What's your favorite Distro?

Worztron

Hi.

I'll start: Debian Stable.

Despite the packages becoming somewhat outdated - this isn't too much of an issue anymore with the availability of AppImages, Flatpak, & Snaps. The Debian Backports are also great for getting a more recent kernel, etc.
I was on Ubuntu/Linux Mint for years, then jumped to Debian a few years ago.

🐧

chonix

Hi,

I'll jump into the wagon too

I started with Debian Testing back in 2005, and nowadays I am onto Debian Stable.

Albeit I'm always eager to try every and all eye-candy distros and explosive/unstable stuff, I used to switch to Ubuntu a few times cause I had to test stuff. so my second choice is Ubuntu LXDE/MATE flavoring. Beware, I'm a sucker for eye-candy/new stuff over stability.

Johnboy1951

What's your favorite Distro?

Whichever one works for you.

For me that is PCLinuxOS ....... has been stable for more than 10 years

chonix

Johnboy1951 wrote:

What's your favorite Distro?

Whichever one works for you.

good man! /standingovation
this little paragraph did the day for me

mcmoustache

I used to have multiple partitions back in the day where I would test different distros for a few weeks.

Then I stopped being cool so now I just run Kubuntu and don't really play around with distros.

rayzercork

Debian, i usually start with stable then upgrade to testing when the packages start to age.

ubuntu went through a stage a few years ago where everything started breaking so jumped to debian instead and havent looked back.

PropJoe10

Its very hard to name a favourite distro, but I have to say, over the last couple of years I haven't found anything that's better than PCLinuxOS. Current, stable software and a nice helpful community. Can't go wrong.

I ran Arch for about 18 months on my main laptop and never had a crash. Must get back to that again soon.

Manjaro is also nice if you want something Arch based.

Linux Mint Debian Edition is great too - stable base with up-to-date Cinnamon desktop components.

Running Fedora 30 on my main PC currently. Excellent as you'd expect.

MX Linux is all the rage these days. Also an excellent distro if you enjoy XFCE.

As John said, whatever distro works for you I suppose! It's a great time for Linux desktop users, in my view.

Keplar240B

The paradox of choice.

Johnboy1951

Keplar240B wrote: »

The paradox of choice.

One word ...... terrible. :eek:

/end

rayzercork

what id recommend is learning how to do a net install and build a distro to your own needs. prebuilt ones always have something you dont like about it

Worztron

Keplar240B wrote: »

The paradox of choice.

Debian it is then.

Sir Oxman

I'm a recent switcher from the telemetry hell of Win10 and I hopped for about a month until I learned that there really are only about 4 choices (for me) - Arch, Debian, openSuse and Fedora. The hopping around was only for the looks of it bar the odd extra system tool here and there.

Debian is my choice for my desktops/laptops I love it, netinstall and choose my desktop environment and what I want installed.
Ubuntu Server for my file and media server with Atomic Toolkit <--fantastic

I'm loving Linux (I am very much a novice when it comes to to it but enjoying learning it) and now hold only an old laptop with a Windows LTSC install for old times sake, everything else is switched over.

I'm building up to trying an install of Arch, wish me luck!

mcmoustache

PropJoe10 wrote: »

Its very hard to name a favourite distro, but I have to say, over the last couple of years I haven't found anything that's better than PCLinuxOS. Current, stable software and a nice helpful community. Can't go wrong.

I keep hearing this. Maybe I should go back to it. I don't think I had any solid reason for abandoning it. I just ended up trying kubuntu and found it fine for what I was going.

I do remember really liking the all-in-one settings program which stood out at the time when compared to other distros.

Worztron

mcmoustache wrote: »

I keep hearing this. Maybe I should go back to it. I don't think I had any solid reason for abandoning it. I just ended up trying kubuntu and found it fine for what I was going.

I do remember really liking the all-in-one settings program which stood out at the time when compared to other distros.

One thing that annoys me about PCLinuxOS is the awfully generic name. I know it's a small issue but there was zero imagination put into naming the distro. It does seem to have a large and dedicated userbase though.

PropJoe10

Worztron wrote: »

One thing that annoys me about PCLinuxOS is the awfully generic name. I know it's a small issue but there was zero imagination put into naming the distro. It does seem to have a large and dedicated userbase though.

Yep Its an old distro but the name really hasnt aged well. Too late to change it now I suppose!

Johnboy1951

Worztron wrote: »

One thing that annoys me about PCLinuxOS is the awfully generic name. I know it's a small issue but there was zero imagination put into naming the distro. It does seem to have a large and dedicated userbase though.

I would guess that the name was not a huge factor when the distro first began, more than 15 years ago

Worztron

PropJoe10 wrote: »

Yep Its an old distro but the name really hasnt aged well. Too late to change it now I suppose!

