I’ve messed with a decent amount, listed in my post. Most distros weren’t customized the way that I wanted them to be or I didn’t like the looks so I prefer Debian and Arch for simplicity’s sake depending on the use case and going from there.
this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2023
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Honestly, depending on whether you count it or not, LFS. I have not tried Gentoo yet, though I want to one day, for the learning experience, and yet I already know that compiling everything is not something I enjoy.
I can get by with OpenSUSE and Void (kinda), I've used Debian for a few weeks, I've used Fedora for a month or so, I've used Ubuntu for a bit, I've tried PopOS for a week or two, I've used NixOS for a few months, and I've used Arch for most of my time on Linux.
Currently I'm on Arch, but I don't like rolling releases that much. At the same time, I am also not a fan of immutability, as there are some programs I need that cannot be installed on an immutable distro, so that's why I'm on Arch. Why am I only using these 2? Because they are the only distros that have all the packages I need (excluding the specialist software that I need for university). By the time I discovered Distrobox (which would solve this problem), I was already on Arch. I've also done some changes to my setup and as such, I'll need to wait for some new features to make their way into program releases and into the NixOS Stable repo with the following release. Until then, I'm on Arch.
Gentoo is useless for learning how things work. Back in the 00s when I still had time to hang out at events it was always quite ridiculous at what kind of basic stuff the gentoo crowd got stuck at - and with the tooling 15+ years more polished now I'd expect what is actually going on is way more hidden than back then.
If you do want to understand how things work just build a minimal system - either on spare hardware, or qemu/kvm. Don't go with systemd, or other fat userland options - that just makes you compile a lot of dependencies not adding value for learning.
Use some lean init (or just write one yourself), and some lean shell.
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In 2007 I tried Ubuntu and it was weird, then again in 2008, no! In 2009 I found Mint and was really happy, until they stopped supporting KDE. Then I tried a ton of distros, Xfce, no. Lxde, no. open suse, no. fedora, no, lots of others, no. I finally found Kubuntu and I have been on it ever since. Even tested Neon lately but hated it.
Kubuntu does what I want it to do.
Linux always seems scary at first, but once you learn enough, it's super easy.
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After using Arch based distros for more than a year when I use any Debian/Ubuntu based distro it really feels like they aren't for me, at least when it comes to daily driving. I still have a laptop with PopOS that I use for school, stable distro is a better option in my oppinion for that usecase because I use it twice a week (unless it's summer or winter in which case I don't use it at all).
Gentoo. But it took a few years
Ubuntu gnome. Wanted to install a gnome add on (hibernation button), searched how to do it and learned there's a section in the gui store but couldn't find it. Searched for that and turns out they removed the add ons section from the store in the latest version and I need to use a browser. Tried to install it from a browser and it still didn't work. Tried the other browser and failed again. Searching for that discovered that the pre-installed browsers are snap packages and can't interact with anything else 🤦
Instantly switched to kubuntu. It had the hibernation button out of the box
Ubuntu when they first switched to Unity. I had been running Ubuntu for 2 or 3 years at that point, but I was already thinking about switching to Debian at the time. I hobbled along for a few weeks on that first version of Unity, but I didn't like what I was seeing. I took the plunge into Debian, thinking, "If I'm going to have to learn something new anyways, I might as well try switching."
The first distro I tried to daily drive on my desktop was Pop!_OS because everyone told me it's the distro you "need" if you have an Nvidia card.
I'm sure it works fine for most people but I just had A LOT of issue, weird audio issues I had to fix every other time I turned on my system, some games refusing to load properly unless I forced them into borderless fullscreen.
Then one day it just refused to boot, even tho I had booted into it that morning and did nothing more than go on Youtube for an hour before work, Timeshift didn't work even tho I had manually made a handful of backups.
Went back to Windows for about 2 months before trying EndeavourOS and despite peoples warning that Arch systems will break if you look at them the wrong way, I've found it way more stable on my system and any issues I have ran into have been easy fixes.
Garuda. I tried it because it's supposed to be "gamer" oriented. I thought it meant it would make it easier/smoother for gaming. What they actually meant was it felt like being locked inside a gaming PC with flashing and spinning RGB lights everywhere. No fucking thanks.