If you have been using Linux for +10 years, what are you using now?
Been using Linux for over a decade, and last few years Ubuntu (on desktops/laptops), plus Debian on servers, but been looking to switch to something less “Canonical”-y for a long time (since the Amazon search fiasco, pretty much).
Appreciate recommendations or just an interesting discussion about people’s experiences, there are no wrong answers.
Edit: Thanks for the lots of interesting answers and discussions. I will try a few of the suggestions in a VM.
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I’ve been fully daily driving Linux for about 15 years now, and for me it’s almost all Arch now.
I started out distro-hopping between Debian, Mint, Ubuntu, Slack, etc, but once I found Arch (and spent two weeks getting it installed, booted, and customized exactly to my liking) I was finally at home.
I know the meme. I’m not here to claim superiority, or diminish the value of other perfectly good distros. I love Debian, I love Void, Ubuntu can die in a fire, etc.
What I love about Arch is the lack of bloat. You get precisely what you ask for, no more, no less. You can legitimately run htop and recognize literally every program, and know if something’s wrong immediately.
Every one of my Arch boxes is a perfect little snowflake, suited to exactly the task(s) I built it for. And if there was anything I had to learn or configure along the way? That’s just the journey, man.
I have been eyeballing NixOS though…
I love Debian, I love Void, Ubuntu can die in a fire, etc.
“You’re cool, you’re cool, screw you tho , you’re cool…” XD
Same, with one exception I don’t really like Debian. Ubuntu, I’m surprised it’s still around. I wonder who uses it, especially on a server.
I’m eyeballing NixOS. And Gentoo too. And I’m looking for excuse to try FreeBSD.
You’re surprised the most popular desktop distro is still around?
I’m surprised this shite is the most popular distro, let’s start with that.
Really? They did a ton of work to make Linux accessible to the masses, have an active and helpful community to help out if you get stuck, works really well out of the box on most hardware and you’re pretty much guaranteed there’s going to be a compatible deb available for it if you’re looking for software outside normal repos. Seems like a no brainer tbh.
You’re correct, if that’s true. I wasn’t following them since almost twenty years ago. They were great at the time, all these free CDs you could get, I’ve ordered some as a kid and they really arrived, that was magic. I have some gratitude for that.
What I don’t like is quite a number of very questionable decisions they made over these years after. That’s why I am surprised someone thinks they are a great distro. You want Deb, why not go with Debian? Especially on a server. I truly have no idea who are the people who install Ubuntu on a server.
In my experience, Fedora just works. And hence, I recommend it to everyone. Ubuntu, not. Snap alone made me not considering it ever again.
None of which makes the distro shite. The things I remember them getting shit for are:
Unity/mir
Upstart
Snaps
Amazon ads
Advertising their premium version.
Of all of those the Amazon thing is the only one I have a strong objection to. The rest I can’t say I’ve even particularly noticed the changes if I’m honest and most other Ubuntu users probably haven’t either. They seem to get a lot of crap for “doing their own thing all the time” which seems odd coming from the Linux community.
I came to Ubuntu initially because it was the new hotness, I’ve never really had an issue with it functionally in 12 years or so, so no real need to change.
Why not deb? Why not any number of other distros? I do run deb on my NAS as it goes and I’m not trying to stan for Ubuntu (honestly) but it gets a lot of undeserved hate. It’s not a super exciting distro or anything but it tends to work fine for me.
Fedora is my baby, but recently moved to Bazzite. I’m not a huge coder per say, I like things to just install and work.
I don’t customise too much either, so stock Bazzite with all my apps from flatpak has been a dream so far.
PS. I play games, hence Bazzite. Beyond All Reason is the best game in the world.
Arch on my personal machines, Debian on my servers.
Been daily driving Arch on my laptops for the last 10 years. It’s been great. Getting the latest software has been especially handy for laptops, where the kernel sometimes needs time to catch up to the latest hardware.
I ran Guix for a few months when I had some extra time and I liked it, but it was very different and not all software I needed ran on it (or ran well). I ended up going back to Arch, but I brought Guix with me, as a package manager.
I also ended up trying Fedora for the first time (ok, I was unemployed) recently and was pleasantly surprised. Turns out Fedora is pretty close to how I configure Arch. And it’s got some extra polish that was neat. I ended up installing Fedora Silverblue for my parents 6-8 months ago and it’s been working out great for them.
Anyway, Arch has been my reliable companion for the last 10 years.
Debian.
I used a linux desktop for a few years back in 08-09, started on ubuntu then got on the Gentooooooooooo bandwagon. (Went back to Windows after this due to college + games, naturally)
Ever since then, I just use stable LTS versions of either debian or ubuntu for server applications. Recently changed back to Linux on desktop and went with CachyOS, it’s been super solid.
I have had a look at CachyOS kernel patches before, I don’t game but seems like they have a good team.
I’m daily driving it and it’s pretty nice. I was on fedora before and mint before that.
Arch for 13 Years. No distro hopping. The AUR and Wiki are the greatest resources any Linux distro has and I’m not giving them up for anything else. There were periods where I dual booted with Windows for gaming but that’s been dead and gone for 5 years. At this point the only times it breaks is because of user error which there is not much of any more.
An old pop os system for everyday use.
An old debian server for most self hosting.
Onion os for my miyoo mini plus retro game console.
And a mess of things all over the house.
Debian.
It’s pretty great for desktop stuff these days. Basically Ubuntu minus the shit. Any desktop you want, it’s got live installers now (several different ones with different desktops), it’s got nonfree firmware on the disc, they’ve really upped their game.
(And if the recent systemd stuff skeeves you out, you can toss out systemd, even. It’s not for the faint of heart though.)
– Frost
Debian on the streets (servers), Arch on the sheets (laptop).
Debian. I like my computer to work.
Up until recently, Debian on everything. Main PC/ laptop are running Artix (Arch minus systemd) and my servers are still on Debian
Fedora
OpenSUSE if you want something non American and not directly related to RedHat
Debian on everything (well except the router is on OpenWrt).
First installed Debian more than 25 years ago. Tried some other stuff, Debian is still best for me.
Most answers seem to be Debian. Sort of just works for me as well. With KDE Plasma and couldn’t be happier with it. I keep on forgetting how I did stuff though because it’s solid set and forget most of the time.
