
Ask HN: What is your Linux distro of choice? - rukshn
Hi,<p>I&#x27;ve switched from Windows to Linux (Mint) year ago, as it&#x27;s one of the most easiest distro to start with.<p>I&#x27;m fascinated about Arch Linux but not sure I can build it from ground up yet.<p>But I&#x27;m just curious to know what Linux distro you guys are using, so at is your Linux distro?
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hammerandtongs
Generally I'd discourage you from caring.

It's frequently that case that new users of Linux think there is something to
be gained by "trying" (and continuously reinstalling) different Linux
distributions.

The reality is that the software that makes up Linux (iirc there are 30k
packages in Debian) is generally available across all of these distributions
to a greater or lesser extent.

It's all the same software with relatively minor changes made to it to fit
into the particular distribution.

You can use almost any desktop environment from any of these.

The underlying system software is aligning quite a bit these days as well with
systemd.

Stick with a distribution.

When something goes wrong, try not to reinstall but instead figure out the
problem and fix it.

Modify the system to your liking and in the process actually learn the pieces
that make it up.

Document, for yourself, the things you did so that you can be confident you
actually learned something that you can reproduce.

~~~
rukshn
Yah but the customizing is minimal in Linux mint, you can't pick a new Desktop
environment, you can't modify the look and styles in linux mint, so it's more
like using windows IMO, that's why I thought of using something with more
freedom

~~~
larzang
Of course you can. You can install any DE you want on top of Mint, it's still
Linux, and you can modify the appearance of the shipped XFCE or Cinammon DEs
with themes.

------
tux
Arch Linux + XFCE on desktops/laptops, and Ubuntu LTS on servers.

I've also, switched from Windows XP/7 to Ubuntu then Linux Mint. Used Linux
Mint for about a week and found Arch Linux. Been using Arch ever since. If you
need help with setting up Arch see official wiki @
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_guide](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_guide)
But if you're a beginner in Linux world I would recommend you start with
"Manjaro Linux" which is based on Arch Linux. It has graphical installer and
works out of the box. Between, I think Manjaro Linux website has moved to
[https://manjaro.github.io/](https://manjaro.github.io/)

I've also wrote a post last year on how to install Arch Linux. But I highly
recommend the above official wiki instead.

[http://www.distrogeeks.com/arch-
linux-2014-install/](http://www.distrogeeks.com/arch-linux-2014-install/)

cache in case the site down because of Hacker News lol

[http://web.archive.org/web/20150425182255/http://www.distrog...](http://web.archive.org/web/20150425182255/http://www.distrogeeks.com/arch-
linux-2014-install/)

------
larzang
Mint. I need Sublime + terminals + browsers to work, anything else is gravy,
and Mint does the best job of providing sane defaults and making it easy to
change the few minor things I do.

15 years ago I didn't mind spending hours (days weeks) tweaking config files
to get everything about my distro absolutely perfectly customized, now I just
want it to work out of the box and get out of my way so I can get real work
done.

Cinammon also has the nicest workspace management of any desktop environment
I've tried, which is a solid bonus since it's probably the DE-specific feature
I interact with most on a day to day basis.

------
moopling
I had a very minimal amount of linux knowledge before jumping into arch as a
distro: been using it for just over a year now and it was definitely a great
choice. The best thing about arch in my opinion is the wiki, it has pretty
much everything you need to know as to how to install and configure most any
packages. I cannot understate how much I have learnt about linux from the
many, many hours spent reading the wiki.

That said, it is a massive time sink. The first couple of weeks I spent pretty
much all my spare time trying to get something usable, and it was probably a
couple of months before I preferred my setup to, say, windows (which is what I
had been using up to that point).

~~~
rukshn
Yah that's what I was also wondering, installing a desktop environment,
drivers, all from the command-line no matter how familiar I'm with the
terminal is something I'm afraid to try. Also I don't think I can install deb
apps on Arch if I'm not mistaken

~~~
moopling
Having access to another computer while you are setting up really helps. Have
the wiki up for cross reference until you have a desktop environment. You
can't use debs, but that isn't important as arch has a really nice package
manager which makes it very easy to install anything from the official repos.
Installing user maintained packages from the AUR is more tricky, but again
there is the wiki.

Once you know the ropes there are a couple of packages you can install to make
installing from the AUR easier (like yaort, or pacaur), but you should really
know how to do it yourself before relying on these tools.

~~~
tux
I agree, pacman package manager is amazing it beats the s*t of apt-get and rpm
both in dependencies and usability. At least from my experience :-) Also there
is GUI's for AUR and official packages if you prefer that. I recommend "Pamac"
or "Octopi" Check out wiki at
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Graphical_pacman_fronte...](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Graphical_pacman_frontends)
Oh and don't forget about huge recommended list of packages at
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/List_of_applications](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/List_of_applications)

------
vezzy-fnord
Slackware. It's the only distro that has never let me down or broken down on
me in any significant way. Its highly vanilla, conservative and generally
component-agnostic nature means you can fling and perform just about all sorts
of ugly hacks (which you need to do a lot in the Linux world anyway) on it
without your system being holistically affected in any notable way.

I stopped caring about my WM a while ago and mostly just use Fluxbox with some
small menu tweaks.

