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.

    • 00@kbin.social
      14·
      11 months ago

      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@lemmy.world
      12·
      11 months ago

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

    • LeafyBirch@kbin.social
      12·
      11 months ago

      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.

    • methodicalaspect@midwest.social
      4·
      11 months ago

      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.

    • blackbrook@mander.xyz
      15·
      11 months ago

      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.

      • evadzs@lemmy.world
        7·
        11 months ago

        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!

        • kurcatovium@lemm.ee
          1·
          11 months ago

          Glad to hear someone else uses this awesome tool. I think unstable debian based Siduction uses that too.

      • shotgun_crab@lemmy.world
        2·
        11 months ago

        BTRFS has saved my life a bunch, I’m the kind that enjoys experimenting and changing stuff just to see what happens

      • CrypticCoffee@lemm.ee
        4·
        11 months ago

        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.

    • CrypticCoffee@lemm.ee
      7·
      11 months ago

      Security by default. Firewall is set up blocking ports for UDP etc. so you are protected out of the box.

    • DarthVi@lemm.ee
      71·
      11 months ago

      I agree, it’s great!

      • image with baked in nvidia drivers which work out of the box without too much fuss
      • if you encounter problems, you can refer to the system76 website or use a solution provided by the community, since it’s based on Ubuntu
      • installation with full disk encryption enabled by default
      • right now it uses a slightly customized version of GNOME as DE (with “normal”/traditional windows and optionally a tiling wm), but system76 is working on a Rust-based DE, named Cosmic DE
    • zybir@lemmy.world
      4·
      11 months ago

      I’ve been using Pop for about 2 years. I have yet to run into an issue that I couldn’t fix. It’s the first distro that made ditching windows easy.

      • los_chill@programming.dev
        2·
        11 months ago

        I feel the same coming from Mac. Things seem to just work. I’m not a Linux wiz so minimal headaches while learning to tinker make it perfect for me.

  • funk@lemmy.ca
    242·
    11 months ago

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

    • NakedGardenGnome@lemmy.world
      5·
      11 months ago

      Seriously, the ease of installing any and all programs from the main repo’s or the AUR is such an extreme advantage over all other distros!

      And it makes keeping your system and programs updated a breeze.

      • maiskanzler@feddit.de
        2·
        11 months ago

        I wish PiKVM were based on NixOS. As it’s used like an appliance, people are not expected to customize the image. Or even regularly install updates. I always fear it’ll break and sever my connection to my server. I’d have a lot more peace of mind if I could just redeploy my custom wireguard-enabled config.

    • sntx@lemm.ee
      3·
      11 months ago

      Single command to compile & install packages from many git repos

    • sntx@lemm.ee
      3·
      11 months ago

      You get it for the low price of loosing all fun/motivation in setting up, customizing and mintaining machines with other distros

    • sntx@lemm.ee
      2·
      11 months ago

      Do it once, do it right. Save work be redeploying the same configuration (or submodules) on mutiple machines or the same machine multiple times.

    • loggy@infosec.pub
      2·
      11 months ago

      I have been thinking to give NixOS a spin but feel like it’s above my brain capacity for me to handle. Do you also use homemanager and Flakes? Homemanager kinda makes sense (manage packages for non root users) but what does Flakes do?

      • fabian_drinks_milk@lemmy.fmhy.ml
        31·
        11 months ago

        I am already trying it and I am still no expert. How I understand flakes is that it is a file with inputs, like nixpkgs and other flakes or repos you might depend on and some outputs that can be things like a nixshell with packages and environment variables, custom packages and configs like your NixOS configurations and home manager. When you use your flake for the first time, by entering a nix shell with nix develop, building a package with nix build, rebuild your NixOS system with nixos-rebuild --flake .#<hostname>, etc, nix will generate a flake.lock file that stores the hashes of all of your inputs and thus pinning the input versions. This means that if you ever run any of those commands again, you should get the same result because the inputs are pinned and the same version. If you want to update, you just run nix flake update and it will regenerate the flake.lock file with new hashes for the newest version. The advantage with flakes is that it is fully reproducible, even if one of your dependencies changes, because the hash is specified and centrally managed in the inputs of your flake.

