Original question by @POTOOOOOOOO@reddthat.com
I use Arch, btw, but I don’t consider it the best (yes I do.) I could easily transition to Fedora, for example (I would never do that,) and be completely happy (I would rather continually hit my head with the metal stapler gun on my desk.)
Hannah Montana Linux
No further arguments needed.
The one, the only, the legend…
What made Hannah Montana Linux so good (as a joke, and as a distro), was that it was actually good. XD Good fun. Good stuff. :D
Does what I want and gets out of my way.
As it should.
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Do things not work out of the box on debian?
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Linux Mint has a Debian Edition (LMDE) if you ever wanted a Debian that Just Works.
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All the good parts of Ubuntu have long since been integrated upstream. And Debian’s release cycle has increased a lot so you’re not stuck with old versions anymore.
It would be awesome if it came with a KDE desktop environment.
If ZorinOS shipped without the Snaps, it might become my go-to, even though it’s Gnome. They did a wonderful job of customizing it with extensions to make it more like a classic desktop experience.
NixOS. My entire config is source-controlled and I can easily roll back to a previous boot image if something breaks like cough Nvidia drivers. I also use it for my home router and all self-hosted services.
maniacally laughs while trying to avoid eye contact with 19k lines of nix config
Out of all the ways that I have tried in the past, to reproduce not just the initial state, but also the ongoing changes of a disto (ansible, saltstack, chef, bunch of Shell scripts) — nix is by far the shortest. With all of these technologies I would never have dreamed to do this for a single Maschine. But now it’s not only possible, but actually gasp enjoyable!
Mind you, if that is not the problem you want to solve, maybe install just the nix package manager in addition to your distribution, and learn to enjoy it without having to run your whole distribution this way.
You misunderstand! It has also turned into basically a hobby (and recently, a job, lol) to manage nix configs.
Those 19k lines are clean, well-structured and DRY, and do describe every little thing about ca. 30 machines.
Because it was my first distro that got me away from Windows. And yes, it’s Mint.
Bazzite just works, it runs every game I have with zero fuss, it’s easy to run Windows programs / emulators / local LLMs, AND it’s basically unbreakable.
I can’t claim it’s the best, but it’s the best for me right now.
On a gaming laptop I’m using Aurora because KDE Plasma btw (:
Bazzite has a KDE version too. I think it is more popular then the GNOME version of bazzite actually. At least according to the results of the latest steam survey
Yep I use KDE-flavored Bazzite and actually forgot GNOME was even offered! It works deliciously. Came over from Windows last winter finally and boy, the UI alone is just so much nicer.
I had avoided KDE for years due to some multi-screen resolution issues back in the day.
I’d be running gnome, and install a half dozen plugins to make it look and feel closer to Windows It was just a personal preference. Every other update some plugin I was using would be broken. I’d replace it with another plug-in or uninstall it and wait for a fix. Fight fight fight fight fight fight. Some number of years later I tried KDE again, and I realized that it did exactly what I was trying to do in Gnome but it did it out of the box.
I don’t have anything against Gnome. The same way I don’t have anything against OS X’s “window manager” or even Windows 11’s “window manager” they’re just not my preference.
Bottom left navigation, thin, stacked app indicators, bottom right tray. Fractional scaling, widgets.
CachyOS with NiriWM. Cachy is Arch with none of the install drama. The performance tuning makes it blazing fast on older hardware. Installs with no bloat.
Niri is superior to Hyprland in my opinion because it’s a scrolling tiling WM that is super intuitive and fast.
For server workloads, however, not much beats pure Debian. It’s stable, well supported, and has a huge package library.
I run CachyOS on my PC and Debian (12/13) on my servers. Everything you say is dead on.
Perfect set up for me.
Because I like compiling everything from source for a 0.2% speed improvement
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I do not consider Arch the best. Artix is better because is is systemd-free. I have not switched yet.
(And there’s obarun, joborun, nemesis, shebang… er, and others out in the wild too that I forget… )
(I use an Artix stratum btw.)
