Linux

NixOS, because:

• I can have my entire system be declaratively configured, and not as a yaml soup bolted onto a random distro.
• I can trivially separate the OS, and the data (thanks, impermanence)
• it has a buttload of packages and integration modules
• it is mostly reproducible

All of these combined means my backups are simple (just snapshot /persist, with a few dirs excluded, and restic them to N places) and reliable. The systems all have that newly installed feel, because there is zero cruft accumulating.

And with the declarative config being tangled out from a literate Org Roam garden, I have tremendous, and up to date documentation too. Declarative config + literate programmung work really well together, amg give me immense power.

Arch on the Desktop, Debian on the servers for peace oft mind.

I primarily run Linux server distros for what I like to do. I usually do Debian since it's a nice base to just add whatever on to (sudo isn't even installed out of the box) so I have been working on a customized install script but if I don't feel like messing around too much I just go with Ubuntu and avoid using snaps for anything I care about (especially Docker, like wtf is with the snap version of Docker). I like the default toolset of Debian based distros and not having to screw with SELinux.

Artix (current)

• Vanilla as much as possible (same as Arch)
• Rolling release (same as Arch)
• No systemd (my personal preference)
• AUR availability (still an Arch derivative)

Guix (as soon as I have the time)

• Similar reason as for Artix
• Reproducible builds
• Guile
• Static configs

Debian/KDE because I like the way I can customize (1 panel on the left with everything) No features removed just as one gets used to them. (looking at you gnome) No breaking changes to the desktop gadget api every update (you gnome again) Nice big repo.

EndeavourOS - I jumped around distros a lot but always found myself coming back to arch. Then I found Endeavour which is just arch with the same basic setup I would always end up doing, so out of convenience I stuck with it

I installed Manjaro about six months ago because I'd never tried it. I like it so far and it has yet to get in my way enough to make me want to change.

I use PopOS on my desktop. I was looking to upgrade an old Chromebook and while researching my options came dangerously close to buying a MacBook Air. Decided to buy an android tablet instead for my portable computer and bought another SSD so I could dual-boot on my desktop.

It's clean, somewhat macOS like in appearance but I actually have freedom to do what I want. Just in time for Windows 10 sunsetting too.

Bazzite because never breaks.

I use popos because I own a system 76 and it's what I'm used to.

I'm mainly on Linux for over 20 years (still have one Windows Box for VR and some games, hopefully I can migrate this to Linux with the next hardware iteration). I was on Suse, Debian, Mandrake, Gentoo, Ubuntu, QubesOS (which does not self-identify as Linux-distribution) with Fedora+Debian Qubes. I never had those installed on my main machine, but also worked a lot with kali, grml, knoppix, dsl, centos, Redhat and certainly a bunch of others.

The absolute best for me, as working in it security and with different customers, is QubesOS. Sadly my current laptop is so badly supported by QubesOS that it burns 6h battery in 25 minutes and sleep/suspent does not work at all, so I'm currently on Ubuntu (which I hate for their move to snap and being Ubuntu in general)

Debian stable (ok, writing this on Debian Trixie which is not stable yet, but nonetheless works w/o trouble in a virtual machine).

I am using Debian for work and on my servers.

Why Debian? Because for my use cases there are no real alternatives at this moment.

• I need stable support for Aarch64 and AMD64, which already rules out nearly every other distribution
• For desktops I use a highly customized Gnome, which takes some work and my workflow depends on a few plugins, which rules out Fedora
• For work I need some 3rd party software repositories which again rule out fast moving distributions and other non mainstream distributions
• By now I think I run Debian and distributions based on Debian for nearly 3 decades, everything I need works stable and good enough at this moment and I accumulated a lot of knowledge about how things work in Debian
• Some of my hardware needs workarounds (not because it is too new), and again I know my way around Debian and how to patch/fix things for my hardware
• It is nice that I can use Debian for my desktops and my servers on all hardware I own, I would not want to have to learn different Linux systems for desktops and servers or have different versions of software (think Fedora vs. RHEL/CentOS/Alma etc.)

Every 6 month I'll boot Fedoras live cd and play around with the newest Gnome/KDE, but seriously, for at least the last 5 years I never feel like essential improvements are pushed in the newest iterations of Gnome/KDE and I can happily wait the maximum of 2 years until they are released with Debian.

Saying that, I also own a Steam Deck and as an entertainment/media station I totally love what Valve is doing there. I would also be totally happy to run a De-Googled ChromeOS if it would support all the platforms/software etc. I need. For containers I'll also happily use Alpine Linux, if it is possible, but again, I'll mostly default to Debian simply because I know my way around.

In the end, an operating system is just a necessary evil to allow me to do what I want to do with a computer. As long as I have a stable OS which I can tweak to my liking/needs automatically and central package management, I am good. (Unless it is your hobby to play around with your operating system ;-)).

I've been using Garuda for... Two or three years? I've done a lot of distro-hopping looking for something that won't just break on me. I used Ubuntu for a long time but kept running into situations where it would break, such as boot loops. Eventually I settled on Garuda because it ships with newer software and Nvidia drivers, which is helpful because I use my PC for gaming. I have stuck around because it's garuda-update command automatically makes a backup of your system out of the box, and you can select to boot into a backup in grub then restore it really easily. There have been a couple times where something has broken on an update, but when that happens I can immediately restore the backup, and I don't even need to remember to run a backup manually. I do feel that the default theme is a bit gaudy so I swapped it to a default KDE, but other than that I've had pretty much only good experiences with Garuda.