        Nix flakes can be used for your NixOS system by adding the nixos configurations in the outputs of your nix flake and adding the dependencies like nixpkgs to the inputs. You can also combine it with home manager by either specifying it as a separate output or adding it as a nixos module inside the nixos configurations output. You just copy your existing nixos and home manager config to the folder with your flake and reference them inside the flake.nix. If you added home manager as a nixos module, you only need to run nixos-rebuild switch --flake <path-to-flake>.#<hostname> and it will automatically rebuild both your NixOS configuration and home manager configuration. You can then backup the folder with your flake and configurations by uploading them to GitHub for example.

        The best resource I found was this 3 hour video by Matthias Benaets: https://youtube.com/watch?v=AGVXJ-TIv3Y&feature=share7

        • loggy@infosec.pub
          2·
          11 months ago

          Thanks a lot for the detailed answer. It does sound complicated haha. I should probably follow along the YT video. Thanks again!

    • iopq@vlemmy.net
      2·
      11 months ago

      Easy to mix and match package versions with different dependency versions

    • sntx@lemm.ee
      2·
      11 months ago

      A great selection and amount of packages and modules to build/install/enable

    • sntx@lemm.ee
      2·
      11 months ago

      A cool logo, meaningful rolling release version names and stickers

    • ReakDuck
      10·
      11 months ago

      The Arch Wiki is in a language made by users for users. Meaning that its easy to understand because the wiki allows to talk about issues, alternatives and more hints about each small topic, every other wiki has some structure where important details are missing or not taken seriously.

    • milo128@lemm.ee
      61·
      11 months ago

      Starting with a blank slate is so refreshing. It takes time to build everything up from scratch and I understand that you can get a great experience out of the box with other distros, but I love the simplicity of not having any bullshit I didn’t install myself.

      • ReakDuck
        1·
        11 months ago

        True, yeah, didn’t think about the downside that you need to build it up from scratch. But people could use arch based distros I guess? Never used them.

    • ReakDuck
      5·
      11 months ago

      I always am going to run into heavy issues when using Debian, Ubuntu or Fedora. On Arch, things also aren’t always smooth, but the issues are mild, always solvable and transparent.

    • CrabAndBroom
      4·
      11 months ago

      Arch and KDE as a DE because I’m a borderline-obsessive tinkerer.

      Although NixOS is tempting me, but I haven’t moved past the virtual-machine-specimen-jar phase with that yet lol.

  • linuxduck@nerdly.dev
    182·
    11 months ago

    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!!

    • please_lemmy_out@lemmy.world
      2·
      11 months ago

      Switched to Manjaro after running vanilla Arch for several years and haven’t looked back. I appreciate the slightly less bleeding edge updates and extra added stability around it.

      Easy installs are probably less of a big deal nowadays after Arch overhauled their installation process.

      • evadzs@lemmy.world
        7·
        11 months ago

        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@lemmy.world
      7·
      11 months ago

      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@lemmy.world
      7·
      11 months ago

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

    • evadzs@lemmy.world
      6·
      11 months ago

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

    • evadzs@lemmy.world
      6·
      11 months ago

      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.

    • hobbsc@lemmy.sdf.org
      3·
      11 months ago

      Mint

      Generally works in cases where Ubuntu would and you don’t have to deal with Canonical’s choices.

      • athlon@lemm.ee
        1·
        11 months ago

        Yeah, but I rarely if ever leave those constraints, so it does not matter to me at all. Day to day, I use macOS anyway, and Mint only comes on my desktop PC.

  • MischievousTomato@lemdro.id
    15·
    11 months ago

    Nixos. For all its complexity and dilemmas and issues it has given me, it’s the comfiest for me and gives me really cool features

    • amanwithausername@vlemmy.netEnglish
      5·
      11 months ago

      It still blows my mind that with nixos, setting up and continuously renewing an ssl cert is literally just two lines in the config file. I use nixos on my homeserver, thinking about switching my laptop to it too (currently Void linux).

