
Ask HN: Advanced Linux users, which distribution do you run? Why? - psxuaw
This is for the technically competent Linux users.<p>Which distribution(s) do you run on your desktops&#x2F;laptops&#x2F;servers?<p>Why did you choose them?<p>What problems do you face with them and what changes would you like them do make?
======
traceroute66
Debian all the way.

Used to use Ubuntu, but then they lost their way and went all sucky (both
Canocial and the software itself).

Used to use CentOS, but then they lost their way, e.g. CentOS 8 was in the
pipeline for an eternity, meaning CentOS 7 packages became increasingly
rapidly obsolete.

Tried Alpine Linux, I _really_ wanted to like it. But it sucks. The team
managing the AL product is a bit stretched. Plus some of the design decisions
make it a bit of a pain (e.g. DASH, musl libc etc.)

Tried OpenSUSE but found it a bit too opinionated for my liking.

So I settled on Debian, and the same on the vast majority of server instances
at work.

Debian is solid and well maintained, and I prefer their erring on the side of
stability rather than bleeding-edge (most of the packages are still reasonably
in-date).

~~~
lcall
Upvoted, because if I have to use linux, Debian is still it (or devuan). I
like to learn things that will be long-term useful and then put those
learnings to use before starting over, and Debian has been best for that in my
many years of Linux usage. So I mostly like their conservatism and that I
don't _have_ to upgrade as often, and that they keep providing security
patches. And so many things just...work stably as expected. Some years ago, on
another very popular distro when I tried using their LSB scripts in some other
tools we provided to the business, it was like even the script author had not
even run them to see if they had the most basic actual functioning--I looked
at the script code and it was like they didn't even try, but still claimed
"LSB support" (a moot point now, I realize). And their packaging system was
relatively inconsistent and felt -- loose and messy at times by comparison.
Those in debian all worked flawlessly, consistently, and predictably as
documented (except for one package hosting tool being slow on large amounts of
data, where I found a workaround--sort the data). The debian packaging
infrastructure, and the debian policy for how things should work together
reliably on the system, is very helpful. It seems there are good reasons that
debian has more derivatives than any other distro (per distrowatch IIRC).

But I moved my laptop to OpenBSD because of the security benefits, and even
greater predictability. A final motivation was when in the first release after
Debian's move to systemd it wouldn't boot (with an obscure message about a net
error?) on some hardware where devuan did just fine, and my firewall wouldn't
auto-start any more and I didn't want to dive in to learn why right then. The
firewall will always auto-start on OpenBSD. :)

~~~
traceroute66
@lcall, I agree, OpenBSD is great (especially the newer releases).

My only real complaint is that the community (openbsd-misc) is a bit cliquey.

As for the famous Theo, well, if you thought Linus was not afraid to state his
opinion .... :)

------
chenxiaolong
I've done a ton of distro hopping over the years and always come back to
Fedora for a few main reasons:

* They ship a ton of mingw-w64 libraries. It's super nice to not have to cross-compile a bunch of dependencies when I'm building something for Windows.

* They ship debuginfo packages for everything. This was one thing I really missed when I used Arch, where I'd have to rebuild packages with "options+=(debug)".

* "dnf shell" exists, which lets you do multiple operations in one transaction that would otherwise cause conflicts if done separately. I'm not aware of any other distro package manager that supports this.

~~~
Grimm665
I've been using Fedora since Fedora Core 15 and never stumbled across dnf
shell. What's an example of using it to avoid conflicts?

~~~
chenxiaolong
One thing I do (for better or worse): if I need to patch a system package for
an extended period of time (like to use a fork), I rebuild the package with a
different name and make it provide the original package. For example, one
package I recently did this with is libarchive. I rebuilt it as libarchive-
patched and in the RPM spec file, I specified:

    
    
        Provides: libarchive-%{version}-%{release}
    

The new package would be able to substitute the old one, but the only way to
install it is with dnf shell. Since other things depend on libarchive, I
couldn't do:

    
    
        dnf remove libarchive
        dnf install ./libarchive-patched-*.rpm
    

Instead, if I do:

    
    
        dnf shell
        remove libarchive
        install ./libarchive-patched-*.rpm
        run
    

then both the remove and install are done in the same transaction and dnf
won't throw any dependency resolution errors.

~~~
Grimm665
This is awesome! Will definitely be using this, thanks!

------
laurentdc
Ubuntu LTS. I chose it because it mostly just works and there's plenty of
documentation and q&a online (StackOverflow)

As for the problems, on the desktop side I wish it was more polished. For some
reason every time there's a wireless printer in the network it tries to
reinstall it (fix: sudo systemctl disable cups-browsed), error reporting is
annoying (fix: sudo systemctl disable apport), can't easily set full RGB out
on HDMI (fix: xrandr --output HDMI-1 --set "Broadcast RGB" "Full"), volume
change is laggy on some soundcards (fix: enable-deferred-volume = no) and
small quirks like this.

~~~
dugmartin
The only quirk I haven’t been able to fix running Ubuntu as my main work OS is
the scroll wheel on my MS mouse jumps pages instead of smoothly scrolling.
I’ve tried many recommended fixes to no avail over the last two years (on my
phone away from my work laptop right now so I can’t check my notes on what
I’ve done otherwise I’d post them here)

------
vladvasiliu
I've been using linux as a daily driver for almost twenty years. Mostly Arch.
At the time it used to have a nice installer.

Nowadays I run mainly Ubuntu LTS in production for my clients, with some AWS
Linux sprinkled in. The reason is that it's fairly well-known so it's easy to
find up-to-date ppas for most software as well as people who know how to use
it. It's all managed by SaltStack.

On my work laptop I run Arch. I like using a minimalist WM (i3) and don't need
all the random helpers running in the background. I figured it's easier to
start from scratch and add just what I need instead of trying to remove
clutter. I also quite like having recent versions of software, so a rolling
distribution is nice. It works perfectly on my HP Probook 430G5 out of the box
(stable bluetooth audio, sleep, hibernation, wifi, webcam. Only the
fingerprint reader is unsupported).

I've recently tried Ubuntu 20.04 on a desktop. I kinda liked it. As I prefer
i3 to gnome, I installed the Regolith packages and it's quite nice. Snaps are
a pain though, launching something like Remmina (RDP client) takes forever
while it's instant on the aforementioned laptop. However, I'm looking to move
this computer to Arch. Mostly so that I don't have to deal with two different
systems.

------
billman
Ubunutu LTS. I've been using Linux since the STS days (about 50 3.5 floppy
disks). I used to compile my own kernels, enter clock timings for my video
driver, but now I'm older and just want an OS that works.

Linux still has video driver issues, but once those things are worked out,
it's pretty solid. It's still possible to screw up your bios settings, so be
careful there.

For open source development projects, it has great/the best support.

UI is still bad, but I use IDEs and command line. Those things provide some
consistency across all the failed window systems.

------
banachtarski
Lifelong linux user.

For desktop I’ve settled on Arch and it’s been smooth sailing for over ten
years. The package management is vastly superior to ubuntu/debian and most
mainstream distros. As a software developer, I often need recent mainline
releases of major compinents like gcc/clang and other such libraries. Other
distros force me to manage these manually and tend to have bad packaging
conventions.

For server, I tend to do whatever is the “default” of the cloud provider I am
working with as they tend to be tested the most and get security patches the
quickest.

~~~
giomasce
I use Debian and feel satisfied about package management. What should I miss
from Arch?

~~~
rjeli
As a big debian fan who runs it on everything... apt works great, yeah, but
packaging itself is a nightmare. Try to source patch one of your packages and
rebuild it, and maybe distribute it internally. It’s a mess. Haven’t used Arch
but e.g. APKBUILDS are heaven in comparison.

~~~
giomasce
What is a mess? The build scripts? More often then not, patching a source
package amounts to add the patch in debian/patches and write its name in
debian/patches/series.

I don't find it terribly difficult, but maybe I am biased here, because I am a
Debian Developer, so I work on Debian packages pretty often and know it well
enough. It's true that packages can be very heterogeneous for many reasons.

