Linux

I use Mint. As a beginner the Windows-like feel is convenient for me but once I get the hang of it I could see myself trying something else

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. I like it for being a rolling release with quality control. On the one hand I don't like its restrictive defaults but on the other hand I know enough to work with them and that's given me a leaner system.

Mint is up to date but less buggy than Ubuntu, and it has served me well for years without problems. The UI is very conventional so I don't spend time thinking about where stuff is. It supports multiple packaging systems now, so it's easy to find and install software. You don't have to go to anywhere as dodgy as the Arch User Repository to find what you need. Mint is not too conservative, not too cutting edge either, and not restrictive due to ideology. It's boring and it works and I can just get on with stuff.

I use Arch because it's so customizable and there's so much more freedom. Once I installed Arch I realized I'd never go back to Ubuntu. I'm so used to using the command line all the time now it feels weird and annoying when I have to use something with a GUI desktop environment (I use i3.) People always tell me when they see my system in public (it's a ThinkPad) it looks clunky, but even the inability to set custom time/date settings in KDE was mildly annoying to me.

I sincerely think CLIs and TUIs are no harder than "user-friendly" GUIs but they're just too far from the average modern person's experience for this to be acknowledged. Using nmtui to connect to WiFi is hardly more difficult than what Windows or macOS do.

I also really love pacman, the AUR, and the Arch Wiki.

I use Arch. I use the command-line to update, I am very glad that I can do the updates when I do want them. Of course, going over the update list is my responsibility, but such is the power my OS grants me—I can make or break things.

Otherwise, yeah, it's the customization it offers me. I can make it as janky as I want it to be, or rice it to my heart's content.

I use Fedora. I like the combination of recent, stable, up-to-date software, new releases every six months, and firmware updates for my ThinkPad direct from Lenovo.

EndevourOS. Easy to install and customizable/up to date as Arch can get.

pacman/yay

Also, Arch wiki.

All else is aesthetics.

Gentoo. Great rolling release that is stable and had timely updates, but has the flexibility to configure my system down to the tiniest details, with a great and knowledgable community. I love source-based distros and Gentoo is definitely the best.

Running Endeavor OS. Painless installation, everything works outta the box, good community, no release/lts bullshit. If it breaks, just rollback.

Relatively fast updates, AUR, PKGBUILD, Downgrade, the Wiki, the community, not controlled by some corporate entity, no telemetry, and last but not least the logo ;)

I like that I don't even care about it. The main user of it is my wife, who is non-technical. It's the only computer she uses, for everything (browsing, shopping, banking, word processing, printing) for 20+ years, and if you ask her which distro it is, well, she doesn't know what "distro" means.

She doesn't "use Linux" because she wanted to "learn Linux" nor to "try this distro". She uses youtube, instagram, the bank site, amazon, libreoffice, etc. The closest she gets to the OS is accepting the package manager prompt to update.

I wish one day most people can answer your question with "I don't know, whatever came with my computer", because it'll mean all of them are as easy to use, as unobtrusive and as unimportant to the user as possible.

But to finally answer it, kubuntu, some ancient, still updatable LTS version (can't even recall when I last upgraded), because it was easier for my wife to adapt, coming from windows 95 when she started using it.

I tried Tumbleweed for a while but ended up going back to Fedora. Super polished while still fast moving.

i use arch, it's amazing, everything i wanna do works other then games since i have some old cheap nvidia gpu which is hardware fault itself, i wanna do developer tasks just works, wanna do tweaks just works and it's fun to use. i tried using other Distros i just can't use debian based or arch based just bare bone arch with gnome or xfce depending on my mood. if i switch fedora is always my 2nd choice but not sure after some news released on red hat I didn't stick to fedora because of lack of package or something like that just package management things kept me in arch.

It has the most accessible package manager of em all. And ofc I'm talking about Arch Linux (bah teh wei.)

• Nobara for my gaming rig, same as OP + lots of out of the box gaming fixes.

• Tumbleweed for the laptop, rolling release while (in my experience) being a bit less likely to break than arch.

• Ubuntu/Debian/MicroOS/Alma for servers depending on whether I want stability + some fresher software, mountain-like stability, automatically updating container hosts or if I need redhat compatibility.

• Mint if its someone elses old computer they want to "just work", since I dislike being tech support more than necessary.

pop os : 1. fast installation 2. nvidia works.

Arch: I like the knowledge and understanding that comes with regular usage. I've learned a lot about my system that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. Also the PKGBUILD system / AUR.

