(Constructively) What is your least favorite distro & why?

I’ve been distrohopping for a while now, and eventually I landed on Arch. Part of the reason I have stuck with it is I think I had a balanced introduction, since I was exposed to both praise and criticism. We often discuss our favorite distros, but I think it’s equally important to talk about the ones that didn’t quite hit the mark for us because it can be very helpful.

So, I’d like to ask: What is your least favorite Linux distribution and why? Please remember, this is not about bashing or belittling any specific distribution. The aim is to have a constructive discussion where we can learn about each other’s experiences.

My personal least favorite is probably Manjaro.

Consider:

  • What specific features/lack thereof made it less appealing?
  • Did you face any specific challenges?
  • How was your experience with the community?
  • If given a chance, what improvements would you suggest?
Snoopy, (edited )
@Snoopy@jlai.lu avatar

Unpopular opinion :

  • Arch, i installed it long ago so i can’t remember anything except that i spent lot hours for its installation.
  • Reason : spend a lot time reading the wiki without an easy installer…even Ubuntu was better but i wanted a challenge and a better uderstanding on linux.
  • Some AUR package didn’t work.
  • Why Arch ? To get the lastest os and package as i had a recent gaming laptop.

So I changed and prefered manjaro with its ui for linux os, graphic card…but some thing were broken…than i settled Pop-Os for 3 years and distrohopped again for immutable os : Vanilla OS and Fedora Kinoite. :)

Another distro :

  • Ubuntu
  • reason : snap and various decisions.
Falcon,

I enjoyed arch for how straight forward the install was.

Gentoo however, every time I do that from scratch it’s with X, Westland is NetworkManager that give up (my recommendation is oddlamma installer)

Snoopy,
@Snoopy@jlai.lu avatar

Yeah Arch is straight forward but is require an amazing amount of focus and concentration. :)

I should try gentoo as my next challenge, i guess i won’t like it but in fact, i enjoy those challenge and trying new stuff. ^^

wuphysics87,

You need to learn how bullets work, my friend.

Snoopy,
@Snoopy@jlai.lu avatar

Bullets in markdown ?


<span style="color:#323232;">* like this ?
</span><span style="color:#323232;">* or like that ?
</span>
wuphysics87,

As in what does it mean to itemize. In this case to make an unordered list.

Snoopy,
@Snoopy@jlai.lu avatar

Sorry, my english comprehension is rusty. It is an unordered list. I used it to improve readibility on phone and separate topics.

If the topic is mixed in a paragraphe i would have a harder time to quickly retrieve informations. Here you can read Arch and ubuntu and why in a single glance.

GnuLinuxDude, (edited )
@GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml avatar

I use Fedora as my primary desktop distro. It’s a sturdy base with relatively up-to-date packages from the repos. It doesn’t really push technology I consider undesirable, like Snaps. Even though I have to rely on RPMFusion for a number of proprietary parts, due to Fedora’s free software stance, I don’t have any particular qualms about that. I also increasingly use Flatpaks anyway.

When I used to use Reddit the /r/fedora community was helpful and welcoming.

One downside is because the kernel changes frequently, and I (sadly) own a Nvidia GPU, akmods runs very often. Another downside is sometimes that frequently changing kernel can cause issues. I think in the past year or two I’ve had two distinct occasions where a kernel upgrade caused my mounted shares to not mount correctly. Reporting an issue to upstream also takes quite some involvement, as I discovered when I had to create some Red Hat account to report an issue about the packaging of some software in a beta release of Fedora.

So all-in-all I would say Fedora is a strong distro. It is probably not the most beginner-friendly one, though, given how you have to dip your toes into RPMFusion and related challenges. It used to be worse, since DejaVu used to be the default font system-wide and you had to install a fonts package from COPR to make the system actually look pleasant. Since then they switched to Noto, which makes the font situation MUCH better.

On servers and VMs I use Debian because I do not have the patience to maintain a faster moving Fedora multiple times over. This is exacerbated by the awful defaults of Gnome, which I have to bend into shape with extensions. When Fedora 40 releases later this year I fully intend to reinstall from scratch since KDE Plasma 6 will be available.

edit: i misread the prompt and just talked about my favorite distro that i actively use. whoops.