~~~
rjeli
Yeah, the heterogeneity. Having to figure out whether to use sbuild, pbuilder,
cowbuilder, or that one that does it in a fakeroot, the debian wiki pages on
these tools are quite dense and it’s hard to tell which info is 15 years out
of date. I definitely cannot remember how to incant dh_make correctly given I
only use it every 6 months. E.g., last time I wanted to patch a package debian
already had quite a few patches, and I couldn’t figure out how to get the
source into the debian patched state, change the code and rebuild it smoothly
to test. I acknowledge that the tooling is good enough that if I used it
regularly, I probably would have no problem with doing all of this in 2
minutes, but it’s nowhere near as nice as
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Patching_packages](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Patching_packages).

That said, again I love debian, its stability and high quality, and thanks to
you and the volunteers who make it that way :)

~~~
giomasce
Yeah, I can see that. Fortunately on many axes the situation is getting better
and better, as data in
[https://trends.debian.net/](https://trends.debian.net/) show. But every
single developer is still free to choose whatever tools they like, so there
will be always packages that do it differently.

On the other hand, there are reasons for scepticism towards proposals of
forcing a uniform style. If such policies were accepted, they would have
accepted years ago, so we would now be stuck with packages on SVN, much cruder
tooling, etc. Back then SVN was really the future. What will be the future in
ten years? We don't know, and that's the reason why we want to be sure that
we'll be still free to move to it when it will arrive.

(and, BTW, of course you can change your SVN policy, but then you have to
update all at once 30k+ source packages and the habits of 1k+ developers, not
really easy)

Not to be meant as a rant, just an explanation for the current situation.

> That said, again I love debian, its stability and high quality, and thanks
> to you and the volunteers who make it that way :)

Thanks to you for your support!

------
cs702
Consider submitting as a poll at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll](https://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll)
\-- HN will keep track of votes for each choice.

\--

 _> Which distribution(s) do you run on your desktops/laptops/servers?_

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS on desktops, laptops, and servers. We will probably switch to
20.04 LTS later this year or early next year, once it has been tested in the
wild for a bit longer.

 _> Why did you choose them?_

Ubuntu works, it has the most support from third parties (e.g., instructions
for setting up CUDA devices), and it has the largest community of users online
(every Linux user has used it at some point). Why go off the reservation?

 _> What problems do you face with them and what changes would you like them
do make?_

None, though I'm a bit concerned about potential issues with the transition to
snaps.

------
psxuaw
I run Debian Linux on dozens of (different roles) VMs and physical servers,
all managed by Ansible.

On my desktops/laptops, I run Debian Stable, but I feel it is too old for
development/common desktop usage, and I waste lots of time manually installing
Python/Go/Rust tools.

I am a competent Arch Linux user too, having used for a decade. It has all the
tools I need on the latest version, but lately I just shy away from it because
it moves too fast and the constant feeling of a "moving target" that can break
anytime. Interestingly, in a decade of usage, I only have a couple of big
problems that were fixed in less than half an hour, so that fear might be
because I'm getting old and a bit lazy...

~~~
hikhvar
I switched to Manjaro after becoming a father. It's based on Arch Linux. The
installation is as fast and guided as an Ubuntu installation. But you get
Pacman and AUR. Manjaro is still a rolling release, but they have a bit of
delay. They let test ArchLinux users first. So over all it's the most stable,
easy to use and uptodate Distribution I ever had.

------
jonaswouters
These days I prefer NixOS, but I use ubuntu most of the time for VMs.

NixOS requires a high initial investment, but is so reliable and convenient
afterwards. Installing multiple versions of software for development is
convenient without having to use third party tools.

Sure it has downsides especially if you use weird or old software that is not
available in the repository, but nothing an ubuntu vm or docker cannot solve.

Over the past 20 years: Suse -> LFS -> Gentoo -> Arch -> NixOS As you can see,
I like to make it difficult for myself, but you learn the most this way.

------
lucasvr_br
I run GoboLinux on all machines I own. The distro provides an infrastructure
for experimenting with different ideas at the filesystem and package
management layers, which are activities aligned with my personal interests.
I've been a core developer since its early days for a reason :)

The problems are associated with the fact it's a niche, research-oriented
distro: due to the lack of man-power, one often needs to write compilation
recipes for several programs (and potentially having to patch them) before
being able to build and run them. Many things that are taken for granted when
you run a major distro are not there.

Despite the limitations, I always have a hell of a good time developing and
using the distro; it's been 18 years so far. We also have a small community of
people who identify themselves with the distro's proposals and who are
comfortable enough to live with its limitations. Many of them became active
recipe contributors over the years.

------
chownchown
Workstation: OpenSUSE Tumbleweed

\- Rolling release with QA. If a package has issues the update will get
delayed. It doesn't just update to the last commit blindly.

\- Btrfs root partition with automated snapshots. Ext4 and XFS for my home
folder. GRUB integration for snapshots so you can reboot to a read-only
snapshot and rollback. It's all installed and configured automatically if you
want.

\---
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Snapper](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Snapper)

\- Zypper package manager

\---
[https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Zypper_usage](https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Zypper_usage)

\- Automated QA (even for graphical applications)

\--- [https://openqa.opensuse.org/](https://openqa.opensuse.org/)

\- Free build service

\--- [https://build.opensuse.org/](https://build.opensuse.org/)

If you want to install TW I don't recommend the net installer, breaks often
and mirrors are slow. For updates switch to a TTY (or use GNU Screen) and run
zypper dup, do not update packages in any other way. There's YaST but I don't
like using it except for a few tools like Software Management to study package
relationships.

>What problems do you face with them and what changes would you like them do
make?

It could be my lack of knowledge of the package manager but sometimes I can't
remove some packages without removing a lot of related ones (it's not a
pattern), or they get reinstalled even with zypper lock. Other than that, best
distro I ever used.

Server: I want to move away from Ubuntu (fuck snap btw) but I still haven't
decided to what distro. I might just use a container based OS.

------
willghatch
I run NixOS. I recently wrote a blog post about my opinions of the pros/cons:
[https://willghatch.net/blog/2020/06/27/nixos-the-good-the-
ba...](https://willghatch.net/blog/2020/06/27/nixos-the-good-the-bad-and-the-
ugly/)

For several years previously I ran Arch Linux on laptops, Debian on servers,
and a mix of the two on various desktops. I'm generally much happier with
NixOS. NixOS-style package management is the future, it's clearly better than
all its competitors (I put Guix together with Nix as NixOS-style here). NixOS-
style system configuration is also much nicer than most OSes, though the
quality of configuration design for different components varies a lot, and I
think there could be big improvements to the configuration language and APIs
in future OSes that try to improve on the model (largely due to NixOS being
the first system of its kind). I'm happy that Guix is also exploring this
space and making some different decisions, and it's the only other OS that I
would seriously consider right now. All in all, I'm very pleased with NixOS.

~~~
domenkozar
I think most of your critique can be addressed with documentation, I've
started the work at [https://nix.dev/](https://nix.dev/)

------
solidninja
Fedora - it's modern but stable. I think they have very decent QA but also
quite up-to-date kernels, which is important when running on newer hardware. I
don't care much for the Gnome default desktop though - use sway and QT-based
apps mostly.

I tried Arch and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and found that things broke quite
frequently (~every week), which I couldn't justify for my work setup. Most of
the time copr
[https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/](https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/) has
any out-of-tree builds I need. I was a Gentoo user for many years (2006~2012)
but again the maintenance burden was quite high, and I could never quite
eliminate GNUTLS from my system XD.

For server-side stuff, either I customize Alpine (containers, small devices)
or roll with whatever is the default.

------
branon
Void Linux, because it's stable. I've never had an update break my system,
unlike other rolling-release distributions.

The tooling is great: runit, xbps, and xtools are refreshingly simple and
sane.

I also like the fact that Void takes the BSD route more often than other Linux
distros. LibreSSL is cool.

I don't face any specific problems. Sometimes the changes that experimental
software tends to undergo can be challenging to keep up with, but the Void
team manages to develop their toolchain without compromising stability. As a
result, when behavior changes slightly, I generally find it easy to adapt.

