Linux

Began moving all my hardware to Linux this year since none of them will run win11 without fk-about-ing - and I just don't want to. So my server, media box and laptop are all cut over, only my main desktop left on windows a bit longer but it's goose is cooked too.

I've tried dozens of distros over the years but I've settled on Fedora KDE.

The why:

• Skipping x11 and head straight into Wayland so I don't have to worry about that in the future.
• I wanted something more up to date than debian-based and less cutting edge then Arch-based.
• Stability and support of being in the RHEL family
• Flatpaks
• Tried to get on with gnome to get away from the 'start menu' paradigm but ended up getting on with kde better.

Primarily I use Arch on my desktop (and by proxy, my Steam Deck which runs SteamOS), which is what I've landed on after a ton of distro hopping. The idea of Atomic distros catches my eyes, but for me in its present state there are too many steps needed in order to make deeper changes (for example, installing a kernel module) - but I quite like SteamOS on my Deck since I know it will always be in a "consistent" state, for example.

On servers I run a mix of Rocky Linux and Debian.

I'm currently using bazzite due to its really solid out of the box support for gaming hardware and peripherals.

I'm really surprised everyone uses arch. I have three theories as to why:

1. There actually aren't that many arch uses but when arch users have the opportunity they won't hesitate to say "BTW I use arch" were as others don't really bother.
2. There are lots of arch users and everyone uses it because they want to be able to say "BTW I use arch"
3. (Very unlikly) There are lots of arch users and it's because it's actually a good distro that people like.

(This is mostly a joke jsyk I'm sure arch is a great distro)

Different distros for different uses:

• Debian with KDE for my casual servers and Docker boxes.
• Nobara for my main gaming PC.
• Linux Mint with Cinnamon for my general purpose PCs and my #JustWorks uses.
• Arch for my pimp mobile test machines.

Fedora 41 KDE Plasma

For the simple, shallow reason it looks great and feels snappy.

Personal rabble:

Cachyos.

Used to use pure arch but I like the cachy optimisations and their repos

im a notorious distro hopper lmao, right now i am using manjaro for the first time. previously i was using Pop OS where i had plasma installed for the DE rather than using cosmic or whatev they call it... but it seemed like there were a few issues between Pop and plasma, so i hopped to manjaro

first time using a distro that uses pacman so there are a few growing pains for me

I use Fedora on my desktop, and mint on my laptop (this one is going to get wiped soon for Fedora as well). I tried manjaro but it just wasn't for me. I installed it on the recommendation of my friend, and I like it a lot. Except for it not staying asleep because a part on the motherboard kept sending a wake command -__- . But a CMD fixed that issue.

Gentoo for anything my I use a mouse with, Arch for everything else. I like Gentoo for the customization. For things where I want to run a service, Arch is my go to as it keeps working without drama. Anything complicated, Gentoo is better.

Currently, Arch btw. I was on Ubuntu in the 12* days, but arch wiki had the solutions to every problem I encountered, so naturally migrated. I want to switch to NixOS but ran into some issues getting my finicky nvidia/amdgpu laptop to work. I might go blendOS as a holdover, it seems like a good mix of the two. Also I have some issues with Manjaro (tried for a while) but pamac cli at least handles all of my aur and pacman needs properly.

LMDE. It really does just work.

I used to use Arch btw.

Now I am on Nix, I just love shell.nix files. I haven't spent much time on my configs yet, but once I finish them, they'll be super easy to set up again, thats cool.

Mint on my ancient MacBook because I didn’t really know any better and it’s working just nice for me, and Asahi/Fedora on my M1 mini, because it’s the only option.

I use LMDE. I use it because Mint has proved that it is worth using (for example: it provide easy way to install multimedia codec by only click "Install Multimedia Codec" in applications menu) and I want it to success.

Sorry if my english is bad

Arch, pacman is why

Kubuntu on my desktop, I prefer KDE as a DE and I'm used to the Debian ecosystem.

