What is your go-to Linux distro and why?

Arch because I like simple.

Other distros are an exercise in patience I think. Each Ubuntu version has different names and versions of stuff like docker, mysql and everything else. It's really annoying to work with. I assume all six month distros are like that. And you have to add extra repos, keys and whatnot for it to even find things.

With arch, since it's rolling, I just install the latest version and I already know the command. It's always the same. Always.

There are many reasons I like arch but the simplicity of the installations is one of my favorite reasons to use it.

Debian for servers and debian for desktop. Debian everywhere!

Debian. I always come back to Debian.

It's just a rock solid, multipurpose distro that has everything. If you have an issue with some older software versions, you can just track testing or sid and treat it as rolling release or use flatpaks for GUI apps.

To me, Debian is almost perfect.

For the past six years it has been Kubuntu, but I think it's time to finally abort Canonical and their idiosyncrasies and choose Debian as a KDE base, especially now that Debian 12 includes non-free firmware by default.

mint
it "just works" and I dont have to update it constantly

but my daily driver is endeavourOS

Fedora! To me it sits right at the sweet spot of stability and bleeding edge (they call it "leading edge"), and I'm very happy with how they run things (including the most recent controversy!).

Debian for my work. It is stable and I’ve been using it for many years.

If you're looking for stable and up to date, give openSUSE Tumbleweed a shot.

Fedora, really uptodate software, GNOME, stability of a server distro.

Arch Linux is my go-to distro because I can literally install it in half the time that it takes a lot of others. I also like that it is very lightweight.

Currently NixOS having been a long time Arch user. The power of Nix is unbeatable once it finally clicks.

Debian stable, the os for 50 year old nudists.

It’s the stable branch of one of the oldest distributions around.

Debian -- The Universal Operating System

Because it's universal, runs on everything rock solid and stable.

Nixos, as stable as debian and as rolling edge as arch and if i break something i can just rollback.

I would highly recommend EndeavourOS. Its basically Arch linux on easy mode. It takes care of updates without much fuss.

I've always felt that Arch has the least amount of personal compromises. For "bleeding edge," it's also generally stable and has a wealth of community support and documentation.

Fedora.

I can highly recommend fedora to a newbie. It's easier to use than ubuntu. It doesn't come with snaps. You only need one or two methods of installing apps. It's safe. It's well written. It's supported very well. It's updated frequently. It incorporates innovative technology.

Opensuse and EndeaverOS are also very nice.

Debian. I've been running it on my "daily driver" personal desktop/laptop since -97 (Debian 1.3).
Changing now would be major undertaking with no apparent upside, so I won't.

Arch has been my go to for almost 10 years now, and it was one of my favorites for 5 years prior. These days I rarely have any issues from updating. I have to use Ubuntu for work and I dread every distribution upgrade. I got lucky and the last one worked on my work laptop, but usually something stupid breaks.

I run arch on my laptop, my previous laptop, and my server. The install on my server is 7 years old now, and started life with an entirely different CPU brand. I won't say I've never had to do any manual intervention, but the answer has been a Google search away pretty much every time.

I use Arch BTW

Pop! It's easy to install, stable, and works great with Nvidia drivers. If I have more time on my hands then Arch, because it's good old-fashioned computing fun.

For desktop Linux, I use Arch. It's a community driven base distribution, so the needs of the community are what drives development and there are no financial decisions of a company that get priority, which is refreshing. It also has access to the latest and greatest that Linux has to offer.

They have a philosophy of expecting basic effort from users and to have a tinkering mindset. Historically, Arch devs and users have a reputation of being grumpy greybeards, but many of the rough edges have been rounded off in the last few years. If you are willing to do a bit of reading or watching some YouTube videos, it's not really that hard.

You can really build a lean and powerful machine that has just the software you want on the system with Arch. All it takes is a little effort and willingness to ask for help from the community after you have tried and failed to solve problems yourself. It's really not the badge of elitism to use Arch in 2023. It's never been easier to use and doesn't blow up on you nearly as often as the reputation implies. Just use good hygiene and make snapshots so if you blow it up, it's only a 5 minute recovery.

