
The Best Linux Distros of 2016 - Perados
https://www.linux.com/news/best-linux-distros-2016
======
upofadown
The most interesting recent Linux distro that I have encountered is Void
Linux. It's a minimalist rolling update distro. It is not a fork of anything
already existing. It is basically a demo for a new package manager called
xbps.

* [http://www.voidlinux.eu/](http://www.voidlinux.eu/)

~~~
k__
How does xbps compare to Nix?

~~~
ZenoArrow
Based on the information on the website, xbps has some good features (such as
building from source using containers to isolate the build process), but it
doesn't have the same type of functional approach as Nix. Void looks like a
decent entry in the Arch/Gentoo stable, which means its good for staying on
the cutting edge. NixOS is more useful if you're going to be spinning up
multiple containers/VMs, which benefits from the stability and consistency of
the Nix approach. YMMV.

~~~
k__
The predictability of Nix environments is good for "one" machine too.

Just download your configuration.nix (and dotfiles) on another machine and
you're pretty much safe.

~~~
ZenoArrow
You've just given me an example with two machines. ;-)

~~~
k__
Haha, true story :D

Maybe, two configurations that can be run on one machine to transform the
machine then?

------
zxcvcxz
>Linux Mint Cinnamon is the best operating system for desktops and powerful
laptops. I will go as far as calling it the Mac OS X of the Linux world.
Honestly, I had not been a huge fan of Linux Mint for a long time because of
unstable Cinnamon. But, as soon as the developers chose to use LTS as the
base, the distro has become incredibly stable. Because the developers don’t
have to spend much time worrying about keeping up with Ubuntu, they are now
investing all of their time in making Cinnamon better.

I don't understand how Mint is better than Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a total OS X
replacement for me (I'm a full stack dev). The only reason I see to use Mint
is if you prefer traditional desktop interfaces over more modern ones.

>If you are looking at running a server, but you can’t afford or don’t want to
pay a subscription fee for RHEL or SLE, then there is nothing better than
Debian or CentOS. These distributions are the gold standard when it comes to
community-based servers. And, they are supported for a very long time, so you
won’t have to worry about upgrading your system so often.

I've been really satisfied with Ubuntu server, it just works. Debian isn't bad
but I find it takes more configuration than Ubuntu. I use Ubuntu on my home
server to run containers which I remotely connect to and use as development
environments. I've found that Ubuntu seems to have the best out of the box
support for lxc-containers so I have no reason to move away from it.

~~~
reitanqild
> ...over more modern ones.

No, for many of us it is not about modern.

I love modern. Ubuntus problem is they copied a bunch of Mac-isms for what
seems to be no good reason.

Now hear me out: I almost love Apple, I just cannot get myself to use their
products (OK, did, three years, was happy to get a PC again) and there are a
lot of things that should be learned from Mac. Out-of-the-box experience etc.

Other Mac-isms are just bad IMO like inconsistent keyboard shortcuts, Alt-Tab
that is not a consistent stack etc.

Ubuntu copied the dock, moved Window control to the left, messed with the
menus and Alt-Tab all while delivering a less impressing OOTB experience
(IIRC).

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "I love modern. Ubuntus problem is they copied a bunch of Mac-isms for what
> seems to be no good reason."

There is a very good reason for the direction Ubuntu went with Unity. The clue
is in the name.

The Unity interface is the way it is because it's designed to work on both
large screen devices and small screen devices, and with mouse and keyboard and
touchscreens. Take a look at the Ubuntu Touch interface, notice how similar it
is to the UI on desktop Ubuntu (side menu, scopes, etc...)?

[http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/features](http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/features)

~~~
nycticorax
I agree with you, that's why Canonical did what they did. It's also why Gnome
3 is the way it is, and why Windows 8 was the way it was. But to me, it feels
like a huge mistake in all cases. I use my desktop all day. I want an
experience tailored to the desktop, not some compromise experience that's not-
too-bad on the desktop and not-too-bad on a touch device. All these orgs made
this huge bet that you could make a one-size-fits-all experience, and so far
I'd say the results are not promising at all. Apple took the opposite tack:
have a desktop UI and a touch UI, and allow them to diverge. And that seems to
have worked out pretty well for them.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Yes, the Gnome 3 and Windows 8 user interfaces went down this route as well.

Going back to Unity, whilst I have only used it in passing, based on that
experience I can't think of a feature that I'd miss from a more 'traditional'
desktop interface. The only minor things I found jarring were the online
search results in desktop search (which I believe has been disabled in 16.04)
and a slightly clunky look to the search results (which is just an
implementation detail, could be something that is refined in the future). Is
there something you'd want from Unity that it doesn't currently offer?

FWIW, I think the Windows 8 desktop interface was a mistake. There was too
much hidden away. It also didn't feel cohesive to me (the jump from metro to
desktop and vice versa was too jarring IMO). Metro works really well as a
phone UI though (I'm using it now, I think its greatest strength is probably
the speed of navigation through the interface).

~~~
nycticorax
It's been a while since I used Unity, but as I recall it uses a global menu
(yuk), it lacks a window list (which I like), and Alt-Tab works in a per-
application, not a per-window, basis. And I think it does the Mac thing where
clicking on a launcher icon either activates the app or launches it. I
generally want the launcher icon to launch a new window, no matter what.

It's also, IMHO, ugly as heck out of the box.

------
kriro
Using Xubuntu on all my machines except the dreaded OSX laptop at work (and
well the Pis). Also converted my parents over to Xubuntu. I used to tinker
with distros a lot, went through LFS etc...but over the last couple of years I
have basically been a rather simplistic consumer. I'm even on LTS now and only
occasionally poke ahead of the schedule. Come to think of it I haven't even
customized a kernel in >1 year now. I've sepnd a decent amount of time with
the BSDs, most noteably OpenBSD (the Powerbook G4 that I haven't used in ages
still has it installed)

It's strange to look back. It's both good and bad. Qubes OS is the one OS I
might tinker with in the near future but other than that I'm a consumer now.

------
walkingolof
Surprised not to see Fedora at the top of the list. Fedora 23 is remarkably
stable, great UI, easy to maintain, and can be upgraded in-place to the next
version using the new upgrade tool, no more reinstalls.

~~~
jandrese
Fedora is too uncool for a list like this.

I agree with you though. I got fed up with Ubuntu and switched over to Fedora
a few months ago and have been pleasantly surprised at how well it works now.
The Fedora team is even willing to fix stupid obvious bugs so I actually have
my zsh manpages now and gmplayer works.

~~~
reitanqild
I consider myself a fairly technical user and I gave up on Fedora after it
broke down in two releases after another. IIRC Distrowatch had the same
experience around that time.

I like the idea, I just haven't taken time to go back and try again since
then, and other distros have stepped up so I didn't have to either.

Maybe the author has had similar experiences that might have affected the
choices?

------
hugh4life
Ubuntu Mate is my favorite distro... but I run the i3 tiling window manager
over it.

I don't know if I'd use it or not, but I'd like to see an attempt to make an
ubuntu or debian based distro centered around a tiling window
manager(preferably i3). From my experience, i3 provides to the desktop what
tabbing provides to browsers. One thing I like about tiling WM is that there
is not "native" GUI so there can't be any snort of snobbery about what is or
is not native.

~~~
d_theorist
I would love to see this as well.

~~~
ptrincr
So I've just come across i3wm after reading both your comments, it looks
great! :-)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx0eNaGzAZU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx0eNaGzAZU)

------
k__
I found NixOS this year. Centralized configuration, predictable builds and
easy rollbacks and I was sold.

~~~
lewisl9029
NixOS is by far my preferred distro as well. Was rather disappointed to not
find it mentioned anywhere in the article...

------
some-guy
I have finally found my sweet-spot between being a total neckbeard (Arch) and
following trends (Ubuntu) by simply starting with a minimal
Ubuntu/Fedora/Debian installer and then installing whatever desktop
environment I choose (I like MATE because it's non-intrusive and fast enough
for me). I usually use less than ~10% of the software that comes pre-loaded
with most distros.

~~~
digi_owl
Arch, neckbeard? yea right.

~~~
some-guy
I'll concede a bit: the Gentoo neckbeard is indeed longer.

~~~
edoceo
Gentoo, 10+ years. Stable, fast boot, OpenRC, Xfce. I shave weekly

------
brown
How do you tell if someone uses Arch Linux?

They tell you.

~~~
justinsaccount
The funny thing to me is that arch ~2016 is gentoo ~2004.

The claims about how great arch is are almost word for word what people used
to say about gentoo.

~~~
tbrock
Except not at all because one is all about compiling for speed and tweaking
cflags. The other is about a rolling release as better desktop distro model.

Sure both distributions let you build your system from scratch but the days
upon days of compiling just to slightly optimize a binary is squarely a
gentooism.

~~~
tanderson92
That isn't what gentoo was "all about" at all -- certainly there were ricers
who claimed that as an advantage. The main innovation was the much-improved
customizability of each package (USE flags), something I would note Arch still
does not have. There were ancillary benefits of being a source distro like
interesting cross compiling use cases.

full disclosure: used to be a gentoo dev / am currently an Exherbo (rolling
release/source distro) Dev.

~~~
edoceo
This is why I have Gentoo on servers, desktops and laptops

------
breul99
>Linux Mint

Only if you don't value any sense of security

~~~
nycticorax
Could you elaborate on this? I know many people have security concerns about
Mint, but I've never found their arguments entirely convincing. the opinion of
the Mint devs seems to be that there's a stability vs. security tradeoff, and
that Ubuntu chose one point on the spectrum, while Mint chose another. And
that for a typical desktop machine sitting behind a router without a lot of
ports open (or behind a corporate firewall), the tradeoff Mint chose is a
reasonable one. I've seen several attempts to explain why Mint should not be
trusted, but they seem (to me) to eventually reduce to arguments that more
security is always better, no matter the cost in stability or convenience.

~~~
Aldo_MX
This has been thoroughly discussed when the website was compromised.

[https://lwn.net/Articles/676664/](https://lwn.net/Articles/676664/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11149839](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11149839)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11142986](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11142986)

~~~
nycticorax
Yeah, I know about that. Certainly, not a proud moment in Mint's history, but
it got resolved quickly. But I'm not going to rule out Mint just because they
got hacked once. kernel.org got hacked, after all.

~~~
nickpsecurity
They basically had no effort in their security, no idea how long they were
compromised, and couldnt even respond effectively. I was a big fan of Mint
usability who reluctantly had to ditch it.

~~~
nycticorax
None of these statements are correct.

~~~
nickpsecurity
These are the statements of the security people here that were going tgrough
the data. The level of severity and recovery time supported thrur claims a
bit.

~~~
nycticorax
> They basically had no effort in their security,

This is clearly hyperbole. "no effort"? C'mon.

> no idea how long they were compromised, and couldnt even respond
> effectively.

The hacked .iso was up for less than 24 hrs, so that puts a hard limit on the
worst part of the compromise. The forum issues they fixed in a couple of days.
This seems like a reasonably effective response to me.

> I was a big fan of Mint usability who reluctantly had to ditch it.

Did you really _have_ to ditch it? Or did you just decide to go with a distro
that emphasizes security over convenience? (Which is, of course, a completely
reasonable thing to do, but others may make other (also reasonable) choices.)

~~~
nickpsecurity
I recall my initial data on the situation was in link and comments here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11142986](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11142986)

The hacker who's comment is number one should tell you what level of security
they have going on.

~~~
nycticorax
So... The ultimate source of the breach was an exceedingly weak password? OK,
I guess that does seem like a rookie mistake, which is worrisome. Sorry for
the naive questions, and I apologize for my confrontational tone. But I really
_had_ read most of the referenced articles about the Mint hack (not that last
one you linked to), and it was still not obvious to me that this was
(apparently) incontrovertible evidence of total incompetence on the part of
the Mint devs.

Also, is ryanlol a well-known hacker or something? (I had never heard of him.)

~~~
nickpsecurity
It's all good. We were both going on biased sources. That's why I waited for
some kind of independent confirmation. ryanlol claims to be the Finnish hacker
that hit hundreds of companies or whatever. Backs up the claim a bit by
showing up with more "hands-on evidence" of his assessments as in Mint
situation. ;) I wasn't sure if he was saying that was the source of the breach
or that they weren't practicing even a checklist amount of security. In latter
case, source could be anything. It didn't matter enough to evaluate further as
it was clear they weren't systematically working on their security.

I went back to modifying Ubuntu for the Mint use-cases since they do combine
usability and at least attempts on their security.

------
chao-
I'm a little picky in my desktop distro, and the two metics I judge by are
these:

1\. How quickly after a fresh install I can get the desktop into a state where
I like it. This is mostly just adding things that aren't included, removing
things that are, tweaking keyboard shortcuts, etc.

2\. How many of what I'll call "mundane IT issues" I bump into in the course
of daily, non-developer use.

Note that #1 is based almost entirely on a personal preference and #2 is based
on what I happen to need to do on any random day of the week. I don't expect
it to carry over perfectly to anyone else's experience.

I will say, however, that I am more impressed with Linux Mint 17.3 (Cinnamon)
than with any desktop Linux since middle years of Crunchbang, when it had hit
its stride. If Mint 18 is just as solid, Mint might become the desktop distro
I've spent the longest single stretch of time with. It would need 2 more years
to hit that mark, but because they are basing each version on the 2-year
Ubuntu LTS cycle, it seems possible.

------
jbandela1
Most interesting Linux Distro in 2016:

Ubuntu on Windows 10 (UbuNTu)

This has already massively improved my productivity in writing cross-platform
C++ code.

~~~
atomi
Yeah, just like Linux except when it's not. It's useful for folks forced to
use Windows because of regulations, but definitely not preferred over a real
Linux distribution.

~~~
Aldo_MX
> but definitely not preferred over a real Linux distribution

TBH, If I had to choose between "any real Linux distribution" with WINE and
Windows with "a real UNIX terminal", I would prefer the latter.

~~~
atomi
Not me. I'm fortunate in that I don't require WINE or Windows. By the way have
you tried Cinnamon?

~~~
Aldo_MX
Yes, unfortunately it didn't allow me to run Windows software (ex. design,
video, 3d modelling or audio software, games, office, etc.), because Cinnamon
is a Desktop Environment ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Personally I prefer MATE since it's a fork of the good old GNOME 2, but I
don't use a DE in my servers, so having SSH (installed by Git for Windows) is
enough to connect to them.

I also install GnuWin32[1] to avoid getting the `'%s' is not recognized` error
whenever I'm using the console and I type by muscle memory some basic commands
like ls, or pwd, or grep, and ConEmu[2] with Clink[3] to remove several
annoyances of the Windows Command Line.

Having a "good enough" UNIX terminal like OS X is something I'm waiting to see
in the next iterations of Windows.

[1] [http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/](http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/)

[2] [https://conemu.github.io/](https://conemu.github.io/)

[3] [https://mridgers.github.io/clink/](https://mridgers.github.io/clink/)

PS. Don't patronize all the people who prefer Windows like a freshman who
drank the Linux cool-aid for the first time, most of us need to exchange files
with people from different areas. The need to use Photoshop, Word or
Illustrator over GIMP, Writer or Inkscape is not a matter of preference, but a
matter of being productive by not troubleshooting issues that arise due to the
lack of popularity of FOSS alternatives, to give an example: Try to open a
.docx and a .odt attachment in Gmail for Android _without an Office app_ ,
you'll get really surprised and disappointed at the same time ;)

~~~
atomi
That's by design.

------
pella
Best minimal Linux for container : [https://github.com/gliderlabs/docker-
alpine](https://github.com/gliderlabs/docker-alpine)

~~~
subway
Assuming you don't have a hard dependency on glibc (like the Oracle JVM).

------
ake1
i wish there was a distro that worked well with my hardware out of the box,
preferably without any applications that i do not explicitly choose to
install.

i have no interest in setting up pulseaudio/alsa or having to set nomodeset in
my grub config for the 20th time.

~~~
iammyIP
what distros have you tried? last 2 years have gotten rid of most of the
pulseaudio/alsa annoyances, i didnt have to do any configuration on multiple
machines (xubuntu 14.04, manjaro). i have one machine with an amd e-2000 that
requires the nomodeset, which was annoying to fix, but that's also a pretty
niche system. Overall my impression is that most hardware works out of the box
pretty nice.

~~~
ake1
i usually stick to things with aptitude or pacman.

------
giancarlostoro
I guess nobody has to speak of openSUSE yet. I would say, if you've never
tried it you really should. I had the best experience with openSUSE I've had
in many years. Now with openSUSE LEAP it will be even better. If I ever needed
a package I could easily find it online via package search[0] which I used to
get Steam and other software. I only ever really had issues with the DMD
compiler. I must of used it for 6+ months on my old laptop. It is definitely a
great successor to Slackware which was my first use of Linux (at least it used
to be based off Slackware waaaay back when).

[0]: [https://software.opensuse.org/find](https://software.opensuse.org/find)

------
agumonkey
Elementary was surprisingly 'smooth'. Good job.

------
_kst_
You can easily install MATE or Cinnamon (or any of several other desktop
environments) on either Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

------
vidoc
Quiet a mediocre article actually. Some of those distros are the best in a
category of their own ..

------
blubb-fish
Any experience with distros on usual Acer Laptops (sample space size - 5
different Acers)?

I always run into tedious issues with Ubuntu and Mint regarding to Atheros
Wifi and NVIDIA cards.

Is there a distro with good chances of running out of the box?

------
laichzeit0
Zorin should be on that list.

It's made me enjoy using Linux again and reminds me of how fun Linux was when
Enlightenment was still cool. Mint really let me down the last couple of
versions.

One of the most underrated Debian based distros out there right now.

------
passivepinetree
Man, those Elementary OS screenshots look sexy. Has anyone used it? How is it
for development work? I'd like to give it a shot; one of the big things
holding me back from going all-out on Linux is how beautiful OS X is.

~~~
washadjeffmad
It's certainly simple to use; it has fewer customizable features out of the
box than any distro I've ever seen.

I primarily install it on adults' whose children have left home and older
people's computers (which are disproportionately devices powerful enough to
run Vista but with <4GB RAM), put the three or four apps they need in Plank,
integrate their email, and transfer over their bookmarks and contacts, and
leave them to it. I don't even tell them it's Linux.

It runs well on older hardware, has excellent support, and looks nice. Besides
Skype's shit Linux support, it's a perfect platform for them to digitally
reconnect with family and friends without having to worry about any
unnecessary details.

For it's downsides, it's less responsive than OS X, or animations and actions
don't feel as tight, and it really doesn't want to be tinkered with. As a
general use OS, though, it's pretty complete.

~~~
passivepinetree
Interesting. Probably a good call not to tell them what OS it is; I've been in
that situation before and if you can avoid it, it's definitely better to do
so. Thanks for the insight.