Linux Mint on my relatively low powered laptop that I rarely use.

Debian stable on my media server.

MX Linux. It is Debian with setup and tools I really want but would be too lazy to prepare in one go. Love it as much as I love Debian.

Arch on my desktop and laptop, Debian stable goes on everything else.

Bazzite for my gaming pc, steam deck, and family members. It just works and they cant fuck it up. Even brother laser printers official drivers installed for my mom's comp. Gotta check the details of that cups exploit though. My gamig pc is also the fallback pc I expect to always have working and for servicing any others if problems come up.

Arch or arch based, except manjaro which has screwed me over too many times, for having easy access to pretty much any software that can run on linux, or just stuff that requires too many hoops to jump through to get working on atomic distros like bazzite.

Dietpi on my SBCs like the ones running klipper for my 3d printers

Debian for my servers, homeassistant etc, but I'm planning on checking out coreos.

Also alpine just because.

Debian. Because it's the best about "Just Works" (yes, even moreso than Ubuntu, which I tried). It has broken once on me, and that was fixed by rolling back the kernel, then patched within the week.

BUT I'm also not a "numbers go up" geek. I don't give a shit about maxing out the benchmarks, and eking every last drop of performance out of the hardware; to me, that's just a marketing gimmick so people associate dopamine with marginally improved spec numbers (that say nothing about longevity nor reliability).

If you wanna waste something watching numbers go up, waste time playing cookie clicker, not money creating more e-waste so your Nvidia 4090 can burn through half a kilowatt of power to watch youtube in 8k.

(/soapbox)

My gpu is an nvidia 970 and my cpu is a 4th or 5th generation core i7. I just don't play the latest games anyway, I'm a PatientGamer, and I don't do multimedia stuff beyond simple meme edits in GIMP.

It has plenty of power to run VMs, which I do use for my job and hobby, and I do coding as another hobby in NVIM (so I don't have to deal with the performance penalty of MS Code or other big GUI IDEs).

It all works fine, but one day I'll upgrade (still a generation or two behind to get the best deals on used parts) and still not waste a ton of money on AAA games nor bleeding-edge DAWs

Alpine Linux. It's pretty lightweight (uses ~250MiB on idle with sway), is easy to install and is super stable. My only criticism is that there is quite a lot of software not available in the repos, but this is mainly fixed by flatpaks.

Fedora because it's stable and effective.

A few for different use cases. NixOS on my wife's 14 year old laptop because it proved to handle the hardware the best, and she struggles with change so if that system dies the NixOS configuration can be redeployed identical to how she had it with no additional effort.

Debian on my old IOmega NAS.

OpenSUSE on my personal PC and Work computer, since it supports my proprietary CAD software, and nVidia releases a driver specifically for SUSE/OpenSUSE use.

Opensuse TW. It is rolling release and rock solid. Also amazing btrfs implementation.

Fedora KDE.

I was happily using Windows 10 until a few months ago, but needed to build a new PC. I got a glimpse of Windows 11 on a friend's laptop and didn't like it. So I asked my Linux-friend which distribution he would recommend to someone who wants to try Linux, but doesn't want to stray too far away from the windows look and feel.

I started with Slackware in the late nineties. Have been through Redhat, Suse, Ubuntu, Arch, Tumbleweed. These days I just can't be bothered, I just want to game and code and I prefer an out of the box well configured Ubuntu derivative, they also upgrade easily and have lots of application compatibility - mostly everyone provides .deb packages. I could also choose Fedora for these reasons.

So now on Pop!_OS 24.04. Pop is has a stable/lts base but still gets Mesa/Nvidia/Kernel updates on a regular basis. I use it mainly for gaming and Rust dev, writing some COSMIC applets as well.

COSMIC Alpha does still have problems with some games but not the games I play.

Nix because I have a bad memory and hate doing things more than once

Dietpi. Because I'm forced to.