Original question by @POTOOOOOOOO@reddthat.com
I use Arch, btw, but I don’t consider it the best (yes I do.) I could easily transition to Fedora, for example (I would never do that,) and be completely happy (I would rather continually hit my head with the metal stapler gun on my desk.)
CachyOS with NiriWM. Cachy is Arch with none of the install drama. The performance tuning makes it blazing fast on older hardware. Installs with no bloat.
Niri is superior to Hyprland in my opinion because it’s a scrolling tiling WM that is super intuitive and fast.
For server workloads, however, not much beats pure Debian. It’s stable, well supported, and has a huge package library.
I run CachyOS on my PC and Debian (12/13) on my servers. Everything you say is dead on.
Perfect set up for me.
Mint is Ubuntu minus everything that makes Ubuntu annoying. That’s why I like it.
I considered to go back to Debian but… eh, I’m too old and impatient for that. Nowadays I mostly want things that work out of the box.
It would be awesome if it came with a KDE desktop environment.
If ZorinOS shipped without the Snaps, it might become my go-to, even though it’s Gnome. They did a wonderful job of customizing it with extensions to make it more like a classic desktop experience.
Do things not work out of the box on debian?
From what I remember*, there was always some rough corner. Such as the wi-fi, or the graphics card. Sure, Stable was rock solid, but you always needed something from Testing; and Testing in general was overall less stable than Ubuntu or Mint.
*This was years ago, so it might be inaccurate as of 2025.
Because it was my first distro that got me away from Windows. And yes, it’s Mint.
Using Linux is not a dick measuring contest (and man I hate these threads asking “why is your distro the best?” - it feels like trolling and sowing division and grief to me. A bit like asking a mother “What is your favorite child?”.)
Ah, so you think your distro’s not the best. (jk).
As a recovering/relapsing distroholic, I feel like these threads are great for discovery. (And whimsical fun. Because you’re right, that it’s not a contest. So knowing this, can engage with the question playfully.)
Does what I want and gets out of my way.
As it should.
You mean my distros?
Different distros are the best for different purposes.
My Fedora is the best for my laptop because it just works and all the hardware is supported.
My Arch is the best because it’s a super fine tuned setup that prevents distractions and doesn’t waste memory or CPU doing things I don’t care about.
My mint is the best because it’s simple, stable, beautiful out of the box.
My debian is the best because servers are no nonsense.
My puppy Linux was the best when I was a developer for the distro because it was the smallest lightest and fastest distro I’ve ever used.
Etc.
Because I like compiling everything from source for a 0.2% speed improvement
i personally really love devuan! i liked void linux but now i needed a stable distro and devuan was exactly what i needed + it doens’t has systemd so this is a plus for me :)
I get to say “I use arch btw” :P
How’s that working out for you? :)
It works well enough for now. Some things were surprisingly simpler than I expected them to be (e.g. gaming thanks to Heroic Launcher and Steam).
Note for the Linux-curious potentially reading this: I had sufficient experience with Linux Mint and Ubuntu as well as test runs of Arch before committing to it. DO NOT SWITCH DIRECTLY TO ARCH LINUX FROM WINDOWS. Try Mint first (or Bazzite, I hear that one is great for gaming but have yet to try it myself), and preferably using VirtualBox before committing to a switch.
It works well enough for now. Some things were surprisingly simpler than I expected them to be (e.g. gaming thanks to Heroic Launcher and Steam).
I was thinking more with regards to the multiple recent AUR malware attacks. I hope you’re staying safe, staying on top of the situation, not letting Arch bite you.
Note for the Linux-curious potentially reading this: I had sufficient experience with Linux Mint and Ubuntu as well as test runs of Arch before committing to it. DO NOT SWITCH DIRECTLY TO ARCH LINUX FROM WINDOWS. Try Mint first (or Bazzite, I hear that one is great for gaming but have yet to try it myself), and preferably using VirtualBox before committing to a switch.
Note for the linux-curious potentially reading this: You’re Linux curious, that means you have what it takes to try any distribution of Linux. Curiosity. YOU CAN SWITCH DIRECTLY TO ARCH LINUX FROM WINDOWS. It’s rare, but it does happen. Some now famous linux youtubers did just that. It will take a bit more reading to be able to get up and running, but you’ll be running all the more fast and sure-footed from the education the experience gave you.
;)
Oh heck, Arch isn’t even that hard and involved to install any more. Go for Gentoo. :) Come, windows refugees, all! Skip the Ubuntus, Mints, Suses, Fedoras, PopOSes, AntiXes, Zorins, elementaryOSes, LinuxLites, PCLinuxOSes, Soluses and whatever windows refugees flock to these days, and shoot for the moon! Heck, even try LFS! (Okay, don’t. I’ve gone too far now. LOL).
I make a backup of my project on an external hard drive twice-ish a week and pacman-Syu twice-ish a month. If anything serious happens, I’ll just reinstall and restore.
I could keep an up-to-date install USB ready, tho - but I have enough other options at the moment.
Thanks for the concern.
NixOS. My entire config is source-controlled and I can easily roll back to a previous boot image if something breaks like cough Nvidia drivers. I also use it for my home router and all self-hosted services.
I do not consider Arch the best. Artix is better because is is systemd-free. I have not switched yet.
Yeah. Considering Devuan over Debian for the same reason.
(And there’s obarun, joborun, nemesis, shebang… er, and others out in the wild too that I forget… )
(I use an Artix stratum btw.)
Because I can hit “next” a couple of time and have a working install
I use Arch since approximately 2006 or so. I like its stability (yes!), performance, rapid updates and technical simplicity. It never stands in my way and it’s fairly simple to understand, administer and modify. It’s probably the most convenient OS I’ve ever used - sure it takes time/effort to set it up but once you’re past that it’s smooth sailing. It also doesn’t change dramatically over the years (it doesn’t need to) so it’s easy to keep up with its development. Plus, I have a custom setup script for it that installs and sets up all of the basics, so if I ever need to reinstall, I’m not starting from zero.
I am eyeing NixOS as “the next step” but didn’t yet experiment with it too much. Arch is just too comfy to use and the advantages that NixOS brings aren’t yet significant enough for me to make any kind of switch to it, but I consider NIxOS (as well as its related technologies like the Nix package manager) to be the most interesting and most advanced things in the Linux world currently.
If you’re reading this as a newbie Linux user: probably don’t use any of the two mentioned above (yet). They’re not considered entry-level stuff, unless you’re interested in learning low-level (as in: highly technical) Linux stuff from the start already. NixOS/Nix in particular is fairly complex and can be a challenge even for veteran Linux admins/users to fully understand and utilize well. Start your journey with more common desktop distros like Mint, Fedora, Kubuntu.
I’ve been using a debian based system for a dozen years. Then I decided to buy a NAS and turn it into a NixOS driven media server.
JFC I thought I knew linux and I was so wrong.
It works, has the packages I need and they are up-to-date
