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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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im a notorious distro hopper lmao, right now i am using manjaro for the first time. previously i was using Pop OS where i had plasma installed for the DE rather than using cosmic or whatev they call it... but it seemed like there were a few issues between Pop and plasma, so i hopped to manjaro
first time using a distro that uses pacman so there are a few growing pains for me
Cachyos.
Used to use pure arch but I like the cachy optimisations and their repos
You can put Cachyos tweaks kernels and repos on top of arch or nixos if you like.
I know you can basically turn arch into catchy, but I see no reason to when there is a pre made distro.
As for Nix, I think it looks very interesting but I very much love arch for my desktop and am not really looking for a replacement at the moment, but it is number one on my list for the future if things change
Began moving all my hardware to Linux this year since none of them will run win11 without fk-about-ing - and I just don't want to. So my server, media box and laptop are all cut over, only my main desktop left on windows a bit longer but it's goose is cooked too.
I've tried dozens of distros over the years but I've settled on Fedora KDE.
The why:
Mint, first one I tried, and works just fine. It's xfce with i3wm.
Debian. Used to use others but realized they all just added crap I didn't want, or could add myself with a simple script.
I was a Slackware then Fedora, then Ubuntu as my daily drivers (whipe trying other distros, or Kali for specific purposes) before settling here.
Arch with KDE on ThinkPad T460s (studying and bullshit pc).
Nobara with i3wm on home studio/gaming desktop. Switching to Arch on it one day but CBA at the moment.
Honestly which distro I use isn't all that important to me these days so long as I'm getting decently new kernel updates. Depending on my use case that's not even important. Used Debian LTS on a home media center for probably 8 years.
Bazzite for my gaming pc, steam deck, and family members. It just works and they cant fuck it up. Even brother laser printers official drivers installed for my mom's comp. Gotta check the details of that cups exploit though. My gamig pc is also the fallback pc I expect to always have working and for servicing any others if problems come up.
Arch or arch based, except manjaro which has screwed me over too many times, for having easy access to pretty much any software that can run on linux, or just stuff that requires too many hoops to jump through to get working on atomic distros like bazzite.
Dietpi on my SBCs like the ones running klipper for my 3d printers
Debian for my servers, homeassistant etc, but I'm planning on checking out coreos.
Also alpine just because.
Elementary OS.
I really like the focus on delivering a solid, intuitive and snappy desktop environment. It is absolutely what I recommend to newbies, who are looking for a Windows or macOS replacement.
I started with Slackware in the late nineties. Have been through Redhat, Suse, Ubuntu, Arch, Tumbleweed. These days I just can't be bothered, I just want to game and code and I prefer an out of the box well configured Ubuntu derivative, they also upgrade easily and have lots of application compatibility - mostly everyone provides .deb packages. I could also choose Fedora for these reasons.
So now on Pop!_OS 24.04. Pop is has a stable/lts base but still gets Mesa/Nvidia/Kernel updates on a regular basis. I use it mainly for gaming and Rust dev, writing some COSMIC applets as well.
COSMIC Alpha does still have problems with some games but not the games I play.
Gentoo on my home computer. Started way back in the day when you had to recompile source RPMs on RPM-based distros to get CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) language support. Debian language support was excellent, but I didn't enjoy always being 5 package versions behind, especially as fast as some software was being developed.
CJK isn't an issue anywhere anymore, but I stay on Gentoo because it has all the packages I want, and it doesn't force systemd on me.
Will be moving away from Ubuntu on my work computer because of all the foolishness with 'is it deb or is it snap?'. Not sure what I'll go to.
Arch, cause I set it up to my liking once out of curiosity when I was procrastinating, wrote a script that automates https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System_maintenance and now am too lazy to switch to something else.
Especially since maintenance involves typing Update.sh once a week or so, and nothing else.
Lubuntu
My first foray into unix-likes was oprnbsd with fluxbox. I eventually moved to openbox. Lubuntu with lxqt gives a nice simple openbox experience with a menu and stuff. I customize it to have openbox present the mouse menu instead of the whole pcmanfm desktop thing.
Pop. I just need ubuntu without snap, distro's default look doesnt matter since I'll just use sway/i3wm.
Though the fact that they're building their own tiling DE could make me stick with it fully when it comes out.
Artix because I love Arch and the AUR but networkd kept causing my home network to act like the mad hatter's tea party with IP assignment.