Share Your Favorite Linux Distros and Why You Love Them

So we can clearly see the most popular distros and the reasons why people use them, please follow this format:

  • Write the name of the Linux distro as a first-level comment.
  • Reply to that comment with each reason you like the distro as a separate answer.

For example:

  • Distro (first-level comment)
    • Reason (one answer)
    • Other reason (a different answer)

Please avoid duplicating options. This will help us better understand the most popular distros and the reasons why people use them.

TimeSquirrel,
TimeSquirrel avatar

KDE Neon

TimeSquirrel,
TimeSquirrel avatar

Based on Ubuntu, is KDE's "flagship" OS (so I trust they know what they're doing with their own DE), and is the first to get bleeding edge KDE updates. Everything else is pretty much standard Ubuntu.

feacesfea, (edited )
feacesfea avatar

Universal Blue / ublue-os

feacesfea, (edited )
feacesfea avatar

Nvidia support

feacesfea, (edited )
feacesfea avatar

Based on Fedora

  • Fedora uses the latest technology and is quick to adapt new features such as PipeWire, BTRFS, Wayland and etc, yet remains very stable.
  • Free and Open Source
  • Created by the Community
  • Sponsored by Red Hat.
  • Strong security and follows good practices
feacesfea,
feacesfea avatar

Clean separation

  • The base system is separated from applications and user data
  • Integration of Flatpak applications via Flathub
  • Toolbox and Distrobox support, run applications from any distribution in a containerized environment
feacesfea, (edited )
feacesfea avatar

Cloud-native approach

  • Reliable, atomic updates with built in rollback
  • Known-good state and fewer failures
  • Significantly reduced configuration drift
  • No compiling or building Nvidia drivers on the local client, they come premade on the image
  • Boxkit:

A base image and action for Toolbx and Distrobox. Sure, you can use the distro you're used to, but what if ...

This image is going to experiment with what a "born from cloud native" UNIX terminal experience would look like. It is used in conjuction with a
and designed to be the companion terminal experience for cloud-native desktops. We're starting small but have big aspirations.

feacesfea,
feacesfea avatar

Built-in container tools for developers

  • Consume packages and software from any repo without risking breakage on the client
  • Easy consumption of other OCI images, if it's on the CNCF Landscape it's a first class citizen thanks to Podman!
feacesfea,
feacesfea avatar

Very nice base and community images

  • Hardware acceleration and codecs
  • distrobox for terminal CLI and user package installation
  • A selection of udev rules and service units
  • libratbag, to configure supported mice via piper
  • Several pre-built drivers/akmods
  • Various other tools: check out the complete list of packages
  • Sets automatic staging of updates for the system
  • Sets flatpaks to update twice a day
  • Everything else (desktop, artwork, etc) remains stock so you can use this as a good starting image
  • Lots of different options for different purposes; GNOME, KDE, XFCE, LXQt, and MATE, as well as Nvidia-integrated versions of each.
evadzs,

Garuda Linux

evadzs,

Nvidia driver installation options that correctly set the mode setting, dkms drivers installed ootb, common apps like GreenWithEnvy ootb, great Nvidia support

evadzs,

Besides Wiki and AUR that all Arch derivatives share, they have their own wiki that documents the changes they’re made to Arch and a very good forum for help

evadzs,

Post install wizard for easily adding common applications

evadzs,

Fish shell by default with auto-complete previews as you type and lots of great aliases

evadzs,

Bootable Snapper snapshots enabled by default

evadzs,

This really is my favorite Garuda feature - it’s saved my install more than once so that I can roll back a messy update, figure out what broke and why it broke, and then make sure the next update works

evadzs,

A lot of people think it’s just Arch with an installer and lots of bloat and a neon theme but it’s a lot more than that.

LeafyBirch,

EndeavourOS

unwillingsomnambulist,

Same. I’ve done the vanilla Arch thing and it’s alright, but the quality of life enhancements that come with EndeavourOS make it a great daily driver.

It’s the only distro I could get DaVinci Resolve Studio, Blackmagic Intensity Pro 4k, and my Radeon RX 6750 XT working with, consistently.

00,
00 avatar

Easy to set up, very helpful community. If you liked Manjaro or think Manjaro is sketchy but like the idea of a slightly pre-configured arch, check it out.

