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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Over the past few years I went from using Debian Stable, to Debian Testing-Unstable mix (this is a supported way of using Debian look it up), to Debian Unstable/Sid on my main PC.
I think they all can be used for different purposes, and because they all use basically the exact same tools and utilities I don't have to fiddle with figuring out the specific commands I need to run if I need to tweak a server.
I dual boot Fedora and Arch. Fedora was just a fluke because it seemed like one of the most mainstream distros, and I was a Linux noob.
I liked Arch though because the Arch wiki is so useful for a beginner to learn from, even if you're not on Arch. At first, Arch seemed too complex and difficult for me, as a beginner, but when I kept finding myself at the Arch wiki when troubleshooting, I realised how powerful good documentation is. I installed Arch with a "fixer-upper" type mindset, with the goal of using the greater power and customisability that Arch offers to build a config/setup that worked for me (learning all the while). It was a good challenge for someone who is mad, but not quite so mad as to dive into Gentoo or Linux From Scratch
Arch on the Desktop, Debian on the servers for peace oft mind.
Ubuntu. Started in the Slackware days, tried a lot of distro's. Got used to debian commands/layouts etc. still happy to move to Centos for security focused installs. I find Ubuntu has a ton of support and general updates that fix anything I can find broken.
Every single time I try something new I reinstall Fedora within a day, pretty sure it's just Stolkholm Syndrome at this point
Primarily Garuda these days. It's basically Arch with some user-friendly additions. The major reason I tried it on a then-new gaming laptop was the actually really good IME hardware detection and minimal fuss NVIDIA setup using their latest drivers.
I was having enough headaches trying to get graphics actually working properly on the Debian-based distro I had been using, that I said fuck it and tried something that would hopefully get things working for me so that I could at least see that configuration to figure out where I'd been going wrong. Then I liked it enough that I have mostly just stayed there on this machine. (Did finally get things fixed on the other side, though.) But, I was already fine with Arch, which probably helps.
I've been using Arch since October 2019 and I've stuck with it because it has been a really comfortable experience. I really love the package manager. The packages are usually new enough to not cause me any major problems but are tested enough to not break anything. Regarding the latter point, mileage might vary. I have never had anything break on me that I haven't broken myself (and I don't update very frequently) though I know not everybody is sharing that experience.
1 year ago I also started using NixOS on my desktop and it's been a very interesting experience. Design wise it's pretty good but there are a number of things that really annoy me. Some days I'm really considering putting NixOS on my laptop and some days I'm leaning more to putting Arch back on my desktop.
The amount of software available in the package manager, without adding external repositories, exceeds that I've seen in any other distro I've used. Even with epel, I feel like others fall short.
The ability to modify the build time flags of software while still using the package manager is also huge. I hate when ffmpeg doesn't have speex support because some upstream dev figured it was a corner use case.
It's me, I'm the target demographic. I'm the one asshole who wants to build ffmpeg with speex support, clamav without milter support and rxvt WITHOUT blink support.
There are some pretty great userspace helpers too. Things to ensure your kernel is always built with the same options. Things to upgrade all your python or perl modules to the new interpreter version for you. Tools for rebuilding all the things based on a reverse dependency search.
Slotted installs are handled in a sane, approachable, and manageable way.
The filesystem layout is standards compliant.
I recall someone on /r/Gentoo saying something like "Gentoo is linux crack, when you get a handle on it, nothing compares."
When I boot my laptop into fedora/arch/mint/etc (or really any non-bsd based distro), I feel like I'm using someone else's laptop. There are a bunch of git repos under /usr/src for the software I wanted that wasn't in the package manager. I need to manage their updates separately. Someone else has decided which options are in this very short list of GUIs. I'm using whatever cron daemon they chose, not the one I want. Why is there a flat text log file under /var/db/? Why won't you just let me exist without any swap mounted? $PATH is just a fucking mess.
I'm using #endeavouros with Gnome on my Desktop at the moment, just because I wanted to try Arch with all the priorly mentioned arguments, rolling release, Wiki and so on.
I started with Slackware in the early 90s, SuSE and Red Hat (Fedora today) just for fun and self-education, even though Slackware wasn't fun at all. This distro brought me nights without sleep and full of tears. 😂🫣
I tried a couple of times to switch to Linux on the desktop but never got it to work satisfyingly like Windows with all my private and business applications and games.
So Linux and I had an on and off relationship over decades. I wanted to love Linux so badly, but it was never reasonable to run it on the desktop.
Let's see how we're going to end, Arch/Endeavour and me.
On a server I would not switch from a Debian-based distro, just because I'm used to it and I would also prefer stable instead of rolling releases.
i use gentoo because i love the package manager and how in control i am of my desktop and for servers even though not linux ive been using open bsd because of secure it is and lightweight helps squeeze out little bit more performance from mt shit vps lol
Garuda on desktop:
Fedora on work laptop:
20 years ago it was easier to find rpm packages for some enterprise apps, then just stuck with it
ChimeraOS on minipc:
does couch gaming well
I favour Arch because I prefer everything I want to install to be in the package repo and for it to be a version actually new enough to use.
But I actually use EndeavourOS because it is 99% Arch but installs easily with full hardware support on everything I own (including a T2 Macbook). It never fails me.
And now I have realized that I can use Distrobox to get the Arch repos and the AUR on any dostro I wish.
So, I now have Chimera Linux on 4 machines because it is the best engineered distro in my view. The system supervisor, system compiler, and C library matter to me (not to everyone). All these machines have the AUR on them (via distrobox). Best of all worlds.