Yeah. Considering Devuan over Debian for the same reason.
@bold_omi why are you looking for a distro that is systemD-free?
SystemD is bloated. Also, the age verification BS and acceptance of genAI commits are disqualifying.
I’ve been enjoying EndeavourOS over the past three years. It works wonderfully out of the box at default settings, and was really easy for me to use and set up to my liking with minimal know-how needed.
It also works really well on the variety of machines I have in my home. My desktop, modded Chromebook, and my husband’s laptop.
It’s allowed me to get more familiar and confident with the command line, and enough so that I’ve switched to Sway from XFCE (and previously KDE).
Yeah, as an Arch-based distro it’s pretty nice. Probably the best Arch-based distro imo. Even though I’m not a big Arch fan.
Using Linux is not a dick measuring contest (and man I hate these threads asking “why is your distro the best?” - it feels like trolling and sowing division and grief to me. A bit like asking a mother “What is your favorite child?”.)
Ah, so you think your distro’s not the best. (jk).
As a recovering/relapsing distroholic, I feel like these threads are great for discovery. (And whimsical fun. Because you’re right, that it’s not a contest. So knowing this, can engage with the question playfully.)
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Tried CalculateLinux or any of the other Gentoo respins?
Toorox was the best Gentoo respin. Nothing more than a pure straight gentoo respin. Sabayon was superb before they started to try too hard. Redcore started to try too hard too. Calculate did a little bit of try-hard, but managed to retain enough modest sanity to remain good (at least, still true of the last few times I saw it). Even Funtoo started to go a little wonky.
But if you ever start to think Gentoo’s too easy and not taking up enough of your time, you can always go the other way, and jump ship to Exherbo.
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I’ve tried Exherbo more times than I can count, but never managed to make it my daily driver. It really needs that kind of commitment to make the best of it. With Exherbo, you’ve really got to go from 0 to >9000, with nothing between, becoming a developer of it straight away.
And yeah, +1 Gentoo+binhost. Though I do miss the USE=“-*” approach to gentoo (like I did in 2011(ish)), adding things only as needed, per package. Great education. And keeps the system very tight to just meet needs, and no more.
Oh, and also…
Would I leave Debian behind for it?
No need to leave. There’s BedrockLinux, or just distrobox.
~ for the latter of which I was shown this article (titled “I stopped distro-hopping because this tool lets me run everything at once”) earlier today on libera.chat from someone who know’s Bedrock’s been my daily driver for over a decade, with Bedrock being how I ended my distro-hopping, and DistroBox being another way to end distro-hopping. ~ We’re now ((at least) two ways) past the days of having to pick just one distro. ;D
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Hrmm. While I’ve never bothered with containers, I don’t see why bedrock wouldn’t work in a container. Could be easy to test… set up a container with whichever distro, and try run the BedrockLinux hijack installer script on it… Don’t blame me if somehow it escapes the containment and eats your whole system … (~ I don’t see why/how it would ~ should be safe ~ but like I say, I don’t have experience with containers.)
Because I can hit “next” a couple of time and have a working install
Me linux distro is not the best. “The best” varies from person to person and also in accord to different positions in time.
Yup. To me, IRIX was the best, until I found GNU+Linux in late 2003 and becoming a windows refugee, not to IRIX, but to, not just GNU+Linux, but all freedom respecting operating systems and their distributions, and the potential of what they could become, as I and many others attempt to learn them, and help contribute to them. Many more itches to scratch yet. The best is yet to come, for each and all. :) Or so the philosophy inspires and aspires.
[PS… Oh I so would love a FOSS IRIX… a free software [“open source”] multi-arch IRIX revival though… beyond just NekoWare and whatever else is scattered around.]
[PPS, oh, and varies computer to computer too… I don’t use the same distro everywhere. Sometimes even several distros on the same computer. Quite right to point out the folly of the notion of there being a one-true-way “best”.]
