTS releases, the amount of widespread documenation, and general size of the community of users. This makes it a lot more easier to use and get help to troubleshoot any problems. So far it’s been mostly a problem free and easy experience.
Until recently…
I just discovered Zorin OS and started messing around with it in a VM. I gotta say it’s of of the best, most polished Gnome desktop experiences I’ve had so far with their free core version. While I love KDE for it’s desktop experience being the closest to Windows there is, I usually find it has WAY too many customizations to a fault. Some people like this, but I find that the more you mess with configs, the more prone to problems it gets. I also find Gnome to be more well put together and well integrated. The fact the customization options are limited means I spend more time doing what I need to do than messing around with getting my desktop just right. I just hate the default Gnome destop and whatever paradigm they tried to make. That’s why I’ve stuck with Kubuntu for a while. But with Zorin, I think they found the sweet spot. This might be my next install and I might recommend it to anyone who wants to get into Linux over Mint.
Zorin is boring. uses ubuntu stable, out of the box distro so you can do anything you want to do right after installation (including installing a windows program with play on linux but also like burning a disk), emulates windows. Add kde if you want to spice it up (distro really needs to change to kde out of box.). If someone is from windows and does not want to learn all that linux stuff they can pretty much go for most things right away and they can use the software store, choose the debian download for anything they find online if its available and if not they can download the windows right click and say install with play on linux. Its the lazy mans linux and im plenty lazy.
I use NixOS, btw (don't you see that glorious gif?). It's the only distro that is actually different compared to other distros. It's not just another package manager, another ubuntu skin, or a different desktop environment. If you learn how to configure it, you can easily redo breaking changes or install an exact copy of your system on a different device. You can configure all you want and you will never ever have to worry.
Also has better flex than Arch users.
cons
- burj khalifa learning curve
- arch documentation * -1 doc quality (dogshit documentation)
- doesnt work outta the box
It's super cool to be able to copy a single or maybe two configuration files from one box to another, sync thing your home folder and have an exact copy.
It's super cool to temporarily install things with nix-shell. I have little environments set up where I write python or rust or edit videos and if I'm not in that environment none of those commands even exist.
Updating in vanilla is pretty straightforward. Update your base channel, rebuild. But if you install say home manager as a flake that doesn't update the same way. And then if you do it as an environmental install it doesn't update the same way. And then it's totally possible to do an update get a new version of your web browser, But your auto starts or your PWA's point to the old version of the web browser. My personal favorite is when I update signal. It upgrades the database. Field binary is no longer capable of running but is still the default for some reason. I have to look up the command expunge it from the store, simply finding it in the store isn't trivial.
Most distros have gotten easy to the point of being boring. We don't suffer that fate in Nix.
I like secureblue the most, because it’s simply the best in class when it comes to bridging the difference between Desktop Linux and GrapheneOS in terms of security. As being secure is at the very top of my priority list, my preference for secureblue -therefore- follows rather naturally.
CachyOS, cause its Minimal and "Fast"(maybe) ik i can try out normal Arch but I dont wanna rebuild my system everytime I mess something up + Arch based distro its better then Arch Install(in my opinion)
I’ve been running Ubuntu Studio for almost a decade, but I’m pretty fed up with it. Maybe I’ll switch to Arch. I dunno. Having a turnkey media production distribution was handy. It did audio well. But with pipewire, that seems redundant now.
Artix is a healthy systemd-free distro, so I’m slowly migrating everything to it.
Manjaro just works, is stable, reliable, updates never break my system, their tools are very handy (Pamac GUI is the best software manager I’ve used in 21 years of Linux, with Synaptic).
I only installed Manjaro once 7 years ago, and ever since I’ve had that install copied on several partitions with success and reliability.
The day I move away from systemd entirely (it’s a matter of when, not if), I’ll regret Manjaro deeply.
Artix is pretty damn good though, so I’m also looking forward to it.
My distro is the best because I don't have the patience to try them all to see which is actually the best for me. Until my distro decides to do some silly decision that makes me think I should try another, I will stick to it.
Mine’s best for me:I get it set up the way I want, the updates are frequent but not too frequent, and it has all the packages I need.
My choice isn’t necessarily (or even likely) the best for everyone. There’s a lot to consider when selecting (or recommneding) a distribution. It’s not a one-size-fits-all scenario.
