If you had to pick one distro to use for the next five years, what would it be? Bleeding edge / stable? Rolling / periodic?
What would you prioritise and why?
I asked myself this exact question back in 2020 and chose Arch. At the time I had been using Fedora since 2017. What I ultimately wanted was a system I could install once and continually evolve rather than replace. Several years on, I’m still running that same installation and it has never given me a reason to reconsider…
Been using Debian stable since Hans reiser got locked up.
It’s fine and it will continue to be fine.
The one I’ve been using for the last 17 years, Gentoo
Best of both worlds – Debian + Nix home-manager. Debian gives you incredible stability and plenty of usage resources. Nix gives you anything too new for Debian and functionally confines the more experimental end of your config to user space.
Stable and rolling I guess. Its kinda funny as I don’t change very often but I would not like the idea of not being able to change my distro. im going to be making a serious stab at iso based one in the future. i would say soon but my soon with this stuff can be quite awhile.
I run multiple servers all Debian desktop is Cachy becasue Endeavour broke.
Looking forward to cachy server.
But i think for servers a little more reservation is required.
Depends on what I’m doing.
Workstation or server will be Debian. Personal devices are either Debian or Arch.
I’d prioritize Debian if I could only pick one for all options.
Don’t forget debian on phones (mobian), debian on embedded devices (armbian or even pure debian), debian on gaming machines and debian on vms running on debian hosts
I would go with (semi)rolling, either openSUSE Tumbleweed/Slowroll or Fedora. I prioritize fast updating distros because they are better for security (many vulnerabilities go unnoticed because the full scope isnt understood and they are deemed normal bugs), and (unlike Windows) updates on Linux are a good thing, bring new features, crash/bug fixes, and optimizations.
Fedora is very popular, has wide software support, and is very stable. openSUSE is also still pretty popular, (even its rolling edition) is quite stable as well, has good software support, and YaST allows you to do graphical administration on your system. Both take security seriously and use SELinux for security policies.
If you care about security, use Brace for automatic system hardening. It has been developed for years by the former DivestOS dev Tavi, supporting many distros.
idk bro I’ve been running the same arch install for the last 6 years and I will run it for the next 5 as well.
I’m a newbie, just put Mint on an old laptop and I’m blown away; it really does just work!
I have been thinking about trying Arch next because it’s so well documented. I don’t know maybe put together a little home server or something.
Do you think it’s appropriate for a relative newcomer? I’m excited by the documentation but also a little intimidated by it! I suspect I’ll need to ask for help but would worry about not having read everything there is to read first.
Try it on something that you’re not relying on for your daily activities. It takes some time to learn and you’ll make mistakes. But it’s a great exercise for learning and as a hobby.
Lovely! The hobby aspect definitely appeals, though so does the idea of getting everything running well! Have you heard anything about Manjaro as a user-friendly version of arch? I guess it may cut against the arch ethos of “precisely what you choose to install and nothing more,” but I feel like if it’s any good I could get the sort of ease-of-use that I have with mint while having the option to dabble and experiment more with the guidance of the arch wiki available?
Arch was definitely tricky to get right for me at yhe beginning.
You often have a choise between multiple similar tools for each job and you only know the pros and cons or what works and what doesn’t after trying.
I did 3-4 fresh installs before getting it right for my needs and hardware. (for example, btrfs with buttermanager requires a completely different fs layout than btrfs with snapper, I picked buttermanager first, didn’t like it after 2 weeks and had to do a fresh install)
For that it’s handy to have a good backup of your important data, ideally outside of your pc, just so there is no risk of fucking it up somehow.
I definitely recommend using btrfs and using it’s snapsotting feature through snapper or timeshift or something else, again, multiple tools for the same job, different pros and cons.
That way you can roll back after fucking something up. But make sure to try it out a couple of times before the case comes where you have to rely on it, so you’re sure that it does work and you know how to properly do it.
I prefer arch cause I was able to customize it more and I love the up to date packages and the AUR. But there is some additional maintenance you have to do like once or twice a year and you have to pay attention to news for manual interventions when there is a breaking update. So it is way more involved than other distros. Yet it has been rock solid for me and should be very reliable once you know your way around.
But tbh. as long as you are completely happy with mint, there is no reason to change anything.
I am very happy with mint. I can imagine making arch more of a project and having a lot of fun with it, and as I said, the wiki really seems like a big draw! I probably wouldn’t swap my daily driver from mint for a while, but I’m gonna put together a desktop to maybe run 24/7 and run a little plex server or whatever. I am interested in the possibility of even running it headless…maybe even streaming games from it to a laptop (I don’t have a very good space for a desktop set up in my home right now…too snug!).
Anyway thanks for your thoughts. Arch does seem really cool but maybe I should stick with something a bit more beginner friendly for a little longer, and come to arch when I’m more “ready,” or when my new little obsession with linux has solidified into a habit or whatever!
e: anyone have experience with manjaro as a user-friendly version of arch?
Ubuntu and essentially every other answer is wrong.
if I had to bet on one distro for the next 5 years and I had to stay on it, it would be Ubuntu.
I run Arch right now but I would never bet on Arch.
Arch is quite an old distro and extremely popular. Valve could have chosen any distro, but settled on Arch.
Server or workstation?
Let’s say workstation.
I installed Pop!_OS on a Thinkpad in 2020 and have been using that install as my daily driver without issue. That includes multiple LTS release upgrades. The key is to stick with LTS releases. It’s boring because you do not get the latest and greatest features, but the payoff is rock solid stability.
EDIT: As far as distros, I stick with Pop!_OS for myself, Linux Mint for my wife (we’re both IT professionals), and LMDE for my servers.
For my desktop: openSUSE Tumbleweed/Slowroll. I like to keep my desktop as up-to-date as possible, and openSUSE is pretty good. Sure, there’s the occasional udev update that breaks inputs in the desktop environment, but that’s the other side of the coin.
For my laptop and other uses: Debian. The old reliable doesn’t mind if I don’t update as often, and unlike rolling releases, updates aren’t wont to break anything. In a pinch I could use it on the desktop too.
I’ve tried just about every distro over the past decade, and I always come back to Ubuntu. It commands the largest share of the Linux market by a large margin, especially when you consider its derivative distributions like Mint and PopOS. It also has excellent support from hardware vendors, specifically NVIDIA in my case.
For a headless server: Ubuntu. Solid, reliable and stable for many years.
For gaming: Pop OS looks promising now that cosmic has been released, however I’d probably stick with Fedora as it’s leading edge and has served me well so far.
debian is better for a headless server in my experience, it has less issues than ubuntu server on bare metal
System 76 cosmic, I have been testing it for a couple months and its pretty solid imo
This is a DE not a distro, System76’s distro is named Pop_OS!
