Favorite: Debian Stable (For my uses, it was the least trouble)
First: Slackware (1995, installed from floppy disks, also a short stretch in 2009)
Current: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) (Using because I need to support users on stock Mint)
Distro you liked the least: Novell SuSE (Used in a corporate setting)
Distro you want to use in the future: Unknown
Distro you used for the longest time: Debian Stable (15 years)
Distro everyone likes but I don’t: Ubuntu
Honorable mention: DietPi (RaspberryPi and SBC focused OS)
Over time, I’ve used quite a lot of different distros: Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise, Scientific, CENTOS, Fedora, Mandrake, Damn Small, Puppy, CrashBang, Raspbian, Bazzite, to name just the ones I can remember off the top of my head now.
Are LMDE and stock Mint close enough in versions and features that you can always efficiently support stock Mint users?
Also, is the base Mint software updated regularly, or does it depend on the Debian 2-year cycle?
Yes as far as I’ve found so far, the features track quite well, and I’m really aiming to get proficient with the standard interface. I’ve found a few minor differences, but I tried stock Mint (which is Ubuntu 20.04 based) for a while, and I didn’t want to go backwards from Trixie (the current Stable Debian version) so I opted for LMDE which is based on Trixie. I use Debian Stable because of the “2-year cycle” (that’s why it’s called stable); Because stock Mint tracks the latest LTS release of Ubuntu, it’s actually a fair bit more out of date than Debian at this stage, and the next Mint version, based on the new LTE Ubuntu, isn’t slated to come out until December.
So far it’s not been too bad for a hybrid system - I have had a couple of issues, but this is most likely attributable to being a hybrid. I’ve found that I like Cinnamon, which stock Debian does not (as far as I know) support yet - I have used MATE for about 15 years because I don’t get on with Gnome 3 or KDE. You get all the nice things about Mint that I found impressive when I tested it - the printer and scanner support is very good, and the configuration utilities are quite reminiscent of Windows ones (good for new users, but I personally don’t care). Still not sure if I’m going to stick with it long-term, but happy with it for now - I largely stopped distro-hopping when I switched to MATE.
Favorite: still searching
First: Manjaro (actually went quite smooth…until it didn’t. Still grateful to have it, might not switch if it didn’t exist)
Current: Bazzite (immutable distros finally matured enough for me, works perfectly fine for non-gaming tasks as well as gaming)
Distro you liked the least: Ubuntu (was the reason I didn’t get to Linux earlier and got only worse from there)
Distro you want to use in the future: Debian (needs to stop being so easily broken, it’s a stability distro ffs)
Distro you used for the longest time: Fedora (generally a good experience, but doesn’t play fantastically well with nvidia)
Distro everyone likes but I don’t: Linux Mint. (Cinnamon is severely limited and looks dated to me, and it broke like a week into me using it. Not my choice, but apparently others have better experience)
Honorable mention: OpenSUSE Tumbleweed (awesome stability and native rollbacks, but didn’t fix a much highlighted update breaking nvidia drivers in two months, prompting me to reinstall; didn’t ever face breaking issues with other hardware)
I’ve been on Bazzite for a couple of years now, and I’ve started to just prefer the way it does things over mutable distros. It’s so unbelievably stable.
I went from EndeavourOS to Bazzite, and have no real desire to hop off of it.
Probably not the only distro that could do it, but I was pleasantly surprised bazzite handled my three monitors with three different refresh rates, two different resolutions, one with HDR, and one in portrait mode basically right out of the box.
I was personally amazed that it handles my ancient printer from the get-go. None of the other distros had the driver available, it had to be downloaded and installed separately. Here on Bazzite - complete plug & play.
First: Slackware (there were 2 or 3 distributions at the time… also so many floppies)
Next: Mandrake.
Next: Debian
Next: Ubuntu (and variants, didn’t like it, was brittle and messy)
Next: Gentoo (didn’t like it much when I did an update after three or four months idle, might be on me)
Next: Manjaro (self immolated at some point just because)
Next: OpenSuSE (soon switched to TumbleWeed, was rock solid, but didn’t like one of my new machines for some reason)
Next: Fedora (current, no issues, I’d still prefer a European system, but meh.)I probably forgot a few, but that’s more or less the last thirty years. Unless there’s an issue, I see no reason to change. They all pretty much install the same thing anyway, and I want to use the machine, not configure it. The system ought to be as un-noticeable as possible IMO.
