Linux

I scrolled this far and no slackware?

Arch because I'm too lazy for a non-rolling distro. I should really set up snapshots and my dotfiles repo on my new laptop though (:

Short answer: Custom Fedora Silverblue image through uBlue's template, because it offers a relatively mature and easy to use distro with unique features in terms of stability and security that's (almost) unmatched within the Linux space.

Long answer:

Debain on servers because it just works.
Arch on desktops because you got basically every software package you'd ever need in the AUR and it's somewhat stable.

OpenSuse Slowroll (rolling release with constant updates plus an update burst every two months)

• Prefer rolling release over fixed release.
• I do like OpenSuse in general.
• I install a lot of packages and want to stay up to date (security & GUI notifications). With OpenSuse Tumbleweed I have to install a couple gigabytes of updates every week. It's not ideal for me.
• Too impatient to wait for the proper release of Slowroll.

Nixos.
The ability to have my whole system in a git repo is what i have been looking for when i did not know it.
Steep freaking curve though and the documentation kinda blows. But its the distro ive spent the longest on apart from Arch, and i feel quote at home even though most stuff is done differently.

Void Linux

The name is really cool

I keep trying other distros, and then coming back to Debian unstable XFCE. Linux Mint Debian Edition is ok. At work I did lots of Enterprise Redhat, but I'm glad I don't have to use it after I retired.

I'm a Linux noob so I don't have a distro preference yet but I'm currently using Fedora KDE spin. It's pretty nice.

Kubuntu. The support and stability of Ubuntu but with KDE Plasma 5 (not a huge fan of gnome), and probably one of the more straightforward distros to use in my experience alongside Linux Mint or Pop!_OS

I still have yet to see someone mention Hanna Montana Linux.

Arch, becaus AUR and rolling. Alpine, because lightweight. opensuse tumbleweed, because rolling and SUSE does cool stuff. NixOS because declarative. Guix, because declarative and bootstrapping.

Those are just the distros I use, I'm sure others are nice too.

Debian for me and Linux Mint Debian Edition for anyone I help with computers, because I don't want to configure a system more than once and to investigate why some stuff doesn't work.

Use whatever distro you feel comfortable with. That being said, there are definitely good ones and bad ones. I use Arch btw. That's the beauty of Linux tho. You can try a distro and if you dont like it you can literally install a new distro over the old one by blowing away everything but the /home partition. Did I mention yet I use Arch? I use Arch btw. The package managers are such a great tool to get a system up and running in a short time, but you can always compile everything from scratch if you want. You can config your programs with the default settings and let the OS do it for you, or you can micromanage every single config option and take a little more time to personalize your machine. I've told you I use Arch? I use Arch btw.

Yeah, Linux is great! And in case you were wondering I use a distro called Arch Linux.

Arch. It has pretty great documentation and I like having the safety of knowing what's on my computer. Other than those two things, I just like arch I guess. There isn't anything wrong with other distros.

I started with LinuxFT from a magazine coverdisk. I also installed it on an old 486 at the office. It became the "internet box". The company director at the time believed Bill Gates that the internet would be a fad and wasn't worth investing in and would not put any money into the company internet connection. So, it was an old 486, running LinuxFT, with a modem calling out on demand, squid proxy, email boxes etc. But it worked.

After that I moved to Redhat (before it was paid for). I remember for sure installing RH5. It was definitely a smoother experience.

Server wise, I went through various distros. Once I got to debian, for servers I never really left the "apt" world. Management wise, it's just too easy to work with. Hopping between Ubuntu and Debian even now.

For firewalls I've been through ipfwadm (Kernel 2.0.x), ipchains (Kernel 2.2.x) and iptables (Kernel 2.4.x). Now, there is some newer stuff now. Nftables, but there hasn't been a "you must change" situation like the other two and as such, I've generally stuck with iptables, mainly because when I did try nftables I had a real problem getting it to play nice with qos. Probably all fixed now, but I'm too lazy to change.

Desktop wise. I dual boot windows/linux. Linux is Manjaro, and I like Manjaro, for the fact that gaming generally just worked. However, I feel like every major upgrade I am chasing broken dependencies for far too long. But, when it works, Manjaro is great. However, I have had several failed desktop experiments. I ran Gentoo way way way back, I think I had an AMD Athlon at the time. I thought it was great, I mean building stuff for my specific setup, nice idea and all. But upgrades were so damn slow compiling everything! I tried Ubuntu, but I never found the desktop to be any good. I did also have Redhat way back in the late 90s. But the desktop was just poor back then.

Linux Mint Debian Edition for reliability with some user-friendly additions, dual boot with Garuda’s gaming edition because it pretty much sets up everything on its own for that purpose and has the latest updates.

Artix with OpenRC, Arch with alternative init systems.

Gentoo because it's what I know, and I know enough to make it do what I want.

EndeavourOS. I like having a relatively bloat-free setup. It's also been nice because it's been easy to manage so far.

Arch because the packages are recent. Arch has no shiny innovation and even the performance is not that fast, but I always find a way to make everything working. It is the only distro like that for me.

I like Void because it makes me quirky.

Just kidding.

I like Void because it makes me quirky, doesn't require me to learn how systemD works, AND it is lightweight! Plus it has literally never broken on me.

Artix. I went Void -> Arch -> Artix. I can't help but feel that Artix is what Arch should be. Perfect blend between the Arch and Void experience.

This has been beaten to the ground.

Fedora Kinoite because it doesnt suck and doesnt break. Actually switched to ublue kinoite main, very close to upstream with minimal changes that always stay the same (its always the same difference, not weirdly diverging more and more from upstream).

But I dont know if it is the best model, as Fedoras BTRFS snapshots + ostree without the image based thing would sound better ? But this is not existing.

Btw Nix, Flatpak, Distrobox/Toolbox, Distrobox/Toolbox with root, Podman, Docker, layering, removal, are all things that work on Fedora Atomic. Maybe even snap if someone is brave enough to try

Ubuntu because it requires the least amount of hack fixes to get working.

And snap has vastly simplified software installation.

Manjaro, because it's rolling release and it's built on Arch, only the necessary stuff is installed (including a desktop environment), you can set it up with just a few clicks, and it works out of the box, and even proprietary GPU drivers are easily installable with mhwd. Stable and reliable.

In case anything breaks, there's quick help on their forum, which (when it happened to me once) outperformed customer support of proprietary software.

It's been my daily driver for almost 8 years without any major issue.

So in short, robustness, rolling release, simplicity, community.

Edit: I have to add, my use case is for a desktop PC for software design/development + a little gaming.

I don't really have a "better distro" preference -- all distros can be tweaked and optimized equally, with no benefits from one another. And yes, even Ub(l)untu.