Linux

I've settled on Manjaro for this computer, and I'm pretty happy with it (I've stooped distro-hopping, I just don't have the energy, nor the time to entertain that on my only laptop), though I'm considering changing to base Arch for my next one (which I hope is still 3 years or so in the future; this machine is only 4 yro still). Why? Because the version wait on Manjaro seems a bit arbitrary sometimes and that lag often doesn't play nice with the AUR (which I love). Sometimes I think of switching to more esoteric distros, such as the neat Alpine (which I've been using on servers for a while) and reproducible NixOS, but then I question the day to day usability and pain points, which are quite relevant to me atm.

Why do I like Manjaro though? I like the Arch made easier, the mhwd tools, the support forums (which I know people have mixed feelings on, but my experience has been nothing other than very pleasant).

Feel free to discuss my points!

Started using Endeavour OS a few years back. Not necessarily the most stable, but I think my current install is the longest running single install I've ever had. Even if I screw something up and it won't boot I've been able to recover without a reinstall.

I love Debian, but want Plasma 6, so I’m installing openSUSE right now.

OK-ish. I use Manjaro. It's a pretty good idea to read Announcements before updating: https://forum.manjaro.org/c/announcements/

It may have instructions on how to update without borking your system. For example, the February update broke Plymouth, causing systems using it to be unbootable. Sort of. It would actually boot, just to a black screen. On one of the threads someone reported being able to SSH into his PC just fine.

Or the May update bringing Plasma 6 to stable. The recommendation was to reset Plasma to defaults, log out, stop SDDM and update from TTY. I tested doing exact opposite of that in VM, and it still went fine, except for missing icons, but still a good idea just to be safe.

But I had some other problems too.

February update: Booting to black screen. I found threads mentioning the same stuff for this update. Cool. "Remove Plymouth or just don't use splash". I... already disabled splash (and quiet to make boot-up cooler).
Fix: Updating Linux 5.15 LTS to 6.6 LTS. Something changed in 5.15 making it break on my laptop, I guess. I couldn't even get to TTY without nomodeset.
Furthermore, the animations became choppy after resuming from sleep.

May update: Turning on Bluetooth may cause system crash. It would show as "ON", but actually be inactive while shoving already paired devices. This couldn't be reversed. Logging out and back in would lead to only the welcome screen and yakuake showing up. Trying to reboot from both yakuake and plain TTY would stop mid-way. After issuing reboot, the system would be mostly dead, but still kinda running. Linux still responded to magic SysRq.
Fix: Upgrading Linux 6.6 LTS to 6.9.

So, I can deal with it, and it definitely taught me to use Timeshift. Oh, and the brightness buttons sometimes stop working.

Debian is like my wife, I'm always faithful to her!

Ok, can you keep a secret? I have cheated on her a few times. I tried redhat before I met Debian, but didn't get very far because of circular dependencies (it was the 90s and package management was new). I never used another Linux and wanted to experiment a little!

I compiled Linux From Scratch, but it was too high maintenance. I tried Gentoo, but it's not something I'd put on a friend's computer, ya know what I mean? And yeah, I admit it, I had a fling with Debian's little sister, Ubuntu. But it was basically like Debian, but a little more sexy but also a little more flakey.

But in the end, I always go back to Debian. Solid, dependable, and low maintenance. Just upgraded to bookworm this weekend (because I'm always behind on dist upgrades LOL). Updated the apt sources ran recommended the apt commands with no issues. Only noticeable difference is the grub and login screens are a different shade of blue.

I was early on Silverblue but went to Workstation. The Fedora Anaconda UEFI shim on enthusiast edge class hardware is flawless. The ability to roll back if there are any issues is default config. Encrypted drives are easy. NVME is managed. Nvidia kernel modules are built lightning fast in the background. I have a dozen distrobox container environments each with layers of Python containers within. I occasionally have a minor issue, like upgrading to F40 put me on Python too far ahead for some projects, but it was an easy fix for me.

Unfortunately I must be on a shim, so only Fedora and Ubuntu exist on my main.

Using Debian Testing. Happy with it except with the fact it's still on KDE plasma 5 :(

Love Gentoo. Being using it for 20+ years and never looked back.

Using also CentOS for work, and would switch to Gentoo if I could.

Really, gentoo for everything (from laptop to headless server), but not for where a rolling release distro is not suitable (configuration control and such needs).

I have Void running on my desktop, server, laptop, and media center. Then my NAS and router are running versions of FreeBSD (TrueNAS, Opnsense). Not really looking to change, so pretty happy overall.

I'm on Debian Stable with KDE Plasma. Been thinking of trying XFCE because i've only heard good things. But eh...everything runs smoothly as it is so I'm happy.

