I've been a fan of Debian for server environments but now looking from a desktop point of view and out of the 100+ distros out there I'm coming to the conclusion Fedora 40 is a winner.
Interested in what Linux desktop distro you use and why?
Your Favourite Linux Desktop Distro and Why?
SpeedAU on 24/08/2024 - 10:57
Last edited 24/08/2024 - 15:08 by 1 other user
Last edited 24/08/2024 - 15:08 by 1 other user
Comments
And its refreshing taste!
It's a breath of fresh air…
m’lady…
Haven’t used Linux in a long while but I used to like mint.
PopOS is good for gaming. works pretty much out of the box
oh nice never heard will give it a look
Mint because it's easy and I am an idiot and like simple things.
I was a huge Ubuntu user for years and then they went off the reservation with their OS desktop environment and they lost me. Mint was the look and feel I liked and still had the Ubuntu back end I was familiar with.
I also did the same. Started using Ubuntu back in about 2008 at work as legit copies of windows were difficult to come by (I was in a developing country). As Ubuntu started introducing more "features" I moved to Mint for the more pure, vanilla experience.
Puppy Linux based on Debian ;) Fast, portable and consistent :P
Puppy was the distro of choice on older legacy devices. Very lightweight.
linux mint cinnamon. before that it used to be ubuntu desktop, but the GUI became irritating
I love Ubuntu under WSL2. or Mint under Virtualbox.
Never met a linux distro yet I haven't liked.
Just plain Debian does the job for me, I figure if there are so many Debian-based distros may as well just use the original. Stable and gets the job done, also plenty of support online.
Zorin OS for me! Ubuntu based, very user friendly, looks beautiful and similar feel to macos and windows.
For myself, anything from https://universal-blue.org/ & for everyone else https://www.endlessos.org/
endlessos reminds me of OLPC.
Whatever happened to them?A more pragmatic approach is being taken with EOS, considering how cheap second hand/decommissioned/EOL electronics end up.
An immutable Debian base with heaps of extras related to teaching, learning, office (if you want to download an almost 20gb iso), or just the base distro and then install whatever you want via appimage, flatpak, or get your head around Ostree app installations.
The OLPC fellow has moved on to other things, but one of those things is the SUGAR desktop environment for children, the elderly and the disabled.
Deepin. Prettier than Mint and much easier to use (for a linux noob).
Official OS of the CCP?
Not sure. It is open source and available for scrutiny, there was an issue a few years back where an older version was sending data to an analytic company but that was while ago and I haven't heard anything since.
https://www.maketecheasier.com/deepin-linux-review/
"The accusations that Deepin’s was the equivalent of spyware could have been overblown. For those not in the know, some time ago a YouTuber “caught” an older version of Deepin communicating with the Chinese data analytic company CNZZ’s servers. Since there was no reason for such an exchange of information, many users branded Deepin as spyware. Its creators explained that the whole data exchange was restricted to its Software Center. It works as a site and, just like most sites today, was using the analytics services of CNZZ to improve its functionality further, based on what Deepin’s users “did in it.” In that regard, CNZZ did for Deepin what Google Analytics does for millions of sites around the world. The problem is that Deepin didn’t inform anyone that such a data exchange would take place and didn’t offer any opt-out options. As the cherry on top, all of the exchanged information was encrypted, with no way to check it to verify Deepin’s innocence.
Adding further fuel to the fire, Deepin collaborates closely with Huawei. Officially, their relation is restricted to Huawei using Deepin as the primary OS for a series of laptops they offer to the Chinese market. Unofficially, it’s implied Huwaei has a say on how Deepin evolves. Even if those accusations are unfounded, even if you treat them as conspiracy theories, the truth remains that Deepin is still one of the few Linux distributions (and the only one this humble writer remembers) that comes with an EULA. You can’t install it if you don’t accept it. And its primary benefactor is a Chinese tech company accused of cyber-espionage.
Objectively, with its source code available, Deepin Linux itself looks safe. It’s not “spyware” in the real sense of the word. That is, it does not secretly track everything the user does and then send relevant data to third parties – not as far as day-to-day usage goes.
Also, note that Deepin itself, and the software that comes preinstalled, may not be spyware, but there are no guarantees for the apps available through its App Store."
