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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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I use debian cause it just works.
I was a Nix user (more specifically, nix-darwin user) but after being away from the computer for like one year (to study for the university entrance exam), I completely forgot how to use it and resulted in erasing the computer. Nix/NixOS is fun, but it was too complicated for me.
It isn't. I'm on PopOS 24.04 Alpha 7 (soon to be Beta 1), because of COSMIC (and because I was having some bugs with Fedora a few months back).
I recently wanted to tinker with a piece of software that wasn't packaged, and I couldn't compile it because of outdated libraries. I could return to Fedora specifically to tinker with it but as an ex-distrohopper, I know it isn't worth the effort.
Even though Fedora or some version of it will likely be my forever distro, I will stick to PopOS for now because I can't be bothered to distrohop and back up months' worth of files, including game saves and a ton of stuff in my Downloads directory.
It's not.
Linux Mint because it's extremely simple and has caused me no issues for over a year. It's the best distribution to get someone who is afraid to switch from Windows or MacOS to understand that using Linux can be just as easy.
OpenSUSE tumbleweed: Up-to-date, unbreakable due to Btrfs+snapper, very secure defaults (firewall), based in Germany. It works perfectly on my Thinkpad, so I couldn't ask for better.
I use Kubuntu. It is defintly not the best Distro. I am just used to it and too lazy to get used to another distro. My days as a distro jumper lie 15 years back...
Tbh though, I might switch to Debian stable whenever Trixie comes out.
Arch, everything it does provide works extremely well, I can configure everything how I want it without having to fight a distro maintainer trying to be clever, I get new features and bugfixes whenever they go in without having to worry about a distro maintainer deciding whether it’s relevant or whether I should just live with crashes and security issues for another two years because they figured it wasn’t important or critical enough.
Fedora is quite unremarkable, no issues of late. Or ever, for that matter. It's glorious.
Fedora is just a no-drama distro that works, and I love it
NixOS. I've gotten so used to the declarative nature of NixOS, that I simply cannot go back to a "normal" distro anymore.
I love Pop OS because it got me back into Linux after ditching it for windows for the last 10 years, partly to do .net development and partly because I hated the state of Ubuntu/Unity.
As soon as cosmic is stable and easy to install on Nix I'll switch to it.
Yast, actual stability.
As with others, I love Debian Stable.
Most packages have sane defaults, and it's so stable. It's true that it sometimes means older software versions, but there's also something to be said for behavior staying the same for two years at a time.
If hardware support is an issue, using the backports repo is really easy - I've been using it on my laptop for almost a year with no problems that don't exist on other distros. If you really need the shiniest new application, Flatpak isn't that bad.
It also feels in a nice position - not so corporate as to not give a darn about its community, but with enough funding and backing the important stuff gets maintained.
Arch btw, only been using it for a couple of weeks, only installed it because of the meme. Got my hands on a few years old thinkpad for practically free, so why not. It's actually quite good so far, been struggling a bit with external monitors, but I don't miss windows
the mouse is cute
A bit of tinkering. Thoughts?
Obligatory "There is not a single distro that's the absolute best for each and every one." disclaimer aside, my personal favorite is definitely secureblue for being a hardened-by-default distro that adheres to the ~~'immutable'~~ reprovisionable, anti-hysteresis paradigm while enjoying a healthy stream of improvements pushed out by an active group of contributors.
Bazzite.
Super easy install and setup. Ready to start installing games at first boot. Just a wonderful OS to use.
Mint Cinnamon. All my hardware works, and it can do the few things I require my work PC to do. It even remembers things like my default audio device - something Ubuntu refused to do for years.
It isn't. I just don't feel like swapping
Devuan + Trinity Desktop
Moved over there since Debian switched to Sytemd. It is boring, dusty... but it works and stays out of my way.
Debian. Truly the universal operating system. Runs on all of my laptops, desktops, servers, and NAS with no fuss and no need to keep track of distro-specific differences. If something has a Linux version, it probably works on Debian.