I like that the NixOS packaging system feels like it's build for Free Software, making source code and Git repositories a first class citizen. You can simply drop a flake.nix into your repository and turn it into a Nix package within a couple of minutes, that's quite a bit different than the utter headache it is to package something for Debian. Nix packages being free of naming conflicts also makes it very easy to mix and match whatever versions you need, something that's basically impossible on most other distros unless you resort to containers or virtual machines. NixOS having the largest package collection of any distro is a plus too.

Pacman sounds cool, wakka wakka.

• The package manager.
• New releases make it to the repositories quickly.
• The software is as vanilla as possible; no changes made by the distribution except to get it working.
• The wiki.
• +/- No nagging graphical updater.
• +/- Users can share build scripts for building software from source very easily
• +/- No particular stance on free software licenses.

I might as well ask here:

Im running arch on my Desktop. Mostly just to Experiment a bit, nothing to serious, Laptop is ubuntu, and both are dualboot with Windows for Gaming (nvdia gpu in both).

The Main reason to use arch was to play around with Windows Managers like hyprland. However I get the feeling that some stuff is simply missing and or configured wrong on the System.

Is it a better idea to start with something like endeavor with sway and start ricing from there?

I like using Lubuntu because it's lightweight and feels pretty snappy on my 2009 laptop.

Rock stability. Everything works. I run debian oldstable, even bookworm is too much for me at the moment. Yes, seriously. I tried to connect to my work office using azure web client and the keyboard layout was wrong. When I went back to debian bullseye, it worked as expected. By the way, this bug also happens with arch and fedora.

I have installed arch as well because sometimes I just want to play with things. I'm very interested in immutable systems, but NixOs is too difficult for me and I'm afraid I will spend too much time on it.

Debian Bookworm. On my laptop and all my servers.

I'm a seasoned professional Linux sysadmin, so getting a distro installed has never been a problem for me (thanks to my first proper distro being Gentoo).

In the end, it's the stability and "knowing what to expect", that always makes me come back to Debian.

Kubuntu 22.04. All my games run like butter without much tinkering. I learned most of my Linux stuff on Debian or Ubuntu in the early days and most of what I need comes in .deb form.

Debian 12 have been rock solid for me. Use it for gaming with my Nvidia card and the driver installation have been painless and easy. Mainly been using it as a normal desktop using Gnome and gaming with Steam.

Was previously running Arch based distribution ArcoLinux, but was getting tired of the updating maintenance and config file conflicts.

Debian is just stable and a few updates a week. Flatpak fixes the old packages that repository have for those applications I just “need”.

For me it is Fedora as well. Before that I was using EndeavourOS but wanted to use something a bit more stable. Haven't distrohoped since!

I use Fedora 38, it's stable, things just work, and the software is up-to-date.

Workstation:

Used to love gentoo, but it kept breaking on me.

Went Ubuntu until they went stupid, then arch for a while but again, breakage.

Debian works, I have to spend 0 energy on it, and I can layer on different vms and lxc for whatever other distros I want.

Server:

Was freebsd because it was perfect and jails were next level shit but people keep putting out software that was obnoxious to install without docker, so debian as hypervisor/zfs and freebsd for most apps, debian for the obnoxious ones. Perfect system.

kiss, upstream, wiki, community

I was excited when I bought an Amiga 500, and ever since then the main thing I noticed is that the EXCITEMENT of getting a computer was always over-ruled by my ability to exploit it's powers and use it.

So my perspective is that all computers and operating systems SUCK. But some suck less than others...

So using Manjaro KDE, it sucks less because it's very simple and easy for me to install whatever I like - having AUR available, being able to search with pamac to include repos, AUR and Flatpak (even snap if I was that desperate).

KDE also gives you super powers to ~~fuck up~~ modify your desktop experience and shortcuts.

It's been good to me for 6 years now. After going Ubuntu>Mint I was excited to leave Debian and try something else, I never made it to the Redhat camp (always interested to try Fedora) and hopefully will never feel the need.

So yes, what I like MOST is - it mostly just works. And when it fails, the forum is awesome.

While I know it's not the best distro, I don't care to re-image, I left that life behind with Windows.
Manjaro-
I love the fact that I can have "Stable" and "Unstable" kernels installed simultaneously. It's a nice handy way to recover or narrow down if an issue is related to the kernel. They've done an excellent job with the default Grub settings to allow this as well as side-by-siding with Windows if I want (which made transitioning from Windows to Linux easier).

After trying dozens of distros the enjoyment of the new faded and I just wanted something that installed with the minimum amount of fuss and was stable as a rock. The distro that has best fit that combination of attributes (at least on my machines) has been Linux Mint.

I started using Kali Linux earlier this year. I’m by no means a hacker but it’s the first version of Linux with a UI that clicked for me. It’s built off of Debian so I’m pretty familiar with its package management and it’s been really easy to get a barebones version running on different computers.