        • amanwithausername@vlemmy.netEnglish
          3·
          11 months ago

          Hmmm never used xubuntu per se, but XFCE already seems like a good option for a low-spec computer. You could probably chip away at the resource usage some more by building your own desktop environment around a bare window manager, but honestly at this point the gain is negligible. If anything, you might want to look into tiling window managers just because they can offer a much more fluid and customizeable desktop experience as opposed to floating WMs. I’m using BSPWM right now, but considering switching to wayland with hyprland or qtile.

          As for choice of distro: Not sure if NixOS would run well on your machine – my homeserver is also a pretty low-spec computer (dual-core Intel Atom), and nixos-rebuild switch takes ages to run. Otherwise, go for Debian Testing if you want stability, Void if you want to not have systemd. There’s also Devuan, which is basically Debian without systemd, but iirc it’s not as popular as Void. But honestly if xubuntu works for you, then it’s fine.

          Also, some miscellaneous tweaks for improved performance:

          1. IF YOU BOOT FROM A HARD DRIVE REPLACE IT WITH AN SSD! Solid-state drives are pretty cheap nowadays, and the upgrade from hdd to sdd is the single biggest performance improvement you can do for an old laptop
          2. If on x11, disable compositing. On XFCE, there should be an option for it somewhere in the settings. If on a bare window manager, simply don’t install any compositing manager (picom, xcompmgr, etc.). The downside is screen tearing and no proper window transparency, but it does put less strain on the CPU.
          3. Consider looking into a custom linux kernel? I boot linux-tkg on my main laptop and it gives some pretty good performance improvements. But I’m not so sure whether it would translate well to a low-spec system.
          4. Again, not exactly a performance tip, but consider formatting your boot partition as btrfs. Apart from all of the other cool features that you get with BTRFS, transparent file compression can, in some cases, be a win-win-win situation: less disk usage, faster file access, and longer SSD longevity. On low end system tho it may actually be the case that the CPU is the bottleneck as opposed to the disk, so transparent file compression may actually slow things down. Here are the settings I use for btrfs on my laptop (thinkpad with a core i7-5600U, mSATA solid state drive): lazytime,noatime,autodefrag,compress=zstd:3,discard=async,space_cache=v2,ssd. Again, not sure how well these translate to a low-end system, you should do your research.
          5. If your system supports uefi, consider using EFISTUB as opposed to Grub. Much faster boot times. Another option is to add two efi entries: one for EFISTUB (and have that be the default), and a second one for Grub, for when you need to change boot options or boot into recovery mode.
          • CorngoodEnglish
            2·
            11 months ago

            Since you mentioned slow build times…

            You can do nixos-rebuild --target-host to build locally and deploy over ssh. You can also use something like nixops.

    • gustulus@lemm.ee
      2·
      11 months ago

      Congrats for making it to the treasure! I’m like half way in and not sure if I can fight through…

  • hexagonwin
    151·
    11 months ago

    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.
    • downhomechunk [chicago]@midwest.social
      6·
      11 months ago

      Slackware gets a lot of hate, especially from the btw bros. People are spooked about having to manage their own dependencies. But I couldn’t agree with you more on simplicity and stability. I’ve been daily driving slackware since 99 or 00, and I don’t think I’ve ever broken something I couldn’t immediately roll back and fix.

      I tried to install Ubuntu on a sbc recently. And within an hour of installing this and that with all the different dependencies, I had a completely unusable system. And I had no idea how to fix it. It was totally my fault but reminded me what I love about slackware.

    • qjkxbmwvz@lemmy.sdf.org
      1·
      11 months ago

      Slack got me through undergrad on an IBM 600e ThinkPad (which was really old even then — around the time of the early 2.6 series kernels iirc). Great distro, fond memories.