Inquiring minds want to know: What Linux distro is on your computer?
Market share matters, even in the nonprofit world in which most distros live. Most likely, a large user base means more dollars coming in from donations or corporate grants. Also, a popular and much used distro might also prompt more folks with technical skills to volunteer, which might result in an improved user experience — or not. You know what they say about too many cooks in the pot.
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The thing is, here in the FOSS world we have absolutely no way of knowing how many people might be using a particular distro. There are no licenses to sign, and companies using Linux aren’t required to take inventory to make sure they’re staying in compliance. So while Microsoft and Apple can give us a pretty accurate figure for the number of times their operating systems have been legally installed in the last few months or so, we can’t. Unlike Windows, Linux doesn’t require users to sign draconian EULAs. Unlike Apple, our distros aren’t performing all of the installs themselves on machines they manufacture.
So we have to come up with other metrics — which are unreliable at best. The most often cited measure, also the easiest to access, is the “Page Hit Ranking” on DistroWatch, which counts the traffic to the pages of individual distros on that site. The problem is that although this does give us a good idea of the public’s interest in a particular distro, it doesn’t tell us anything about the number of downloads.
More importantly, the DistroWatch ranking tells us nothing about the number of installs. Even if we were to contact the administrators of each and every distro for their download figures, we still wouldn’t know how many installs were generated by those downloads. For example, here in the FOSS Force office we have three machines which are all running Linux Mint from a single download, and it’s a certainty that Ken Starks isn’t downloading a new ISO each and every time he needs to install Linux on a new computer for one of his Reglue kids.
So we thought we’d offer a new measure by running a poll, which we’re asking you to take. The purpose this unscientific poll isn’t to replace other established metrics, such as the DistroWatch rankings, but merely to add another measure to the mix. The poll can be accessed here and on our front page.
In our poll, which asks for the distro you use most often, we’re offering up ten of the most popular distros according to DistroWatch. Users of distros that aren’t included can choose the “other” option and cast a write-in vote. Write-in votes must be for only one distro — votes mentioning multiple distros will not be counted. Also not counted will be votes for non-GNU/Linux desktop distros, such as Android, the various Unixes or the BSDs. Our poll will run through 11:59 PM EDT on Wednesday, March 18th and we’ll publish the results the next day.
After you’ve cast your vote, we’d also like to know something about why you choose your particular distro. You can let us know by using the comment section below.
Happy voting!
I chose mint after reading online articles and talking to friends about which would be the best XP replacement. So far I am very happy with it and use it for 99% of my computing as I still have a couple programs I need to occasionally boot into XP to run.
I’m using Mint 17.1 KDE on the computers around our house,getting there through a number of versions after I decided MEPIS wasn’t going to come back to lively. I loved Mepis for several versions.
I run Quicken 2003 and CadSTD under WINE (I’m sooooo ashamed) and everything else I need as native Linux. As to why, it’s probably lethargy and lack of a desire for adventure. It works and I have things to do that are more important to me than trying out distros to see whether I can find anything I like better.
My idea of excitement is installing LibreOffice one point-version higher than the one in the Mint repositories. I live on the wild side sometimes.
Been using Mageia for the desktop since version 2. And Debian on my server.
The reason I choose to use debian is:
1. It is gnu and community driven distro (largest community) unlike Ubuntu or redhat which are run by corporates.
2. Virtually it covers all hardwares and architectures.
3. It is most stable, well documented and contains very huge package repos.
4. It doesn’t force user to install particular desktop and software package set because of interest from ceo of corporate.
5. It is not selling or establishing business on you.
6. You can find oldest version of packages for study and research.
7. Makes you expert power user.
8. You will be part of largest community.
No. of users and stats can be mined from distro repo and from os of server and supercomputer. Also from active viewers of online forum and no. of reported bugs and patches.
I use multiple distributions, most heavily used openSUSE then Ubuntu.
I’m using Ubuntu because that is the only distro that plays nice with my UEFI machine. I’m also using OpenSUSE on another machine because personally I find it the most rock solid stable distro. Besides, I’m using Bodhi Linux and Crunchbang on two other legacy machines.
Be interesting to map these results against data about this site’s readership.
I also vouch for openSUSE.
I just upgraded 2 boxes with 1532 and 1371 package updates and the third is being updated with 1595 packages.
