Which one(s) and why?
Which one(s)
Arch.
why?
- The Arch-Wiki
- I like pacman
- The Arch-Wiki
- I wanted a rolling-release distribution.
- The Arch-Wiki
- It just works. I had only one more serious problem in ~8 years of running Arch
- Did I mention the Arch-Wiki?
Edit:
Having said that, I have an eye on immutable distros. Maybe one day I’ll try one out.
EndeavourOs makes it super simple too
So does archinstall.
The Arch wiki really is amazing. It’s also still very useful for Linux stuff in general. The qemu page has come in handy more than a dozen times.
Yeah, I use Mint and the Arch wiki is still one of my first stops when I have an issue
Is Manjaro good if I want in on this Arch goodness but don’t want to spend hours configuring stuff? Coming from Fedora
Endeavour is better for that, after the install you’ll have plain arch but with a bunch of stuff installed and already set up
I’ve been using manjaro for around a year. It broke on me once, probably my fault, idk. I enjoy it! I’ve distro hopped many places and a year is a long time for me, so much about it is right for me. You’ll certainly get a worthy experience of what arch is capable of, I believe.
That being said, I plan on swapping to arch really soon.
I haven’t used Manjaro myself but I heard that it is not as good as Arch. Rumors I heard where that it is not as solid as vanilla Arch. YMMV.
you forgot arch wiki
Debian. Seemed like the most generic “Linux” there is. Nothing special, nothing weird. Just Linux. Gray, boring, system defaults Linux.
It’s funny cause it started out as one of the most opinionated Linux distros.
still is, and always has been. and that’s not a bad thing.
And because of that, custom configurations are wonderfully easy to make, technical issues are rare, and the few issues you do experience are quite possible to solve. Which is why I settled on Debian.
I settled on openSUSE Tumbleweed because it’s rolling and reliable. I chose KDE Plasma long before I chose my distro.
Ubuntu -> Crunchbang -> Arch -> Parabola -> Debian
I went more hardline FOSS and stuck to FSDG/DFSG distros. Debian runs everywhere—my phone, tablets, armbook, server—eventually I found myself typing apt commands in my remaining Parabola installs, so I just went all in. I have sid on my former Parabola devices.
I do really like the Social Contract.
my phone
How?
Mobian on a Pinephone
EndeavourOS.
I’m naturally a tinkerer and an avid gamer, with very recent hardware so an Arch based distro fits really nice.
It has just the right amount of pre-installed stuff. Not quite as bloaty as Manjaro or most ubuntu-based distros, but not quite as DIY as vanilla Arch. I know I can install and uninstall anything on Linux but when a distro already comes with just the right baseline for me, work smarter, not harder.
Ubuntu/Debian based distros didn’t quite suit me, I love the AUR to death, I love the Arch wiki (even if a lot of it can be used just fine on other distros), I love rolling release and having the latest everything. I do use PopOS on my laptop since I use it a lot less and therefore I want to update it less often.
Only issue is when they ship dumb defaults sometimes that break my workflow but I can diagnose and undo them I guess.
Right there with ya. EndeavourOS has been my distro for at least two years now. There really isn’t a reason to hop.
Also, if I need to reinstall for whatever reason (happens semi regularly because I’m a moron who moves fast and breaks shit), I just drop my package list from my home partition into the live-boot directory and it’ll download all my applications during install, and I’m back to where I was in less than half an hour.
Also the extras included like the update application, and mirror refresh, are very convenient.
Ubuntu > Fedora > Ubuntu > Arch > Ubuntu
I learned, and learned, and learned, and every step led me to simplify, simplify, simplify.
Now, I’m a Debian man. If I didn’t install it, it probably isn’t on there, just like I like it.
I think GNU Guix System scratches all my itches:
- Committed to being 100% free software even at the kernel level (I know this is controversial)
- Focus on reproducible builds
- Atomic updates that can be rolled back if something breaks
- A package manager that makes it relatively easy to package software (there are importer commands that can import from language-specific package managers such as pip and cargo) and makes it possible, as a user, to apply transforms to packages (i.e. build with X commit or with Y patch)
- Per-user profiles (in addition to the root profile and the system profile) allowing user to install software without requiring root. Users can even create separate profiles as well as throwaway profiles for running scripts or one-off commands (i.e. a python or bash script can use
guix shell
as its interpreter listing all the packages it requires).
Previously I used Ubuntu from 2008 to 2009, Trisquel from 2009 to 2014, and Debian from 2014 to 2019.
Though I have yet to try Guix, I think I’d move over to it if they adopted something similar to flake support. The idea that it uses a non-arbitrary language for declaration is very appealing to me. Do you know if it’s simple enough to get non-free kernels, though?
Mandrake > Ubuntu > Debian > Mint > Arch > Artix
Settled on Artix for openrc and all the aur goodness
Pop!_OS. I previously got stuck on tiling window managers, but I found that they have prohibitively large amounts of setup involved. It’s also not uncommon for support applications to be poorly maintained or to have a poor UX. Pop!_OS’s desktop gathers everything together very nicely into a working shell with minimal setup, but still has that sweet, sweet tiling WM.
This kind of setup works best for me, a desktop environment with a tiling window manager on the top, that way I can use it like a normal desktop for most things and can hop back and forth between apps I use a lot all on the home row with the window manager.
Yeah, I’ve really liked the flexibility it gives me while leaving behind hassle. Before I had tried XMonad and AwesomeWM with various tray apps for things like wireless networking. I enjoyed using them, but I did not enjoy the amount of work I put into set up. Sure I like tinkering, but there’s a certain level where I just want to have a dependable, working system so I can get on with my day.
Exactly this! I used to enjoy tinkering with my configuration a lot and then it got stressful as I kept finding new things to add or tweak and change and never ended up getting work done.
I love how simple sway is, even if I’ve added a few extra visual features with the fx version (at least it’s pretty to look at). The configuration is basically set your used apps to keybinds, choose how you want windows to look and be spaced, add a few key bindings.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on my desktop and laptop. On my desktop mainly due to newest drivers. I had bought a very new AMD GPU at the time and Tumbleweed was one of the first distros to support it. Switched my laptop to it because of familiarity.
I started my IT career on Debian servers and so my private servers are on Debian too. They were on OpenSUSE Leap for a while but I switched when the future of Leap became a bit uncertain.Stopped hopping when I realized most distros are just debian with certain things pre-installed or pre-configured. Decided to compare base distros, and settled on Gentoo for its powerful features, transparency and customizability.
Ubuntu.
I jumped from Ubuntu to Fedora to Netrunner to Arch to Gentoo to Mint then back to Ubuntu.
Did I regret it? Nah, I learned alot with my adventure but these days I just prefer the common distro denominator. Although to be fair my Ubuntu isn’t exactly a vanilla Ubuntu as I did add some changes I see fit.
GNU Guix
peak hackability while also having binary downloads
I do love it, I just wish it was easier to update package recipes. I have open patches since over a year.
Why not nix?
I ask because I’ve been thinking of trying Guix or Nix. I lean more towards nix due to popularity but also because theoretically a language tailored for package recipes may do better than guille.
Nix syntax is just… strange, and undiscoverable to me. Coming from a emacs/lisp background, Scheme was just easy to understand, and there was no ambiguity in contructing grammars out of thin air.
They are way different, different licences, different language, different init by default.
I like guile and shepherd much better than nix and systemd.
Settled on Linux Mint Debian Edition.
I just want reliability, a beautiful desktop and great support. Plus 100% community based - Debian + Cinnamon.
No corps like canonical or red hat and no heavy maintenance routine like Arch.