~~~
flatlanderwoman
Biggest problem I had with Void, was that the musl libc support wasn't as good
as Alpine.

This is because Void gives you the choice between glibc and musl. Therefore
the team spreads themselves thin trying to support both. So some packages for
Void musl are unavailable.

------
nh2
I'm a programmer, have done server sysadmin since I was 12, Linux on the
desktop since 16, startup since 25. I'm now 29. Edit: Because other replies in
the thread complain that "technically competent" is not well defined, I guess
it makes sense to add some detail: I've spent >10k hours on open-source
contributions, and believe I can bend most userspace software to my will.

I run NixOS because of its high reliability, stability (upgrades on Ubuntu
servers these days go wrong more often than years ago, and NixOS allows you to
roll back any change), low maintenance (fully declarative config for all
machines, little state to manage), and extreme hackability / ease of
contribution (you can override and patch anything declaratively to fix things
quickly, and upstreaming is very easy to do via a simple Github PR, which
leads to broken things being resolved quickly by its users).

I use it on the startup's servers (for 4 years) and my laptop (for 1 year),
and the desktop will join as soon as I have time.

By now I think NixOS is a technically fundamentally better way to build an OS,
and as an open-source project it has a great trajectory and community. Also,
to my surprise it was the first distro where the Nvidia proprietary driver
worked out of the box, and stayed working.

Before this I've used Windows 95 to 7, Suse 9.3, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Arch, Ubuntu
again.

What changes would I like NixOS to make? Even more automatic QA, re-running
all the GUI intregration tests of e.g. Firefox when any dependency changes.
I've written about it on [https://discourse.nixos.org/t/steps-towards-even-
more-pr-aut...](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/steps-towards-even-more-pr-
automation/5634).

------
blaser-waffle
Fedora on my primary desktop. I've got Linux Mint on an old laptop. Personal
servers are a mix of CentOS and FreeBSD 11, mostly because I wanted to mess
around with BSD.

> Why did you choose them?

I'm a certified Red Hat guy, so Fedora and CentOS were easy picks. Fedora also
has good support for Steam/Linux gaming, and it has packages that are fresh.
Occasionally too fresh, and I've definitely had an update break stuff

FreeBSD, as mentioned above, was mostly on a lark, or chance to learn the
system. Stable, solid back-end system tho.

Linux Mint was mostly because it was laptop and I wanted the drivers to work.

> What problems do you face with them and what changes would you like them do
> make?

Honestly Fedora is fine as a daily driver these days. Steam works well, and
most games work fine with Proton; the handful that don't aren't really the
fault of the OS.

Mint has some issues with security and their repos, which makes me nervous,
but from a technical standpoint it's fine.

------
tapoxi
Fedora. Regular releases and they're typically the first to adopt new
technologies. I used to run Ubuntu but they have a terrible case of rolling
their own tech that they put under a CLA or leave significant parts
proprietary, like Snap/Mir/Unity.

I started with Debian back in ~2002, which I still love but I prefer Fedora's
release cycle.

------
pknopf
I've hopped many distros and DEs, but I've ultimately landed on Ubuntu. At a
certain point, you just want things to work, on a platform that is widely
supported by other tools.

However, I did write a tool that allows me to treat my Ubuntu install like a
Docker image.

Darch: [https://github.com/godarch/darch](https://github.com/godarch/darch)

My personal recipes: [https://github.com/pauldotknopf/darch-
recipes](https://github.com/pauldotknopf/darch-recipes)

------
sidcypher
Fully switched to Linux 16 years ago as a schoolkid, now I have a Linux admin
job.

NixOS is my current most favorite, I'm using it for the last 4 years on my
main box at home and my work laptop. Planning to use NixOps for my web
project, too.

Gentoo was my first love, Arch was my second choice for low-power machines.
Nowadays I can fully replace them with NixOS, because once you grok the Nix
language and ecosystem, you can pick any balance between "customize and
compile everything" and "fetch prebuilt and lightweight".

Managing your entire OS with a Single Source of Truth becomes a viable and
attractive option, and then functional programming can be used to DevOp like
never before.

The only problem I see with the Nix approach is the high barrier of entry. You
need to become proficient with a large amount of complex concepts, and the go-
to sources often talk to you with large inferential distances.

The first things I would contribute, when I get a chance, are an interactive
topology browser and a smart generator of skeleton expressions for code and
binary sources, with a "nix init" similar to "stack init".

------
mcpherrinm
In the last decade, I've used Fedora or Ubuntu. Currently Fedora, as my
employers for the last 7 years have used Fedora or Centos based systems.

Fedora tends to have pretty up-to-date software (the kernel, especially), but
is also pretty stable for me -- I primarily use my computer for development,
so they can't get in the way of me working.

In the decade before that, I experimented with distros a lot more. Slackware,
Gentoo, Arch, LFS, Debian and variants. I learned a lot about Linux desktop
systems doing that: Getting X, wifi, modems, printers working. Fixing things
when they broke. But back then, I largely wasn't doing software development --
more sysadmin stuff. I don't do that anymore. I installed Fedora on my current
system with a lovely polished installer, and it's almost entirely worked out
of the box for me.

------
linsomniac
I'm a sysadmin, been running Linux for 25 years.

These days I almost exclusively use Ubuntu, largely because the free release
and the LTS release are exactly the same thing, and are released on a
predictable schedule. I used to do mostly CentOS, and liked it, but having to
have it at arms length from RedHat did introduce some problems and
uncertainty. Debian (and I know some argue this, but I don't agree) doesn't
have an LTS release.

I run it on my desktop, laptop, and servers. Nice having the same OS on them
all. I can build packages and test things on my laptop, with an eye towards
production. Our developers all use Windows.

On the horizon: NixOS. Though I haven't really looked at it seriously.

~~~
vidanay
25 years....the days of Yggdrasil, Slack, and Debian

~~~
linsomniac
Slackware on 3.5" floppies was my first install.

~~~
abhiyerra
Remember installing Slackware. Installed their Slackware on DOS partition when
I was in 8th grade. Had no idea what I was doing... Moved to FreeBSD in 9th
grade because it was a more cohesive operating system.

------
sheepdestroyer
Centos at work, Fedora at home. Like it or not, RedHat devs are core
contributors of many of the most critical parts of the linux ecosystem. The
desktop integration of those different parts in Fedora is both bleeding edge
and often without a hitch.

------
greendude29
"Technically competent" is a wide spectrum, you'd like to have to narrow that
down a little.

I use Manjaro.

Started my Linux journey on Knoppix (for coolness), then Ubuntu (for
easy/popularity), then Fedora (for serious workstation environment), now
Manjaro (for a great UX and not putting up with Canonical's strong flavors on
everything)

~~~
dukoid
Same here. Was using Ubuntu before, but prefer continous updates. Never have
looked back...

------
darthelgar
25 years on Linux, tried perhaps a hundred distros plus all of the classic
BSDs. Also developed for a couple high profile ones.

I use Ubuntu LTS for my gaming box, with as few tweaks as possible. I want my
operating systems like I want my woman: stable and without issues.

------
jbj
Debian on a simple laptop.

ubuntu Mate/Manjaro on laptop with a graphics card (what I would put on a
desktop if I had one)

Debian/ubuntu server if in need of server.

Debian has quick and easy keyboard shortcuts to easily move/resize windows
from desktop to desktop. This is something I am used to do while multitasking.

Mate/Manjaro has integrated NVIDIA support, and more software sources.

If I set up a server, I just like to save time by already knowing commands and
programs.

------
captn3m0
Arch for Desktop and a minimal distribution(like BottleRocket/CoreOS) for
Kubernetes on servers. Ubuntu/Debian if I want a general purpose server.

