Title is quite self-explanatory, reason I wonder is because every now and then I think to myself “maybe distro X is good, maybe I should try it at some point”, but then I think a bit more and realise it kind of doesn’t make a difference - the only thing I feel kinda matters is rolling vs non-rolling release patterns.
My guiding principles when choosing distro are that I run arch on my desktop because it’s what I’m used to (and AUR is nice to have), and Debian on servers because some people said it’s good and I the non-rolling release gives me peace of mind that I don’t have to update very often. But I could switch both of these out and I really don’t think it would make a difference at all.
- SteamOS: because it came with my Steam Deck.
- LinuxMint: because it is an Ubuntu-derivative and widely used which makes finding solutions and packages easier and I like MATE.
Fedora because it just works and I don’t have to mess with it.
EndeavourOS because of the AUR
Because it’s not Windows. So fed up with it. Used Debian. But as of late gotten annoyed with them and everything seems to lead me towards Arch. Dunno. We’ll see. Just a bit scary to switch as I’m used with apt and not Pacman or whatever it’s called :P Need to learn to make backup on the system in case something breaks etc
I primarily run Linux server distros for what I like to do. I usually do Debian since it’s a nice base to just add whatever on to (sudo isn’t even installed out of the box) so I have been working on a customized install script but if I don’t feel like messing around too much I just go with Ubuntu and avoid using snaps for anything I care about (especially Docker, like wtf is with the snap version of Docker). I like the default toolset of Debian based distros and not having to screw with SELinux.
Guix because I love the idea behind Nix but Nixlang is the most painful language I’ve ever had to type out.
How long have you used it and how is it?
I’m pretty curious about those kinds of distros, and don’t really like how nixos is completely hosted on github (and all the drama that constantly comes from the community, and the bad documentation for many things, …).
However, guix seems such a niche project that I feel like it can’t really be used.
About a year and a half.
To be honest it’s not “easy” to use. The guiding principle behind mainline packages is that everything has to be built from source, so most somewhat unpopular things are missing from the mainline channels.
To use it like any other distro you’re going to need to learn how to write packages fairly quickly. Luckily the main draw of guix is the entire OS being based on guile so once you get a little under your belt you can just read the specs from other channels to see how a package is written.
Took me maybe a week to start writing guix packages.
There’s also The toybox
EndeavourOS. It’s the only one I tried that worked with my sound card out of the box strangely enough…
Wanted to try out wayland and fedora was recommended as the best experience for that during those years. Discovered the most polished, stable and smooth Linux experience I’d had to date. Mostly used ubuntu distros and arch before. Never looked back. Upgraded to Silverblue to try out the future of linux. Haven’t changed anything since. Been about 3 years now on Silverblue.
I use Mint. I had a phase with different distros, but when I had my son, and he turned 3, I installed Linux Mint for him. Little by little, I started using it myself. Today my son is in the military service and I still use Mint.
I run SteamOS on desktop hardware because I hate windows and it solves almost every Linux gaming problem out of the box…
Arch on the Desktop, Debian on the servers for peace oft mind.
I dual boot Fedora KDE and Arch.
I’ve used Mint before and I’ve little to no qualms with it, but I wanted to move away from X-11, which has no GUI isolation. Hence the switch to Fedora, which has a smooth Wayland experience and also happens to have SELinux out-of-the-box.
The 6-month release cycle makes the most sense to me on desktop. Except during the times I choose to tinker with it at my own whim, I want my OS to stay out of my way and not feel like something I have to maintain and keep up with, so rolling (Arch, Tumbleweed) is too often. Wanting to use modern hardware and the current version of my DE makes a 2-year update cycle (Debian, Rocky) feel too slow.
That leaves Ubuntu, Fedora, and derivatives of both. I hate Snap and Ubuntu has been pushing it more and more in recent years, plus having packages that more closely resemble their upstream project is nice, so I use Fedora. I also like the way Fedora has rolling kernel updates but fixed release for most userspace, like the best of both worlds.
I use Debian stable on my home server. Slower update cycle makes a lot more sense there than on desktop.
For work and other purposes, I sometimes touch Ubuntu, RHEL, Arch, Fedora Atomic, and others, but I generally only use each when I need to.
I use Arch (btw) because CachyOS was giving me issues.
Arch: I have the most up to date computer in the whole world, I have the AUR, no one can stop me
switches to Debian
Debian: My packages are so stable, nothing can break the eternal peace of my system’s packages
switches back to Arch