Try Void Linux, or just stay at Arch. If you want to try Nixos (my current distro), watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGVXJ-TIv3Y .

Tried a lot of distros and finally settled on openSUSE Tumbleweed. Rock solid for a rolling release. If anything ever goes wrong, there's Snapper to rollback without a breaking a sweat.

Fedora Workstation is what I use for my desktop. If I were to have to reinstall now I'd do Silverblue.

For my home lab I do Proxmox with a couple of VM's for Ubuntu server for pihole DNS servers and an OpenMediaVault VM for my docker workloads. I'd probably do CoreOS or IoT if I was starting over there though.

Arch for desktop, Debian for server

Arch and Debian. I have two home PCs with all my data on an smb share. One runs Debian 12, the other runs Arch. When I sit down I decide which I want to use and go. I couldn't pick one I liked better so....I didn't.

Mint. Simple, stable, efficient.

@pluja You'll be happiest using whatever you're comfortable maintaining/troubleshooting. I've spent 20 years playing with many different distros for one reason or another and the only one I can't stay away from is #gentoo. As with most things, everyone's got different tastes, that's the great thing about having so much choice.

Nobody's reason for "the best" distro is gonna be the right one for you. You'll know what's right for you because it's the one you always want to use more than any other.

Gentoo and Debian. Debian will let you get back to what you really want to be doing whereas gentoo gives you excellent granularity over everything, but can be overwhelming and time consuming.

Really should ask yourself what you'll be mostly doing and pick a tool (distro) that let's you accomplish that.

I've tried basically every reasonably maintained distribution, and keep coming back to Arch. It just feels right. And it just works right too. The package manager is excellent, and that is one of the things that makes or breaks any distribution for me. I also love that it comes with nothing, so you know what you get, and it'll be setup how you want it. With other major distributions, I spend a considerable amount of time removing things first, which is something I just don't want to do.

I've been trying out NixOS recently. I really appreciate what it is trying to do, but the complexity of nix-command is quite overwhelming

I use Pop!_OS on my desktop and laptop. Prior to that, I would distro-hop like it was my job. I bought a system76 laptop and figured, why not. So, I had Pop preloaded on it instead of Ubuntu. Here's the reason I ended up settling on Pop as my one-and-only distro.

• Based off Ubuntu/Debian, which I am most familiar/comfortable with
• No Snaps
• Flatpak supported out of the box
• Relatively rapid deployment of updated kernels (currently on 6.2.6), so no need to worry about hardware support
• Tiling windows that are well implemented
• Backed by a company, but one that shares the same values as me
• Stable, even with semi-rolling release nature of it

The downsides are that their choice of colors are god-awful. I get it, it's their company's colors, but I don't think it looks really all that good on an operating system. I've gotten used to it, and don't care as much anymore.

Mint for work and home.

I use arch btw

Endeavour OS for me, use it both on my own laptop and my work one. BTW, it's Arch-based

i settled on fedora kde a few years ago(altho i recently switched to fedora silverblue kde)
imo a nice middleground.

if you are intrested in immutable distros, i can recommend silverblue (not as drastic of a change compared to nixos)

if you are intrested in nixos package management, you might want to try out the nix package manager on your current distro.

an intresting way to get the fresh but stable system you want is to,
install some rock solid distro like debian,
and then use the nix package manager and/or flatpacks to get the fresh software you want.