Nobara: Has all the gaming features I want on my gaming pc (like gamescope) and is htpc capable. Also, it’s based on Fedora, which I’m familiar with.
Fedora: I like gnome and it’s always fairly up to date and rock solid. Great on my laptop.
Have considered switching to openSUSE though. It’s German (as am I), it’s the first Linux distro I ever used (on my granddad’s PC, more than a decade ago) and I’ve heard a lot of good about tumbleweed.
Cachyos, since I like archlinux and the things it comes with I would install on arch. There's even a few things that would have to be compiled from aur that's in their repository pre-compiled.
I was running only arch on my surface pro 7 and my amd desktop, then last week after an update it seemed gnome and Linux surface kernel weren't playing nice and had bricked the install. I have switch the laptop to Debian but I tend to stick with arch, like op as I am used to it, I now run Debian as it is known to be stable.
I would love to find a new distro but for me its the sunk cost fallacy, I have put so much time into learning arch and to repeat all that - this new distro would need to offer something wildly different.
Laptop is Linux Mint, because my wife also use it and i want my laptop to be as easy to handle as possible.
Servers are Debian, because it's very light on my hardware. Mostly used for containers.
It was the first one using Wayland by default that worked on my machine out of the box.
Steam OS on Steam Deck. Fedora on Framework13 cause reliability. Garuda Mokka on Framework16 cause pretty and it just works.
May move from Garuda back to OpenSuSE Tumbleweed or CachyOS at some point.
I started on Ubuntu, tried 8.04 and went back to windows XP, tried 10.04 and stayed.
20.04 was my last Ubuntu, bounced around for a while, but I have settled on Mint. Been running it for 3 years now.
Mint isn't too fancy, it is just there and lets me get my work done, very much the way Ubuntu used to be.
I'm running the 6.14.2 kernel, to get the latest drivers for my RX 9070, I'm playing around with local AI.... Mint isn't fancy, but you can do almost anything you want.
PopOs! Familiarity, stability and the fact that it fulfils 95% of my needs perfectly.
Debian Sid, the unstable rolling release branch of Debian. It has the worst of both Debian and Arch!
On a more serious note, it allows me to have a somewhat standard Debian system with bleeding edge tooling.
Variants and derivates of Debian on my servers and other headless devices because no reason except I know it, it is stable, it works.
Been trying linux for desktop every five-ten years for the last twenty odd years and went back to Windows every time because it was too bad experience despite I really tried to like it.
Except this time.
Fedora KDE on my laptop, soon on my stationary as well. No more Windows for me.
I can't stand seeing my father struggling with windows...I tried to make him switch, but he has old piracy blood in him and just want Windows things and pirated software, some which do not have any alternatives on Linux.
Also, he's getting old and he always talks about he don't want to relearn a whole system. But everytime we see each other and talk about computers he trash talks how bad windows is...
Maybe that's just something he needs... And boring distros are going to make him depressed? Dunno
Sorry for the story time, but you switching fully to linux made me think of my Dad in hope sometimes he will also take the steps to get out of there 😅!
Long time user of Fedora. Tried Ubuntu but came back to Fedora. But now almost migrated to Almalinux. For software app, use flatpak, which has the latest and no library dependencies. Using Wayland too on Almalinux. So not missing anything since moving to away from Fedora to Almalinux.
For my main desktop I use Mint because it just works, widely supported and Cinnamon is good (sadly no Wayland yet. ;_;). I also use Home-manager for my configuration because it allows me to easily just specify my config as a set of files I can check into git.
For my server, I use NixOS, because having all my configuration in a few text files is very nice to get an overview of what my server is doing.
Arch (EndeavourOS but it's the same with an installer, basically): AUR, great Wiki, great community and fresh packages. I'm always open to new stuff but all of this is really hard to beat.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed because it's very up to date yet reliable, package management doesn't require me to get my head around anything complicated, automatic btrfs snapshots allow me to rollback if I mess anything up, and I like KDE Plasma and the YaST utilities.
Debian/KDE because I like the way I can customize (1 panel on the left with everything) No features removed just as one gets used to them. (looking at you gnome) No breaking changes to the desktop gadget api every update (you gnome again) Nice big repo.
I use openSUSE because I want to see the license used with a package before installing it, and I can do that by using YaST. Also, it seems that version numbers are used consistently which enables elegant downgrading (I found that the pacman system is probably capable of supporting this too, but the operating system(s) that use it don't seem to use version numbers consistently and I've had a bad experience with downgrading in the past). I reviewed packaging systems other than rpm but it seemed that rpm while used with openSUSE was the most robust.
I also like having a bootable image with a streamlined installation process that is clearly supported by the operating system maintainers: I was tired of worrying about whether I set up LUKS correctly while setting up Arch Linux, and just having a checkbox for "encrypt the disk" makes me a lot calmer. Knowing that I can use a guided process if I want to reinstall the operating system also gives me some peace of mind.
It's also nice to get practice with an operating system that is more similar to "enterprise" Linux distributions: it's probably useful to get practice managing my personal computer(s) and at the same time get knowledge that is probably re-usable while interacting with Red Hat Enterprise Linux or SUSE Linux Enterprise itself. However, this was not a primary consideration for choosing an operating system for myself.
Luckily, my choice can currently also get some support from https://www.privacyguides.org/en/desktop/
I also like NixOS, but it doesn't seem to use secure boot by default, and I'd prefer to have that handled without needing input from me, so I only use it when that feature isn't available at all.