this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2023
51 points (76.8% liked)

Linux

47572 readers
957 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I use Guix. It's fully free, it's basically the de-facto GNU system, and I like the features of the Guix package manager.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (4 children)

How is the experience? Packages, updates, desktops, flatpak, podman etc? Nowadays most apps work everywhere but the core is different

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] jacktherippah 5 points 10 months ago

I'm a Linux noob so I don't have a distro preference yet but I'm currently using Fedora KDE spin. It's pretty nice.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Nobara because I want to game on my PC headache free

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Arch because I'm too lazy for a non-rolling distro. I should really set up snapshots and my dotfiles repo on my new laptop though (:

[–] u_1f914 5 points 10 months ago

OpenSuse Slowroll (rolling release with constant updates plus an update burst every two months)

  • Prefer rolling release over fixed release.
  • I do like OpenSuse in general.
  • I install a lot of packages and want to stay up to date (security & GUI notifications). With OpenSuse Tumbleweed I have to install a couple gigabytes of updates every week. It's not ideal for me.
  • Too impatient to wait for the proper release of Slowroll.
[–] Caboose12000 5 points 10 months ago

Nobara bc my first year of using Linux had some rough patches, and I just wanna turn my brain off and game for a while with minimal troubleshooting.

I'll start distro hopping again soon tho

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Debain on servers because it just works.
Arch on desktops because you got basically every software package you'd ever need in the AUR and it's somewhat stable.

[–] Meowie_Gamer 4 points 10 months ago

Arch. It has pretty great documentation and I like having the safety of knowing what's on my computer. Other than those two things, I just like arch I guess. There isn't anything wrong with other distros.

[–] Resol 4 points 10 months ago

I still have yet to see someone mention Hanna Montana Linux.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I keep trying other distros, and then coming back to Debian unstable XFCE. Linux Mint Debian Edition is ok. At work I did lots of Enterprise Redhat, but I'm glad I don't have to use it after I retired.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Void Linux

The name is really cool

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I started with LinuxFT from a magazine coverdisk. I also installed it on an old 486 at the office. It became the "internet box". The company director at the time believed Bill Gates that the internet would be a fad and wasn't worth investing in and would not put any money into the company internet connection. So, it was an old 486, running LinuxFT, with a modem calling out on demand, squid proxy, email boxes etc. But it worked.

After that I moved to Redhat (before it was paid for). I remember for sure installing RH5. It was definitely a smoother experience.

Server wise, I went through various distros. Once I got to debian, for servers I never really left the "apt" world. Management wise, it's just too easy to work with. Hopping between Ubuntu and Debian even now.

For firewalls I've been through ipfwadm (Kernel 2.0.x), ipchains (Kernel 2.2.x) and iptables (Kernel 2.4.x). Now, there is some newer stuff now. Nftables, but there hasn't been a "you must change" situation like the other two and as such, I've generally stuck with iptables, mainly because when I did try nftables I had a real problem getting it to play nice with qos. Probably all fixed now, but I'm too lazy to change.

Desktop wise. I dual boot windows/linux. Linux is Manjaro, and I like Manjaro, for the fact that gaming generally just worked. However, I feel like every major upgrade I am chasing broken dependencies for far too long. But, when it works, Manjaro is great. However, I have had several failed desktop experiments. I ran Gentoo way way way back, I think I had an AMD Athlon at the time. I thought it was great, I mean building stuff for my specific setup, nice idea and all. But upgrades were so damn slow compiling everything! I tried Ubuntu, but I never found the desktop to be any good. I did also have Redhat way back in the late 90s. But the desktop was just poor back then.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Have been having great luck with the move to Linux, Garuda on my main desktop pc and fedora bazzite on my laptop.

While we are starting fights with our opinions, I absolutely love KDE plasma.

Moving to Linux has made me so happy. I feel like a computer owner / user again. It's not always perfect but nothing has stopped me dead in the water and my issues have resolved in a few minutes of tinkering.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I scrolled this far and no slackware?

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] 800XL 4 points 10 months ago

Use whatever distro you feel comfortable with. That being said, there are definitely good ones and bad ones. I use Arch btw. That's the beauty of Linux tho. You can try a distro and if you dont like it you can literally install a new distro over the old one by blowing away everything but the /home partition. Did I mention yet I use Arch? I use Arch btw. The package managers are such a great tool to get a system up and running in a short time, but you can always compile everything from scratch if you want. You can config your programs with the default settings and let the OS do it for you, or you can micromanage every single config option and take a little more time to personalize your machine. I've told you I use Arch? I use Arch btw.

Yeah, Linux is great! And in case you were wondering I use a distro called Arch Linux.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Kubuntu. The support and stability of Ubuntu but with KDE Plasma 5 (not a huge fan of gnome), and probably one of the more straightforward distros to use in my experience alongside Linux Mint or Pop!_OS

[–] Heavybell 3 points 10 months ago

Gentoo because it's what I know, and I know enough to make it do what I want.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Linux Mint Debian Edition for reliability with some user-friendly additions, dual boot with Garuda’s gaming edition because it pretty much sets up everything on its own for that purpose and has the latest updates.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Arch because the packages are recent. Arch has no shiny innovation and even the performance is not that fast, but I always find a way to make everything working. It is the only distro like that for me.

[–] owatnext 3 points 10 months ago

I like Void because it makes me quirky.

Just kidding.

I like Void because it makes me quirky, doesn't require me to learn how systemD works, AND it is lightweight! Plus it has literally never broken on me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Fine, let's have it your way.

🇬 🇪 🇳 🇹 🇴 🇴 , obviously 😀 It's flexible to no end, enables trimming off the most cruft and, because of that, can be the most secure. That last bit depends on how trigger happy you are to installing packages from outside 🇬 🇪 🇳 🇹 🇴 🇴 repos.

Would highly recommend giving 🇬 🇪 🇳 🇹 🇴 🇴 a try ;)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

EndeavourOS. I like having a relatively bloat-free setup. It's also been nice because it's been easy to manage so far.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

NixOS. There are lots of great things about it (like atomic upgrades, easy rollbacks, no dependency hell, safely mixing stable and unstable packages, and more) but it's killer feature is that (almost) everything about the system is specified in a single config file

[–] jmanjones 3 points 10 months ago

This has been beaten to the ground.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Debian for me and Linux Mint Debian Edition for anyone I help with computers, because I don't want to configure a system more than once and to investigate why some stuff doesn't work.

[–] interceder270 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Manjaro, it's like a pre-configured Arch.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Isn't the whole point of Arch that you get to configure it yourself? /g

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'd argue the main point of Arch is AUR - it's really good.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

The main point of Arch is the Arch Wiki. Joke's on them, I steal from the wiki all the time and I don't run arch at all.

[–] CsXGF8uzUAOh6fqV 3 points 10 months ago

Arch do argue themselves that it is the point of Arch that you configure the system yourself: https://archlinux.org/about/ Of course, one can build on top of it with different aims. Manjaro claims to be user-friendly on their homepage, but I can't find further philosophy/about/design decisions where they explicitly state why they changed certain things.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Artix with OpenRC, Arch with alternative init systems.

[–] CsXGF8uzUAOh6fqV 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Artix. I went Void -> Arch -> Artix. I can't help but feel that Artix is what Arch should be. Perfect blend between the Arch and Void experience.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›