When I first saw “Distros i’ve used:”, I thought there’s no way I could list that, after my prolific distro-surfing phase between 2004 to about 2014… I don’t know how many tall spools of CDs and DVDs I filled with distros, before I switched to usb, trying even more, with even less footprint to gauge it by.
… But, by just simply following the outline provided, I arrive at:
:)
That was fun.
uh… since when is SystemD a distro?
Where is nixos my old friend?
Funny, Debian is the reason I came to Arch in the first place and never really left. I like Debian, but once you need more recent versions of something, things quickly get messy.
My journey was: Ubuntu, Debian, ChrunchBang, ArchBang, Arch. Not a big fan of distro hopping, so I’ll probably stay like this or try Fedora if ever I want something non-rolling again.
Loved Crunchbang! Bunsenlabs is a neat successor, too.
favorite: chimera linux <3 currently using: gentoo least favorite: ubuntu
ever since i tried to apt install firefox and was instead given the snap version without even being asked permission i gave up on ubuntu then and there
Ever since snap arrived, I switched to Debian.
The only thing I dislike about Debian is that there is no “server/headless install image” available, so it’s not a big deal.
I’m spinning up a vm right now just for you, but I think the netinstall allows bare, DE less
https://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/
EDIT : I did a dump of the 200+ packages it has, but IDK how to get it out of there… oh wait.
EDIT 2 :
spoiler
Listing... adduser/stable,now 3.152 all [installed] apparmor/stable,now 4.1.0-1 amd64 [installed,automatic] apt-utils/stable,now 3.0.3 amd64 [installed] apt/stable,now 3.0.3 amd64 [installed] base-files/stable,now 13.8+deb13u6 amd64 [installed] base-passwd/stable,now 3.6.7 amd64 [installed] bash/stable,now 5.2.37-2+b9 amd64 [installed] bsdutils/stable,now 1:2.41-5 amd64 [installed] busybox/stable,now 1:1.37.0-6+b8 amd64 [installed] console-setup-linux/stable,now 1.242~deb13u1 all [installed,automatic] console-setup/stable,now 1.242~deb13u1 all [installed] coreutils/stable,now 9.7-3 amd64 [installed] cpio/stable,now 2.15+dfsg-2 amd64 [installed] cron-daemon-common/stable,now 3.0pl1-197 all [installed] cron/stable,now 3.0pl1-197 amd64 [installed] dash/stable,now 0.5.12-12 amd64 [installed] debconf-i18n/stable,now 1.5.91 all [installed] debconf/stable,now 1.5.91 all [installed] debian-archive-keyring/stable,now 2025.1 all [installed] debianutils/stable,now 5.23.2 amd64 [installed] 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[installed,automatic] linux-image-amd64/stable-security,now 6.12.95-1 amd64 [installed] linux-sysctl-defaults/stable,now 4.12.1 all [installed] locales/stable,now 2.41-12+deb13u3 all [installed] login.defs/stable,now 1:4.17.4-2 all [installed] login/stable,now 1:4.16.0-2+really2.41-5 amd64 [installed] logrotate/stable,now 3.22.0-1 amd64 [installed] logsave/stable,now 1.47.2-3+b11 amd64 [installed] mawk/stable,now 1.3.4.20250131-1 amd64 [installed] mount/stable,now 2.41-5 amd64 [installed] nano/stable,now 8.4-1+deb13u1 amd64 [installed] ncurses-base/stable,now 6.5+20250216-2 all [installed] ncurses-bin/stable,now 6.5+20250216-2 amd64 [installed] netbase/stable,now 6.5 all [installed] nftables/stable,now 1.1.3-1 amd64 [installed]@i_love_FFT @frostlytt you quite literally just uncheck Desktop when installing and check ssh server.
Also if you dont set a root password your user gets sudo. if you do set a root password sudo is not installed
Kubuntu FTW !
Over 20 years I’ve been trying many distros and even rolled my own and now I’m a happy mint user.
Did I do it backwards?Did you ever do a major version update (i.e. one that’s based on a new Ubuntu LTS release than the one before)? AFAIK they still recommend that you do a fresh install every time the switch the Ubuntu base, which makes me hesitate to recommend it to newcomers - Debian and Ubuntu have always updated in place for me without major issues.
I did use Mint in like 2018, though, it was neat in general.
When you surf the oceans of Distros long enough, I think you just get tired and the wanderlust fades. I know I did. Mint is a fine Distro, the Toyota Camry of distros. Solid and dependable with all that you need. It just doesn’t look cool to all the hip-cat kids and their bleeding edge Arch.
I have settled on Fedora. And I prefer Plasma over Gnome, so I use Kinonite instead. There is even less hassle and effort that way. I don’t even go to the bother of doing updates myself. It all happens in the background. Like you, I just want to use my computer. Not fiddle with it anymore
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
arch btw
I’ve never seen an infographic for “I use arch, btw.” until now.
oh come on. I don’t ever say it outside of meme contexts. I just personally enjoy rolling releases and don’t really like the corporate feeling of Fedora, so i’m left with only really Arch as a good option.
Or, as honourably mentioned, OpenSuSE, specifically tumbleweed.
Just lighthearted poking, I don’t have anything bad to say about anyone’s choices. I didn’t mean any offense. Sorry if that was its tone.
No, no don’t worry, no offense taken 😅 I should have expected it lol
Fedora is corporate? I nearly spat my coffee ;-)
I’m flashing back to working with suse on unitedlinux and the challenges we had. If you want a very Corporate distro, it’s right there.
Never again.
Fedora is the most corporate not-actually-corporate distro
I mean… fedora is RHEL, which is very corporate
Other way around mostly…
Fedora trys stuff first.
