
Ask HN: What Linux distro do you - sdegutis
Title was supposed to be &quot;Ask HN: What Linux distro do you &lt;3, and why do you prefer it over alternatives?&quot; but HN is paranoid about HTML I guess? Anyway, can&#x27;t even edit it to replace &quot;&lt;3&quot; with &quot;love&quot;, sorry about that.<p>There&#x27;s a huge amount of variety, but I imagine there&#x27;s only a handful of really popular distros. And I&#x27;m having a hard time finding a listing of the pros&#x2F;cons of each, relative to each other, from the horse&#x27;s mouth. So, without trying to call you a horse, I&#x27;m hoping you can tell me from your personal experience why you prefer the distro you use vs. others you&#x27;ve rejected. Thanks!
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mbrock
I love NixOS because it lets me configure my whole computer with a
configuration file that's a functional program and because it ensures the
atomicity of configuration changes and software upgrades.

[http://nixos.org/nixos/about.html](http://nixos.org/nixos/about.html)

In my view, it really is a fundamental improvement and represents the state-
of-the-art in OS distribution. Nix, the package manager, also works on other
distributions and Mac, and operates in a totally self-contained way. It also
lets non-root users install packages for themselves.

NixOS doesn't have a graphical installer or anything like that though, so at
the moment it's for enthusiasts. But there are tons of packages and they are
easy to make and change. And the community is friendly and smart.

I've been using it since spring 2015 with few problems, and I absolutely love
it... it's basically made me like computers again. I run it on my Dell laptop
and on an Amazon VPS, sharing parts of the configuration via Git so that all
the vhosts are available on localhost too.

I also sync the main configuration file with my brother/cofounder so our
laptops work the same aside from our own user configs. For example, he might
create a new service that depends on some packages, changes some configs,
opens a port, adds a new Unix user, etc etc, and when I pull his changes from
git and run nixos-rebuild, all of those changes are applied to my computer
seamlessly and atomically.

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quinndiggity
Arch, finally a distro that is stable BECAUSE it's cutting edge.

You're running just about the latest of everything, and you pick and choose
everything you want to run. It becomes easy to try every window manager and
desktop environment, because they are all there (and up to date!).

~~~
stepvhen
Arch is fantastic, but you need to know a bit of what you're doing. It isn't
as user friendly as Ubuntu or others, but it does allow you the most freedom
via not getting in your way. Also, pacman/yaourt are the best package managers
I have used.

~~~
oso96_2000
pacman is the reason I've been using arch for ~6 years for personal use.

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ColinWright
It depends on what you want, and why you're asking.

Personally, I use Ubuntu 14.04 LTS because it worked straight away, gives me
nearly everything I want, and just gets out of the way and lets me work.

Ask yourself why you care? How will it improve your life? How will it help you
get more done?

How much time you'll waste tinkering?

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qwertyuiop924
Arch. Of course arch. Just like everybody else. Or rather, not like everybody
else. That's the whole point of arch. The wiki is a godsend, the AUR is
excellent, the system is simple, and all the distro-specific tooling is
incredibly well designed, to the point that I can forgive adopting systemd as
a default. Besides, you can always change it.

I also run i3 as my desktop interface, and hats off to those guys, it is
amazing. You should check it out, if you're into tile-based window managers,
and good design, without the horror of configuring dwm.

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lukebaker
I use Ubuntu on my laptop. I've found that I typically don't need the latest
and greatest versions of various software, and have been happy with 12.04 LTS.
I suspect that my next version will be 16.04 LTS. I value the Long Term
Support releases because I can stick with the same system for several years
and still get security updates. At this point in my life / career, I'm not
nearly as interested in with tinkering and tweaking things and would rather
have something that generally works and is stable.

I've toyed with the idea of going with CentOS on a desktop, but I think that
release cycle may be a little too slow. Ubuntu's LTS every two years gives me
the opportunity to upgrade sooner if there's a compelling reason (e.g., Docker
support).

I do web development at a consultancy (lots of different projects in a variety
of languages / environments) and have in the past been able to do a pretty
decent job isolating different client applications while running them locally.
However, these days I'm moving more to Vagrant for some of the heavier
applications and likely to Docker for some of the lighter ones.

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_RPM
It doesn't matter what distro you use. You don't want to be friends people
that judge you based on your distro of choice. At the end of the day, just
pick the one that is easiest to set up on your hardware. For me that is
Ubuntu.

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threesixandnine
I settled on Debian after years of switching between Gentoo and Slackware.
Debian suits my needs best. Easy to update and fast on my old machinery.

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kelt
Debian, run them on VPS for small websites, testing. Backups.

I love the package tool, apt-get and apt-cache search to find what I need.

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stepvhen
I went Ubuntu -> Crunchbang (r.i.p.) -> Arch, with a short stint trying out
Gentoo. Arch is my favorite, but that is largely because I am a control freak
when it comes to my system.

Ubuntu is nice if you have never used Linux. There is a wealth of resources
out there that assume you are using Ubuntu for your distro, it offers a lot of
default options that let you do things without worrying about them (like
network configurations or mounting of file systems), and it is incredibly
stable. However, changing or removing certain aspects can prove difficult. If
you start to deviate from the things they give you, or the things available in
the Ubuntu app marketplace (or whatever it is now), then you will probably
experience some friction. Or, if you are a developer and want to run with the
latest updates for that compiler that made it finally not terrible, you are
going to be waiting a while until it moves into the ubuntu-stable repository
(and mixing experimental/testing/stable is risky, if you aren't sure what
you're doing).

Arch is the other side of that coin. If you want something that just got
released, Arch will probably have it, either in the standard repos, or the
AUR. And pacman/yaourt are some of the best package managers I have used. And
making changes to your system is easy, as there is very little that gets in
your way (systemd is perhaps the only thing to worry about). And for any
changes you do want to make, the Arch Wiki is an absolutely fantastic resource
(this is true in general, for most distros). All this comes with a price, as
you have to manually do a lot of stuff. You have to install your window
manager or desktop environment; you have to manage or set up your network
connections (and there are a few programs to choose from); you have to write
your own xinitrc (if you want), set up your session manage, everything. A base
Arch install gives you the coreutils, and little else. For some people, who
want to control everything their computer does for one reason or another, this
is perfect. For others, this is maddening (I assume).

Most distros exist somewhere on that spectrum of usability and control, with
Ubuntu on one end and Arch (and to a further extent, Gentoo) on the other. I
have spent hours upon hours learning about my system and what I can do with/to
it using Arch. It is fun for me, but I don't think that is for everybody. Its
up to you to decide what you want.

(Protip: install to a virtual machine or a throwaway machine before making the
full switch. Even with Ubuntu its much easier to break your system than
Windows or OS X)

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eager_noob
Fedora currently, but planning to switch to Arch soon because Fedora comes
with a lot of stuff that i simply don't need/want such as the constantly
running tools for automatic bug reporting.

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ywecur
Ubuntu, because it's the only one that really works out of the box.

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izolate
Ubuntu because I'm not ready for Arch yet.

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kup0
A flavor of Ubuntu (usually Lu or Xu) or Manjaro.

For a portable OS (and may switch to it as main linux OS) I really like
Porteus.

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akulbe
Ubuntu - for getting things done. Arch - to satisfy the desire for bleeding
edge

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SkyRocknRoll
Ubuntu

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miriadis
Elementary OS