Yes, I'm afraid so.

moonlighting_1

lubuntu with lxqt.

The high horse brigade

Fedora, I absolutely love it, I've been running it as my laptop daily runner since Fedora 22. I use Centos on 2 home servers and Ubuntu server 18.04 LTS on a Hetzner remote dedi

Worztron

For the PCLinuxOS fans here: http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/271912/index.html

Johnboy1951

Worztron wrote: »

For the PCLinuxOS fans here: http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/271912/index.html

Yes the mag has been going for a long time now.

Personally I am not as enamoured with it as I used to be.
The content is not as 'interesting' to me these days ..... I have no interest in the puzzles, recipes for meals or the little ditties.
There is not a lot left these days if you take those out.

I preferred the more Linux technical nature of the older issues.

There are some specials and compendium issues also available.

The full range can be accessed here
https://pclosmag.com/index.html

and the special editions here
https://pclosmag.com/special.html

No doubt it is still a valuable addition to one's general reading.

PropJoe10

Debian 10 "Buster" released on Saturday, I believe.

Worztron

PropJoe10 wrote: »

Debian 10 "Buster" released on Saturday, I believe.

Yep, currently seeding a few iso files. :-)

source

Solus 4 is my current favourite distro. The only issue I've had with it, is the login screen displays a chosen image from the os instead of allowing you to use your desktop wallpaper.

It just works, no WiFi issues, no battery drain, no overheating (all issues I had on the same machine with Ubuntu).

PropJoe10

Over all my years of using numerous Linux distros, the distro that has spent the longest in one spell installed on my machine is Arch. Must go back there fairly soon when I can find the motivation to do an install!

limnam

I guess it depends on the job.

Personal use I've got stuck on Fedora for years now mostly due to time constraints. As it tends to just work and don't have a lot of time to be "playing" to get things done.

Smiles35

Great thread. Can't reccomomend a favorite as I just started looking at Linux Distros. Just a quick thumbs up for Puppy Linux. It was only 340mb's and seems to have everything on it. Have it on an old laptop. PCLinuxOS is getting a spin-up now on my main pc. What will a 2.5 gig instal have on it compared to Puppy I wonder. Keep the recommendations coming!

Worztron

Debian Stable + Mate DE.

PropJoe10

I believe that Fedora has just dropped a new release there recently. Not been Linux-ing much lately but must fire that up in a VM to take a look.

Read somewhere recently that Ubuntu has seen a massive surge in users since the demise of Windows 7. Good to see!

Worztron

PropJoe10 wrote: »

I believe that Fedora has just dropped a new release there recently. Not been Linux-ing much lately but must fire that up in a VM to take a look.

Read somewhere recently that Ubuntu has seen a massive surge in users since the demise of Windows 7. Good to see!

DT covers it here:

Tom Dunne

I'm using Anti-X on my ancient Sony laptop and can't recommend it highly enough. All the other distros I tried were slow and sluggish on this machine, but Anti-X brought a new life to it.

I've even managed to get Microsoft Teams working on it, say no more.

limnam

Tom Dunne wrote: »

I'm using Anti-X on my ancient Sony laptop and can't recommend it highly enough. All the other distros I tried were slow and sluggish on this machine, but Anti-X brought a new life to it.

I've even managed to get Microsoft Teams working on it, say no more.

Hows teams running? wine?

Tom Dunne

limnam wrote: »

Hows teams running? wine?

No, native.

Microsoft provides the .deb file. It was actually very straight forward.

source

Tom Dunne wrote: »

No, native.

Microsoft provides the .deb file. It was actually very straight forward.

It's on the snap store too.

rayzercork

i finally got rid of debian, wanted a change after 5 years on it and switched to peppermint 10 on both my laptop and main rig. both are working fine and ive been testing a few buntu releases recently too.
also have mint xfce and kde neon on one external drive and had pclinuxos xfce on another but the enclosure packed up so had to rip it out. all decent distros in their own ways

PropJoe10

I haven't used Ubuntu for years but I must say, I'm having a great experience with the new LTS 20.04 release on my main PC. Everything works really nicely.

rayzercork

main version is a bit too heavy for my old pc but the other versions were great, liking lubuntu & ubuntu mate in particular.

10-10-20

Just as the Covid-19 crisis started, I revived a Dell Inspiron desktop (3GHz Core2duo) and installed Mint 19.3 Cinnamon with a GPU (GT 710) and the system has been flying with no issues. The support for third-party video drivers is much simpler than it was in the past and as a result I'm doing some video-editing and light rendering (openShot) on the CUDA cores.

