Arch, BTW
Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
Debian
- Community run distro
- Very stable, and can run the bleeding edge through Snap/Flatpack/Appimages, Distrobox, or VMs/Containers
I love debian because it's always there for you.
- Compatible with more devices than many distros
EndeavourOS
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.
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.
This, basically Arch but quick to install with all the most important things installed and ready without being bloated.
openSUSE Tumbleweed
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.
Fedora
Stable
Only FOSS software and repositories unless otherwise enabled
Cutting edge application releases so I get the newest toys after they’ve been decently tested
Arch. I can't live without the AUR at this point.
We cannot forget about the wiki, which is a great resource for not only the Arch distro, but for any Linux install.
Arch Linux
The Arch Wiki is in a language made by users for users. Meaning that its easy to understand because the wiki allows to talk about issues, alternatives and more hints about each small topic, every other wiki has some structure where important details are missing or not taken seriously.
Manjaro. It just worked on any device I installed it on. And wifi just worked with no fiddling.
Then I installed it on surface tablet. What didn't work, I found kernel fixes I could implement.
Of all the distros, for me, it was the easiest to use, install and manipulate!!
Slackware
- the most rock stable distro imo. No systemd or snap stuff. Packages are almost (if not fully) vanilla version from upstream. Simple yet efficient unix-style approach to everything like package management, slackbuilds are really good too.
Nixos. For all its complexity and dilemmas and issues it has given me, it's the comfiest for me and gives me really cool features
Debian
-Simple distro free of too much bloat without being too bare-bones
-Stable, but can also be changed to be a bit more updated if you want that instead-
Fedora
I want to preface this by saying that Red Hat absolutely deserve your ire in light of the recent news.
I appreciate that Fedora has relatively recent packages for a fixed release distribution. I really appreciate how they've pioneered in desktop-oriented technologies to help make Linux a more palatable experience for regular users, and I'm glad to see these gradually be adopted by others over time.
I'm happy to hear that the Fedora project still mostly operates Independently under redhat / IBM, but I'd be lying if I said the IBM acquisition didn't worry me to the point of looking into alternatives.
I've been trying to convert to linux since the mid-2000's. Ubuntu and derivatives, fedora, and SUSE. Gaming and my lack on knowledge always brought me back to Windows.
In 2018 I tried Manjaro and loved it. But I broke it without the knowledge to fix it multiple times. The Arch BTW memes were strong at the time so I took the plunge and studied the wiki, and documented my own installation process and really learned a lot in the process. Proton was released and suddenly gaming got WAY better. I didn't remove my windows install completely until 2022 but Arch has been my home on my main machine.
I have since put together a proxmox cluster and run many distros for various things but that's a whole other rabbit hole!
Arch
- Minimal and I install whatever the hell I want on it
- AUR