Granted, I am a bit biased. All of my hardware is at least 5 years old. Also came from Windows, where I kept only the OS and browser up to date, couldn't be bothered with shiny new features. A package manager is already a huge luxury.
EndeavorOS. It runs smooth, i dont get errors, all my games work, the taskbar and notifications work like I would expect them too. Switching from Windows 2 months ago, I cycled through a few distros but they all were giving something up until i found EoS.
I am a debian person but when I tried EndeavourOS i relegated debian to my homeservers only.
Almost 1 year in EndeavourOS, I fucked it up once and was very easy to recover.
Fedora, because it just works, it’s familiar, and I’ve got things to do.
Mint Cinnamon.
It's easy, stable and gets out of my way.
I haven't seen the need to dostro hop for years.
Debian stable.
Everybody think they are a special snowflake who needs bleeding edge, or a specific package manager or DE or whatever. Truth is 99.99% do not. They just like to believe they do, claim they do, try it, inflict self pain for longer than they need, convince themselves that truly they are, because of the pain, special.
Chill, just go with stable, it's actually fine.
Edit: posted from Arch, not even sarcasm.
As someone who ran Debian Stable for a while, this is not a distro for "99.99%".
First, Debian, while very stable in its core, commonly has same random issues within DE's and even programs that may likely just sit there until the next release comes along.
Second, a release cycle of 2 years is actually a giant and incredibly noticeable lag. You may love your system when it just releases, but over time, you will realize your system is old, like, very damn old. It will look old, it will act old, and the only thing you can do is install flatpaks for your preferred programs so that they'd be up to date.
This isn't just programs. It is your desktop environment. It is Wine (gamers, you're gonna cry a lot unless you work it around with flatpaks like Bottles, which will feel like insane workaround you wouldn't have to have with a better fitting distro).
It is the damn kernel, so you may not even be able to install Debian on newest hardware without unsupported and potentially unstable backporting tricks.
Don't get me wrong, Debian is absolutely great in what it does, and that is providing a rock solid environment where nothing changes. But recommending it for everyone? Nope.
even programs that may likely just sit there until the next release comes along. ... the only thing you can do is install flatpaks for your preferred programs so that they’d be up to date. ... Wine (gamers, you’re gonna cry a lot unless you work it around with flatpaks
I already posted on this a while ago but that's is a recurring misconception. No distribution, literally 0, provides all software to the latest version or to the version one expects. Consequently IMHO it is perfectly acceptable to go beyond what the official package manager of the distribution offers. It can be flatpaks, am, build from source, etc but the point precisely is that the distribution is about a shared practical common ground to build on top of. A distribution is how to efficiently get to a good place. I also run Debian stable on my desktop and for gaming, I use Steam. It allows me to get Wine, yes, but also Proton and even ProtonFix so that I basically point and click to run games. I do NOT tinker to play Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, Clair Obscur, etc and my hardware is well supported.
So... sure if you consider a distribution as something you must accept as-is and NOT rely on any of the available tools to get the latest software you actually need, can be games but can be tools e.g. Blender, Cura, etc, then you WILL have a tough time but that's the case for all distributions anyway.
TL;DR: a distribution is the base layer to build on. Its package manager, on Debian and elsewhere, is not the mandatory and sole way to get the software you need.
I feel like a lot of your points were true at one point, but are becoming lest relevant.
For one, at least with XFCE, I found myself not really running into DE bugs.
Also, I don't think two years is as obnoxious anymore. During the era of the GTK 4 transition a couple, it drove me nuts, but now that a lot of APIs like that have stabilized, I really don't notice much of a difference between Debian Testing and Stable. I installed and daily drove Bookworm late in its lifecycle on my laptop, and in terms of DE and applications, I haven't noticed anything. I get the feeling Debian's gotten better at maintenance in the past few years - I especially see this with Firefox ESR. There was a time where the version was several months behind the latest major release of ESR, but usually it now only takes a month or two for a new ESR Firefox to come to Debian Stable, well within the support window of the older release.
