What is your preferred daily driver distribution?
What is your preferred daily driver distribution?
Considering switching away from Fedora and to another distribution. Does anyone have any suggestions for distributions I should consider?
What is your preferred daily driver distribution?
Considering switching away from Fedora and to another distribution. Does anyone have any suggestions for distributions I should consider?
I'm using debian.
Seconded
I live on the more unstable side, I like Debian Unstable/Sid. I also recommend Siduction as it's based on Debian Unstable.
I've been actually trying Debian Testing for past few weeks.
Arch Linux
Reasons:
The wiki is what makes it really hard for me to move out. This masterpiece is where I learned 70% of what I know about linux systems 🤷
My steam deck uses arch btw, and the main reason I didn't choose arch for my laptop was because I haven't had good experience with pacman. But I'll be honest that I haven't given it much of a chance, so I'd like to learn more. What is it that you like about pacman?
What bad experience have you had with pacman? My favourite thing about it is that it is pretty much the only package manager that has never failed me.
Arch.
People think it's really challenging and brittle, but everything seems to always work no matter how often I update (or don't) and the wiki is top notch.
I actually chose arch initially because when you go to forums to troubleshoot problems there is always an ubuntu answer and an arch answer, and the arch answer is almost always shorter.
Bang on
I only use Arch, it's really stable and easy to fix if something goes wrong thanks to the excellent arch wiki.
But I recommend PopOS for anyone who just wants something good looking and stable and who doesn't need the latest packages all the time.
Do you use arch or do you use manjaro or other?
I use Arch default. Stay away from Manjaro... If you want to try arch with a good installer, try https://endeavouros.com/.
Its really just arch with a nice installer and a friendly community where you can ask questions. It's specifically designed for that purpose.
Linux Mint: Debian Edition. After watching a YouTube review I decided to take a break from Arch and give it a try, I'd always like Cinnamon, and I really like this.
Cinnamon, last I tried it, has a bug which causes it to run games with compositing enabled. The setting that's supposed to disable it for games, only works until the next boot.
I recommend openSUSE Tumbleweed without hesitation.
This is the best answer. It’s the most comparable to Fedora with it’s semi-rolling releases.
Tried it for the first time last week. I was hesitant because I'm forced into SLES for work, and I fucking hate it. But thats because all of the default configs for all packages are overly secure. Like, installing apache required a ton of extra steps to allow HTTP traffic. But I needed to test both HTTP and HTTPS for the feature I was working on, so I needed HTTP.
But overall I have been very happy with Tumbleweed. I like that the packages are more up to date than Ubuntu LTS (what I was using previously), and I haven't had as many driver issues either. Oh, and snapshots are amazing. It already saved me once when I accidentally deleted the wrong config file, I just cp'd it from my last snapshot.
Unpopular choice here but Ubuntu LTS with ubuntu-debullshit (vanilla gnome, replace snap with flatpak).
My main factors:
I’ve had my fun distro hopping in the past but I just want a low maintenance system nowadays.
Ohhh, I'll have to check this out. I've been gradually moving away from Ubuntu toward Debian (w/ GNOME) for a while because Snap is hot garbage and I don't want to have anything to do with it. Were it not for Snap, I still really like Ubuntu.
Drivers are the weak spot of Ubuntu LTS, even with HWE the kernel and Mesa are outdated compared to Fedora.
How does this differ from Debian+GNOME? I'm not familiar enough with exactly what Canonical adds to Debian to know.
Depends on what you're looking for.
I cannot recommend NixOS enough, it's such a good distribution but on the other hand it's quite tough to learn as it deviates a lot on how distributions do things. It still uses a standard stack (glibc, systemd, GNU tools and all) but the nix tools which include the package manager are totally different from what other distributions offer. It's very solid, yet flexible. It offers a lot of packages by default. I've switched my machines to it because of the advantages.