~~~
progman
What about security updates? Are they as easy to maintain as in Debian and
Ubuntu?

I used Slackware at the very beginning of my Linux time in the 90s, and I
really liked it. Now I am considering to use it again in face of Debian's non-
optional move to systemd.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
Security updates are regularly served both in mainline and -current (rolling)
repositories, along with dedicated security advisories. See:
[http://www.slackware.com/security/](http://www.slackware.com/security/)

------
300
Gentoo with i3 window manager. As a sys admin, I like to build my own setup
from ground up, and know exactly what I have installed.

------
fierycatnet
Used to be Fedora/CentOS, now it's Ubuntu with MATE. I think I still prefer
Red Hat but Ubuntu makes it a bit easier for development, and a lot of servers
tend to use Ubuntu.

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Ygg2
Xubuntu. It is the only Linux distro that runs smoothly in my VM.

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leaveyou
I go with the flow.. Ubuntu Server LTS on servers and Ubuntu Unity on
desktops. I started with Zorin OS, then Ubuntu, then Xubuntu for a while, then
I checked Mint, Debian, Lubuntu, Kubuntu, FreeBSD and PCBSD (I even nearly
installed ArchLinux :) ) for short and very short periods of time and then I
settled on plain Ubuntu for the most satisfaction with the least head ache.

~~~
teach
Same. I spent enough time recompiling kernel modules in the 1990s; I've gotten
all that out of my system. I just want a system with sane defaults that mostly
works. Just (~10 minutes ago) upgraded to Ubuntu 15.04 and I leave it alone.

Mind you, this is for a desktop machine built from parts. If I could justify
the purchase I'd buy a Mac laptop and use Mac OS on that.

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Ronsenshi
Xubuntu 12.04 on my dev machine. Would switch to 14.04, but reviews doesn't
look very good.

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on all of the servers.

~~~
pan69
Which reviews? I have been using both 14.04 and 14.10 on my desktops without
issues. Soon I'll be switching to 15.04.

~~~
Ronsenshi
Just some videos on YouTube. It's been quite a while, so can't say anything
specific besides that those particular reviews weren't very positive.

------
DanBC
For various unfun technical reasons Fedora20 on a broken MacBook Pro. It's
sub-optimal. It's surprisingly, alarmingly, buggy. It's also a poor
combination of hardware / software. I'd probably be happier with something
else, and I'm saving up to get a different computer. At which point I'll be
using FreeBSD (EDIT: although the last time I used FreeBSD it was version 5)
and possibly Arch (although I don't want to update it (other than security
updates) frequently so I'm not sure Arch would be the best choice. Linux From
Scratch would probably be better but I'd need to set aside some time to learn
and do.

People often ask about the distro when really other things are probably more
important for most people. Things like the desktop environment or package
manager probably have more impact.

------
Adaptive
Arch on desktop and personal server.

However, I recommend that you get Ubuntu up and running on your hardware
first. Hardware support out of the box should be good enough to identify that
things are mostly working (or not). _Then_ put Arch on it. Arch is a _great_
distro to learn on. Set aside a weekend. You'll learn a LOT and can always
roll back to Ubuntu (or Fedora, though that has it's own out-of-box
limitations) if you don't enjoy the Arch process.

I dabble in Fedora from time to time, and deploy a LOT of Ubuntu boxes, but I
stick with Arch personally due to familiarity and the AUR.

Edit: I also stick with Arch because, no matter what distro you use, if you
search for the solution to an issue you are having, you are likely to find the
Arch Wiki is one of the top results. The wiki is a generally outstanding
resource.

------
yramagicman
I'm an OS X guy by birth. My dad has used Macs since the 512ke, but a year or
so ago I tried Ubuntu and Crunchbang. I loved Crunchbang, Unity, however, got
on my nerves. Eventually, I got fed up with how slow Debian stable updates and
didn't want to try Debian testing because the "testing" idea scared me off, so
I decided to try Manjaro. I loved the package manager, pacman, and also
yaourt, however I ran into a library incompatibility with some software, VLC,
I think, so that killed my enjoyment of Manjaro. After doing a practice
install of Arch in a VM, I took the plunge and put it on my hdd. I haven't
looked back since.

Now I run a customized version of the Awesome window manager on my Arch box,
along side OS X. Wouldn't use anything else. :)

TL;DR Arch with the Awesome window manager.

------
svennek
After many (many) years of Gentoo, I switched to Arch. Have never looked
back... (both servers and desktops)

~~~
tux
I run Arch server on local network for development but for production server
its not a good idea. Because Arch is rolling release you will have to update
and reboot your server a lot. Unless you are okay with using obsolete
packages, which defeats the purpose of rolling release.