Mine is best for me. I started with an rpm based distro in the late 90s. I tried out gentoo when it first came out. Spent a little time, maybe a year, on Arch years and years ago. I go back to mine because it works, hasn’t caused an issue for me in years, and I don’t like having to dick around learning new systems anymore.
CachyOS with NiriWM. Cachy is Arch with none of the install drama. The performance tuning makes it blazing fast on older hardware. Installs with no bloat.
Niri is superior to Hyprland in my opinion because it’s a scrolling tiling WM that is super intuitive and fast.
For server workloads, however, not much beats pure Debian. It’s stable, well supported, and has a huge package library.
Nobara: It works well most of the time and has pretty much everything needed for gaming preinstalled. I had a bad update once that prevented booting past the command line though. Now that I'm more experienced I'd probably use a more mainline distro and install the gaming stuff myself.
It's decent, but screw using someone's personal distro. Glorious literally dropped every scrap of his default de config, and switched to another. No transition, no migration, just deleted everything and went on with his day.
I slightly regret switching one of my development machines from Manjaro to EndeavourOS. At the time, I needed to test an app I was writing with ffmpeg v8.0 and Manjaro was not going to have that for quite some time. I tried the AUR package but it didn’t work and I had to back it out.
EndeavourOS is absolutely great. I literally am not aware of a single flaw in it. My regret, infinitesimal as it is, is based on being so close to upstream projects. I would far, far rather have a stabilized distro.
My Manjaro machine, for example, has a perfect KDE right now. My EndeavourOS requires directory renaming 2 to 4 times to get it to stick. I know that’s not EndeavourOS. It’s KDE but I vastly prefer a distro with some quality control.
Meanwhile, Manjaro turned into a dumpster fire so there’s no point going back. I do have one machine on Manjaro and it’s running fine, taking the extremely occasional update. I may go to Fedora LXQt spin but EndeavourOS is great, except for the Dolphin issue. They may have fixed it by now but I’m too scared to take any updates in case it gets worse.
It was the first one I got used to, and I haven’t had a reason to switch; it does what I want well enough. The best reason, though, is interjecting (I use mint btw) occasionally.
Because it lets me use a list of packages instead of needing to remember what to install, has every package I need and let's me use them without installing them, and has a good rollback system to go along with cutting edge packages.
It's not the best, but Pop OS because it's the only one that actually worked without any other setup (Mint didn't appear on my screen, and I couldn't find anyway to access a terminal or troubleshoot that). Starting to regret it, though, especially as the Pop community devolves into the Cosmic cult and 22.04 has more issues (some of my flatpaks refuse to open now, sometimes I get a black screen when starting the computer, bluetooth headphones no longer work, etc.).
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Hannah Montana Linux
No further arguments needed.
The one, the only, the legend…
What made Hannah Montana Linux so good (as a joke, and as a distro), was that it was actually good. XD Good fun. Good stuff. :D
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To each its own in accordance to their needs. Debian is great unless you want to add proprietary stuff like GPUs. That's the whole reason so many distros (e.g. Ubuntu) raised to fame and gained popularity while being based on Debian... That, and the fact that until recently Debian installation guide was not updated and called to download an ISO to be burned in 1-2 CDs... that was so f*ing unclear. Of course you can use a pendrive, but if the guide talks about CDs... that's just confusing to newbies. None pointed that out, but to me is like being even less friendly than Arch :P Just my opinion. That said, I have been using Debian based distros for most of my time, even today (desktop PC with MX 'ahs'.)
Debian's documentation can be pretty awful. The Nvidia Driver install guide in particular could use a revamp.
I use Arch, btw, but I don't consider it the best (yes I do.) I could easily transition to Fedora, for example (I would never do that,) and be completely happy (I would rather continually hit my head with the metal stapler gun on my desk.)
NixOS. My entire config is source-controlled and I can easily roll back to a previous boot image if something breaks like cough Nvidia drivers. I also use it for my home router and all self-hosted services.
maniacally laughs while trying to avoid eye contact with 19k lines of nix config
Out of all the ways that I have tried in the past, to reproduce not just the initial state, but also the ongoing changes of a disto (ansible, saltstack, chef, bunch of Shell scripts) — nix is by far the shortest. With all of these technologies I would never have dreamed to do this for a single Maschine. But now it’s not only possible, but actually gasp enjoyable!
Mind you, if that is not the problem you want to solve, maybe install just the nix package manager in addition to your distribution, and learn to enjoy it without having to run your whole distribution this way.
You misunderstand! It has also turned into basically a hobby (and recently, a job, lol) to manage nix configs.
