What's your favourite Linux distro? Why do you use that one?

General Linux Question
41

Hello Friends

Here my 2 cents

I started at 2000 with Red Hat to learn C to be applied in Linear Algebra labs, later I passed to Fedora Core (From 1 - 17) and moved to macOS and thanks to Apple to made slow my MacBook Pro after to did do a OS upgrade I moved to Ubuntu Desktop/Server. Some time later I am working with Fedora Workstation/Desktop. And finally Peppermint OS and Debian

Was interesting when I did do realize when Fedora Core changed to Workstation and Server

Something important to consider was the amount of documentation and forums according the time since 2000. Right now exists a valuable set of information in YouTube and tutorials such as in this network. It 15 yrs ago was tricky get support and learn something new in Linux… I wish has that kind of information access around 2005. Playlist, videos with a duration more than either 5 or 10 minutes

In that days buy a book was mandatory and even in English too. In my case mostly for Java

Again. I am really happy with this friendly forum :slight_smile:

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42

[quote="Daniel Phillips, wrote
And, of course I have my W11 machine for my go-to machine.
[unquote]

That surprises me ; for me Linux (whatever the distro) is “go-to” for me since 2004 . For all the apps I use or wish to use there is a Linux alternative.

Frank in County Wicklow -Ireland

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43

I think decompressing part of the snap was the problem. Most of the slowness problems have been figured out now.

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44

My only OS has, for a long time already, been Linux in one variety or another. Currently I quite like Linux Mint. I might switch to Debian or Devuan one day if something happens which irritates me enough.

I could also go back to Solus, but that’s another debate altogether, as it’s rolling release - which I like - but it uses its own package management system and has quite a small team.

The advantage of Debian based distributions is that their package management format (.deb) is popular and used by a lot of projects, so if your distribution doesn’t come with a certain package, odds are good you can find a .deb in the wild from the official maintainer. Currently this means NovelWriter for me.

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45

I started my Linux journey after buying a brand new desktop in 2018. Had been trying to outrun the infernal “100% disk usage” from MS in W10. After calling Windows tech support and the guy was so helpful and told me there was not going to be a fix anytime soon as there were just too many computers with different configurations to resolve it–he confided his own home pc had the bug. He quietly asked if I had tried Linux…and from there I went researching.

So many distros in the past 7 years, as I like to try out everthing. I settled on Kubuntu and enjoyed KDE. Now, I do not use it after trying Linux Mint Cinnamon. I did stay with that on the very computer that caused me to switch to Linux and it remains one of my daily drivers. I sometimes think about putting something else on it, but I have done so much customizations and have it just as I need it, so will stick with it for now.

My laptop had Pop OS and a few others, but I settled on MX Linux AHS last year and it is my other daily driver, dual boots with Garuda OS (for now) as it is a bit better for gaming (though not by much).

I have turned every old device lying in storage into a Linux machine. My old 2006 Toshiba Satelitte whose screen was out and had 2 GB RAM ran Puppy without an issue. My Surface Pro 7 that I absolutely hated because 4 GB RAM could NOT run W11 even though MS decided to upgrade it without my permission. It now runs Pop OS with the Surface kernel and both pen & touchscreen work without issue.

My Mom’s old Acer i3 8 GB runs AntiX and has no issues whatsoever other than me having to learn how to do some things that are a bit different. I tried Fedora 40, but ran into the incompatibility of Wayland with the other computers on RDPs like Anydesk. I am not crazy about the GNOME desktop environment.

I loved Endeavor on my mini pc that I will be getting back from my Mom’s house when I go this winter. I also booted Solus on that machine, but did not have time to learn it well.

I have tried Vanilla OS 2, and use Debian on the home server. My next project, if I ever get time, is to take my Pixel 3 phone and put Linux on it (Ubuntu Touch has had the OS 100% for quite some time now).

If I could figure out how, I would put Linux on my Kindle and Firestick :laughing:

And I recently watched a Fedora podcast (I keep up with all things Linux) where “Bazzite” is being built specifically for gaming laptops. So instead of having Lutris, Steam, Heroic, etc., the Linux OS will have everything done that those apps do now to enable playing Windows games on Linux. I already do all of my gaming on Linux, but some games refuse to work correctly. So will be watching that develop over the new year. The other nugget I got from that podcast was a new type of laptop that not only comes with Linux (choices are yours), but Framework laptops are bringing back build your own/custom laptops. I was blown away at their website and how everything is upgradable!

I did try Elementary for a bit when I first switched to Linux, but it was a bit windowesque for me. I love that in Linux–everything was different and the terminal brought back my early DOS days where computers ran on a floppy disk and CRT monitors were standard in the law offices where I worked.

I will probably always have one device with a changing Linux distro just so I can learn it.

Sheila

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46

Me too! I could not find a fix for the run away disk usage. My PC was virtually unusable until the disk usage went down. This is the reason I switched to Linux.
Thanks to your post, I now find out that there was not a fix for the problem.

