The 11 Best Linux Distributions

Been a relatively new user on Mint 21 Cinnamon and I'm absolutely loving it. It's a great distro if you're coming from Windows and just want to get things done

As a business user; SUSE (in various forms) as I actually have to get work done and not waste my time. For someone to say they really don't have anything bad to say about a Linux distribution and has no problems is high praise in case you're looking to actually no waste time on trivial issues.

Gentoo isn't about minimal installs, compiling kernels, or 'being special'. Gentoo is about choice, and building the ideal system for you. It can be as stable as Debian, as bleeding edge as Arch, or a million things in between. It can literally mimic any distro out there, or be something totally unique. It's amazing.

I like Fedora and as long as Red Hat doesn't do stupid decisions there i'll stay. When test repo is added it's nearly as up to date as Arch (kernel, firmware, mesa).

I went with LMDE6. It seems to run so much better than standard mint for my use case (Music Production, Light Gaming) on my workhorse laptop. It takes a tiny bit more know how to setup as the Ubuntu Mint seems to have a bit more compatibility as far as drivers and hardware is concerned but after a bit of work, it's definitely snappier and I have less latency for recording overall, plus with Debian as the base it's super stable and feels so much lighter. It's great, I do 98% of my stuff in LMDE6 now.

SuSE tumbleweed is my favourite distro again :) took 20+ years for me to return to it. SuSE + Wayland + Hyprland it's a win

I've had Gentoo on my server over a decade and I never had to reinstall it. Only had to do new install when I upgraded my server hardware since the old one was still using MBR disk layout. :D Funnily enough I never had these big security issues with openssl and the log4j and stuff what were "big news", since I had a choice on choosing what packets to use on my headless home server. Also there are sysadmin kernels these days so don't even have to compile your kernels. On the plus side you don't have the instability of systemd, so the server usually had couple of years of uptimes with just emerge sync and update being done on the fly. It's not for the average Joe that's for sure but it does have it's uses, and for me I have no use get other distros, If I have time to set it up.

Kde user here. Opensuse TW is my main distro, yast is still the best graphic installer. The second one is archlinux, 10 (maybe less) minutes and system is up and running. However, I still don't understand the plethora of distros out there. Nice video Titus, it made me smile. 💯

For years I didn't like Debian, just because I thought it was ugly and slow. Now I use only Debian because I think it's minimalist and efficient. What a donkey I am. 🤣

My list is short: - Void, an independent rolling distribution that aims for stability, for those who want to control their own destiny completely. - For the desktop, openSUSE Aeon (formerly known as openSUSE MicroOS Desktop). I love the minimal OS core, using Distrobox for corralling all my apps and utils, the stability, the nicely done GNOME experience. It's at RC status (probably awaiting finishing all the name changes mostly) but is perfectly solid. It's just the cleanest and most sensible way to configure for personal desktops and get things done while still allowing power users to do anything they need, cleanly. - openSUSE MicroOS flavours for servers and special use cases I bet a year from now we'll all be talking about Aeon (and similar approaches aka Fedora Silverblue/uBlue/etc) a lot more.

Game developer here. I am happy with Fedora

I started with Linux Mint back in... 2016 or 2017, I forget the details. It works very well so I have never had a reason to hop to anything else. I leave the pleasures (and occasionally pains) of distro hopping to others.

Absolutely love Fedora; this distro has not let me down for years. This is an OS for working, as a professional, as a simple user. Very surprised that Fedora (not RHEL) didn't make this list. And, in general, Linux is harmed by the toxicity of the community regarding the choice of distribution.

Thanks for being a man about RHEL. I use your tools too thx !

I have a personal bias but My list goes like 1. Opensuse tumbleweed; 2. archlinux 3. debian & fedora 4. Linux mint debian edition 5. Nixos (it is an awesome proiect but it doesnt caters me.

I started with Caldera OpenLinux 2.3 in 2002. I later dropped that when they morphed into SCO. Red Hat 9 was next. Dual booted Suse and Windows 2000(that was cool). Tried Mandrake, Ubuntu, and several others and settled on Slackware in 2004 until very recently. These days I like and use Void. It's an amazing distro with the runit init system. I haven't used Gentoo or LFS. I got CRUX installed up to the CLI. I highly recommend Void. I would enjoy your take on Void. :)

Different strokes for different folks. I'm happy with Fedora, it's been my daily driver for 4 years or so. No stability issues, makes me happy to use it, everything seems new and it just works. I have a Tumbleweed install that I boot into on weekends for the fun of it, and I'm really impressed. I also have a Debian 12 install that I really don't like but I keep around because I want to keep my toes in the Debian water. Frankly it's only 6 months from release and I'm already running into issues with software not building because of outdated dependencies. That and the old Gnome kinda grates on me after being in Fedora all day. I had a Mint Cinnamon install around also and was impressed. That would definitely be my recommendation for anyone new, or for an install for my parents to use.

Over the years I've tried a handful of distros but my "steady" has been Tumbleweed. I've kept that on one system for many years and, for a rolling distribution it has been remarkably stable. K/ubuntu is another I keep trying but so far can't fathom why it is so popular.

Chris you really need to try Void, it's such a fast, lightweight, no frills, stable distro, used it for the past year and have had no problems with it at all, I even do some gaming on it, been running the new Path of Exile patch on it, it's so smooth and my pc isn't even that good.

I agree with your opinion on the Red Hat debacle, the politics surrounding the RHEL based distros still kind of disappoints me, but this is why I now have Debian on my servers, and Debian on my laptop as well. It's still rock solid, and although it took a lot of work hours to migrate all of the servers away from RHEL, in my opinion it is worthwhile.