I run Arch for my homeserver as well, but that’s mainly because I run Steam on
it (alongside Docker for services)

Arch because it’s a rolling distribution, and because it tried to stick as
close to the upstream.

Problems: Reboots in Kernel upgrades. I tried Canonical LivePatch on an Ubuntu
server, but it rarely patches without reboots. Kernel upgrades end up with too
many broken parts - things like docker for eg. I guess I could switch to LTS
kernel, but Arch has spoiled me.

Better security model for desktop applications - neither of Snap or Flatpak
comes close. I would be happy if this only solved for limited usecases, even.
My primary concern is around apps I install from AUR, and dependencies in my
code. And browser extensions. Sigh.

Give me LittleSnitch on my desktop.

~~~
simit
If you haven't come across it yet - here's OpenSnitch:
[https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch](https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch)

~~~
captn3m0
I've tried it and its nowhere near close. I used to use WinPatrol a decade ago
on Windows, and that was a thousand times better.

------
blackrock
I bought a Lenovo T4xx series laptop. I read most Lenovo laptops were Linux
friendly, as I didn’t want to waste too much time on it at home. You can
easily fall into a time sink trying to get Linux working on a laptop. And I
don’t have much time or patience to mess around with such frivolous pursuits
anymore.

I split the hard drive to dual boot, in case I needed access to Windows. And
installed Ubuntu on it. The latest release uses Gnome by default, so this was
a much better window manager than their previous Unity one.

So far, so good. It works mostly well. The fingerprint reader does not work.
This is actually quite handy, especially when coming out of a reboot, or
lockout. It works nicely on Windows, but doesn’t work on Linux.

However, one great feature difference between Ubuntu Linux vs. Windows, is the
ability to resume. On Ubuntu Linux, I can fold down the laptop lid, and not
touch the computer for weeks, and when I reopen the lid, it resumes
immediately at where I left off. Whereas, with Windows, it seems to force a
reset, and I lose all my previous works, open windows, etc. So, this is a
definite big win for Ubuntu Linux here.

Most other things works ok on Linux. Not great, but it’s acceptable. Firefox
works ok, but I found a few glitches, where I had to revert to using Chrome on
Windows. Although I’m sure I could’ve downloaded Chrome for Linux to use it.

I found reprogramming Linux to automate some tasks, to be much easier on
Linux, as opposed to Windows. Mostly because Bash is easily scripted, and all
the Bash and Gnu tools, just makes Linux easier to automate. And especially
aliases, which can auto set a bunch of commonly used parameters.

Overall, it’s more fun to use Linux on this laptop, than Windows.

Some things about the Gnome window manager does annoy me however. Like, when I
try to save a file, or open a file, then the file manager window, takes the
entire screen, instead of just being a smaller modal dialog box. But, this
hasn’t irritated me enough yet, to find a possible fix for it.

~~~
simonblack
_I bought a Lenovo T4xx series laptop._

Yeah. Me too. A T410 back in 2010. It's its 10th birthday in about a week's
time. It's so good that I can't find a suitable replacement that's more up to
date and more convenient. The nearest alternative I've found is a Lenovo P53.

------
henriquez
How do you define “technically competent?” I run Ubuntu on my servers and
laptops but recently switched back to Windows on my desktop because I don’t
like the direction Canonical is going with snapd in 20.04.

Problems? On two laptops (both Razer blades of different generations) the
webcams were glitchy. Dell XPS 15 was fine. Most of the “problems” are known
issues with Gnome that apply to any machine and could be addressed with a
tiling window manager if I really cared. These were work laptops for my team.
Really no major showstopper issues except for one failed release upgrade that
required a wipe and reformat of the whole machine.

I might try Arch, as the rolling distro thing seems interesting, and not being
forced into software updates is kind of important.

~~~
pknopf
Going from Ubuntu to Windows because of snapd is a big jump, there has to be
something else there. I mean, I think Mint announced they are dropping it. You
could go to Debian. But to Windows?

~~~
jaxn
WSL is pretty nice. It's not a bad transition. I tried it, but moved back to
Pop OS.

~~~
henriquez
Right I’m using WSL2 for a bit while I decide my next move. Probably arch /
manjaro. In the meantime I’m enjoying Adobe Suite and better gaming. Dat

------
ttctciyf
Laptop: a well worn-in kubuntu 16.04 - browsing and general use

Desktop is a 3-way boot:

o stable KDE Neon for games (via steam) and media

o separate up-to-date KDE Neon for development and fun,

o separate Slackware 14.2/current for low-latency audio tinkering and avoiding
systemd in general.

My main gripe with all of these is updates changing things that already work,
often for the worse (are you listening, Firefox?!)

But it's still better (for my software requirements and use cases) than either
of the two main commercial alternatives, one of which is accelerating ever
harder down the road user hostile forced updates and telemetry, while the
other has just signaled its intent to obsolete the entire hardware platform of
its current user base.

------
smabie
I use Arch Linux, and have for over 10 years. I don't like systemd, but the
documentation is really good and the AUR is pretty amazing. I've never really
had any problems with it, and the performance is really good.

I've thought about switching to Void Linux (no systems), but I'm lazy and
don't like trying new things as much as I used to when I was younger.

I chose Arch Linux a long time ago because I liked it had i686 binaries
instead of i486 like Debian. I had a 32-bit CPU back then. Also it doesn't
come with any crap, so that's nice.

I would like Arch to remove systemd.

~~~
RealStickman_
Have you tried Artix? They offer OpenRC, runit or S6.

