So we can clearly see the most popular distros and the reasons why people use them, please follow this format:

  • Write the name of the Linux distro as a first-level comment.
  • Reply to that comment with each reason you like the distro as a separate answer.

For example:

  • Distro (first-level comment)
    • Reason (one answer)
    • Other reason (a different answer)

Please avoid duplicating options. This will help us better understand the most popular distros and the reasons why people use them.

    • hobbsc@lemmy.sdf.org
      1·
      1 year ago

      Mint

      Generally works in cases where Ubuntu would and you don’t have to deal with Canonical’s choices.

    • blackbrook@mander.xyz
      1·
      1 year ago

      The big advantage IMHO, is the out of the box BTRFS set up that lets you simply roll back to a non-broken state, right from the grub menu, should an update break your system. I haven’t had to use it yet, but it is a huge source of comfort knowing it is there.

      Also, many people coming to opensuse remark how much snappier it is than other distros.

      • evadzs@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        Garuda uses this feature on an Arch base, it’s saved me a couple of times. Props to openSUSE for developing the way to make that happen!

    • LeafyBirch@kbin.social
      1·
      1 year ago

      It’s arch. It just happened to be the composition i had my previous arch setup as. Yay for AUR stuff, KDE Plasma for DE. Includes a couple of useful tools and makes for a very solid OS.

      Anyone who has been in the Ubuntu sphere of things with Linux, should take a moment to try arch. EndeavourOS is perfect for these people.

    • 00@kbin.social
      1·
      1 year ago

      Easy to set up, very helpful community. If you liked Manjaro or think Manjaro is sketchy but like the idea of a slightly pre-configured arch, check it out.

    • Cralex@lemmy.one
      1·
      1 year ago

      • Supports a wide variety of hardware, including ARM devices such as the Pinebook Pro.

      • Up-to-date rolling release.

      • Multiple DE’s available with customized, clean interfaces.

    • festus@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      My favorite too. For me on other distros I was typically running into bugs that I’d find had already been fixed upstream months previously - and then I had to either live with the bug or do some hack to manually install the newer version. Somewhat related to this, but as Linux gamer it was also frustrating to have the older Mesa drivers all the time because it couldn’t support the older kernel version the distro shipped or something.

    • CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml
      1·
      1 year ago
      • Packages are kept up to date so it’s often the first distro to support new hardware, APIs, etc.
      • AUR provides a huge library of software that isn’t often in package manager repos.
      • Rolling release so you don’t have to deal with repository upgrades every 6 months to 2 years.
      • btw
    • Pe4rl@lemmy.fmhy.ml
      0·
      1 year ago

      My current isn’t vanilla arch, but Endeavour OS, because as an unexperienced user I wanted to have the least trouble while installing, … I regret it ever since, because I began with a Plasma desktop and ended up with i3, mainly because of tiling, problems with some utilities, keyboard switching, etc. In the end, I still love the system, one can get quite minimal with it.

      • jemorgan@lemm.ee
        1·
        1 year ago

        I love that you talked about regretting it. Using one of the arch-based diaries that obfuscates the installation process honestly destroys a lot of the benefit of using arch. Having to vaguely understand how the system fits together makes fixing issues a million times easier.

        • Pe4rl@lemmy.fmhy.ml
          1·
          1 year ago

          Yep. And I still forgot to mention one thing. It is a 2016 Macbook Pro, which basically means just more work fixing.