Hat-tip to Mr Clem in Athlone.

limnam

10-10-20 wrote: »

Just as the Covid-19 crisis started, I revived a Dell Inspiron desktop (3GHz Core2duo) and installed Mint 19.3 Cinnamon with a GPU (GT 710) and the system has been flying with no issues. The support for third-party video drivers is much simpler than it was in the past and as a result I'm doing some video-editing and light rendering (openShot) on the CUDA cores.

Hat-tip to Mr Clem in Athlone.

Does he still run the project?

10-10-20

limnam wrote: »

Does he still run the project?

He's author "1", so yeah!

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?author=1

PropJoe10

I havent gone near Mint in years but I've been running Mint 20 Cinnamon Beta on my main PC for the last week and it's absolutely fantastic. Such a coherent desktop experience. I can see myself sticking with it for a good while to come.

L.Jenkins

I'd love if Mint came with an rpm base system, as opposed to Ubuntu or Debian.

SpaceX

Over the years I think UBUNTU has done tremendously well — so that is my first option following by RHEL/CentOS, Fedora

L.Jenkins

Am currently using Mint 20 now with Cinnamon. Made a balls of an install last night, so I'll stick with it for now.

Mekirin

I've been using Ubuntu Mate for a couple of years now on my desktop. I have an old, aging netbook as well which I prefer using Debian stable with LXDE on. Seeing as my netbook is so old, I rarely use it these days.

Debian stable + KDE for the past 6 years or so. 2010 - 2013 I was on Fedora both work and personal machines.

I was on Ubuntu for a while but my main criticism of Ubuntu was Ubuntu forums. It seemed, due to the fact that so many noobs picked Ubuntu as their first distro, that many posters didn't properly get forum etiquette, like returning to a thread they had opened regarding a problem and reporting how they fixed it.

Forum mods often marked threads as "Solved", when actually they assumed it was solved because the user hadn't come back.

Debian forums, or mailling lists seems to attract more seasoned posters so all relevant information is provided and a solution usually gets posted.

Recently upgraded to Debian 10 and had no issues at all. One of the most stress free upgrades I've ever done.

Worztron

Mekirin wrote: »

I've been using Ubuntu Mate for a couple of years now on my desktop. I have an old, aging netbook as well which I prefer using Debian stable with LXDE on. Seeing as my netbook is so old, I rarely use it these days.

Hi Mekirin. Same here - I've got 2 ancient laptops (I use the odd time). Both are 10+ years old. Both run Debian Stable with LXDE and are still very usable. I think it's a shame that LXDE is no longer in development.

Worztron

Deleted User wrote: »

Debian stable + KDE for the past 6 years or so. 2010 - 2013 I was on Fedora both work and personal machines.

I was on Ubuntu for a while but my main criticism of Ubuntu was Ubuntu forums. It seemed, due to the fact that so many noobs picked Ubuntu as their first distro, that many posters didn't properly get forum etiquette, like returning to a thread they had opened regarding a problem and reporting how they fixed it.

Forum mods often marked threads as "Solved", when actually they assumed it was solved because the user hadn't come back.

Debian forums, or mailling lists seems to attract more seasoned posters so all relevant information is provided and a solution usually gets posted.

Recently upgraded to Debian 10 and had no issues at all. One of the most stress free upgrades I've ever done.

Hi denartha. Debian is awesome alright. That's unfortunate regarding UF - I got started in GNU/Linux with Ubuntu and the UF were my savior as I had so many questions to ask. I never could get into KDE - MATE & Xfce are my faves - then LXDE. Do you not find Debian Stable + KDE to be very outdated given how quickly KDE is being developed?

L.Jenkins

Right. I love Mint and I tried 20, but unless it's my machine, it seemed to gobble up a lot of processing time and slowed things down. I didn't go investigating. So I'll never know.



This morning, I've reverted back to Fedora, with the latest release, and I'm trying to install a driver for my wireless card. It's taking it's taking it's sweet time, because I have to use my phone, teethering via blue tooth to use the net.


Love both operating systems, but I always find my way back to Fedora some how.

Mekirin

Worztron wrote: »

Hi Mekirin. Same here - I've got 2 ancient laptops (I use the odd time). Both are 10+ years old. Both run Debian Stable with LXDE and are still very usable. I think it's a shame that LXDE is no longer in development.

Definitely, it's a great little desktop environment for older machines. I'll have to try some other desktop environment when Debian decides to stop supporting it.

An Ri rua

I've been using Lubuntu and Xubuntu on 2 old machines for a few years now.
A Dell Inspiron 1300 with a 2.0Ghz chip and 2GB ram. Always been a satisfying experience.
Also an MSI Wind U135DX with 2GB Ram and running Anti-X. Plus Bodhi occasionally.

I would have to vote for either Xubuntu or Anti-X.