~~~
smabie
No I haven't, have you? I've thought about it, but it doesn't seem especially
popular.

~~~
flatlanderwoman
I use it and it works quite fine! Just a few differences you need to learn,
all of which are noted on their concise wiki. It's best to think of Arch as
the fallback distro, therefore all other information is obtained from the Arch
wiki as normal.

------
powersnail
Not advanced, but works solely on Linux.

I use openSUSE Tumbleweed.

1\. Biggest benefit: snapper rollback is so convenient.

2\. Yast.

I hate doing sysadmin stuff, so I tried my best to avoid it. As a result, when
something came up that forces me to do it, I could never remember where is the
config file or what key was to be changed, or what command to run afterwards,
since the last time I mess with my system was months ago.

Yast solved that problem for me. Don't have to remember anything, just
mindlessly use the GUI.

The drawback would be that a few software don't have an openSUSE package. I'll
have to compile it, or not use it.

------
digitalsushi
I author the half dozen base linux AMI images that our middleware and end
customers use, so we have amazon linux, amazon linux 2, ubuntu 1604, ubuntu
1804, centos/rhel/oracle 7, and some alpine stuff for container spaces.
(author, ok, all I mean is I write a manifest that adds some extra crud into a
cis level 1 pre-hardened image the industry sells us)

Desktop, I'm always running a mac. It's pretty, and I can run all my dev stuff
from here - terraform, packer, vagrant are my daily drivers. It helps me keep
all my runtime code decoupled from the pipeline so that the other devs are
able to stay running in whatever they use for local work. It's always too easy
to tack weld pipeline constructs in that break the local build model and my
mac gives me slightly better results by keeping me on my toes.

Servers, which are always build servers, it's always either Ubuntu LTS, 18.04
right now, or Red Hat 7. They say we're not supposed to name our livestock,
but our build servers are Bessie and Clarabelle, 4 years old and banging
products out left and right. Having an OS that isn't distracted by its own
bling has been a source of confidence to us - the more boring, the better.

I'm kidding, Bessie and Clarabelle are only for our on-prem builds. Everything
happening in the cloud exists for about 90 seconds longer than the build
process, and then evaporates. And as you might guess, those are nearly always
100% successful builds and the onprem stuff has its own dedicated triage team
to try and salvage bad builds (because it's cheaper than starting a new one,
sigh)

------
immnn
On desktop/laptop my distro to go with is Fedora.

Why: It’s one of the most upstream distros you can get. Following you get
latest Kernel, frequent updates with recent packages. It also comes with
proprietary software, so you don’t need to mess around with Intel Microcode,
NVIDIA drivers etc. It just works- out of the box.

Also interesting why I don’t use... Debian: Outdated packages. Not suitable as
daily driver on a workstation. Different branches already messed up my system,
so I lost trust.

Ubuntu: I lost trust in Canonical. They used to be Microsoft on open source.
Instead of working upstream, they made their own software pieces for their
very own goods- and might have ditched it already.

Arch: I used to love Arch. Really, this is my favorite. However, I’m too old
or just too tired of starting a Linux “from scratch”. All the pre-condigured
derivates are nice, but they waste the idea behind Arch. So, use vanilla Arch
or leave it.

Suse: To be honest, I never tried it for too long. Just remember times where
you had to buy a 90DM package containing 6 CDs and a manual.

On servers: Debian. Arguments already mentioned by others.

------
bsg75
Job is CentOS based, so workstation is Fedora: Similar system structure with
the convenience of current versions of desktop software. Fedora 32 is my
current "work distro", with production hosts on CentOS 7 or 8. CentOS Stream
is interesting, but the rate of package updates still seems slow compared to
other rolling releases.

Did a lot of distro hopping out of curiosity this year, and while I see where
the popularity of Arch comes from - especially the docs, but I seem to be
prone to breaking it, usually around a package update. That is likely because
it is being used as an experimental system, with more config changes than a
work environment. Manjaro made that less of a trap for me, and it's DEs are
very nicely configured, but I have killed it a time or two as well.

Have a Void VM (glibc) running and that has been really interesting - still on
the first image I created with Xfce - and have not managed to get it into a
non-bootable state. So far xbps has been very nice to work with, and there
seem to bee fewer footguns than with Arch (given my experimental patterns).
I'm hoping this distro finds more usage, eventually resulting in community
maintained doc quality that would approach Arch.

------
dusted
I started out with Debian about 16 years ago. It was relatively easy to
install, and it was cool that you could download a minimal image, and then
only pull from the itnernet, the packages that you needed during the
installation. I used Debian/stable for a long time, but got tired of packages
often being old. I switched to Debian/testing and ran that, and it was better.

I switched to Arch and ran for about 4 years. It is such a well documented
distribution, and it does not try so much to force everything into being
streamlines, it instead respects each upstream package, and documents how to
configure it. Installing arm is a lot easier that you'd think, and you get to
learn a good deal about how things work.

Ay my jobs, company policies have usually been Ubuntu, and while I do enjoy
how most things seem to "just work", I find it more opaque as a system.

Now I'm also running Ubuntu at home, because I'm too lazy to keep up with two
different ways of doing the same thing. I've been running ubuntu at home for
about 4 years, and while it's nowhere near as elegant as Arch, it gets the job
done, and I'll just format and reinstall (like a peasant) if it breaks.

------
superasn
After trying out a lot of distros I'm also using Ubuntu.

20.4 for desktop and 18.04 for servers. It has its issues but you're most
likely to find a quick solution for it compared to the rest.

Though during my experiments I did find that clear linux does give you an
amazing performance boost but it falls short on usability and big community
support so decided to pass but its definitely something to check out.

------
t312227
i'm using linux since 1994 on my own desktop since 1996 -> why? netscape 4
which supported linux was available

* desktop(s) - on my own debian / stable (development)

* (my) laptop & all desktop/laptops of "family-members" which i support for free - linux-mint

* servers - mostly debian / stabe and sometimes centos / rhel

why debian? its rock-solid - "stable" -, has a working dist-upgrade-path and
it offers/maintains a vast selection of packages "out of the box" (from
distro-repos)

why linux-mint? it looks nice and some edge-cases are easier to handle
compared to vanilla-debian - especially: 3rd party drivers for certain
hardware etc.

why centos/rhel? server-distro, 3rd party software is sometimes only supported
on those

edit: i started with slackware back in the early 90ties, but also took a look
on suse - which was slackware-based at first - and redhat ... settled with
debian after the "apt" tool was available :)

i'm really happy with the situation of linux today.

sure ... you can always find some details to improve, but compared to the
90ties nearly everything works like a charm ;))

------
aidenn0
All new machines I've provisioned myself recently have been NixOS:

\- Getting out-of-tree software to work takes a a little bit longer than on
other distros, but once you do it, it's very reproducible.

\- The OS itself is centrally configured in a functional way, but individual
user environments default to being stateful. I find this to be a good
practical divide. Easy roll-backs of the whole system and a very small number
of files to reproduce a setup elsewhere

As far as what I've used in the past:

Mandrake -> Gentoo -> Debian -> Gentoo -> NixOS

The second Gentoo represents a long time (about 14 years out of 20). I
switched to Debian the first time because the "stable" Gentoo portage got
broken twice in under 6 months. Debian was a complete no-go for me because of
how conservative it was though. At the time the Linux kernel was getting
hardware support at a very rapid rate, so using a kernel even a few months
out-of-date could mean no support for your hardware.

I've tried Unbunto _many_ times but every time I have run into something that
flat out didn't work, or needed more manual work than _Gentoo_ to get working.
One time (in the past 5 years) I had to construct a _modeline_ to get graphics
working. I knew how to do that, because everyone in 2000 knew how to do that
but in 2016, that just felt primitive.

Other wonderful things that were default in Ubuntu were: when other people
log-in, my Xorg session would restart. Adopting pulse-audio when it was still
alpha-quality software. The whole snap thing people are complaining about now
just seems like par for the course with Ubuntu.

It's possible that Ubuntu is a useful distro for moving things forward (I like
pulse audio these days), but I don't want my workstation to be a beta tester
for it.

------
ceceron
For the server: Debian Stable. Why? \- it's really stable \- great community
support \- is predictable

For the desktop/laptop: Arch (or Arch derivative like Manjaro). Why? \- it's
rolling release, I have always up-to-date software without major updates \-
has great (the best?) community support: AUR, wiki \- it's easy to tinker
with/customize

------
yewenjie
I have been using Arch for a couple of years now. It simply provides so much
freedom to the power-user.

1\. Installing packages via pacman and AUR is much much easier than any other
distro I have come across. Every now and then I see people around me using
Ubuntu or CentOS banging their heads to figure out how to install the correct
version of something very popular like nodeJS.

2\. The Arch wiki is fantastic. Apart from all core things, it has a wealth of
information about so many things that are not directly related to Arch itself.
Reading the wiki is often more productive than reading the first stackexchange
answers.

On the other hand, I have been hearing good things about Guix and NixOS. I
will be happy if someone who has used both extensively points out why I should
be moving to Nix.

------
gentleman11
My last company ran Ubuntu in the cloud, so I ran it locally to be the same.
Since then, I still use it out of habit, but I have one machine running
manjaro since the rolling release aspect is appealing. So far, zero stability
issues, but some software isn’t configured to work with it as well as with
Ubuntu. The community repositories usually have some adapted version you can
download that works but then you have to trust a stranger

I don’t like Lts Ubuntu because gnome was extremely slow and was sped up
significantly in 2019 or so. It wasn’t worth waiting for the next lts version
to get that update, but I suspect I could have updated gnome separately.

Use gnome tweak tools a lot and find some gnome extensions you like.

Also, Ubuntu used to support full disk encryption better than some other
sisters, but I think the arch variants do it better now?

------
throwaway9d0291
Nothing, where I have a choice: Ubuntu or any Debian derivative. I don't like
the way they screw around with upstream code before packaging it (e.g. "sites
available" in the NGINX config) and start/enable systemd services by default
when you install a package.

Personal laptop: Arch Linux. I do a lot of dev and screwing around on my
laptop and want everything on the bleeding edge.

Backup home server: RHEL. It's rock-solid and very well documented. This is a
machine I want to "just work" without having to do any manual maintenance.

Main home server: Arch Linux. I don't _want_ Arch Linux here, I'd have
preferred Red Hat, but I couldn't get PCI passthrough working with libvirt and
vfio-pci on this machine. I believe I needed a more modern kernel than Red Hat
was maintaining at the time.

------
znpy
Xubuntu on the desktop, centos/rhel on servers.

I like my stuff to work.

I am considering dropping Ubuntu for fedora because canonical has this darn
habit of ruining the desktop experience - one of the last straws for me was
this snap thing that breaks a lot of stuff and slows down application startup.
I'm not sure Fedora is better, I might have to go back to good old Debian.

Regarding centos/rhel: I am fairly knowledgeable about the system and
certified too. It's nice to have something that I know won't change next month
following the latest hype.

I stay as far as I can from rolling distros like arch: I've heard too many
horror stories from friends where something trivial like a system update broke
their system and they had to basically reinstall the whole system. I thought
about it and it's not worthy for me.