Those 19k lines are clean, well-structured and DRY, and do describe every little thing about ca. 30 machines.
It isn't, it is the least bad
Which technically makes it the best, doesn't it?
No because best implies it's good. Least bad doesn't transmit the same message as best.
Yeah that's fair.
Does what I want and gets out of my way.
Bazzite just works, it runs every game I have with zero fuss, it's easy to run Windows programs / emulators / local LLMs, AND it's basically unbreakable.
I can't claim it's the best, but it's the best for me right now.
On a gaming laptop I'm using Aurora because KDE Plasma btw (:
Bazzite has a KDE version too. I think it is more popular then the GNOME version of bazzite actually. At least according to the results of the latest steam survey
I haven't bothered to actually search or troubleshoot yet, but since I'm here - have you had any problems with power management failing to automatically turn screens off when idle?
I don't get consistent behavior there it seems (AKA it leaves them on when it shouldn't), but that's I think the only significant oddity I've found in the ~7 months or so I've been running Bazzite. And like I said I've done basically nothing yet to try to solve it, just wondering if you've seen it. I have the issue on a desktop and a laptop, using entirely different monitors (not even same brand) FWIW.
I haven't had any problems like that, but I generally don't leave my screen on. So perhaps I would have this issue, but just never notice it because of how I use the device.
I'm very conscious of energy use, I almost always manually set my laptop to sleep if I'm leaving it idle for a while.
I've been enjoying EndeavourOS over the past three years. It works wonderfully out of the box at default settings, and was really easy for me to use and set up to my liking with minimal know-how needed.
It also works really well on the variety of machines I have in my home. My desktop, modded Chromebook, and my husband's laptop.
It's allowed me to get more familiar and confident with the command line, and enough so that I've switched to Sway from XFCE (and previously KDE).
I don't know that it is objectively the best - but its the best fit for me right now (LMDE).
Mint is Ubuntu minus everything that makes Ubuntu annoying. That's why I like it.
I considered to go back to Debian but... eh, I'm too old and impatient for that. Nowadays I mostly want things that work out of the box.
Do things not work out of the box on debian?
*From what I remember**, there was always some rough corner. Such as the wi-fi, or the graphics card. Sure, Stable was rock solid, but you always needed something from Testing; and Testing in general was overall less stable than Ubuntu or Mint.
*This was years ago, so it might be inaccurate as of 2025.
Linux Mint has a Debian Edition (LMDE) if you ever wanted a Debian that Just Works.
I did use the first LMDE for some time, and I loved it, it's a great distro. I don't recall why I went for the Ubuntu-based Mint later on, I think it was the PPAs?
The Ubuntu version does have all of Mint's tools and stuff. Pretty sure the Debian edition is missing the Driver Manager and maybe some others.
All the good parts of Ubuntu have long since been integrated upstream. And Debian's release cycle has increased a lot so you're not stuck with old versions anymore.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_is_the_best
Because it was my first distro that got me away from Windows. And yes, it's Mint.
This week alone I've used Arch, Ubuntu, OpenSuse, and Fedora. Its Arch. By a short way, and mostly thanks to the wiki. Tbh they are all converging, and I go with KDE variants when I use a GUI and no distro does too much to customise it
I'm convinced it isn't.
Mine's the best, because it fits with what I want. Might not be your best, but it's mine.
Because I like compiling everything from source for a 0.2% speed improvement
It works, has the packages I need and they are up-to-date
Void made Linux fun again for me. It gets so much right with the rolling release model.
openSUSE Slowroll and Secureblue are my favorites ATM. Slowroll for gaming, Secureblue for mobile device. Both are hardened for security because that matters to me.
For a long time I considered Gentoo the best, because I know my things around there. A month ago I said goodbye to my last Gentoo installation in favour for Debian trixie (the next stable release). Gentoo was too time consuming despite the binary repo.
If it would be my job to maintain a Gentoo system I would gladly accept, but there should be a need for it by the users. Otherwise I would just recommend Debian stable or Fedora.
My favourite is Debian over Fedora, because I often don't need the latest versions of a software. And there is flatpak.
Tried CalculateLinux or any of the other Gentoo respins?
Toorox was the best Gentoo respin. Nothing more than a pure straight gentoo respin. Sabayon was superb before they started to try too hard. Redcore started to try too hard too. Calculate did a little bit of try-hard, but managed to retain enough modest sanity to remain good (at least, still true of the last few times I saw it). Even Funtoo started to go a little wonky.