Debian and very. Sorry I strayed to Ubuntu for as long as I did.

Switched from Kubuntu to Mint + KDE last week. Very happy indeed.

Eh. I'm just (again, take 371) trying to get a ThinkPad running on Linux for light use, and I've dabbled with a lot of distros in the last 20 years, but I've always reversed course because something didn't work, and I got frustrated troubleshooting it.

This go around, I wanted Debian 12, fde, btrfs, snapshots. And I wanted it to work ootb (spoiler: it did not). It also needed to support my hardware, which includes WWAN.

D12 installs fine, everything is great, until the restart, where it hangs on hardware errors (I thiiiink it's thunderbolt but I can't remember) on boot. Okay, let's try Fedora - yay it works. Oh no, the fcc unlock for WWAN doesn't work. Let's try Mint (Debian Edition). Wtf, I can do fde but only on ext4, and gparted is useless here. I want Debian(-based) since I have the most experience with it, and the software I use is available easily. Don't like straight ubu, but not a lot of options so let's try kubu. After a couple installs, it checks all my requirements (Debian, fde, btrfs, snapshots via gui, WWAN, ootb* (with fcc unlock and added apn)).

It's fine, it works, but it's not what I wanted. And between needing WWAN working, and needing compiled packages for my software, I'm kinda stuck.

So I dunno. Kubu is fine. It's like the compact car you get as a rental. It does the job. But fuck, WHY is WWAN support so shit, why isn't btrfs support in the installer more common, why is it often difficult to do fde. Those three were a huge pain for me. And I'm not fresh off the boat, but I'm not going to fuck with the terminal just to install a fucking system. Ugh.

Anyway. I'm not "happy", but it's currently working. Suggestions (or assistance) welcome.

E: I should add that I tried fedora because it was recommended to me to try; afaik it's based on red hat

I regret ever having switched to the amateur distro that is Nobara bc I was too lazy to set up Feodra a 2nd time after the Grub fiasco Arch (and thus my daily driver back then EndeavourOS) had lol

Will switch the second OpenSuSe Slowroll becomes stable

Surprised I don't see any Fedoras on here yet. Very happy on Fedora KDE.

Happy, Fedora Kinoite uBlue-main

In the process of making my own variant, but that is quite some effort

I'm still rocking my 2011 Arch install, immediately ended my distro hopping for over a decade and still going strong.

Arch. ~3 y/o installation and I never had any significant problems with it. And yes, I have broke my installation a few times (I think only 2 times) but that is totally my fault (changing repositories, downgrading packages, changing critical system files, etc) and not something that would apply for every arch user.

Arch + i3wm on my work laptop and I love it. Super functional.

I got a refresh/new laptop and they put Ubuntu on it. Really miss Arch's repos & package manager. Probably will switch it at some point.

I use OpenBSD on my prod machine and vps, and that's serving me very well (other than suspend and usb expansions cards being buggy on my framework laptop (latter might be hardware issues))

I have the default SteamOS on my steam deck; I'm not a fan of its immutable filesystem paradigm and not shipping with any real package manager besides flatpak, so I'm thinking of putting Void Linux on it at some point.

My phone runs PostmarketOS (alpine based mobile OS); which is adding support for systemd and making it default for phosh, kde and gnome installations; which I'm disappointed about to say the least. openrc will still be supported, but given it's no longer the default (and requires recompilation to change), it's probably taking a backseat to systemd. openrc will still ship by default on sxmo, but I'm ready to find an alternative at this point. Maybe I should look into trying to port OpenBSD to the pinephone again, as much as a dream as that seems like. Looks like there's also been some effort put into porting Void Linux to the pinephone, so I'll check that out.

Couldn’t be happier with Debian stable. Easiest year on my computer since I installed bookworm when it was released. There is a reason it is the basis of so many distros.

Debian 12. It just works, except for buggy Wayland, thankfully KDE still supports Xorg.

Very. I've always used Debian flavors, but I recently installed barebones Debian 12 starting from the command line up. The result has been a sleek, lightweight powerhouse of a laptop.

Very happy. My two daily drivers (Desktop and Laptop) are on Ubuntu but user space is managed with Nix.

All other machines are Nixos proper. Only thing keeping me back from moving to Nixos fully is I decided to piecemeal my own DE and I've just lacked the time to debug some issues related to gnome-keyring, computer locking, and coding up some system setting widgets.

@Blaze
100% of my venomlinux river system

So far I haven't had any major issues whatsoever with MX running KDE, other than Vbox being the absolute worst to attempt to get working (which I still can't). Otherwise, works fine enough for what I need.