~~~
timbit42
Look at Mint.

------
Pedrit0
I have been using Linux Lite for about 4 years now on 2 laptops and 1 desktop.
Ihe distro is based upon a net image of ubuntu and runs XFCE. It is lighter
and more polished than Xubuntu. I like the distro because it is a very basic
OS and a no brainer. Anyway I am a huge fan of XFCE.

------
bromonkey
Arch Linux mainly because of the AUR.

------
simonblack
Mint MATE.

Mint because I'm lazy. It uses a Ubuntu LTS kernel. It also has provision for
including practically all of the necessary proprietary codecs and peripheral
drivers without me having to install them all separately.

MATE because it is spartan GUI and doesn't add too much cruft.

------
jonseager
Arch for desktop use, Ubuntu LTS for servers/appliances.

I seem to bounce between Gnome & Plasma on about an 8 monthly basis. I prefer
the look and UX of Gnome, but dig the stability and lightweight nature of
modern Plasma releases.

I like the simplicity of Arch, broken and reinstalled enough times over the
years that it now only takes <30mins. I tend to get the base install done
manually, and almost everything else is configured using Ansible.

Laptop setup is a bit more 'meta'. Running Arch on btfrs with full secure boot
and a tidy plymouth boot splash for flicker free boot. Mostly use the laptop
for VSCode Remote & Terminal work and so far it's been solid for 24months+

------
quintes
Ubuntu, came from centos then moved to xubuntu but now just Ubuntu.

Debian derives mostly as it just works. Run on netbooks, in VMs and as
physical machines. Laptops have given some problems with hibernation/ suspend.
Oh I have a Debian as well. Just works!

------
tkainrad
I have been using Ubuntu as my main OS for 10 years now and have written a
fairly popular blog post about setting it up for development work [1].

However, I believe the distro is much less relevant than people think. I am
using Ubuntu simply because it has the largest community and it is easy to
find documentation/fixes/StackExchange posts/etc. The actual value comes from
the things on top, such as an efficient command-line setup.

[1] [https://tkainrad.dev/posts/setting-up-linux-
workstation/](https://tkainrad.dev/posts/setting-up-linux-workstation/)

------
k4ch0w
Ubuntu for day to day. I used to have a lot more free time and was able to sit
at night and debug all the issues I might have encountered. Nowadays however,
I just don't have the time like I used to and prefer things to just work.

If you have any sort of machine learning pipeline it can be especially
frustrating to work with anything other than Ubuntu. Nvidia drivers :(. Arch
is fine with it but upgrading again is just more time spent that I'd rather be
busy researching.

I love Arch, I love the community and they have the best documentation.
However, for me personally being on a rolling release is too time consuming
:(.

------
hrgiger
Not advanced but get comfortable after years. Even i got strong desktop
machine, i use debian lxde. And fedora lxde work laptop. After spending some
time even in lxde i figured i dont need half of installations, so i have
script removing everyting, setting network,nfstables etc. Now you can count
user space processes with finger,And then after playing with LFS help me the
figure out i only need base packages and simple xserver and even more
lightweight window manager. I am in progress of making those builds via git as
kinda package mgr, but paused project for a year due to new job.

------
Szpadel
I was using for 10+ years Gentoo Linux because I could customize it to my
needs, but recently switched to fedora Linux mostly because I don't have much
time now for maintenance and in my work we use a centos on production
therefore it helps with muscle memory.

With gentoo I used it with systemd IMO it solves enough problems that it's
worth having.

PS I miss how gentoo allowed customizing packages with use flags and using lto
+ graphite for compiling system actually provided measurable better
performance.

PS2 I choice fedora also because is uses bleeding edge software like Wayland
by default.

------
tgflynn
The distros I've had the most professional experience with are Debian and
Fedora.

My main personal distro has been Ubuntu (usually the LTS version) for quite a
few years however I recently installed Debian 10 on my second laptop and have
been quite pleased with it. Ubuntu is doing quite a few things I don't
understand and don't want to take the time to figure out so I tend to have a
higher level of trust in Debian. At least I can do a "df -h" and not have it
polluted with a bunch of loopback mounts for snap.

------
saco
Arch for desktop: way easier than other distros because contrary to popular
belief, older 'stable' versions of software have way more bugs and downsides.
And removing the clutter enables kiss so life is easier overal. Once every 6
months I check the arch page why my update doesn't work and then copy paste
the solution. Other than that it's perfect. Requirement for this distribution:
update at least once a week

Centos for servers: webservers/other services just work, even the older
versions

------
losl
For all my personal stuff, I use Archlinux. I’ve been using it for years, so
for me it is very easy to use. I’ve got no fears of the rolling release model
causing me heartache because I’ve learned so much I can figure out how to fix
whatever. I also find the rolling release model to be really beneficial
because when I want to do something it’s nice to be able to install the newest
version w/o any pain.

I really have no complaints with how Arch does things, they really make their
model work and it works well.

------
bjconlan
I'm surprised I haven't seen a
[https://clearlinux.org/](https://clearlinux.org/) user/recommendation yet. I
found it pretty good. I would probably pick it up as the base of any docker
images (or alpine where appropriate) I would need to create. (Usually
server/java based hosts) As a daily driver but went back to windows/wsl2
(ubuntu 18.04) mostly for better battery + gpu/igpu management. (XPS laptop)

------
anthony_barker
Ubuntu since 4.10 and linux since the late 1990s. Why? because I am a bit lazy
and it is still pretty close to debian. On the server its a mixture of ubuntu
and debian.

I don't like snaps and windows10 vms should be automated and better integrated
(like windows has done to linux). I don't like that they have removed
findutils. I do like that thinkpad bios updates is now integrated.

Mostly I think the OS should get out of our way. I might move over to debian
as they seem to producing newer packages now.

------
detaro
openSUSE for desktops. Typically Debian for servers. Sometimes Ubuntu for VMs
for stuff that's "We tested it with Ubuntu 14.04/16.04, take it or leave it".

------
aplanas
For my laptop and desktop (where I work and watch movies, no gaming so far) I
use openSUSE Tumbleweed. A rolling distro that allows me to have the last
version of all my software, and very stable so I can do my daily job.

I choose it because is a funny mix between innovation (rolling, automatic
tested, staging project to detect integration problems, reproducible build,
etc) and conservative (traditional package manager, all based on RPM, robust
good old tech already battle tested).

------
grijul
I've been distro hopping for since I have introduced myself to linux (2-3
years I think). Tried Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Suse, Mint, Arch, and a few
random distros I found on distrowatch.

Finally settled for Arch (with KDE) and using it for 3-4 months now. I love
it. It has forced me to learn a lot about linux. And now I realise other
distros were too bloated and have a lot of packages I probably would never
use.

That being said, I haven't tried Gentoo yet. Hmm. Someday maybe :P

~~~
banachtarski
I went from gentoo to arch years ago. Unless you absolutely need to compile
the universe from scratch on your machine all the time, don’t bother. Arch’s
greatest asset is its speed and excellent binay distribution. Gentoo affords
you none of that. If you just want to “learn” I suppose, then by all means.

~~~
grijul
> Arch’s greatest asset is its speed and excellent binay distribution.

And its wiki.

> If you just want to “learn” I suppose, then by all means.