But if you ever start to think Gentoo’s too easy and not taking up enough of your time, you can always go the other way, and jump ship to Exherbo.
I have seen at least one person moving from Gentoo to Exherbo. Would I leave Debian behind for it? No, not currently, but maybe there is time for an experiment in the future.
I’ve tried Sabayon briefly, but not seriously. At the time, it was interesting to have more pre-built binaries. Looking back now, the Gentoo binrepos are the better solution, I think.
I’ve tried Exherbo more times than I can count, but never managed to make it my daily driver. It really needs that kind of commitment to make the best of it. With Exherbo, you’ve really got to go from 0 to >9000, with nothing between, becoming a developer of it straight away.
And yeah, +1 Gentoo+binhost. Though I do miss the USE="-*” approach to gentoo (like I did in 2011(ish)), adding things only as needed, per package. Great education. And keeps the system very tight to just meet needs, and no more.
Oh, and also…
No need to leave. There’s BedrockLinux, or just distrobox.
~ for the latter of which I was shown this article (titled "I stopped distro-hopping because this tool lets me run everything at once") earlier today on libera.chat from someone who know’s Bedrock’s been my daily driver for over a decade, with Bedrock being how I ended my distro-hopping, and DistroBox being another way to end distro-hopping. ~ We’re now ((at least) two ways) past the days of having to pick just one distro. ;D
I should generally make more use of things lile podman and systemd-nspawn. Thx!
I guess running Bedrock Linux inside podman wouldn’t work, I guess. Not sure how well nesting works with containers.
Hrmm. While I’ve never bothered with containers, I don’t see why bedrock wouldn’t work in a container. Could be easy to test… set up a container with whichever distro, and try run the BedrockLinux hijack installer script on it… Don’t blame me if somehow it escapes the containment and eats your whole system … (~ I don’t see why/how it would ~ should be safe ~ but like I say, I don’t have experience with containers.)
It's extremely stable, and countless other distros are derived from this.
Because I can hit "next" a couple of time and have a working install
Can't say it's the best, but I love Alpine. It's light, fast, versatile and easy to use, runs on anything, and despite it being used mostly in containers and VMs, it makes for a great desktop distro aswell. :)
No one talks about how Alpine has been doing “immutable” installations since way before it was trendy.
I use Arch since approximately 2006 or so. I like its stability (yes!), performance, rapid updates and technical simplicity. It never stands in my way and it's fairly simple to understand, administer and modify. It's probably the most convenient OS I've ever used - sure it takes time/effort to set it up but once you're past that it's smooth sailing. It also doesn't change dramatically over the years (it doesn't need to) so it's easy to keep up with its development. Plus, I have a custom setup script for it that installs and sets up all of the basics, so if I ever need to reinstall, I'm not starting from zero.
I am eyeing NixOS as "the next step" but didn't yet experiment with it too much. Arch is just too comfy to use and the advantages that NixOS brings aren't yet significant enough for me to make any kind of switch to it, but I consider NIxOS (as well as its related technologies like the Nix package manager) to be the most interesting and most advanced things in the Linux world currently.
If you're reading this as a newbie Linux user: probably don't use any of the two mentioned above (yet). They're not considered entry-level stuff, unless you're interested in learning low-level (as in: highly technical) Linux stuff from the start already. NixOS/Nix in particular is fairly complex and can be a challenge even for veteran Linux admins/users to fully understand and utilize well.
Start your journey with more common desktop distros like Mint, Fedora, Kubuntu.
I've been using a debian based system for a dozen years. Then I decided to buy a NAS and turn it into a NixOS driven media server.
JFC I thought I knew linux and I was so wrong.
Omarchy because it installed in under ten minutes. Also it has a well riced Hyprland setup from the start. A complete install of LazyVim, OBS, and KDEnlive. I was able to start doing real work in the time it takes on other distros to read the installation instructions, let alone add nonfree packages or install lazyvim. It’s the most fun and productive Linux installation I’ve experienced since Ubuntu sent out CDs for free.
DHH is a bit of a douche. However the number of unsavory character and unpleasant people in the Linux community has always been non negligible. Starting with Stallman’s pedo chatter to Greg Kroah-Hartman banning Russians.