Horses for courses I guess, to me all government is the same and we know for a fact that the western governments and corporations spy on us and use backdoors. I'm not committed to any particular Linux project though so if I found a 'safe' one that is as newb-freindly as Deepin I'm happy to take a look. Zorin looked nice but I haven't spent much time with it. Cheers. :)
gnome shell used in fedora 40 looks very pretty. getting used to the Activities Overview rather than using a traditional pull down menu would be the biggest hurdle for me
Debian for server, Fedora/Debian for desktop
Debian for home server. Linux Mint for daily driver.
I always use ubuntu with XFCE frontend for speed and performance.
Windows WSL
Outstanding.
Fedora. Leading edge software, pure vanilla Gnome experience if that's your thing, very early/first adopters of tech (good and bad) that will eventually have widespread use like anaconda/dracut/pipewire/plymouth/wayland. Someone has to be the first.
And especially the policy of fixing things upstream which benefits every other distro.
Nobara, basically a modified Fedora with gaming related kernel patches and apps.
No poll? Debian on both server and desktop. Just plain vanilla Gnome + some apps from Flatpak.
Why? Just want a stable desktop that's not constantly breaking or changing.
I'm pretty sure this objective depending on hardware you have. Fedora drivers seem to be up to date and have had not much hassle, Linux Mint had issues with freezing with Zoom Calls could be anything camera etc… so far Fedora been solid. will try others
None so far. Debian is too stable and harder to get the latest version of the software you need. Fedora feels too experimental. Arch's pacman is just too weird and clunky.
I love Alpine, small and efficient, and I like the apk package manager the most (vs apt, dnf pacman etc). It is just simple and sensible to use. Too bad it does have proper support for the desktop.ChromeOS Flex.
Automatic security and feature updates in the background every 4 weeks.
Runs Debian apps.
Very accessable for the average user.
I try several but keep going back to Kubuntu. It has the large community of Ubuntu, but has KDE Plasma for the desktop environment.
My second favourite is Mint.
Arch (or even better artix) because I am an insufferable hipster.
But seriously, I find arch is the easiest to accomplish what you want to do, if you're willing to do some tinkering.
Ubuntu Mate.
It's boring but I use Ubuntu since it's the most 'mainstream' linux distro and has instructions for a variety of software and hardware.
Definitely not perfect but used it as a daily driver for 5+ years
Lots of people say they like Fedora for the stability and choice of software. Lots of people say they like Mint for the user experience. Well that user experience comes from the DE (desktop environment), which in the case of Mint, is called "Cinnamon".
What many people don't know is that there's a "spin" of Fedora where the DE is Cinnamon, so you get the UX of Mint, with all the benefits of Fedora!
https://fedoraproject.org/spins/cinnamon/
I've been a delighted Fedora Cinnamon user for more than 10 years. I've used Fedora (and its predecessors) user since 1995 and Linux since 1993. For me, every year is the year of the Linux desktop!
I am LOVING the SteamOS running Arch KDE
What are people's favourite distro for docker?
(home use, not work)
I use TrueNas Scale for containers, although I think it might actually be Kubernetes under the hood.
If I wasn't using that, I would just use Ubuntu most likely.
How easy is it to change from one distro to another? Do you have to wipe everything and start again? If you
if you want to try a different GUI desktop environment you should be able to install it with a package manager so you have multiple GUIs available
if you want to try a different distribution you will need to wipe and install, or maybe repartition if you have free space
alternatively you could try a new distribution from a live CD or using virtualbox
When you install, put /home directory on a separate partition so that it persists across distros
I can't believe I'm the first to say Manjaro! I've tried quite a few over the years and Manjaro has been super stable, loving the rolling release and package manager.
The 2 OS's that I have switched between are BazziteOS and Nobara.
As you can probably tell, my use case is for gaming.
They are both very competent, however the one downside for me is a lacklustre support for HDR, which Is an important requirement for me.i installed the gnome extension "dash to panel" in gnome shell which makes it more useable with application quick launchers is the top/bottom panel. fedora 40 + gnome shell in a virtual box seems ok. i'm testing with linux mint + gnome shell on my desktop
Kubuntu - good desktop customisation capabilities and the stability of Ubuntu
Running Lubuntu in virtualbox
the snapshot functionality of the btrfs filesystem used in fedora is quite nice. i think i will use btrfs for all future installs for any linux distribution. i installed fedora 41 with raid1 + LUKS full disk encryption + btrfs + snapper
Linux Mint: Because of its user-friendly interface.