My least favorite distro could be Manjaro if I actually used it, but it is Ubuntu because of how close it is to being a great distro. Snaps really soured me to that deal. Snapd and Snaps make it difficult to use in VMs, too, because now you have to over-commit resources for something that could and should be smaller and simpler. Debian stays winning, as usual.

CrabAndBroom,

Someone already said Manjaro, so my second pick would be ElementaryOS. In the past they’ve had this weird attitude about open source things being free (I get supporting devs for projects you like of course, but I don’t agree that it’s “cheating” to not pay for every single piece of open source software you use), and they seem to get a lot of hype and praise for what’s essentially just Ubuntu painted up to look like MacOS IMO.

leopold, (edited )

I very much don’t care for ElementaryOS, but I really don’t think it’s fair to paint it as “Ubuntu painted up to look like MacOS”. It’s not just GNOME with some extensions. They made a whole desktop environment and suite of applications for their distro. That’s a ton of work. I think any distro that does that deserves some amount of respect.

ILikeBoobies,

I always confuse it with Sugar

Rudee,

Not a whole lot of experience distro-hopping here (went from Ubuntu to Endeavour and haven’t really changed since) but from what I know it seems like most distros have their place. Arch is highly customisable and all rolling release distros are good for gamers and those who need the latest software. Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, and other LTS distros are good for servers and newcomers (fewer big updates and therefore fewer potential crises)

For the sake of answering the question, I’d say Ubuntu is my least favourite. Its pretty bloated, and then there’s the whole snap fiasco

smackjack,

I don’t think I’ve ever used Ubuntu for more than a month. I just don’t like the way it looks, how locked down everything is, and how hard it is to customize.

zloubida,
@zloubida@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t get the hate for Manjaro, TBH. I never had any problem with it, and I used it as my main OS for a few years now.

ikidd,
@ikidd@lemmy.world avatar

It’s fine. People like to shit on it, usually people that have never even tried it.

I’ve run it for years on many systems and had no issues, which I can’t say with most other distros I’ve tried on and off.

TheGrandNagus,

People dislike it because:

  • There’s no real reason to use it over Arch/EndeavourOS
  • Their holding back of updates for 2 weeks is stupid and can cause breakage/dependency issues when you also have stuff installed via AUR (which doesn’t get held back for 2 weeks)
  • They hold back packages for 2 weeks, citing stability and that they can check for issues then patch before they push, but then they just… don’t do that. Known issues still get pushed.
  • Manjaro repos have had issues with malware in the past
  • Manjaro has on multiple occasions had their SSL certificates expire, with their advertised “fix” being to roll your system time back. This is a job that can be automated, or at the very least should have a reminder for someone in Manjaro to sort out. The fact it happened once is an embarrassment, but the fact it’s happened more times is absolutely inexcusable.
zloubida,
@zloubida@lemmy.world avatar

Once, I listened what some people said on the Internet, and I tried Arch. I came back to Manjaro, but I learned a lot so I’m not unhappy with the experience.

However, to say that there’s no reason to use it over Arch (I don’t know about Endeavour, I never actually used it) is just wrong. Maybe you don’t like the differences, but they are important and useful for someone like me. When I installed Arch, I needed to tinker it for hours before having something usable. I don’t want to tinker, I want my OS to work, even if it means other people made choices for me, as long as I can revert them; that’s what Manjaro offers. For example, I love GNOME, but only with some plugins, like dash to dock. When I installed Arch, GNOME made an update which broke a lot of plugins, included dash to dock; while Manjaro waited for dash to dock to work to push the new GNOME. Some issues may be pushed, but a lot of others aren’t. I prefer to have one big update twice a month instead of having to update and tinker again my OS possibly every day.

Manjaro is far from perfect, no distro is, but for people like me, it works very well, and better than Arch.

akincisor,

I never figured out why, but I couldn’t get any version of suse to work properly on my computers. I’ve been with Debian (sid) for about a decade now, so not the most up to date criticism here.