Yep that was the only purpose. But I don't see this happening anytime soon.

~~~
lucasvr_br
Excellent point regarding their Wiki. Gentoo's wiki is a great resource, too.
What I like the most is that both have distro-agnostic information that apply
elsewhere.

------
CarelessExpert
Ubuntu, because I got tired of screwing around tweaking my distro into
submission a long time ago and just wanted something Debian-based that worked
out of the box.

------
louisch
I use Arch Linux for everything with one exception (see below). I first got
into Arch about a decade ago, and at this point I'm just used to it. I know
where things are, and if I don't, I can easily find out. I don't trust other
distros to give me the amount of full control of the system that Arch does,
basically.

The other exception is in WSL, I use Ubuntu, but this is mostly because there
isn't an official WSL Arch Linux distro.

------
parliament32
Laptop: Debian Testing, because it's up-to-date enough that I don't feel I'm
missing anything, but stable enough to actually get work done (I get breakage
maybe a few times a year).

Servers: Debian Stable, because the base system is rock solid, updates/patches
are basically guaranteed to never break anything, and if you really really
need some specific package to be a new version you can usually get it out of
backports.

------
mickotron
Would not consider myself advanced but I have been using Linux since Fedora
Core 4 (my first distro). I then used Ubuntu and Debian, where I stayed on
Debian for years.

For personal computing I have been on Solus Linux for a few years. I love it.
Everything just works and it is really polished. I get newer packages rather
than having to deal with debian backports.

For servers I would choose CentOS due to familiarity with RHEL at work and
maturity of documentation.

------
marsrover
Not sure if I’d pass for advance but I first used Linux two decades ago and
have used it on and off since. I use Ubuntu because I’ve become lazy in my old
age.

------
Apreche
Ubuntu LTS on servers. On the desktop I also use Ubuntu LTS, but through WSL
(Windows Subsystem for Linux). All the stuff in Ubuntu I don't like is desktop
stuff, but I don't have to deal with any of that on servers or with WSL. It's
not perfect, but the distributions out there that solve its problems are all
more hassle than they are worth. It's the most "just works" option.

------
cpburns2009
Desktop: Kubuntu LTS

Server: Ubuntu LTS

My employer's standard is Ubuntu servers. For familiarity, parity, and ease of
development I've settled on the same.

I've experimented with Arch, Debian, Fedora, and Ubuntu (non-LTS) over the
years. I've moved to LTS because I don't want the hassle of upgrading
regularly (I've been burned multiple times). The only problem I have with
Ubuntu is Snap which I purge upon first boot.

------
minerjoe
I run my own derivative of Arch. Was building images for EC2 back when it was
new and I just like knowing every file in the smallest possible system I can
get to serve my needs.

With Arch it is relatively easy to set up your own derivative that has full
access to upstream while adding whatever you need from AUR, quickly. And you
get to be the one in charge of making sure the system jells before updating
your fleet.

~~~
hpen
Yeah, but will my company let me run a custom derivative of Arch?

~~~
minerjoe
Depends on a person's "company". My "company" is myself and, for now it suits
me well.

Note that I'm a lisper though and have all intentions of letting Guix eat my
lunch.

------
foopod
Not sure what you mean by advanced. But I have been using different distros
for years now. Used to main debian. But for the last year I have been using
Solus, and wouldn't look back. Very stable rolling release with official
support for Budgie, Mate, Plasma and Gnome Desktop Environments.

I couldn't ask for more.

[https://getsol.us/](https://getsol.us/)

------
caviv
Not sure I am qualified as "Advanced Linux user". There are always more
advanced than me and always less advanced than me. But anyhow, for desktop I
really like Xubuntu. I love the way it is so simple using XFCE and Ubuntu is
quite largely supported. For servers I don't really much care but I use
centOS.

------
tharne
Pop!_OS

It just works and is basically a better, less bloated Ubuntu.

------
hiccuphippo
Arch for desktop, mostly because packages are very up to date and I like the
AUR package system.

Debian Stable for production stuff.

------
runjake
Xubuntu.

Why? We use Ubuntu on servers and I don't have to mess around with and tweak
things as much. I can just get to work.

------
mister_hn
I prefer Manjaro Linux, which is based on Arch and comes with mostly all the
actual packages, in comparison to most distros out there.

Easy to configure and use, perfect for every kind of usage (Gaming,
Development, Multimedia)

Almost none, the ArchWiki is really full of content for problems you might
encounter

------
davidbanham
Arch for my development machine. It’s been the most trouble free distro I’ve
ever run.

All my production stuff is dockerised and running on GKE these days. Most are
FROM scratch with a statically compiled go binary in there. Some are on alpine
and there’s the odd bit of Debian here and there.

------
dwarfstarlinux
If you have the time, and you are willing to learn, o suggest Arch Linux. It
is great due to the full customization from the user, and complete control.
The bad side is that you have to put in some serious time to get it up and
running. It is worth it in my opinion.

------
theevilsharpie
I use whatever the latest Ubuntu LTS release is (Ubuntu 20.04 at the time of
this writing), mainly because it works well enough, it has broad compatibility
with open source and commercial software, and I can spend my time focusing on
my project rather than my computer.

------
chrisgoman
Always Debian Stable (currently 10.x)

~~~
aidenn0
Is that actually possible these days? The last time I tried Debian stable was
about 18 years ago, and at that point even "testing" was too old of a kernel
to support recent hardware.

~~~
dyingkneepad
These days Debian Stable is very comparable with Ubuntu LTS. They are aiming
for a release at about every 2 years, which is the same cadence as Ubuntu LTS.
They do have some different policies, such as using Firefox ESR and other
things, but there are also the Backports repository and other niceties. And
you don't get Snaps forced down your throat.

> and at that point even "testing" was too old of a kernel to support recent
> hardware

Today Debian testing has a 5.7 Kernel, which is the most recent one.

Debian is indeed a little "behind" in adopting certain modern technologies
compared to other distros like Fedora, but most of the time I see this as a
plus, because new tech is often buggy and take a long time to mature. I
generally don't like to pay the price of being an early adopter.

> recent hardware

This is indeed an issue. The trick when you get new hardware is that you
install Testing but you don't configure your repositories as "testing" you
configure them as the name of the current testing distro: "bullseye" today. So
if I keep updating my Debian Bullseye, once it gets branched I will be
effectively out of testing, then Bulleye will get released and I will be on
the stable repository.

------
hbogert
All I use is a browser,terminal and Docker.

Ubuntu seems fine it provides quick access to the above and works quite well
ootb on laptops.

For servers? I'd like to transition to a well-maintained kubernetes stack. I
stopped caring which linux distro the k8s distro uses underneath.

------
delirehberi
Nixos is my current OS. I'm happy with it. I am able to configure my whole
system by typing codes. This is great for me because I'm a reproducibility
guy. I do not like make system-wide changes "on-the-fly"

~~~
pknopf
You might like this: [https://godarch.com/](https://godarch.com/)

I get to use Ubuntu, make TEMPORARY changes on the fly, and still have things
reproducible.

------
stunt
I switched from Debian to Ubuntu long time ago. It just felt that's one way to
support Ubuntu desktop project. I used to be a "frequent" small donator to the
project.

I use Xmonad and Xfce4. So the desktop experience hasn't really changed for
me.

------
tomcam
I just use org mode

~~~
smabie
I lol'd. org-mode is too good for Linux.

------
mindcrime
Fedora on my laptop, usually CentOS or Amazon Linux on servers.

Why? I've been using RH derived distros since around the RH 6.2 days, and it's
always just worked. And I know my way around the ecosystem moderately well,
and know how to get stuff done.

------
MasterIdiot
Ubuntu LTS on my laptop, because it's the closest I've found to "Just Works"
status. I run RHEL servers at work, but that's not my decision, though they
are serious workhorses (albeit always somewhat outdated).

------
allenbeme
Kubuntu on desktop and laptop. Simple ux, light on cpu and ram, efficiently
updated lts version. The default file manager (dolphin) is almost unusable to
to ux decisions the maintainers made. I use simpler ones like thunar or
pcmmanfm.

------
joshsyn
Used ArchLinux for 6 years and eventually switched to Ubuntu. It just works
most of the time and most of the things I require is bundled with the
installation ISO. Most third-party bundles in .deb format which also usually
just works.

------
valun9u
for desktop I'm using arch linux with DWM , arch because it's just a single
version of package that is well integrated in system with all dependencies,
because of AUR and high community support with the nicest possible wiki, and
because it's easy, with initial effort at the begging it's easy to setup and
understand how it's working.

For server side usually debian(for single service oriented stuff), if are
strong recommendations then Ubuntu(usually for virtualization tolls like
openstack ).

------
ygoronline
I ran a lot of distros until now, since Conectiva 3.0. I am now using Ubuntu
on servers, and just gave up Fedora to use Linux Mint now.

I couldn't put Fedora working with Docker the way I like, but someday I'll be
back to.

