Ask HN: What is your favorite Linux distro and why? - user_235711
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bhaisaab
Fedora Linux for Desktop - Great documentation, community and support. You get
the greatest, latest and the most robust distro in terms of drivers and
stability (I've tried Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, Manjaro) that requires very less
sysadmin work (unlike Arch etc.).

Debian Linux for server (stable, tested).

Rant: Few years ago the state of yum based distros was very bad and at that
time Ubuntu came and was instantly favoured. Right now rpm based distros are
in much better shape and deserves a shot. About pkg-management -- I find apt
clumsy for example you need to apt-cache search/list, but to install do apt-
get install; I like yum (search/install etc. just one tool) and rpm a lot.

~~~
collyw
I tried Fedora a few months back, (as I wanted a specific kernel), but I found
it required a lot more tweaking and configuring than Ubunutu or Mint or
Manjaro. It felt like Linux was 7 or 8 years ago.

~~~
bhaisaab
collyw, if someone is new to Linux I would also suggest them to use Ubuntu or
Mint. But, as you start using it at some point of time you may want to tweak
your system like you wanted(given that you've bandwidth and motivation to do
so). It's about that time, most novice to advance sysadmins/users would want
to use something like Fedora or Arch.

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collyw
Manjaro.

A user friendly version of Arch. It includes a graphic package manager - which
seems to be discouraged by the main Arch distro looking at their wiki (they
want you to learn and understand pacman). The fact is sometimes I want a
graphical package manager to make searching easier and I don't know the exact
name of the package I am looking for. Other times when I do know the details
it is easier to use the command line. Having the choice is good.

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akulbe
Ubuntu. Hands down.

None of them are perfect, but my experience with Ubuntu is that it is hands
down, the most desktop-friendly distro out there.

On the other hand, the "RPM hell" that is rumored to be gone in RPM-based
distros, is still alive and well. I had a _STABLE_ server-based distro warn me
that packages were broken, and there were unresolvable dependencies. This was
with a very vanilla install, and no extra repos. Needless to say, it scared me
away from RPM-based distros for the foreseeable future.

Is Ubuntu problem-free? Certainly not. However, when I have encountered the
occasional issue, there have been workarounds.

The other thing is... if someone is making a Linux version of their app,
everyone and their uncle is providing .deb packages. There's a LOT of momentum
behind it. So... if I'm going to go off the beaten path of OS X and (heaven
forbid) Windows... Ubuntu is the most painless.

Another reason I like Ubuntu so much is its polish. It looks more polished
than any distro I've used, to date.

I hear they may do some patching with their fonts, and some other magic under
the hood.

I like Arch Linux, as well. If I could get Ubuntu's polish on Arch, it would
be a perfect world. :)

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brudgers
Not that it's particularly rational, but I like Wary Puppy 5.5 because I am
running it on my Toshiba Satellite 1805-S203 with 384kb of RAM.

I bought it the month before 911. In 2004 it was stolen and pawned and I had
to take the pawn broker to court to get it back. When we were still on 802.11b
my son used it with Windows 2k (rather than its original ME) and a PCMCIA
wireless card. In 2009, I replaced the voltage regulator for the screen with
one from eBay. Then it sat dormant for a few years after the Wireless network
was upgraded.

A couple of years ago, I tried installing Linux and paid the dumbtax when I
reformatted the hard disk. Then recently I pulled it apart, stuck in the
BroadCom daughter card and 40gig hard disk salvaged from another laptop and
after more work than I care to admit got it up and running and productive
again.

I've got Emacs and MITscheme for fun. Node runs too. There's SSH to the big
box [CentOS 6.5] for anything else. What more could I want?

Well ok, a couple of 256meg SODIMS and a PCMCIA ethernet card would be nice.

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MaybiusStrip
Kubuntu -- Just works for me and I much prefer the KDE desktop. Have it set up
on 3 completely different machines and it works great on all of them. I highly
recommend everybody who uses Ubuntu and is looking for something different to
at least try it out.

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dhimes
Laptop: Linux Mint 16. LM 8-12 were absolutely fantastic, everything worked
(suspend, audio, video, mail, etc), and life was good. Went from 12 to 15, and
things were a bit rockier. Suspend lost the X setting on waking, mail
(evolution) borks a lot. Desperate for a better life, went to 16. Not great,
but better. I use hibernate rather than suspend now, and evolution only
occasionally fails (it's a keyring thing).

Netbook: Ubuntu LTS (12.10 I think). Thunderbird. Everything works (except,
oddly, google chrome doesn't play video worth a crap- may be the old specs).

Servers: Debian Squeeze. Solid server distro.

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monkey26
Fedora for my desktop. It's cutting edge and has sane package naming. I've
also been using RPM based distros since the origin RedHat 4.

CentOS on servers. Rock solid, long support.

I had an Ubuntu phase when it was first released. Even helped 2 companies
standardize on it while moving developers off windows machines to Linux. But
ditched it for personal use when Fedora 7 came out.

The only other distro that interests me is Arch. It's definitely the tweakers
distro, and if I were younger and had more time to tinker with Linux I'd run
it on my desktop.

I guess the main reason why is familiarity - 17 years with RPM based distros.

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LarryMade2
Ubuntu - Great package manager, best community support, and good flexibility.
Don't like stock Ubuntu but with a few installs I can easily fix the desktop
environment and other things I think are deficient.

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ParadigmComplex
Bedrock Linux, as it gives me many of the advantages of other distros at the
same time. Stability of Debian/CentOS, access to cutting-edge packages from
Arch (including AUR), ability to have portage automatically compile things
with my preferences from Gentoo, library compatibility with Ubuntu for things
like steam, etc etc.

Note: Main area it is lacking is the "just works without setup"; it does not
compete with Ubuntu/Mint/etc on that front.

Full disclosure: I'm the founder and lead developer.

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iends
I just want linux that works without setup, so I use Ubuntu.

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DanBC
Arch - amazing documentation and user community. Enjoyable learning
experience.

Linux from Scratch - I am a masochist

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dc2447
I like them all. A few years ago I would get irked by some things redhat did v
debian derivatives and vice versa but now not so much.

I am just super glad after all these years we are all able to download and use
(for free mostly) such an excellent OS.

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anaxag0ras
Debian: rock solid stability

~~~
jfaucett
+points - couldnt agree more, yours is not an understatement by any means, it
might not always be on the cutting edge but its not that far behind, and if
you want systems that work and work well debian has never let me down (5+
years and going now).

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ing33k
Ubuntu - ( just works ). but I am exploring Arch these days and looks like I
will like it more if I can stick to it for more time ..

Servers - Debian ( Stable, Secure, Well documented with good tutorials )

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mknits
Linux Mint. Simple, intutive and plays everything.

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bediger4000
Arch - all the cool new toys.

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RexRollman
I use Arch, Debian, and OpenBSD (which I do know is not a version of Unix).

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guiye
elementaryos: simpler, light and nice look & feel

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jonalmeida
Quite true, I just wish that we could get updated libraries (i.e. arch under
the hood)

Maybe this will happen if it's going to be based off of 14.04.

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erlapso
Ubuntu: best booting sound and packet manager