Arch is great as a rolling release distribution with solid repositories (lots of packages and quite up to date) and it's very close to upstream with a more traditional approach to the distribution tools. In fact there aren't really any apart from the package manager by default. I feel this is one of the most comfortable distributions if you want to learn how a classic Linux system is structured. I ran Arch for about 15 years and didn't really have anything to complain about and I learned more about Linux there than with Ubuntu and Debian.
Please note that neither of these are what one would consider beginner-friendly distributions.
Debian only household here ..
I try so dang hard not to use Linux Mint because I have been using off and on since 2008 but always come crawling back to it when I run into some esoteric issue on another distro. It just hits the sweet spot of what I understand computing to be. I have desperately tried to use various forms of arch. OpenSUSE, fedora, debian, and a whole host of others and eventually get frustrated for some probably solvable reason and go back to my sweet, my love, my wart covered X11 using, 5.15 running, stale boring life mate Mint.
Pop!_OS. Sensible defaults and it's based off of Ubuntu, which is the distro I'm most familiar with.
Pop_os for my laptop and desktop. I use these machines for dev work and gaming. I want to spend as little time as possible doing maintenance. Debian for all servers and containers. Very stable, maintenance doesn't take much effort.
If I was running a pure gaming system I'd probably go with Arch.
Void Linux user here with Qtile - Wayland as my WM.
Debian + GNOME.
Historically I've been a huge fan of Ubuntu, but I just can't tolerate Snap any more and started moving away from Ubuntu in general.
Debian + I3 when working and Debian + KDE when slacking off. 🙃
I've been a long time Debian user. Debian 12 has been almost a perfect release so far. Highly recommended.
I know the FSF wouldn't approve, but I am glad that they include the firmware on the regular network install image now. I need it to connect to wi-fi.
I know they always offered one with the firmware, but you had to do some digging on cdimage.debian.org to find it.
So were Woody and Potato (memories...).
Woody was my first Linux distro ever! My family only had one PC with dialup at the time, and you could buy the entire repo on CD-ROM. I actually keep the CD images around in case I want to play with a VM and feel nostalgic.
I have been running OpenSUSE Leap on my home server for 3 years, and I moved from Fedora after many years to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on both my work and home (gaming) PC. I am super happy!
Mint. It just works.
Everyone immediately want you to use their distribution of choice. However no-one can really answer this unless you include more information about yourself and your Linux experience, objectives, what kind of tinkering you're comfortable with, what you expectations are, etc.
The best answer IMO is always Linux Mint when people ask these kind of questions.
I was going to say Arch but I typically install EndeveavourOS these days ( lazy man’s Arch ).
What are your feelings about EndeveaourOS vs Arch vs Manjaro vs Garuda?
Sorry I did not see this sooner. EndeavourOS is my favourite by far. I loved Manjaro when I used it and thought detractors were exaggerating its problems. Then I had a string of problems all clearly linked to poor management and now I strongly recommend that nobody use Manjaro ever. Once I started to use EndeavourOS, I realized that Manjaro incompatibility with the AUR was causing me constant problems without me realizing it. I was attracted to Garuda and did use it for about a week. It was not for me in the end but that could just be preference.
The thing about EndeavourOS is that, once installed, it is essentially just Arch. There only only just over a dozen EndeavourOS packages on top of the 80,000 or so vanilla Arch ones. So, EndeavourOS is basically just easy to install with decent defaults. Manjaro has its own repos and they are incompatible with the AUR ( trust me ). Garuda departs from Arch a lot more. That could be good or bad depending on your preferences.
My journey roughly went like:
Right now I'm using Debian + i3. It's pretty lit
My main reason is that Debian is a very stable, very popular distro, that isn't a fork of another distro. The fact that it's stable means issues are more rare; the fact that it's popular means when issues do pop up, there are much higher odds that I'll find others who ran into them before; and the fact that it isn't a fork means that I can just prefix "debian" to any search, rather than say having to contend with it being potentially a "debian" issue, or an "ubuntu" issue, or a "mint" issue. In fact, debian is popular enough that most of the time I could just prefix "linux" to a search, rather than "debian".