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Ubuntu seems universally hated. Why?
Too much corporate control and enshittification. For example, when you use apt-get (to get native packages) it can instead download a snap package (which works differently, is controlled by them and might not be preferred for many other reasons), even though you clearly meant not to.
The only reason for that is Canonical (Ubuntu’s developer) trying to push people deeper into the ecosystem they build and control.
Then, they roll out a paid Ubuntu version, Ubuntu Pro, separating paying and non-paying customers and turning Ubuntu into a subscription-based SaaS.
It was broken in many subtle ways even before snaps. Version updates were always a bit of a gamble and the whole thing was never as solid as properly managed distributions like the industrial ones such as SuSE or RH (or the properly managed ones that followed).
Because apt is fundamentally broken and it shows most readily on a desktop-oriented distro like Ubuntu.
In order to benefit from packages not included by the distro you need to use 3rd party apt repos, but there’s no rule against those repos using package names used by another repo, including the distro’s repos. It could’ve also been fixed by identifying packages by [repo name + package name] instead of just [package name]… but it hasn’t.
The result is that when Ubuntu packages get replaced by 3rd party packages by the same name it can mess up the dependency graph if the 3rd party repo isn’t super careful about it.
It’s not a huge issue immediately after installing something but as time passes and more updates pile on top of each other (from both Ubuntu and the 3rd parties) it can get completely ruined and eventually the update solver can’t find an upgrade path anymore and you can’t use Ubuntu’s newer releases.
At that point you have two options. One is to use an advanced solver like the one in
aptitude, for example, but in order to fix the mess it will recommend to uninstall and reinstall a huge number of packages, including very core, essential packages, which is very risky and you lose the 3rd party stuff anyway. At which point you might as well use option two, which is to reinstall a newer Ubuntu release from scratch.Eventually after you go through this a few times it starts to get really annoying and you either get stuck on an old release out of dread, or you start looking for a distro that can be updated in-place indefinitely.
Widely and loudly hated, but not universal. The fans just aren’t that loud ;)
I believe it’s still one of the most used distributions. One of those people still associate with Linux. For some strange reason it’s also widely used in server hosting.
Hate is perhaps too strong of a word, but personally, I just don’t care for their default desktop environment. If I had to, I could still use it but as I have lots of choices I’m going with something else.
On the other hand, I find Ubuntu to be a fine server OS, especially if you want something in the Debian family but want something a bit more up to date than what’s currently in Debian stable but still widely supported.
GNOME (by default), Snaps forced on you OOB rather than being an optional thing during setup or in any of the GUI settings, locking newer security updates behind a subscription, and Cannonical just being a bad captain of the ship.
There’s a reason why Mint is hailed as the new “casual (non-gaming) user favorite”, since it’s literally just Ubuntu sans GNOME and the hostile update design decisions.
Snap is why I don’t recommend it to anyone. It’s super aggressive and responsible for problems (famous example). It also gives Linux a bad impression to new users who still think Ubuntu is a “vanilla” distro. Watching Gamers Nexus struggle with the Steam package is a good example of this, I think. Steve came out ahead of the comments, saying, “I’m sure lots of people know [you need to use the purge flag].” Actually I didn’t know that because I avoid hostile distros that constantly fight me.
+1 for Mint. Snapbuntu must be dethroned as the default beginner distro.
Desktop design decisions. A lot of folks hated Unity. I know I did - they turned something familiar into something Apple like and I couldn’t stand it. I’m genuinely not a fan of the unified menus and such. It didn’t help that users were basically forced out of Gnome 2 into it when Unity became the default.
Within Unity they Integrated Amazon results into the Desktop Search. That was likened to spyware since your queries were being shared with Amazon, much like MS integrating web results into their own search. Ubuntu fucked up harder because, absent any filtering, their search occasionally produced adult products in the results - ie sex toys and such. Imagine telling your kid Fluffy needs a new knotted rope chew toy. They start searching “dog knot toy” just to have the results filled with BadDragon knockoffs.
