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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Debian stable:
I'm relatively new to Linux, so I'm testing a few distros via VMs right now. My main desktop runs OpenSUSE Leap with KDE Plasma and I love it so far. I'm also trying Fedora 42 with GNOME, but I'm realizing I don't like GNOME. I'm running Linux Mint Cinnamon on a 2016 MacBook Pro, which is pretty nice too. I also ran Debian stable for a bit. OpenSUSE is my favorite of the ones I've tried.
I'm an IT professional, I use what I support. RHEL based OS's, Rocky for servers, Fedora for workstations. That said I still love Debian and use them most often for container images when I dont have a reason to use something else.
I jumped from Ubuntu over to Arch because I was getting fed up with all the things I wanted to do being unavailable in Ubuntu, but all in the Arch repo or AUR.
I've been using Debian-based distros for like 25 years, so it was definitely a bit of a change, but it didn't take long to adjust. I'm glad I made the change.
I was given a CD set for SUSE 8.2, then bought the 9.0 book set from a book store because I liked it but wanted the hard copy to reference when I was messing things up. I've tried a ton of other distros, but keep going back to Suse because I'm used to it.
A bunch of nerds on lemmy suggested it and I haven't found any problems with it that make me want to go for another. I use Fedora KDE
EndeavorOS;
Gives the benefit of having latest up-to-date packages for gaming, while negating the downsides of having to configure the OS or graphics driver upon installation.
Honestly, if think EndeavorOS comes with full UI support to download stuff from AUR and Flathub, I think it would become a pretty solid OS for any casual user looking to get into Linux. (Well, unless they are religiously against Arch. Then again your casual user probably don't even know what 'Arch' is or care enough to be religious about it.)
Also yea, usually you run Ubuntu LTS or Debian Stable on servers unless your company paid for some licensing.
Fellow EndeavorOS enjoyer here, I love the hand-holding it does for you at the beginning (calamares installer, pick whichever DE that tickles your fancy, access to AUR and other goodies by default), but then basically beyond that point, you're on your own. The fact that it's Arch based also means that 9.99 times out of 10, you can always consult the Arch Wiki for any issues.
It's like an Arch Linux starter pack that gives you the option to take off the training wheels at any time lol.
Why do you use the distro you use?
People said Ubuntu is easy, but I prefer green to orange so I went with Mint.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. Recently I bought cheap Surface-like x86 tablet on a rather recent hardware, and running Debian and its cousins required more tinkering than I was willing to do, so I decided to go with a more modern rolling release. Tried Arch for a few months, bricked it from mixing stable and testing branches, tried Fedora, and finally settled in Tumbleweed. I like it for being on the bleeding edge and exceptionally stable at the same time, perhaps thanks to robust OpenSUSE Build Service automated testing. And it is from a European company, that can't hurt.
Arch and Fedora; package managers and repositories.
Mint CE for my desktop (might distro hop soon for multiple curiosity based reasons, all my data is on non-os drives anyway) - easiest to just get working when fast-swapping, IMO
Debian for my server - it's the flavor of Linux I'm most familiar with over the years & for my server I dont need any of the shit Ubuntu does
STEAM OS for my Steam Deck (I use it as a TV PC so desktop mode is common with it), because it's really good for that purpose
I recently moved to Fedora KDE Plasma after years on W10, simply because I don't want to use W11 and its AI bullshit. So far, it's been a great time, and I haven't noticed any major performance issues, so I'm happy with it. Having to update everything every few days is pretty novel though, and 'sudo dnf update -y' makes me feel like Hackerman, king of all Hackers. I think I like the customization options most though. I get way more control over what happens on my PC than W10 ever gave me, and it's all wrapped in a very user-friendly GUI. Overall 8.5-9/10.
yay I want to install Fedora Plasma when I get a new drive, see if I can gradually switch (for real this time)... Plasma has a new pen tablet utility for Wayland, and since I use my tablet exclusively... when my Windows 10 is EOL I will switch for sure. Good to know it runs well for you
Yeah, I also use a pen tablet for some stuff, and it handles it decently well. One issue I've run into with it is that if I turn my monitor off while the tablet is plugged in, there's like a 50/50 chance the monitor won't load video unless I turn the tablet on too. It's funky. Otherwise, getting my RTX4070 up and running wasn't too hard. It's a good distro for idiots (me).
Fantastic. Thanks for the feedback.
i use gentoo because i love the package manager and how in control i am of my desktop and for servers even though not linux ive been using open bsd because of secure it is and lightweight helps squeeze out little bit more performance from mt shit vps lol
I wanted a mainstream option but not Ubuntu, and one that was preferably offered with KDE Plasma pre-packaged.
So I ended up deciding between Debian and Fedora, and what tipped me to Fedora was thinking: Well SELinux sounds neat, quite close to what I learned about Mandatory Access Control in the lectures, and besides, maybe it will be useful in my work knowing one that is close to RHEL.
Now I work in a network team that has been using Debian for 30 years, lol. Kind of ironic, but I don't regret it, now I just know both.