While there are distros that market themselves on other merits, it seems to me that the main goal of an operating system is to be a stable foundation. I wanted to pick something that would let me have a good time with i3; Debian seems one of the most straightforward choices. I considered arch, but in the end Debian seems like the lower-effort option.
agree. you mention debian and arch. I have also tried both of them. the problem with arch (rolling distribution) is that you are forever updating and you never know what exactly has changed in the system and you have to look. You can still have so much experience and solve problems, but they always cost time. all this from a daily user perspective is crap.
from a security point of view, new software can contain security loopholes just like old software. i'd rather have a stable base where i can easily keep an eye on changes than daily updates.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed for now, with Garuda for gaming. Still working up the courage to combine all the best features of both into my first Arch install.
EndeavourOS, it just works really well and never breaks. The only time I had an issue was when I was using the Zen kernel and it locked up installing league of legends and watching a YouTube video at the same time. Using the mainline kernel though gives me no issues.
Void. I like xbps, and I prefer distros that make as few assumptions as possible.
I'm the wrong one to ask because every time I try something else, I end up returning to Fedora.
But what you switch to depends on why you want to switch:
I've done most of these and more, and I'm happy to recommend something more specific, but I can't without knowing what you're looking for.
If you don't know what you're looking for, and just want to do something different, then do what I do when the distrohopping bug strikes: check out several distros' websites, pick a couple that appeal to you, then research those a little deeper, maybe rum them on a virtual machine for a bit. If you find one you like, back up your critical data and go for it!
I'm the same, tried lots of distros but always end up back with Fedora. Running it now on my 3 desktops and 2 Laptops.
I'm currently trying out Garuda on my gaming Desktop, and a already kind of want to ho back to my safe space after two weeks. Don't get me wrong, I totally see why folks like it, but it's not for me.
What's void?
10 years of Arch and counting.
I'm considering to switch from Fedora to Debian stable with Flatpaks for the available apps (more up-to-date and more isolated).
But I'm also considering NixOS atm
that arrangement on debian has worked well for me.
Fedora Workstation
EndeavourOS is good, I was frequently using arch wiki on other distros so it's handy to have it actually apply accurately to my distro. AUR is super handy as well.
I could use regular Arch, but I appreciate the simplified installation.
Also easy to install with auto btrfs snapshots so that updates can never really break anything.
I use btrfs actually as well, but mainly just for compression/deduplication. I've been meaning to get snapshots set up but haven't gotten around to it yet.
Guix. I like Nix and Scheme so it just makes sense.
Ubuntu. It Debian without the driver issues.
btwOS.
I can't tell you if it's your cup of coffee. You should decide it by yourself.
Pacman(!)
Minimalistic approach
ArchWiki
AUR
Rolling-release model
Bleeding-edge softwares
Community that would call me out if I didn't read the wiki (yes, IMO it's a positive)
You know where to go, BTW
i like fedora a lot, but its updates got a little too far ahead for me. So i recently switched to debian 12, and with flatpaks and their more-current mesa components, everything is working on my desktop as well as it was before, especially games on steam (flatpak) and in bottles.
Nobara on my desktop, Pop_os! on my laptop. As soon as the new COSMIC DE is ready I will switch to Pop on my desktop as well.
The biggest selling point for Fedora IMO is the way it handles UEFI and Secure Boot. I haven't found anything comparable. Securing the proprietary garbage running on your main board is critical regardless of your OS.
Can you elaborate or point me to some resources? I'd like to hear more about this because I've wondered for a while what to do about Secure Boot on my machine.
Debian support it too. The kernel is secure boot ready and it's very easy to sign nvidia kernel module with the default shipped key via mok.
I've been switching between Arch and Debian for the past 5ish years. I don't really notice much of a difference, other than Arch has updates much more often than Debian Testing usually does. I like how meta-packages in Arch are more minimal than the ones in Debian, but that's a very minor thing.
Arch updates much more often and to vastly newer versions. Not saying which is better but those two distros differ quite a lot in this respect.