I started with Mandrake back in 2000 and used Red Hat at school. In 2004 Ubuntu was released and I adopted it for life. I switched from Ubuntu to Xubuntu to Ubuntu MATE to Kubuntu up to this day. It’s the best because of all the quality of life additions, the stability of the LTS releases, the amount of widespread documenation, and general size of the community of users. This makes it a lot more easier to use and get help to troubleshoot any problems. So far it’s been mostly a problem free and easy experience.
Until recently…
I just discovered Zorin OS and started messing around with it in a VM. I gotta say it’s of of the best, most polished Gnome desktop experiences I’ve had so far with their free core version. While I love KDE for it’s desktop experience being the closest to Windows there is, I usually find it has WAY too many customizations to a fault. Some people like this, but I find that the more you mess with configs, the more prone to problems it gets. I also find Gnome to be more well put together and well integrated. The fact the customization options are limited means I spend more time doing what I need to do than messing around with getting my desktop just right. I just hate the default Gnome destop and whatever paradigm they tried to make. That’s why I’ve stuck with Kubuntu for a while. But with Zorin, I think they found the sweet spot. This might be my next install and I might recommend it to anyone who wants to get into Linux over Mint.
Zorin is boring. uses ubuntu stable, out of the box distro so you can do anything you want to do right after installation (including installing a windows program with play on linux but also like burning a disk), emulates windows. Add kde if you want to spice it up (distro really needs to change to kde out of box.). If someone is from windows and does not want to learn all that linux stuff they can pretty much go for most things right away and they can use the software store, choose the debian download for anything they find online if its available and if not they can download the windows right click and say install with play on linux. Its the lazy mans linux and im plenty lazy.
I use NixOS, btw (don't you see that glorious gif?). It's the only distro that is actually different compared to other distros. It's not just another package manager, another ubuntu skin, or a different desktop environment. If you learn how to configure it, you can easily redo breaking changes or install an exact copy of your system on a different device. You can configure all you want and you will never ever have to worry.
Also has better flex than Arch users.
cons
- burj khalifa learning curve
- arch documentation * -1 doc quality (dogshit documentation)
- doesnt work outta the box
It's super cool to be able to copy a single or maybe two configuration files from one box to another, sync thing your home folder and have an exact copy.
It's super cool to temporarily install things with nix-shell. I have little environments set up where I write python or rust or edit videos and if I'm not in that environment none of those commands even exist.
Updating in vanilla is pretty straightforward. Update your base channel, rebuild. But if you install say home manager as a flake that doesn't update the same way. And then if you do it as an environmental install it doesn't update the same way. And then it's totally possible to do an update get a new version of your web browser, But your auto starts or your PWA's point to the old version of the web browser. My personal favorite is when I update signal. It upgrades the database. Field binary is no longer capable of running but is still the default for some reason. I have to look up the command expunge it from the store, simply finding it in the store isn't trivial.
Most distros have gotten easy to the point of being boring. We don't suffer that fate in Nix.
I like secureblue the most, because it’s simply the best in class when it comes to bridging the difference between Desktop Linux and GrapheneOS in terms of security. As being secure is at the very top of my priority list, my preference for secureblue -therefore- follows rather naturally.
Gecko Linux because it’s OpenSuSE Tumbleweed with all the useful nonfree stuff included.
CachyOS, cause its Minimal and "Fast"(maybe) ik i can try out normal Arch but I dont wanna rebuild my system everytime I mess something up + Arch based distro its better then Arch Install(in my opinion)
Mint baby, it just works.
BedrockLinux is the best because it has the features of any and all of the other distributions listed here. ;)
NixOS best👍👍
I’ve been running Ubuntu Studio for almost a decade, but I’m pretty fed up with it. Maybe I’ll switch to Arch. I dunno. Having a turnkey media production distribution was handy. It did audio well. But with pipewire, that seems redundant now.
Using Manjaro and Artix. Both are really great.
Artix is a healthy systemd-free distro, so I’m slowly migrating everything to it.
Manjaro just works, is stable, reliable, updates never break my system, their tools are very handy (Pamac GUI is the best software manager I’ve used in 21 years of Linux, with Synaptic).
I only installed Manjaro once 7 years ago, and ever since I’ve had that install copied on several partitions with success and reliability. The day I move away from systemd entirely (it’s a matter of when, not if), I’ll regret Manjaro deeply.
Artix is pretty damn good though, so I’m also looking forward to it.
My distro is the best because I don't have the patience to try them all to see which is actually the best for me. Until my distro decides to do some silly decision that makes me think I should try another, I will stick to it.