~~~
touristtam
You have a specific set of requirement for Docker? I have not had issues
setting up Docker on Fedora. I have been on it since v25 after being ~10 years
on Ubuntu.

------
C0n57an71n
I have tried Puppy, Linux Mint, Linux Lite as I was playing with an antique
maschine. Currently running Ubuntu 20.04 on Sony Vaio, Manjaro on an older
Laptop, Ubuntu Touch on my Nexus5 and on my future PinePhone.

------
hprotagonist
ubuntu. ML/AI stack is very deb-heavy, so this saves me some build time.

------
SweetestRug
Started out with Slackware 22 years ago, and have migrated through Mandrake,
Red Hat, and Ubuntu since then. Recent made the move to Manjaro because I
wanted Arch but with stability. Haven't looked back.

------
elmolino89
Desktop: Manjaro Xfce. Up to date gcc/clang and the whole toolchain.

Servers: Debian stable or Centos 8 (depending on the job place)

Also Mx Linux where I need Debian/Ubuntu-like system with a pleasant GUI.

Looking into Clear Linux and NixOS.

------
numToStr
I use Arch because of AUR. And one more thing I don't like snaps.

------
cferr
Desktops: OpenSUSE Leap with Plasma desktop. It just works, and the experience
is pretty polished. Only issues I ever run into is having to drop to the
command line occasionally for running an update. My family doesn't know much
about that, so I have to fix their computers for them.

Laptop: Arch Linux - Very light, very customized, and it also just works. I
have no problems with Arch.

Servers: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server. It's stable, and since I run it at
work it just makes sense to use at home as well. I know in and out how it
works and what to expect from it. Only issues I ever have are typically due to
a previous admin underprovisioning a machine. Otherwise it's great.

------
teilo
I only run Linux on the server, no GUI. I use Debian everywhere, except in
those (thankfully) few cases when I am administering commercial software, in
which case I use CentOS.

------
bourlas
what is ubuntu to debian is manjaro to arch. Having said that there is not
really any easy way to install a debian rolling distro therefore the next best
alternative that exist is manjaro.

Arch seems to me too fast and probably a little unpredictable where manjaro is
easy to install and a little bit late to upstream in comparison to other
rolling distros.

The last point actually is a plus and I regard manjaro as the most stable
rolling distro.

------
injb
Arch. Because:

* it's the best documented (by far)

* it's extremely no-nonsense

* it's a rolling release

* it requires you to learn more and take responsibility for difficult decisions (like which network manager to use etc.)

------
ffeiek
Qubes OS

Without it, I can't sleep.

~~~
fsflover
Same here. It is not only secure but also provides a possibility to easily
separate my life into independent domains - virtual machines (work, personal,
random websites etc) with simple independent backups. Those domains are
integrated into the UI such that I only see colorful windows, not full
"virtual computers".

------
bananamerica
I am competent but certainly not advanced.

Nowadays I use MX Linux because it gives me stability, performance, and just
enough abstraction to allow me avoid excessive tinkering.

------
pwg
> Which distribution(s) do you run

Slackware

> Why did you choose them?

You get a no-nonsense, standard Linux/GNU install without a bunch of
distribution specific complexity layered on top.

------
factorialboy
Various debians on servers. Manjaro on desktop.

------
eitland
KDE Neon on my laptop.

Debian or Ubuntu or AMI on servers.

KDE Neon is Ubuntu a sane (yeah, I know, not everyone agrees on that) _and_
configurable UI.

------
ferBera
Debian was my main OS everywhere since perhaps 1999 or so. I've jumped on
Devuan early on and I think is just great.

------
giantg2
I wouldn't say I'm an expert.

I mostly use it on Pi. I use either Raspian Lite for most things or Kali Linux
for security.

------
lousken
pop_OS! 20.04 for my laptop, it solved all my issues with wifi drivers, waking
up from sleep etc., it just works

debian buster on the server i manage; it just works, always, i hope i won't
jinx it but never failed me, perfectly stable, reliable, predictiable,
security autoupdates enabled without issues

------
hpen
Ubuntu LTS. I find most things just work. I started with Ubuntu -> Debian ->
Arch -> Ubuntu

------
yulaow
Recently POP_OS but with kde as main de. In the last 10 years a mix of kubuntu
lts and manjaro.

------
gjvnq
Desktop: Arch Linux

Server: Ubuntu LTS or Debian

------
flavious
Linux user for 15+ years, Slack, now Arch in the past 10 years.

------
qpiox
I had my first experience with Slack some 24-5 years ago. After that I used
many distributions and their variations on both personal computers and work
servers or desktops. Used them on Digital and HP "workstations" from the
90ties, Sun machines, SGI, with text-only terminals, with graphical terminals.
Had admin experience with Slackware, Mandrake, Redhat, CentOS, Oracle
Enterprise Linux, Linux Mint, Linux Mint DE, OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu
Studio, Arch, Parabola OS, Fedora, Debian, even some specialized like
Clonezilla, gNewSense, Scientific Linux, ClearOS, Gentoo (compiled a whole
WAMP based server from scratch once). I must be forgetting at least several of
them that I used.

I don't understand people who are frantic supporters of some distribution or
some packaging system. They are all very similar and it is really easy to hop
from one to another in a matter of a day. You just need to think through your
first install in the proper way and decide on a stable partition setup where
it will be easy to just switch to another one.

At this moment I am running Ubuntu studio on my personal computer. Why?
Because I am experimenting with open-source software for music, and Ubuntu
Studio is setup in the proper way to have everything audio without much
hassle. Before that I had Arch, and although I spent months trying to setup
everything to work as I wished, I had many problems. As I said, I don't have
trouble fiddling with configurations and recompiling the whole OS from source,
I did that many times in the past, sometimes you don't have so much time and
you need to appreciate to good effort that some other people put, to have a
complete system targeted to some type of usage (such as audio).

When I have a choice, the servers I maintain are running Debian.

The largest problem of many distributions is: \- stable distributions use
stale versions of software and rolling distributions are unpredictable, so you
always do a compromise depending what is your primary target for daily use.

In the past distributions boasted how extensive their library of ready-to-
install packages is.

Nowadays, I fear that many distributions will stop supporting most of the
software packages except for a very few, and move everything to image-based
partial-os-snapshots like appimage, flatpak or snap. The problem is that -
while snap, appimage and flatpak are modern ways to have fresh software and
they all work in some or another way, the software vendors forget themselves
and literally needlessly pack 1GB of libraries for a single mostly useless
application, that you use once a month. If you have installed 100 simple
applications of 1GB, in the end you will have 100 mounts to virtual drives for
100 too-simple apps, taking 100 GBs.

Instead application vendors should stick to sources that are easy to compile,
and sources that are Portable, so that anyone is able to support them on any
OS or distro. E.g. like Maven usually works for most Java apps - you just run
mvn package and it will download all needed dependencies and run all
procedures that are needed to create an installable package of the software,
so that it is easy for distributions to pack it and ship it, instead of
spending hours and hours figuring out compilation and packaging bugs.

------
rotterdamdev
Debian,I need a stable system to work on.

------
coronadisaster
I recently tried Manjaro but I've had less issues with Arch.

------
nathias
arch, because of wiki and the package manager