Funny that it’s not a rolling distro, yet it is often ahead of my cachyos box. It’s astounding how fast fedora puts stuff out yet never any effort on my part to manage it. Unlike cachy or even arch.
I’m getting tired of dispelling this myth, and I don’t even use either 🙄
Do people even read? RHEL is downstream from Fedora. They’re both forks of Red Hat, but Red Hat ≠ RHEL.
Does this need to be on a billboard or something?
Sorry. It’s still corporate, since it’s coming from red hat. Thanks for telling me though.
It’s not “coming from” Red Hat, Fedora is forked from it originally but is directly downstream from the linux kernel, there’s no Red Hat involved between the Linux Foundation and the Fedora devs.
In fact, there’s no more Red Hat at all, there’s only RHEL, which is downstream from Fedora.
Fedora is not downstream from Red Hat. I don’t know how to put that in any plainer terms…
I see. Have a nice day. I still won’t use Fedora.
Did you even try void?
No. I’ve never understood the point of it
well, if you were serious in your deduction, one point of it is that arch is not your only option.
Fair point, and Void is cool in its own right, but there are good reasons it mostly falls under “obscure” distro category.
First is, of course, the systemd-free nature of it. Linux world absolutely needs systemd-free distros, but your average Linux user simply doesn’t know how to handle them properly, and the learning curve is somewhat steep. Besides, everyone and everything comes with an assumption you run systemd, so often times, you’ll be on your own figuring out the correct fix.
Second is a relatively small userbase. Void, while not being completely unknown, is not by any means a mainstream distro. We have those - some people still run Slackware, for example - but they quickly fall outside the scope of most users due to a relatively underdeveloped community, which is crucial for a Linux project.
This is why Void is often not even seen as an option.
Runit is actually quite simple. If you want a service that your distro packages, you just have to install it and symlink it’s directory from (in void’s case) /etc/sv/app-or-service to /var/service/app-or-service. Inside that dir you’ll find a “run” script and, maybe, a “finish” script that the service manager (sv) will use to initiate and interrupt the service. This is helpful to know if you want to create custom services; i have some for things like brightness, manual tiling, and clipboard management.
I see! But there’s still much more than service management, not all of it packaged into the “init” part of systemd. And each of these things need to be learned. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s just one more big headache on top of what Linux already is.
Also, out of curiosity from someone who barely touched Void - how do you create a custom service? Is writing run and finish scripts sufficient?
Yeah, that’s all there is to it. The finish script is optional, and rememer to make your links. You can have user level services by making links for runsvdir-USERNAME. This creates a service that manages your services.
It could probably be more robustn but here’s my setup:
$ readlink {/etc/sv,/var/service}/runsvdir-$USER | sed "s:$USER:USERNAME:g" /home/USERNAME/.dotfiles/runsvdir-USERNAME /etc/sv/runsvdir-USERNAME $ print -l /etc/sv/runsvdir-$USER/*(.) /etc/sv/runsvdir-USERNAME/conf /etc/sv/runsvdir-USERNAME/finish /etc/sv/runsvdir-USERNAME/run $ print -l /etc/sv/runsvdir-$USER/*(.) | to -b -C '#' -A $'\n' cat | sed "s:$USER:USERNAME:g" # /etc/sv/runsvdir-USERNAME/conf #!/bin/sh set -eu self="$(realpath "$0")" root="$(dirname "$self")" user="$(basename "$root" | sed 's:^runsvdir-::')" home="/home/$user" groups="$(id -Gn "$user" | tr ' ' ':')" svdir="$home/service" # # /etc/sv/runsvdir-USERNAME/finish #!/usr/bin/env sh set -eu self="$(realpath "$0")" root="$(dirname "$self")" [ ! -e "$root/conf" ] || . "$root/conf" sv -w600 force-stop "$svdir/"\* # # /etc/sv/runsvdir-USERNAME/run #!/bin/sh # start up for user-level service configuration set -eu exec 2>&1 root="$(realpath "$0" | xargs -d '\n' dirname)" [ ! -e "$root/conf" ] || . "$root/conf" exec chpst -u "$user:$groups" runsvdir -P "$svdir" #For clarity, the
tocommand is an xargs alternative that’s not out, yet.
Got into linux on the server side before I seriously looked at the desktop side. Run a mix of Ubuntu, Debian and what used to be CentOS but is now Almalinux in this space.
On the desktop started fiddeling with Ubuntu at first, but first distro I actually used was Mint. Tested a lot of them over the year, can’t bothered to list them.
Mainly just use Fedora (KDE).
The first distro I used was SuSE (yes, before there was “Open” in the name 😅) on a Pentium III
I spent many years on Arch, but it don’t think it’s the distro I used the most any longer…
The distro I am using now is Fedora Workstation, which has been my daily driver for a dozen years now, and it’s also my favorite distro.
The distro I’ll be using in the future may be Silverblue
The distro I hate the most… is Ubuntu 😆 I had so many troubles over the years with this one, there was always something nonfunctional
My honorable mention: CachyOS looks pretty nice 😉
As for all the distros I tried… there’s way too many 😅
Template please 🐧
It’s literally a white screen with black rectangles 💀
Don’t have one. I just took someone else’s post and put white squares over the ones I disagreed with
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.
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
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.
Favorite 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
Favorite: MX Linux
First Distro Used: Ubuntu 6.06
Distro You Want to Use in the Future: CachyOS
Honorable Mention: Pardus
Distro You Liked the Least: Mandriva
Distro You Currently Use: Bazzite
The Distro You Used for the Longest Time: Opensuse