Poik,
@Poik@pawb.social avatar

Hannah Montana Linux. Do I have to explain?

Chadus_Maximus,

Yes.

mvirts,

You can’t have the best of both worlds

01189998819991197253,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

I hate that I understood this joke. Take my angry upvote.

01189998819991197253,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

Is it because it came in like a wrecking ball?

dingus,

Sorry, I think you meant to post this in the “best distro” thread

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

The distro I came here to mention has been hated on already. My dislike goes to the distros that start off fine, and somehow screw it up.

Honestly, I remember using Manjaro ages ago. It had an official Openbox spin (not a community thing). I had already used Arch but I didn’t even check to see what it was based on when I tried. I thought, “green is nice” and it was. It very quickly became less nice. I didn’t use it after that, but I’ve heard plenty of hate since then.

I’m going to put another one out there just for fun.

Distrowatch’s n°1… MX Linux

Nothing wrong with it, but the fact that it is number 1 (I know their ranking is just for fun and based on page hits) and doesn’t deserve it is the issue. It works great, when I used it I didn’t like how there was a second application for installating certain software. I think I used the Xfce setup. Again, it’s fine, but if a first-time Linux desktop user sat down and installed that, it might not be the best initiation.

Popular and highly ranked distros give Desktop Linux a bad name sometimes is what I’m saying.

sirico,
@sirico@feddit.uk avatar

I’d agree with Manjaro, It was my first I kinda know Linux distro after brown Ubuntu and Mint at the time it really worked well, but then package desyncing started affecting my installation followed by the first of many controversial behaviours from the team. It’s one of many Linux distros that hasn’t progressed much in the last few years, like elementary, and the idea it is easy to arch is false when you end up having to babysit updates because testing isn’t as up to par as something like Fedora or Mint.

Garuda is a distro that has swung from a do not install to prob the best “Welcome to arch” distro for me. Their focus on tooling is getting up there with Mint & Suse BTRFS manager being a shining program of the project. More so, shows how utterly pointless Manjaro has become and badly managed the project is.

THE_ANON,

(Mod) Ubuntu shit breaks more than half the things i want to use.

Father_Redbeard,
@Father_Redbeard@lemmy.ml avatar

Any DE that looks remotely like Windows. My journey to Linux began with a seething hatred of the way Microsoft does pretty much anything. Including the Win10 UI. So when I jumped ship I wanted something completely different. I tried Gnome on a couple distros but ultimately landed on Pop!_OS and really like it!

gianni,

I agree with this the most. People obsess over the start menu paradigm simply because they like it in Windows. I desire more open mindedness when it comes to looking into alternative ways to interact with your computer, so I align with GNOME.

Presi300, (edited )
@Presi300@lemmy.world avatar

Pull out your pitchforks, debian.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s good in a VM or a server, but it’s the worst Linux desktop experience I’ve ever had.

  • Apt sucks, it’s the worst package manager imo (and I use Gentoo). Slow, bad a dependency resolution and apt-autoremove nuked my system both times I tried to use debian.
  • It’s old. LTS is only good for servers, you cannot change my mind and I don’t see a reason to use sid or unstable, when I can use literally why other distro with a better prepare manager.

And it just does some bizarre things, like not setting up sudo with the graphical installer…

maness300,

Fedora. It doesn’t really add anything and is just more stuff for people to get distracted by.

Also, red hat is responsible for shilling a lot of bullshit.

JustARegularNerd,

I tried Fedora aswell and couldn’t get behind the package management or GNOME. I’m sure it’s trivial to change the DE to something more sane (my tastes lie with Xfce and/or KDE) but I used it for a month and I just went straight back to Manjaro until I could find something better, and ultimately settled on EndeavourOS.

jerrythegenius,
@jerrythegenius@lemmy.world avatar

You could try the KDE or XFCE spins

RalphWolf,

I’m going to say Gentoo Linux. It’s a good learning tool and I suppose maybe a tiny bit faster if you actually custom-compile everything for your hardware from source, but that’s a crazy waste of time.

Cwilliams,

Agree. The tradeoff of building everything from source just doesn’t pay off

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