They’ve leaned heavier into enterprise over the years and that has alienated a lot of the Desktop audience which helped bring attention to OS in the first place. They went from “Linux for Human Beings,” making desktop computing more accessible throughout the world, to becoming essentially the Microsoft of the Linux world.
Their snap backend is proprietary. You can’t just host your own snap repository. Even if you host your own local snap cache, it ultimately must point to and retrieve from their repository to populate that cache.
I’m sure there’s other stuff worth pointing out that I’ve forgotten.
The only reason I have ubuntu on my home server is because apparently Pterodactyl Panel is reliant on some aspects of it vs. Mint. It’s frustrating that way.
I don’t hate it, it’s just so far the worst one i’ve used. It’s not necessarily bad, I have friends who use it.
Favorite: Debian
First Distro Used: Ubuntu 10.04
Distro You Want to Use in the Future: CachyOS
Honorable Mention: Fedora
Distro You Liked the Least: Post-Snap Ubuntu
Distro You Currently Use: Debian, Fedora, SteamOS
The Distro You Used for the Longest Time: Debian
I started with Slackware in 96 then was on a friend’s Debian server in like 98. I lost the friend account so I switched to Ubuntu in like… 08 mainly because that’s what Digital Ocean offered in its prebuilt stacks, I didn’t really have an opinion. Switched to Linux on the desktop only last year, went with Mint since I’d gotten used to Ubuntu. I’m happy, don’t feel the need to do anything else really. I have a Steam Deck so obviously I’ve used SteamOS, not really a fan of the immutable thing.
Kubuntu FTW !
I’ve been seeing a lot of kbuntu on these images, what makes it so appealing to people besides kde instead of gnome?
Exactly that.
It’s stable and reliable.
I made the switch on my main pc (from Windows) to Kubuntu about 2 months ago. A friend had switched about a year before that and said it was fun to use so I tried it and it stuck.
I don’t see myself changing, it works. I don’t want a project, I want a computer I don’t have to think about. I actually enjoy using my pc again, feels like I’m back in early days when my computer did what I wanted it to do. Forgot what that was like. Anyway my upsides are not other distributions downsides, it’s just what I have now.
For context, in industry for 20 years, previous linux admin, dev and eng, I’ve used probably 15 distributions in my years, and I run a home lab server too.
Favorite is OpenSuse Tumbleweed. It’s stable mostly, and quite fixable when it isn’t. Just a great overall balance.
My first was actually DSL: “Damn Small Linux”, contained entirely on a CD to remove a TERRIBLY resistant malware from my Windows XP machine. (It was awesome for that! Had no idea what I was doing lol.)
Tried Ubuntu, then Ubuntu Studio, but they didn’t like my Wi-Fi devices back in those days, so I didn’t get to do much with them!
Used Mint seriously on my aging laptop and loved it. It’s such an excellent on-ramp and you can hang out with it as long as you like.
Later tried Manjaro for a while but…it started having some controversial project decisions and just didn’t feel like home.
Using EndeavourOS on my gaming laptop and it works great! Considering migrating though: Arch is an excellent teacher, but I’ve had to spend unexpected weekends fixing weird hitches after updates.
Honorable Mention: Puppy Linux! I used to be able to boot it to any laptop from my Android phone, and that was a really neat trick for public computers and stuff.
Favorite is OpenSuse Tumbleweed. It’s stable mostly, and quite fixable when it isn’t. Just a great overall balance.
I am actually thinking that a stable-stable distro like Debian or OpenSuse Leap as a base system, and on top either GNU Guix or a VM with Tumbleweed or Suse Slowroll is a great option. Very stable for productivity, and at the same time very current for programming and exploring new stuff.
I currently use Debian stable, and both Gnu Guix and an Arch VM on top.
Hey I resemble that journey. Very few people metion DSL and Puppy. Those lived on a multiboot flash drive I carry around “JIC” (these days I just bring Mint and Tails).