And fighting SELinux was kind of fun too. I modified my local policies so that systemd can run screen because I wanted to create a Minecraft service to which I could connect as admin, even if it was started by systemd.
Arch, moved here from Ubuntu when I realized I have a good idea of what I want installed and have no need for a bunch of things to get bundled into the OS
Manjaro, because Arch-based, rolling release, but with a dev test cycle to try to eliminate breaking patches.
I currently use Bazzite on my old laptop, just wanted to try out immutable distros and I like to stream games from my rig to it sometimes so completely functional steam was a nice addition. Plus learning about flatpaks and app images over installed packages has been interesting.
Then on my servers Debian/Proxmox and usually Ubuntu server in LXCs for more updated APTs then Debian, though I mostly run docker for my web apps rather then native APTs.
I work for a company that has a java program that functions on Linux but is nowhere near the level of support provided for mac/Windows, so I'm the Linux guy for our dept and when a customer is running into issues on a distro I'll spin up a vm on my homelab and see if I can rum through an install and get it functional.
So far the only one I literally couldn't get installed was Slackware lol I even figured out how to get it functional in ChromeOSes Linux subsystem.
Debian, on servers and a desktop. I spent a long time using Ubuntu so I'm used to APT and Debian is suitably lightweight for my not amazing hardware. I also like the non rolling nature of it.
You'd love PopOS then, with its working nature and privacy-focus.
I've tried PopOS as I have a machine with an Nvidia card but every tine I've done the first apt upgrade it nukes grub and won't boot again. Probably something I'm doing wrong and it has been a couple of years since I last tried.
I use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed because it focuses more on KDE than GNOME, is quite stable, and has snapshots to roll back to in case something does go wrong. I don't want to mess with my OS, I just want it to work reliably. I do use Debian on some devices (like my server) but the software (especially in terms of GUI apps) is very outdated and it doesn't come with the other features of OpenSUSE out of the box.
It's Debian. It's well-supported by software and super stable and open.
i been linux only for over 30 years now.
I tend to use Debian stable. At least for the last 15 or so.
The reason is simple. I use it as my main PC and the stability is my main priority.
The only negative is software in the repos is often out of date.
But honestly while that was a pain in the past. Now for the vast majority of things I use. I find flat pack or appimage downloads work perfect ally.
The only exception is ham radio software. Here I tend to compile later versions if I need/want them.
Other negatives
I'm really not hugely into gaming. But use blender a lot. Due to this I use Nvidia cards as they are far better supported by blender.
Installing the proprietary Nvidia drivers is a bit of a pain on Debian for newbies. But once you know the process its simple enough. Just not obvious for beginners. The community drivers are still very limited thanks to Nvidia s weird ideas.
How does the nvidia card fare on linux in general ? on a Wayland session ? I have a 4070Ti running Windows atm, I use Blender professionally and I know it runs the best on Linux because of compiler shenanigans I can't be arsed to understand, but this is one reason I'd like to switch to Linux (...again!). I'm interested to know if you run multiple color-managed monitors by any chance
Same, I've been using Debian only for the last 15 or so years. I love the stability, and the old software isn't hard to work around when newer versions are needed.
I hate the lack of support from Nvidia. I prefer AMD cards though, and they give zero trouble.
Yeah. Unfortunately blender is still noticably faster on Nvidia cards. Due to cuda and optic support.
I only have a 4060 though. Next time I upgrade, give. How bad the 50s release is. I will look again and compare higher end amd stuff. Likely a few years away though.
Primarily Garuda these days. It's basically Arch with some user-friendly additions. The major reason I tried it on a then-new gaming laptop was the actually really good IME hardware detection and minimal fuss NVIDIA setup using their latest drivers.
I was having enough headaches trying to get graphics actually working properly on the Debian-based distro I had been using, that I said fuck it and tried something that would hopefully get things working for me so that I could at least see that configuration to figure out where I'd been going wrong. Then I liked it enough that I have mostly just stayed there on this machine. (Did finally get things fixed on the other side, though.) But, I was already fine with Arch, which probably helps.
Linux Mint is a nice and easy distro that is quite good :D
I've been using Mint for a year now and I just got a second laptop and the first thing I did was Wipe Windows 11 off of it and install Mint.
It does everything I need it too.
Slackware: because I'm old and arch is too trendy.
👍🏻 Slackware was my 1st distro. It was before kernel 2.0. Now I use windowslike girly distros..
Let's be honest: nearly all of them now are windowslike girly distros....
Geez, I haven’t heard of someone running Slackware in at least 15 years. I mean, I know it’s still around, I just haven’t heard anyone say they were running it.
It's much more... manual than others, I'll admit. For me anymore it's a labor of love.
Yeah. I remember, lol
Using void linux because it has no systemd init system (it uses its own "runit" init system) ; and it is a natutal development after using Debian for a long time and wanting to understand more about gnu/linux system.
Also, it is very reliable with a lot of packages. It is standard enough so using info from arch, debian or other distro works.
But the origin was I could not understand how systemd was managing the system and it felt really contrived to go around it, so I began using void and that's the story.
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.
Arch. Why?