How about Qubes? if you have the specs, you get sandboxes (VMs) and all distros are available into 1. Heck, you can even have windows VMs...
And if you don't have the specs, just use any linux and install distrobox (docker) !
An alternative to distrobox is toolbx
Isn't there issues with using the graphics on the vms?
iirc all graphics are processed by dom0 vm, so no..
Mine’s best for me:I get it set up the way I want, the updates are frequent but not too frequent, and it has all the packages I need.
My choice isn’t necessarily (or even likely) the best for everyone. There’s a lot to consider when selecting (or recommneding) a distribution. It’s not a one-size-fits-all scenario.
Because it gets out of my way and lets me focus on the things I really want to do.
Mine is best for me. I started with an rpm based distro in the late 90s. I tried out gentoo when it first came out. Spent a little time, maybe a year, on Arch years and years ago. I go back to mine because it works, hasn’t caused an issue for me in years, and I don’t like having to dick around learning new systems anymore.
i’m using Alpine, but I’m not considering it as the best. It’s minimal, no bloat and doing all what I want.
CachyOS with NiriWM. Cachy is Arch with none of the install drama. The performance tuning makes it blazing fast on older hardware. Installs with no bloat.
Niri is superior to Hyprland in my opinion because it’s a scrolling tiling WM that is super intuitive and fast.
For server workloads, however, not much beats pure Debian. It’s stable, well supported, and has a huge package library.
Nobara: It works well most of the time and has pretty much everything needed for gaming preinstalled. I had a bad update once that prevented booting past the command line though. Now that I'm more experienced I'd probably use a more mainline distro and install the gaming stuff myself.
It's decent, but screw using someone's personal distro. Glorious literally dropped every scrap of his default de config, and switched to another. No transition, no migration, just deleted everything and went on with his day.
He did literally say it's not meant for consumer use, it's just his build for himself that you're free to use
Literally the first sentence
Meant to reply to op not you whoops
You mean my distros?
Different distros are the best for different purposes.
My Fedora is the best for my laptop because it just works and all the hardware is supported.
My Arch is the best because it's a super fine tuned setup that prevents distractions and doesn't waste memory or CPU doing things I don't care about.
My mint is the best because it's simple, stable, beautiful out of the box.
My debian is the best because servers are no nonsense.
My puppy Linux was the best when I was a developer for the distro because it was the smallest lightest and fastest distro I've ever used.
Etc.
Really? I guess everyone was 15 at some point and hadn't heard that distro wars are useless 🤣
There is no best. Period.
LMDE - no idea if its the ‘best’ but its the best for me right now in that it does what I want, looks how I want and stays out of my way.
I slightly regret switching one of my development machines from Manjaro to EndeavourOS. At the time, I needed to test an app I was writing with ffmpeg v8.0 and Manjaro was not going to have that for quite some time. I tried the AUR package but it didn’t work and I had to back it out.
EndeavourOS is absolutely great. I literally am not aware of a single flaw in it. My regret, infinitesimal as it is, is based on being so close to upstream projects. I would far, far rather have a stabilized distro.
My Manjaro machine, for example, has a perfect KDE right now. My EndeavourOS requires directory renaming 2 to 4 times to get it to stick. I know that’s not EndeavourOS. It’s KDE but I vastly prefer a distro with some quality control.
Meanwhile, Manjaro turned into a dumpster fire so there’s no point going back. I do have one machine on Manjaro and it’s running fine, taking the extremely occasional update. I may go to Fedora LXQt spin but EndeavourOS is great, except for the Dolphin issue. They may have fixed it by now but I’m too scared to take any updates in case it gets worse.
It works for me.
It was the first one I got used to, and I haven’t had a reason to switch; it does what I want well enough. The best reason, though, is interjecting (I use mint btw) occasionally.
Because it lets me use a list of packages instead of needing to remember what to install, has every package I need and let's me use them without installing them, and has a good rollback system to go along with cutting edge packages.
Ubuntu , i use Lubuntu
I get to say “I use arch btw” :P
2nd one I picked up, works nicely, is for lesbians, what else could I want
It's not the best, but Pop OS because it's the only one that actually worked without any other setup (Mint didn't appear on my screen, and I couldn't find anyway to access a terminal or troubleshoot that). Starting to regret it, though, especially as the Pop community devolves into the Cosmic cult and 22.04 has more issues (some of my flatpaks refuse to open now, sometimes I get a black screen when starting the computer, bluetooth headphones no longer work, etc.).