Every week I install the latest upstream vanilla kernel, currently 4.0.0rc3 is rrunning on all 3.
These boxes are rock solid even with thousands of updates each week.
I moved to bodhi from Ubuntu because I didn’t care anything about Ubuntu’s new UI direction, bodhi was bare bones, and enlightenment looked like fun.
Gentoo, because I’m a customizer, and gentoo gives me build-time customization options that no binary distro can match, while still automating the process (unlike say LFS/Linux-from-scratch).
Additionally, gentoo is a rolling distro with stability options from stable, to testing, to pre-release and live-vcs-build (generally found in the project overlays). I’ve been running the same testing-based install, with selected pre-release and live-vcs-builds, since I switched from mandrake in 2004. That’s over a decade, thru various hardware upgrades, without a clean reinstall, yet the system is current and even running live-builds of various packages. How many distros both support that and make it easy? =:^)
And on the controversy of the day, how many distros let YOU decide whether you’re going to run systemd, or something else? Sysv-init-based openrc remains the default, but I know someone running his own hand-scripted init and still running static devices, not even udev, etc. Like I said, gentoo’s the ultimate customizer distro! =:^)
Duncan
Xfce desktop version
I use Slackware. I use it because I got tired of distro specific customizations that interfered with my being able to configure things as I wanted them. I dont know how many Slackware users pay attention to polls like this, but as perhaps the oldest linux distro (and in my experience of 20 years of linux use, the most stable and trouble free by far) it should at least be included in the choices.
I use Fedora/Cinnamon for desktop and CentOS when I’m playing around with servers.
I don’t like Debian derivatives. I don’t like the way Ubuntu is organized and I don’t like Gnome or Unity.
I use Fedora because it is sponsored by Red Hat. Yes Red Hat is a corporation, but they fund and support a huge amount of the progression of open source and free software. Ubuntu seems to be only interested in its own development. I have yet to see “Sponsored by Ubuntu/Canonical” tags anywhere.
Although I use Fedora, I don’t like Gnome at all. I use Cinnamon. I love everything about it. I just wish Clem had been employed by Red Hat. I would then have all my open source happiness under one umbrella.
I use Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, but a custom build on just the core using Fluxbox as the window manager, a handful of GTK apps and manu QT apps. I built a Fluxbox theme from scratch that looks modern and resembles KDE Plasma 5.
Lets not forget something about Red Hat. From the same people who brought you this:
http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/02/how-omnipotent-hackers-tied-to-the-nsa-hid-for-14-years-and-were-found-at-last/
Comes this:
https://www.nsa.gov/ia/_files/factsheets/rhel5-pamphlet-i731.pdf
Not to mention the effort to shove systemd down the collective throat of the community.
I use Fedora Linux with the Gnome 3 desktop interface. I have used and still have a few machines around the house running Ubuntu, openSuSE, and Linux Mint, but my main machine is the Fedora. I have found a desktop interface that isn’t trying to “be like” any other and everything (at least to ME anyway!) is in a perfect and logical place. I have been using Fedora since it’s 14/15 release version days. Now they’re up to 21 and I’m testing the Alpha release of version 22. AS for why I chose Fedora, its because it weas the first distro I tried to install that worked! After installing it and trying out a lot of others I ceased “distro-hopping” and settled on the machines I have running the OS’es they have. Gnome 3 was also a factor in my decision to use Fedora, this desktop helped me to focus on what I was doing without too many distractions, and for that I will forever be grateful to the devs at the Fedora Project….
I chose Ubuntu, because from one LTS version to another, the version is solid and I don’t have to upgrade to a newer version for years. (Someone else can experiment with the non-LTS versions and distro flavors. I have work to do with my computer.)
I’m using Lubuntu for my daily computing. But TinyCore is coming along to the point that I may switch. Other contenders: Trisquel, gNewSense and Devuan…
Before Linux I used Amdahl UTS on Mainframes and Minix on PC’s.
Minix was not geared to general use but I would build software on UTS at work, convert it from EBCDIC to ASCII and put it on floppy to further develop at home on Minix and continued that process back and forth until Linux appeared.
The first hard drive bootloaders used on Linux were bootlace and shoelace from Minix, no ext back then.
I started with the first kernel Linus put up for ftp on an old Toshiba laptop with 2 floppy drives and I’ve used MCC, SLS, