Linux

I'm using debian.

Arch Linux

Reasons:

• Pacman
• the AUR
• community driven
• bleeding edge
• pragmatic stance regarding closed source software
• sane defaults
• minimalism, build your own without too much compiling
• the wiki

Mint, because it works with a minimum of effort.

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, because it's more up to date than Mint, it's a rolling distro, it works, and in the rare event of a problem it's easy to roll back to a snapshot.

Linux Mint: Debian Edition. After watching a YouTube review I decided to take a break from Arch and give it a try, I'd always like Cinnamon, and I really like this.

Arch.

People think it's really challenging and brittle, but everything seems to always work no matter how often I update (or don't) and the wiki is top notch.

I actually chose arch initially because when you go to forums to troubleshoot problems there is always an ubuntu answer and an arch answer, and the arch answer is almost always shorter.

I only use Arch, it's really stable and easy to fix if something goes wrong thanks to the excellent arch wiki.

But I recommend PopOS for anyone who just wants something good looking and stable and who doesn't need the latest packages all the time.

Debian only household here ..

I recommend openSUSE Tumbleweed without hesitation.

Depends on what you're looking for.

I cannot recommend NixOS enough, it's such a good distribution but on the other hand it's quite tough to learn as it deviates a lot on how distributions do things. It still uses a standard stack (glibc, systemd, GNU tools and all) but the nix tools which include the package manager are totally different from what other distributions offer. It's very solid, yet flexible. It offers a lot of packages by default. I've switched my machines to it because of the advantages.

Arch is great as a rolling release distribution with solid repositories (lots of packages and quite up to date) and it's very close to upstream with a more traditional approach to the distribution tools. In fact there aren't really any apart from the package manager by default. I feel this is one of the most comfortable distributions if you want to learn how a classic Linux system is structured. I ran Arch for about 15 years and didn't really have anything to complain about and I learned more about Linux there than with Ubuntu and Debian.

Please note that neither of these are what one would consider beginner-friendly distributions.

Unpopular choice here but Ubuntu LTS with ubuntu-debullshit (vanilla gnome, replace snap with flatpak).

My main factors:

• stability of the LTS
• drivers and HW support
• tons of resources online
• already use Ubuntu for servers and Raspian on my Pi

I’ve had my fun distro hopping in the past but I just want a low maintenance system nowadays.

Mint. It just works.

Pop!_OS. Sensible defaults and it's based off of Ubuntu, which is the distro I'm most familiar with.

I try so dang hard not to use Linux Mint because I have been using off and on since 2008 but always come crawling back to it when I run into some esoteric issue on another distro. It just hits the sweet spot of what I understand computing to be. I have desperately tried to use various forms of arch. OpenSUSE, fedora, debian, and a whole host of others and eventually get frustrated for some probably solvable reason and go back to my sweet, my love, my wart covered X11 using, 5.15 running, stale boring life mate Mint.

Pop_os for my laptop and desktop. I use these machines for dev work and gaming. I want to spend as little time as possible doing maintenance. Debian for all servers and containers. Very stable, maintenance doesn't take much effort.

If I was running a pure gaming system I'd probably go with Arch.

Void Linux user here with Qtile - Wayland as my WM.

I have been running OpenSUSE Leap on my home server for 3 years, and I moved from Fedora after many years to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on both my work and home (gaming) PC. I am super happy!

My journey roughly went like:

1. Mint + Cinnamon
2. Mint + i3
3. MX Linux + i3
4. Debian + i3

Right now I'm using Debian + i3. It's pretty lit

My main reason is that Debian is a very stable, very popular distro, that isn't a fork of another distro. The fact that it's stable means issues are more rare; the fact that it's popular means when issues do pop up, there are much higher odds that I'll find others who ran into them before; and the fact that it isn't a fork means that I can just prefix "debian" to any search, rather than say having to contend with it being potentially a "debian" issue, or an "ubuntu" issue, or a "mint" issue. In fact, debian is popular enough that most of the time I could just prefix "linux" to a search, rather than "debian".

While there are distros that market themselves on other merits, it seems to me that the main goal of an operating system is to be a stable foundation. I wanted to pick something that would let me have a good time with i3; Debian seems one of the most straightforward choices. I considered arch, but in the end Debian seems like the lower-effort option.

I've been a long time Debian user. Debian 12 has been almost a perfect release so far. Highly recommended.

Everyone immediately want you to use their distribution of choice. However no-one can really answer this unless you include more information about yourself and your Linux experience, objectives, what kind of tinkering you're comfortable with, what you expectations are, etc.

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed for now, with Garuda for gaming. Still working up the courage to combine all the best features of both into my first Arch install.

Debian + GNOME.

Historically I've been a huge fan of Ubuntu, but I just can't tolerate Snap any more and started moving away from Ubuntu in general.

I was going to say Arch but I typically install EndeveavourOS these days ( lazy man’s Arch ).

10 years of Arch and counting.

I'm the wrong one to ask because every time I try something else, I end up returning to Fedora.

But what you switch to depends on why you want to switch:

• Want to learn more about how Linux works? Install Arch the Arch Way, or try out Void.
• Want a different DE? Well, you've got Fedora Spins if that's your main goal, but KDE Neon lets you try out the latest stable KDE stuff, which is fun!
• Looking for a rolling distro but don't want the extra complexity of Arch's minimalist philosophy? OpenSuse Tumbleweed is fantastic.
• Do you really want to dig deep and have total control of your system? Look into Gentoo or Linux From Scratch.

I've done most of these and more, and I'm happy to recommend something more specific, but I can't without knowing what you're looking for.

If you don't know what you're looking for, and just want to do something different, then do what I do when the distrohopping bug strikes: check out several distros' websites, pick a couple that appeal to you, then research those a little deeper, maybe rum them on a virtual machine for a bit. If you find one you like, back up your critical data and go for it!

I'm considering to switch from Fedora to Debian stable with Flatpaks for the available apps (more up-to-date and more isolated).

But I'm also considering NixOS atm

You know where to go, BTW

EndeavourOS, it just works really well and never breaks. The only time I had an issue was when I was using the Zen kernel and it locked up installing ledge of legends and watching a YouTube video at the same time. Using the mainline kernel though gives me no issues.

The biggest selling point for Fedora IMO is the way it handles UEFI and Secure Boot. I haven't found anything comparable. Securing the proprietary garbage running on your main board is critical regardless of your OS.

Nobara on my desktop, Pop_os! on my laptop. As soon as the new COSMIC DE is ready I will switch to Pop on my desktop as well.

Trisquel GNU / Linux. The kernel is 100% libre so you can do your computing in freedom.

btwOS.

I can't tell you if it's *your* cup of coffee. You should decide it by yourself.

EndeavourOS is good, I was frequently using arch wiki on other distros so it's handy to have it actually apply accurately to my distro. AUR is super handy as well.

I could use regular Arch, but I appreciate the simplified installation.

Guix. I like Nix and Scheme so it just makes sense.

i like fedora a lot, but its updates got a little too far ahead for me. So i recently switched to debian 12, and with flatpaks and their more-current mesa components, everything is working on my desktop as well as it was before, especially games on steam (flatpak) and in bottles.

Void. I like xbps, and I prefer distros that make as few assumptions as possible.

Ubuntu. It Debian without the driver issues.

Fedora Workstation

Fedora Silverblue. I want a Linux system that just works.

Still Arch on main desktop, but slowly moving towards NixOS everywhere.

Here's an incomplete list of my daily drivers since...well, I'm old.

• QNX Neutrino
• Mandrake 7.2
• RedHat 7.1
• Went back to Windoze for quite a while
• Gentoo
• Ubuntu (quite a leap there)
• OS X
• Linux Mint
• Debian
• LMDE
• Fedora
• KDE Neon
• macOS
• Fedora Asahi

I'm sure I've missed the odd one or two (and I regularly jumped back and forth with Debian/Ubuntu/Mint for years and years).

I used to distro hop a lot, so if I only used it for less than a month, I haven't bothered to list it.