ClonedPuffin,

This, basically Arch but quick to install with all the most important things installed and ready without being bloated.

LeafyBirch,

It's arch. It just happened to be the composition i had my previous arch setup as. Yay for AUR stuff, KDE Plasma for DE. Includes a couple of useful tools and makes for a very solid OS.

Anyone who has been in the Ubuntu sphere of things with Linux, should take a moment to try arch. EndeavourOS is perfect for these people.

maiskanzler,

Ubuntu

maiskanzler,

I love the dock

maiskanzler,

I love the stability of LTS

maiskanzler,

A lot of proprietary software is easier to install here

maiskanzler,

I can use the same OS on my servers

maiskanzler,

It's easy to use

samwise,
samwise avatar

easy enough to use for me (I'm a linux newb) and I can setup steam on it!
edit: forgot to mention I can get hibernation working on Ubuntu when I couldn't figure out how to do that in Fedora

jrubal1462,

Are you playing steam games that have Linux versions? Or is the “comparability mode” stable and fast enough that you don’t really have to think about it?

samwise,
samwise avatar

Im playing on a framework laptop lol so I cant really speak to performance since I play mostly puzzle games, valheim, and mobas like league and dbd. It is good enough support for the games i play and I haven't noticed much difference in performance vs windows.

mvirts,

For when I can’t get stuff to work on nixos 😅

JubilantJaguar,

Because it just works. Because it’s based on free Debian and not corporate RedHat. Because mainstream Linux needs a flagship distro and that distro needs to be used and supported.

choroalp,

NixOS. Reproducible, Wide Package selection, Hard to fuck up + Not yet another Arch based distro

lig,

Fedora Silverblue

lig,

Fedora Workstation

Fafner,
@Fafner@yiffit.net avatar

YiffOS

Cralex,

Manjaro

Cralex,

• Supports a wide variety of hardware, including ARM devices such as the Pinebook Pro.

• Up-to-date rolling release.

• Multiple DE’s available with customized, clean interfaces.

Pe4rl,

Arch Linux

festus,

My favorite too. For me on other distros I was typically running into bugs that I’d find had already been fixed upstream months previously - and then I had to either live with the bug or do some hack to manually install the newer version. Somewhat related to this, but as Linux gamer it was also frustrating to have the older Mesa drivers all the time because it couldn’t support the older kernel version the distro shipped or something.

Pe4rl,

My current isn’t vanilla arch, but Endeavour OS, because as an unexperienced user I wanted to have the least trouble while installing, … I regret it ever since, because I began with a Plasma desktop and ended up with i3, mainly because of tiling, problems with some utilities, keyboard switching, etc. In the end, I still love the system, one can get quite minimal with it.

jemorgan,

I love that you talked about regretting it. Using one of the arch-based diaries that obfuscates the installation process honestly destroys a lot of the benefit of using arch. Having to vaguely understand how the system fits together makes fixing issues a million times easier.

Pe4rl,

Yep. And I still forgot to mention one thing. It is a 2016 Macbook Pro, which basically means just more work fixing.

CalcProgrammer1,
@CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml avatar
  • Packages are kept up to date so it’s often the first distro to support new hardware, APIs, etc.
  • AUR provides a huge library of software that isn’t often in package manager repos.
  • Rolling release so you don’t have to deal with repository upgrades every 6 months to 2 years.
  • btw
Ascend-910,
Ascend-910 avatar

Feren OS, it just works

fzacq9td,

Gentoo Linux

funk,

Arch. I can’t live without the AUR at this point.

NakedGardenGnome,

We cannot forget about the wiki, which is a great resource for not only the Arch distro, but for any Linux install.

RegularIndependent98,

Arch, antix and linuxmint

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • linux@lemmy.ml
  • kavyap
  • thenastyranch
  • tester
  • DreamBathrooms
  • mdbf
  • magazineikmin
  • tacticalgear
  • Youngstown
  • ethstaker
  • osvaldo12
  • slotface
  • everett
  • rosin
  • khanakhh
  • megavids
  • ngwrru68w68
  • Leos
  • modclub
  • cubers
  • cisconetworking
  • Durango
  • InstantRegret
  • GTA5RPClips
  • provamag3
  • normalnudes
  • anitta
  • JUstTest
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •