Gentoo - too long compile time, especially on my dated CPU. I prefer my system to update quickly.
Linux Mint - don’t like apt, some packages I installed refused to work properly (like Lutris), and the color scheme which is admittedly customizable but I prefer rolling with defaults except when using WM.
Void Linux - after installing it I realized how much I actually missed systemd, couldn’t be arsed to symlink services manually. And yes, I realize that’s the whole point.
NixOS - realized how much there is to learn with the flakes and separating home configurations and whatever, and just gave up
Manjaro - I tried it twice at the beginning of my Linux journey, and both times the nvidia driver shat itself and gave me different problems that I couldn’t fix.
Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Arch though, as most of my problems probably boil down to “not the same packages”, “not pacman”, “need to learn new skills that weren’t in Arch” and so on. Though admittedly, I did try to explore with an open mind to find a new “cool” distro, but I’d always go back.
Manjaro - used to love it. Now the only distro I actively advise against
Garuda - just too much ( I prefer Arch / EndeavourOS )
Elementary - wanted to love it - just too limited
Gentoo - realized I just don’t want to build everything
RHEL Workstation - everything too old
Bhodi - honestly do not remember - long ago
Ubuntu - ok, let’s expand…
These days, I dislike Snaps. Ubuntu just never hit the sweet spot for me though. I was already an experienced Linux user when it appeared and preferred RPM based distros at the tome. Ubuntu always seemed slow and fragile to me. Setting things up, like Apache with Mono back in the day, was “different” on Ubuntu and that annoyed me. For most of its history, it is what I would recommend to new users but I just never liked it myself.
Debian Stable - ok, let’s expand
I really like Debian. It was also a little “alien” when I was using Fedora / Mandrake and the like but it never bothered me like Ubuntu. I ran RHEL / Centos as servers so I did not need Debian stability. As a desktop, Debian packages were always just a little too old ( especially for dev ). The lack of non-free firmware made it a pain.
These days though, Debian has been growing on me. The move to include non-free firmware has made it much more practical. With Flatpaks and Distrobox, aging packages is much less of a problem too. I could see myself using Debian. I am strongly considering moving to VanillaOS ( immutable Debian ).
I basically do not run any RHEL servers anymore. At home, I have a fair bit running Debian already ( Proxmox, PiHole, PiVPN, and a Minecraft server ).
EndeavourOS is my primary desktop these days ( and I love it ) but it is mostly for the AUR. A Debian base with an Arch Distrobox might be perfect. Void seems quite nice as well.
I have been an Open Source advocate forever ( and used to say Free Software and FLOSS ). I have used Linux daily since the 0.99 kernels and I even installed 386BSD back in the day. Despite that, the biggest “not for me” distros right now are anything too closely associated with the politics of the GNU project. It has almost made me want to leave Linux and I have considered moving to FreeBSD. I would love to use Haiku. OCI containers and the huge software ecosystem keep me on Linux though.
The distribution that intrigues me the most right now is Chimera Linux. I run it with an Arch distrobox and it may become my daily driver. The pragmatism of projects like SerenityOS really attracts me. Who knows it may be what finally pulls me away after 30+ years of Linux.
Apparently there’s a lot of hate for the devs/packaging team, people say updates break their systems all the time. I’ve used it on and off for a while years ago, personally and have had no issues. I put it on my parent’s computer over two years ago and they haven’t had any issues either.
Yep there seems to be a lot of hate for stupid reasons (“omg they forgot to renew the SSL cert of the archived forum”). I’ve been using it for 4+ years now and had zero major problems. I have even installed some exotic software from the AUR and am using them without any issues.
I used Ubuntu for a few years, and always felt that it works well and was super easy to set up. But it also seemed to use a lot of disk space. This was of course not ubuntu‘s fault, but my inexperience. But I never had to look under the hood, so I didn’t, and I ended up installing a bunch pf bloat, some of which ended up causing minor issues eventually.
I decided to try arch, and get more into configuration and learning linux. It was quite a ride, and I am happy to have gone through with it. I’m still learning, but I have so much more knowledge & control over what the PC does and how it does it. I also have a lot more room for games and such.
Ubuntu, after the third consecutive release that broke previously working hardware. That was a while ago and I haven’t tried it recently, but given snap I’m not really inclined to.
pop!_os That’s what I run for desktop I like flatpak better than snap and it has some other nice enhancement over Ubuntu. For my servers I still use Ubuntu.
Arch. Rolling release is too much maintenance and AUR can be a pain. I do like the minimalist approach though.
For those of a similar opinion and aren’t familiar with it, check out Void. Also a minimalist rolling release, but aims for more stable packages so less updating. Decent package selection in their repos as well.
No downvote here my friend. I love arch, but that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone. Plug-and-play distros are great too, they just have different strong points.
Haha, I’ve been daily driving slackware since the late 90s. I like to tinker and install a lot of stuff. I seem to break anything with an automated package manager and dependency resolution.
Nah, I’m just a hobbyist. I’m a n00b compared to all the regulars in the slackware channel on IRC. But I love tinkering and learning. I’d need your help to install vanilla arch, just like you’d probably need mine to get started on slackware. (The slackware install is actually super easy).
I’ve been trying to distrohop the past couple months, see what else is out there. I wasn’t paying attention installing Garuda and borked my EFI partition. I did manage to chroot into my still working slackware partition, but I couldn’t figure out how to re-install grub. So I formatted and did a fresh slackware install.
Add comment