------
andrewclunn
"...similar to CentOS and Ubuntu"

I think the author means CentOS and RedHat.

------
moomin
Given the last year, I'd have listed Linux Mint as Worst Distro for a
Networked Computer.

------
cowardlydragon
More of the same, but the structural glaring desktop failures continue.

The opportunity window to eat Windows 8's market share is gone with Win 10.
And I see no voice recognition on any distro.

Honestly, Android on the desktop is the future of desktop Linux.

There will never be a year of the Linux Desktop based on any of the Gnome /
KDE / whatever window managers.

~~~
vox_mollis
Do you have substantive examples of killer desktop features that are missing
in modern distros?

------
exceptione
I do not agree with elementary OS as best-looking distro.

Imo this award should go to manjaro kde.

~~~
Splendor
I've never heard of manjaro. Would you mind elaborating on why you think it's
the best-looking distro?

~~~
exceptione
I wouldn't say it is perfect, but I haven't seen a better looking linux
distro.

The main reason is consistent looks. They have chosen to create a very flat
ui, thats a good choice for enabling consistency. Flat ui happens to be the
design trend nowadays, which makes it also fashionable.

Manjaro still managed to make the icons look distinctive enough to be useful.
Further strong points are good spacing, good use of fonts and consistency
throughout the whole interface. The file manager is more powerful than the
file explorer from mswindows, but the gui is still cleaner.

This video shows some of the looks.
[http://linuxscoop.com/video/manjaro-15-12-kde](http://linuxscoop.com/video/manjaro-15-12-kde)

Manjaro offers a pleasant surprise to people coming from windows (like me). I
have tried mint, ubuntu, elementary os, and manjaro but I feel manjaro looks
like the most modern and advanced desktop.

------
willisbueller
arch linux ARM over yocto? come on.

~~~
pvinis
I have never heard of yocto. Could you quickly explain why you prefer it to
Arch ARM?

~~~
willisbueller
Arch ARM is basically a ready-to-go distro. Choose your board (if it's
supported, download images, and burn them). Which sounds great, but in the
embedded world, that gets kinda limiting very quickly. Using binaries on
boards can suck. Pulling down random bootloaders off the internet and hoping
one works isn't fun, and god forbid you need to debug the bootloader, now you
need a compatible toolchain which you don't have.

In contrast to something like Buildroot, which is a set of config files and
dependency matching scripts that allows you to compile your own tool chain,
and build your custom software with the same tooling you compiled your target
uboot/rootfs/kernel on. Buildroot was great for being able to compile your
boot loaders, kernels, rootfs, apps... and it was simple to use. But
supporting multiple boards deploying the same programs was difficult, and
moving up versions of the kernel and things like that was also difficult.

Enter yocto. The sweet sweet glory of yocto. Yocto defines a common base layer
of configuration scripts and uses a system called bitbake to build your
recipes. (bitbake emerged from portage). On top of that base layer you add
layers you need. A lot of arm manufacturers are in the openembedded alliance
(which yocto is built on top of) so you'll find git repos from them supported
just about every chip and SoC they make. so you pull that layer in. Then you
browse the yocto repos for other layers you need to pull in, as well as
develop your own layers containing your code. Cross-compilation is a snap, and
most interestingly: their developer mode which puts you in a shell with a
correctly configured environment so you can debug build breaks while cross
compiling is amazing (and git aware)). So it's pluses are -tremendous board
support -easy ability to migrate to boards that aren't supported (as easy as
it can be anyhow) \- ability to put your product code in one layer and just
drag it into multiple yocto projects utilizing different board support layers
allowing you to easily maintain your product on different processors. \- It's
the cleanest system I've seen that does what it does. And by cleanest, I mean
a pretty big jump over it's predecessors into something unlike anything I'd
ever seen in the embedded world. \- It does have a harder learning curve than
something like buildroot, which has a harder learning curve over something
like Arch ARM (where Arch ARM supports your exact SoC)

