I don’t think Armbian is actually available for any of the RPi family platform…
Tried both DietPi and Armbian on a few different ARM SBCs (Pine64, Orange Pi, Banana Pi etc) - and settled on Armbian… Out of all those SBC’s the only one I’m still using regularly is an Orange Pi +2E, running Armbian, as my torrent server (transmission-daemon)… But I am still using all my RPi4 and my RPi ZeroW (running Raspbian)… got two RPi3B sitting around idle - but haven’t thought of a use for them… reckon I could try DietPi and see how I go…
As for my favourite distro - it’s probably Ubuntu 20.04 - mainly 'cause I know how to set it up for work, and for play (bought some Windows games on Steam for xmas and been playing the Linux native versions via Lutris) … But - truth be known, I’m lazy, and if Debian didn’t arse around during the installer about installing proprietary stuff, I’d probably still use Debian…
For me it’s Arch with Xfce, I am however currently running Gnome and it’s really starting to grow on me.
Because I have the option to be in absolute control and set everything up exactly the way I want, from the ground up.
Before I “discovered” Arch I was an Xubuntu user for about 12 years or so.
I got the point where I installed my Xubuntu starting with a bare minimum netboot server iso. Just installing the kernel and basic cli interface. And from there I pulled down my own install script from github and executing it. Doing so I tailored my installs with minimum amount of meta packages needed. And only the packages I needed, nothing more.
After watching an Arch installationtutorial I realized I was almost already doing my installs "the Arch way"already with Xubuntu. So why not just try it out ?!
And here I am 2 years later, still rolling Arch and loving it.
But yeah, it is not for everyone.
Just curious, but have you tried Manjaro? And if so, your opinion. I installed Manjaro on a test disk, but that has been about it. I was impress with the ease of the install.
Yes I have. I’m actually using Manjaro Xfce on my htpc/mediacenter.
It’s real a good one if you want to dip your toes in the “Arch pond” but don’t want to go through the hassle of installing Arch “vanilla”.
If you want to take it even a step further and land somewhere in between Arch and Manjaro try out the Manjaro-Architect installer. It’s purely textbased but still easier than Arch. With this you can install the base system and then chose almost exactly which packages to install and tailor your install to your needs.