Also, I don't think Flatpaks are a huge dealbreaker anyway - no matter what distro you're using, you're probably going to end up with some of them at some point because there's some application that is the best at what it does and is only distributed as a Flatpak.
Frankly, I probably am a terrible reference for gaming, as I'm a very casual gamer, but I've found Steam usually eliminates most of these issues, even on Debian.
Also, the official backports repository has gotten really easy. My laptop had an unsupported Wi-Fi chipset (it was brand new), so I just installed over ethernet, added the repo, and the install went smoothly. There were a few bugs, but none of these were specific to Debian. Stability has been great as ever.
In conclusion, I think right around Bookworm, Debian went from being the stable savant to just being an all-around good distro. I'll elaborate more on why I actually like Debian in a comment directly replying to the main post.
I might disagree with 99.999% like you - maybe I'd put it in the 50-75% range.
As a KDE fan, I had some bugs on some devices (like on one of the laptops, wallpapers did not install correctly and the setting to always show battery charge didn't work) even on Debian 12.
XFCE is well-known for stability, but seems to be increasingly irrelevant for the average/newbie user because the interface looks outdated and configuring is relatively complicated.
Interesting you mentioned Firefox ESR - iirc, even at release the version shipped with Debian 12 was considered very old, prompting many to install Firefox as a flatpak. Two years later, it's two years older.
Flatpaks are good and suitable options for many tasks - no argument here! But some things are just better installed natively, and there Debian just...shows.
Steam is a godsend, but there are many non-Steam games and, importantly, programs out there, and launching them through Steam often feels like yet another bloated and slow workaround; besides, you cannot choose Wine over Proton, and sometimes (granted: rarely) you may want to use Wine specifically.
To conclude - it's alright to choose Debian anyway, it is good! But I just feel like newbies and casual users could save a lot of trouble and frustration simply going with something that doesn't require all that - say, Fedora (non-atomic), or OpenSUSE, and then go from there to whatever they like. There are plenty of distributions that are stable, reliable, but without the tradeoffs Debian sets.
If you feel like stability is your absolutely biggest priority ever, and you have experience managing Linux systems - by all means, go Debian. But by that point you'll already know what you want.
Debian Stable actually updates Firefox ESR through the typically on by default security channel.
The current ESR version in there is 128, which is about a year old, which replaced the 115 that came with Debian 12 by default.
The newest ESR, 140 just came out 2 weeks ago. 128 still has 2 months of security updates, and 140 has already been packaged for sid. I have no doubts 140 will come before those 2 months are up.
Now the KDE thing actually sounds like it sucks.
Oh, didn't know, thanks for sharing on the Firefox side!
IDGAF if it's the best (mint), it was easy to install, easy to transition to from Windows, and in 6 months hasn't given me any trouble. I just wanna use my computer.
Yeah I was gonna say, I dunno if my distro is the best (Arch BTW) but it's the best for me. Doesn't give me any nonsense and lets me tinker as much as I want. Other people just want their OS to get out of their way, which of course is equally valid. Whatever works for you!
Fedora Atomic because I don't fucking care what package manager and whatnot sits underneath.
I just wanna relax in my free time and not worry about all this fucking nerd stuff.
Touching grass > Troubleshooting a broken system
Arch users here, just touched grass for the first time. Felt like bloat, had my lawn paved.
I wanted the awesomeness of pacman and like the way Gardua comes pre-configured as well as packages it installs from the get go. The only thing I hate about it is the "gamer" universal KDE theme it comes with.
NixOS makes me feel so safe making low-level changes to Linux and making sure that my work laptop, gaming desktop, and personal laptop all have the exact same shit on them and I'm gonna use them the exact same way.
I wish that nixlang was decoupled from the concept of a build system bc it's such a great DAG config DSL and I can think of so many cooler uses for it but I just don't have time to focus on it.