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47

That seems to be a really important development. Linux could easily take a big slice of the gaming world if it could crack compatability issues.

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48

It already has - with the SteamDeck and Valve SteamPlay Proton (which includes wine) - there’s literally 10’s of 1000’s of Windows only game titles that work flawlessly on Linux. The SteamDeck and Proton has helped the rest of us running Linux desktops to play top shelf PC game titles… The SteamDeck “SteamOS” is Arch based…

There’ve even been reports for some Windows game titles running better with faster FPS (frames per second) rate, emulated through Proton / Wine than “natively” on MS Windows…

The SteamDeck is finally available “officially” in Australia - but I find I no longer have the budget - if it only happened 2-3 years ago I would have stumped up for one for sure… I may yet get one anyway… it can be used in Desktop mode - in fact one game developer used his Steam Deck in desktop mode (e.g. external monitor and keyboard / mouse) to continue working on his game while his PC was out of commission. I love the idea of a very portable Linux machine with long lasting battery - none of my Linux laptops can go much longer than 2 hours on battery…

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49

Can i add my mobile phones to that list

50

If only it were free., or at least not expensive.
Is that what Sheila’s Bazzite is about?
and
we are pleased to record a win for Linux.

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51

Gaming is of no interest to me, my favourite distro is Debian but at the moment using Zorin Lite.
I’m not one for all the bells and whistles and prefer Xfce.
I’ve only been using a linux system for about 4 yrs and it suits me.

I often get ISO’s of different distros to try as a vm.

Arch was a pig to install, think I need to read a how to book.

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52

The later Kindles run Android (no idea about the Firestick)… So it’s already running the Linux kernel - but probably the only way (I know of) to get userland Linux on Android is TermUX… Unless you can “root” it… I wouldn’t know about “rooting” an Android device.

There are people running Linux GUI apps via TermUX - but I haven’t tried, not interested - I really just want TermUX so I can do CLI stuff, and run SSHD (so I can ssh to my Samsung Galaxy S9+).

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53

I live down under, and you can take my word for it…I use my taskbar/panel at the bottom, just like I did when I lived in the USA. Everybody I know here uses it pretty much that way also. The topside users are in the minority here, just as in the states. But I DO smile upside down. :upside_down_face:

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Hi James,
Welcome, and nice to hear from someone in the Southern Hemisphere.
Its all personal preference of course, but we do take pride in our inverted existence
Regards
Neville

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I can’t actually remember when I first left Windows for Linux but it was a loooong time ago. I live in OZ and back in the day, the various PC magazines down here put CDs/DVDs on the cover of their mags to entice people to buy it. The disks contained various articles, freeware and other bits and pieces and often had the latest version of one particular Linux distro or another. So, every month a new distro to try. I believe my first was SUSE though it could have been Fedora??

Anyway, I tried pretty much everything on offer until Ubuntu came along and even though i kept trying new distro’s, I found myself repeatedly returning to Ubuntu. Forward a few years and as I became more proficient with Linux, I took a stab at Manjaro and it was like I had hit the holy grail. I tried all the different iterations of Manjaro and liked Cinnamon the best - it was comfortable for my type of usage.

I have continued to try the odd distro from time to time - mostly when there has been a bunch of positive hype around the distro but I am still using Manjaro Cinnamon as my daily driver.

Nowadays, with the advent of AI, I am interested to see just how far that can be pushed for a personal user with regards to what various distro’s will offer.

The bottom line - why do I use Manjaro Cinnamon?? Well, it fits me like a soft leather glove - kinda warm and comforting… :wink:

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56

MX Linux.

Lightweight, has most features inbuilt. Easy for a general purpose user like me. Frequent updates and great community support. Super stable (unless you mess with the etc\ files)

Though I don’t like the Xfce DE much.

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Hi Michael,
Welcome. I live in OZ too.
There are not many users of Arch-based distros on this forum. I have experimented with Artix, but I just choose Xfce because I always use it in every distro.
I find pacman a little strange, but I can get it to work.
You are doing well choosing a rolling release distro. That is the modern way, and it makes updates easier to cope with.
Regards
Neville

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MX is my choice too.
You can get other DE’s in the MX package system. At least KDE and Gnome, and probably several others.

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59

Welcome Michael and welcome back rohit

Looking forward to reading your contributions

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I’ve been using Garuda GNU/Linux since early in 2024, but not the " Garuda KDE Dr460nized", their prime offering - it’s too busy/gaudy for my tastes, and I don’t like the Mac-like setup. I’m using their " Garuda Linux KDE lite" flavor. It comes with the vanilla KDE Plasma desktop, so I can customize it to my heart’s desire. I’ve been able to easily make it boot using the rEFInd boot manager, and I’ve add secure boot support, so now, it’s everything I want in an OS.

Ernie

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