I just commented elsewhere how Mint became home - that “long as you like” is still going (jeez 8y at this point lol).
Cool! Yeah, they don’t seem to be referenced as much anymore, but they were seriously impressive and had their use cases. :D
that “long as you like” is still going (jeez 8y at this point lol).
Yeah, Mint is often referred to by folks as a “beginner distro” implying you’ll somehow inevitably skill up and distro hop, and sure, plenty do, but it really doesn’t have to be that way!
(Heck, Eliot the super hacker in Mr. Robot used it as his home distro! Lol 😉)
I mean, it’s stable, you can still get newer stuff and gaming via FlatPak, and it’s just overall friendlier. The community is super helpful and nice too!
I personally jumped to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed because I like having new features sooner. (I blame Blender haha!), and honestly, I didn’t expect to fall in love with KDE as much as I did. I really like KDE. :p
I’d always encourage people to try other distros just to see if they do something that fits them better or something, but yeah, you shouldn’t feel any pressure to “graduate” from Mint. It’s lovely. :D
I really think Ubuntu is the most common first distro people try. A common reoccurrence here is the inability to see what an average person, in terms of tech literacy, knows and are willing to put time and effort into. Ubuntu has been the face of Linux for a long time (obviously not based on people who know and use linux). I wish Mint took that place as it’s so much better.
I was gonna say that “and put effort into” is important.
I admin various Linux Servers, been through most distros at work and at home. I’m an experienced Linux admin/user. I’m settled on Mint at home for the foreseeable future.
After a long day/week/career doing IT, the last thing I want is for my primary PC to be a project-home. Mint Cinnamon ended up being the home I fell in love with - honestly was expecting it to be another kitchy distro that I would maybe reccommend for noobs (I mean it is also that). I couldn’t be happier - LMDE is the only thing that makes me wonder about greener grass.
I haven’t gotten to 95% perfect since Ubuntu pre-unity, and that one very long Arch build I did that one time. Even Debian, the home I grew up in, wasn’t the home I wanted to live in forever.
No shade on any other Distros/DEs out there. Everyone has different homes and it’s their home and I love that people have them and that they’re all different, and I want many options to keep existing. Past me would not understand present me’s choices.
Similar situation, experienced professional user but I’m running kubuntu at home. I just posted to another user about not wanting a project pc. I want to use my computer, not fix it or tweak it. It’s not other distributions are bad, it’s that this one is fine for me right now and it’s not windows.
Ubuntu -> Mint.
I don’t know why I’d change, Mint just works. That’s all I ever wanted.
Same, really. I keep trying other distros, and have Kubuntu on my laptop right now, but it’s still just a tiny bit too buggy compared to Mint.
All I ever wanted. All I ever needed. Heeeere , in my arms.
Words are very unnecessary
I always come back to Mint. Far from just a “beginner distro”, it’s a practical and solid choice for anyone devoted to something other than tweaking, perfecting, and personalizing an OS. Not that there’s anything wrong with that if it’s your passion and you have the time. Personally, I wouldn’t mind making my perfect Arch or NixOS setup, but my free time is limited and there is always something I’m interested in working on more.
Favorite: Fedora First Distro Used: Not entirely sure. We had a couple Linux computers growing up that my dad set up and he distro hopped a bit. I used Ubuntu(or variants, e.g. xubuntu) during high school and a bit of college. Distro You Want to Use in the Future: Bazzite or another immutable distro Honorable Mention: Manjaro Distro You Liked the Least: Debian Distro You Currently Use: Fedora with hyprland(ML4W) The Distro You Used for the Longest Time: Probably FedoraFavorite distro: NixOS First distro used: Ubuntu Distro you want to use in the future: SixOS, Asahi Honorable mention: Fedora Server Distro you liked the least: Ubuntu Distro you currently use: Arch, NixOS The distro you used for the longest time: Arch
I love Ubuntu currently but I’m planning on switching. I just love the feel of it.
I feel it. As a distro itself I’m not a huge fan of how it does things, but I really do like their theming, colors, font, aesthetic, logo, all that.
Thankfully easy enough to make any distro look like anything, with a little effort. :)