It used to be Fedora, and I still want it to be Fedora. It was solid, stable, cutting edge, and easy to work with both on the command line and in the super-up-to-date Gnome desktop. DNF is great once you make a few tweaks, I don't care about systemd, and it supports all of my hardware with basically no tweaking right out of the box. And the Anaconda Installer isn't all that bad once you get used to its idiosyncrasies. I've been a distrohopper for like 15 years now, but I always end up hopping back to Fedora. Or I did, anyway, but with IBM-RedHat's shenanigans as of late, I'm looking for a new home. Current thoughts:

• I used to run Arch (btw), and could go back to it, but I'd prefer something more brainless to maintain (Arch isn't hard to maintain - check updates before you install, be careful with the AUR, it's golden - but I just don't have the spoons anymore). It's actually what I'm running on the laptop I'm using to post this.
• I'm not going to use Ubuntu or anything else involving Snap because I hate dealing with Snap (YMMV - I know it has its fans, but I don't like the way Canonical is handling it's stuff there, and I only have room in my depression-addled brain for one universal package format).
• I love the new Debian, but the Gnome desktop is already out of date, and it's just going to get farther behind. I have to decide if I want to give up cutting edge Gnome in favor of holy-Mary-Mother-of-God stability.
• Some up and coming immutables look very interesting; blendOS and Vanilla OS in particular, but also OpenSuse Aeon. Just not sure I'm ready to go immutable, old grognard that I am.

But seriously, RHEL - just re-open the source code, thanks, you asshats.

Edit: I really need to learn how to proofread before I post.

Fedora because it's robust, stable, mature and has a fairly up-to-date package repository. Plus, it has spins (ISO flavours) with different DEs/WMs installed, including i3 and even Sway!

If you want a Linux distro that just works and gets out of the way, Fedora is for you. I've been using it for years now and see no reason to switch.

Arch Linux because k.i.s.s

I distro hopped a lot in the 2006-2011 era, and eventually settled on Arch. I like the initial simplicity, the wiki was and still is the best resource to this day, and anything I needed from the kitchen sink was accessible via the AUR. I've ended up using it on my workstations, work laptops, and personal machines ever since.

Anything Arch, because it's hard, it's a pain in the ass and as an intermediate user I need Arch to break on me so I can fix it and learn.

Debian is always my go-to. Is the users are coming from Windows I might say the DE to Cinnamon.

Gentoo, for its user choice and lack of bloat. I've been using it for a long time, and can create my own packages for personal use if I don't mind them looking like Frankenstein bodges, so that's another plus. It's stable enough if you stick with actual stable-marked packages and don't go out of your way to shoot yourself in the foot, and if something does go wrong at the distro's end, 1. they usually fix it pretty fast and 2. rolling packages back is easy if the older version is still in the tree (and usually still possible if it isn't, although it can get kind of involved).

Would I recommend Gentoo to another user? That depends on which user. You kind of have to be either knowledgeable or willing to learn—it isn't a "just works" distro, although some things have been streamlined in recent years. You do have to put a little time into maintenance, but it's usually on the order of less than half an hour a week.

If you are looking for stability with latest updates, then Gentoo. But I won't recommend it to a distro hopper.

Besides than Arch and Mint are my general recommendation.

Unpopular opinion: Antix Linux for workstation, because:

1. It's Debian
2. Very lightweight (100mb on RAM)
3. Live to RAM
4. Frugal installation
5. Small size ISO (1gb) with full function utility
6. Flexibel recovery, from old to modern system
7. Responsive (no systemd)
8. Retro-kind WM (icebox-wm), perfectly match on retro system

Used to be Arch, now I shill for Debian.

Void Linux. Super stable and offers an easy and lightning fast package manager. I'm not sure of your use case but it has been great for me on an older Dell precision laptop for work.

EndeavourOS and quite happy with it.

zorin. im just so lazy. Every so often I try something else looking for something easier. I would really like to use cubeos but likely not going to happen. oh and sourcemage and maybe once im retired.

Arch for me, I use Aur as a crutch to avoid compiling and managing source projects, i love pacman and rolling releases, and it's very easily customizable (ofc once you learn the system).

Not to long ago I would of said Fedora but recently I've switched to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and I'm really enjoying it. Still learning the ins and outs though.

I am typically on Arch on all my machines since 2006. For a while I bootstrapped new machines using EndeavorOS, but usually stripped out their packages and returned to vanilla arch. Since I now prefer ZFS as root fs, I am back to installing from scratch, to get exactly the layout I want.