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.
Arch, BTW
Great wiki
The AUR
I was distrohopping for like a year or two when I first got into Linux desktop. As soon as I installed Arch for the first time that stopped. Now the thought of a distro pre-installing packages gives me the heebie jeebies. You don’t get to tell me how I sync with NTP servers!
I do real work. Dont have time to waste
Maybe don’t fiddle with your install non-stop then.
Isn’t that the reason to use arch? I remember last time I installed arch, about 5 years ago now I had to fiddle with everything just to get it working lol.
PKGBUILDs
pacman goes brrrr
Debian
- Very stable, and can run the bleeding edge through Snap/Flatpack/Appimages, Distrobox, or VMs/Containers
- Community run distro
- Compatible with more devices than many distros
I love debian because it’s always there for you.
Low resource footprint — smaller than EndeavourOS on my laptop. Stability is fantastic. Bookworm practically just came out, so the packages are all much newer than they were in Bullseye, making it a viable option for someone who wants an uneventful Linux distro that fades into the background and lets you get stuff done.
Lightweight.
The new release bookworm solves most hardware/software problems
- Extremely customizable
EndeavourOS
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.
This, basically Arch but quick to install with all the most important things installed and ready without being bloated.
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.
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.
openSUSE Tumbleweed
The big advantage IMHO, is the out of the box BTRFS set up that lets you simply roll back to a non-broken state, right from the grub menu, should an update break your system. I haven’t had to use it yet, but it is a huge source of comfort knowing it is there.
Also, many people coming to opensuse remark how much snappier it is than other distros.
Garuda uses this feature on an Arch base, it’s saved me a couple of times. Props to openSUSE for developing the way to make that happen!
Glad to hear someone else uses this awesome tool. I think unstable debian based Siduction uses that too.
BTRFS has saved my life a bunch, I’m the kind that enjoys experimenting and changing stuff just to see what happens
I had to scroll waaaaay down to find this. Mindboggling how underrated this distro is!
It’s getting 3/4’s of the votes of Debian. I think their profile has increase a lot in the last year or so.
Security by default. Firewall is set up blocking ports for UDP etc. so you are protected out of the box.
It’s rolling and reliable
YaST
It’s incredibly well put together
It is up to date so you can often get newer hardware working due to newer kernels.
Everything just works
Pop!_OS
Arch. I can’t live without the AUR at this point.
NixOS
Easy and fearless updates
declarative configuration
Rollbacks
Dependency Hell, begone
Very good with containers and VMs
Reproducible
Can turn basically any distro into nixos in minutes
Home Manager + Stylix
You get it for the low price of loosing all fun/motivation in setting up, customizing and mintaining machines with other distros
Ez dev shells
Single command to compile & install packages from many git repos
immutability
Overlays
A great selection and amount of packages and modules to build/install/enable
A cool logo, meaningful rolling release version names and stickers
Many different and interesting community projects
Easy to mix and match package versions with different dependency versions
Easily build packages with custom compile flags
Do it once, do it right. Save work be redeploying the same configuration (or submodules) on mutiple machines or the same machine multiple times.
As stable as you need it to be
Makes me feel cool again 😎
Fedora
Stable
Only FOSS software and repositories unless otherwise enabled
Cutting edge application releases so I get the newest toys after they’ve been decently tested
Uses the latest tech in linux e.g wayland and pipewire.
Applies patches for better programs work under Wayland (SDDM with git patches before long awaited 0.20.0 release).
Ubuntu
A lot of proprietary software is easier to install here
I can use the same OS on my servers
I don’t have time to fuck about, I use ubuntu mate because it gets out of my way and does what I expect it to do.
Shit just works
I love the stability of LTS
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 FedoraAre 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?
I love the dock
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.
but Ubuntu is corporate, no?
It’s easy to use
For when I can’t get stuff to work on nixos 😅
Arch Linux
Manjaro. It just worked on any device I installed it on. And wifi just worked with no fiddling.
Then I installed it on surface tablet. What didn’t work, I found kernel fixes I could implement.
Of all the distros, for me, it was the easiest to use, install and manipulate!!
Garuda Linux
Fish shell by default with auto-complete previews as you type and lots of great aliases
You can get pretty much everything Fish Shell does with a well configured Zshell pus more. Fish also smells.
And you can get pretty much everything garuda with a well configured Arch plus more but that would take ages to do
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
Post install wizard for easily adding common applications
Nvidia driver installation options that correctly set the mode setting, dkms drivers installed ootb, common apps like GreenWithEnvy ootb, great Nvidia support
Bootable Snapper snapshots enabled by default
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
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.
Slackware
- the most rock stable distro imo. No systemd or snap stuff. Packages are almost (if not fully) vanilla version from upstream. Simple yet efficient unix-style approach to everything like package management, slackbuilds are really good too.
Arch Linux
Mint. Easy to setup, fast to run, and very reliable.