I use bazzite. I prefer fedora (that's what I have on my laptop) but the Nvidia drivers consistently give me trouble with fedora on my desktop. I'd get it stable for a little bit then something broke. eventually I got tired of it and tried bazzite since I had heard it was better in that regard. I love the out of the box Nvidia support as well as the HDR support with no extra steps. I'm really not a fan of immutable distros in general, I think rebuilding the ostree everytime I need to install a system package not available in any other way is super annoying, but it just works and that enough for me right now. I also enjoy some of the software it comes packaged with, like btrfs snapper and a very comprehensive ffmpeg build. I'll probably switch away from it to try something new this summer, but at least until my finals are over I just need it's stability.

Pop OS. Don't use much of its custom features since I have installed sway on top of it and did some custom edits, was thinking of switching to another distro but they announced COSMIC, which looks very cool. Why not stick with the distro that could have the best experience with it?

EndeavourOS on my laptop and Ubuntu on my home server. Still new to linux thought endeavour was a good choice to really get my feet wet with lessening the chance to screw things up too badly. Ubuntu because it looks like it just works.

The amount of software available in the package manager, without adding external repositories, exceeds that I've seen in any other distro I've used. Even with epel, I feel like others fall short.

The ability to modify the build time flags of software while still using the package manager is also huge. I hate when ffmpeg doesn't have speex support because some upstream dev figured it was a corner use case.

It's me, I'm the target demographic. I'm the one asshole who wants to build ffmpeg with speex support, clamav without milter support and rxvt WITHOUT blink support.

There are some pretty great userspace helpers too. Things to ensure your kernel is always built with the same options. Things to upgrade all your python or perl modules to the new interpreter version for you. Tools for rebuilding all the things based on a reverse dependency search.

Slotted installs are handled in a sane, approachable, and manageable way.

The filesystem layout is standards compliant.

I recall someone on /r/Gentoo saying something like "Gentoo is linux crack, when you get a handle on it, nothing compares."

When I boot my laptop into fedora/arch/mint/etc (or really any non-bsd based distro), I feel like I'm using someone else's laptop. There are a bunch of git repos under /usr/src for the software I wanted that wasn't in the package manager. I need to manage their updates separately. Someone else has decided which options are in this very short list of GUIs. I'm using whatever cron daemon they chose, not the one I want. Why is there a flat text log file under /var/db/? Why won't you just let me exist without any swap mounted? $PATH is just a fucking mess.

I'm used to debian, it was the first on the list of distros I downloaded to try and it worked right away, so I kept it. Overall, Pop Os is unintrusive and works, so it's perfect for me.

I use Fedora. No real reason in particular (I do like yum/dnf a lot), I just think it's neat.

I've used Arch in the past as well.

I dual boot Fedora and Arch. Fedora was just a fluke because it seemed like one of the most mainstream distros, and I was a Linux noob.

I liked Arch though because the Arch wiki is so useful for a beginner to learn from, even if you're not on Arch. At first, Arch seemed too complex and difficult for me, as a beginner, but when I kept finding myself at the Arch wiki when troubleshooting, I realised how powerful good documentation is. I installed Arch with a "fixer-upper" type mindset, with the goal of using the greater power and customisability that Arch offers to build a config/setup that worked for me (learning all the while). It was a good challenge for someone who is mad, but not quite so mad as to dive into Gentoo or Linux From Scratch

Void for desktop/laptop. These are the things I like about it.

• Rolling release
• Initial installation is minimal, and doesn't foist a specific DE or other unessential software on me.
• No systemd
• Nothing similar to Arch's AUR. I know a lot of people love it, but I do not. I mention as the distros are similar.

Debian for my server. But I plan to migrate to Devuan.

• Stable and well tested
• Huge package selection
• Pretty ubiquitously supported. If for whatever reason what you want to run isn't in the repo, .deb packages and apt repos are often available.
• Minimal installation available.

openSUSE, because of the snapshotting. It's zero-setup and just gives peace of mind when doing upgrades, as I can roll back even from the bootloader.

Fedora. Reason is probably that im used to it now. But if I have to make some points why then there they are:

• nice balance between being up-to-date and not bleeding edge
• new technologies. Fedora always pushes new technologies first such as wayland, pipewire, systemd... I like it. I dont have to wait 2 years until x distro rolls it. I get it now, sometimes with some problems but nothing that i couldnt manage.
• When im trying out some software or building from source the documentation often includes specific steps for fedora (among debian, ubuntu and arch). Its really nice to not be a niche distro and get instructions tailored for fedora. Also some pre build packages are often in deb and rpm. -im used to dnf and its few handy commands like dnf history etc. Im sure that other package managers offer similar solutions but i know dnf and it feels like home

I was given a CD set for SUSE 8.2, then bought the 9.0 book set from a book store because I liked it but wanted the hard copy to reference when I was messing things up. I've tried a ton of other distros, but keep going back to Suse because I'm used to it.

I use opensuse (tumbleweed and slowroll) because I just wanted to try it out a few years back and it mostly just works.

If I were to reinstall today, I'd probably use fedora again, since it's much easier to use things like Waydroid.

Fedora Silverblue because I seem to break any system I have eventually, and this one’s still going.

A bunch of nerds on lemmy suggested it and I haven't found any problems with it that make me want to go for another. I use Fedora KDE

Ubuntu. Started in the Slackware days, tried a lot of distro's. Got used to debian commands/layouts etc. still happy to move to Centos for security focused installs. I find Ubuntu has a ton of support and general updates that fix anything I can find broken.

Why do you use the distro you use?

I've used many distros over the years (and test spin up many in virtuals to see what they are like) but keep coming back to Debian. I also like vanilla ice cream.

Mint: consistency, versatility, having all the Ubuntu's benefits (being industry standard, somewhat) without the drawbacks (Canonical's opinionated bullshit like snap)

Debian: stability, predictability, leanness

Gentoo: customizability down to compile-time level