I'm currently using Debian Unstable. I used Fedora for a long time, but it got noticeably worse when IBM bought Red Hat. I also like Arch, btw. I have tried a bunch of other distros too, but they all have some quirk that annoys me (*buntu has Snap, Pop!_OS and Mint don't support KDE officially, OpenSUSE is based around YaST, Elementary is weird about software installation, Manjaro fails at basic security 101 and keeps DDoSing the AUR due to bugs, etc.)
I have not tried NixOS yet, but I keep seeing it recommended, so I'll have to try it.
Isnt pop primarily an extension for gnome? Beyond that and some drivers do they add anything else to ubuntu?
They add a lot of stuff on top of GNOME and ship a few extra packages to help with gaming. Not sure how they handle snaps these days because I haven't checked in a while. It looks nice if you like GNOME, but it just isn't my cup of tea.
I'm currently running Debian Unstable with KDE on my System76, but I've also used Fedora and Arch on it just fine. I don't have nvidia.
Fedora Silverblue. I want a Linux system that just works.
Been using PopOS for the last 2 years (ish) with zero issues. It's been a delight!
Still Arch on main desktop, but slowly moving towards NixOS everywhere.
Is NixOS the new Arch?
I read somewhere that NixOS users are really loud and act eerily similar to arch users.
(I use nix btw)
No
I need to settle on one for a bit. I like Fedora for it’s edge stability and embracing newer secure technology. But, I will be shifting to Debian 12 or Ubuntu LTS because I need to get real work done. I like Pop and Mint, but they don’t have secure boot which I desire.
I’ll probably enjoy arch when I get the time to play with it more.
What do you mean you need to do real work done that cannot be done on Fedora?
You can have secureboot on mint. On mobile but I'll search up a link when at desk. It's not terribly hard given Mint is derived from Ubuntu. Should come up in a search if you're impatient
Linux Mint Cinnamon. Seriously, it's the best. Fast, light, Ubuntu based, stable, good looking, full featured. All the power of Ubuntu without the downsides (snaps, heavy, slow etc)
Trisquel GNU / Linux. The kernel is 100% libre so you can do your computing in freedom.
Unless you really buy specific hardware... I don't see myself buying 2008 thinkpads like Stallman because the CPU has proprietary microcode lol
I respect my freedom more than anything and I never use CPU newer than core2duo since it has ME
For me it's tumbleweed at the moment it's defaults like btrfs and snapper are how I used to setup fedora. Then there's the tools like OBS and yast that are super useful it's rolling but well tested before it gets to you
Modified Ubuntu, Snap-less...
I used Feren OS for a long time, but now i prefer Cachy OS and Vanilla Arch on my laptop, both with KDE Plasma
Do you mean vanilla Arch or Vanilla ( with Arch )?
Just Arch linux as in I got it from the official Arch website
For now, it's Debian 12 with KDE Plasma. But I'm really interested in Immutable Systems. I like OpenSuse Kapla, but the KDE Integration is still in alpha. There are still a few shortcomings with the only flatpak approach, like the fact that the Steam Flatpak can't provide smooth wireless controller support because of lacking permissions.
I've found success installing Steam and other stuff using distrobox on openSUSE Kalpa. The initial setup isn't as easy as installing a flatpak, but after a quick distrobox-export it's totally seamless.
Here's an incomplete list of my daily drivers since...well, I'm old.
I'm sure I've missed the odd one or two (and I regularly jumped back and forth with Debian/Ubuntu/Mint for years and years).
I used to distro hop a lot, so if I only used it for less than a month, I haven't bothered to list it.
Love that list. I am also old. I used SLS, Slackware, and stuff with the .99.x release numbers I switched to Red Hat around 4.1 I think and went to Mandrake from there. And then…
You never used Arch? Not even for Asahi?
I built Arch (twice I think) but only ever in a VM to have a look around, never made it my daily driver. Used Manjaro for a couple of weeks, but I wouldn't say it was a daily driver either.
I'll only mention it because I haven't seen it yet, I just installed endeavor os and it's been pretty Great
Fedora Workstation. It's fast and stable.
Everything I use is available either as a Flatpak or a RPM.