------
ninjin
Lubuntu for my desktop, Ubuntu is still runs an excellent package ecosystem,
but the window manager just took a wrong turn. LXDE is simple and behaves just
like a window manager has behaved for ages, nothing fancy. Ubuntu LTS for
servers, it is very stable and still has an excellent package ecosystem.

For my desktop, my history is DOS, Win 3.11, Win ME, Win XP, Gentoo, FreeBSD,
Ubuntu, and Lubuntu. For servers, Gentoo, FreeBSD/OpenBSD, and Ubuntu
LTS/OpenBSD. I use OpenBSD for network installations such as gateways.

------
tanderson92
I have been using Exherbo for about 5 years fulltime and never looked back. It
is a vanilla source-based distro with a focus on flexibility and users who
know what they are doing. I would recommend people check out what it is about
if that is appealing to you because there are tons of other great features
(cross compiling handled natively by the package manager, good alternatives
support, and binary package distribution). It is one of the few distros out
there which is not just another theme on *buntu

------
bananaoomarang
Arch + KDE5. I'd echo comments above saying that today most distros amount to
the same thing, but the benefit of Arch is it's minimal by default, so you
don't get any junk, and pretty much everything is setup by you.

It's not hard to install because of how great the wiki is, just take a look at
the Beginner's guide and you're all set. I personally prefer it to Mint/Ubuntu
because of the packaging system (easy to rebuild packages from ABS, modify AUR
ones etc)

------
jab416171
A few years ago, I was exposed to the RHEL family and haven't looked back. I
run CentOS on servers and Fedora on desktops/laptops.

------
geoka9
Debian, both desktop and servers. I find it very convenient to have the same
distro everywhere, and Debian is very well suited for it.

------
faragon
Ubuntu and Fedora. Not because being the "bests", but because having better
hardware support (from my point of view).

------
adnanh
On my Thinkpad Edge 13 (AMD) laptop, I've been using Linux Mint 17 (XFCE
version) mainly because everything worked out of the box.

On my work desktop workstation, I'm using Fedora 21, with applied tweaks using
the fedy tool[1].

[1] [https://github.com/satya164/fedy](https://github.com/satya164/fedy)

------
cyphax
My distro of choice is Slackware. It is designed to be vanilla and it's pretty
tinker-friendly if you want to tinker. It's made in such a way that it makes
me feel at home, which is always nice about an operating system. Xfce is my DE
of choice. It's very flexible and fast.

------
andor
Red Hat distros: Fedora, CentOS. Red Hat is a technology leader, especially
for Desktop stuff, and they have the right attitude to bugs: bugs should be
fixed, not worked around, and fixes should be made (or at least merged)
upstream.

------
justincormack
Currently running Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Alpine and Gentoo, plus FreeBSD,
OpenBSD and NetBSD. There is not that much difference between the mainstream
distros, try Alpine or a BSD if you want something a bit different.

------
captn3m0
Currently on Ubuntu + Cinnamon, but plan to switch back to elementary freya
soon.

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darkstar999
Linux Mint, it's like the good ol' day of Ubuntu.

------
troels
I used Ubuntu on the desktop/laptop for a couple of years, before switching to
mac. I still use Ubuntu extensively on server side environments.

------
neverminder
Vanilla Ubuntu. Purely from practical perspective.

------
onestone
Arch (with KDE Plasma 5) for desktop. Ubuntu LTS or Debian for servers
(whichever has a more recent release).

------
atmosx
Gentoo, but I never use it anymore, because I don't have time (to compile and
customise everything).

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oahziur
I am using ubuntu 14.04 on Macbook.

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abruzzi
RHEL for my servers. I don't use Linux on a desktop, OSX instead.

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ProNoob13
Debian server with LXDE.

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calvins
CentOS for servers, and Ubuntu for desktop.

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lazylizard
no desktop. except when oracle requires it. all rhel, centos.

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WorldWideWayne
Fedora 21 with Gnome 3 is my preferred distro for desktop Linux. It's easily
the best experience that I've with a nix desktop.

Linus Torvalds runs Fedora as well -
[http://www.tuxradar.com/content/interview-linus-torvalds-
lin...](http://www.tuxradar.com/content/interview-linus-torvalds-linux-
format-163)

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paulhauggis
CentOS on the server, Ubuntu on the desktop.

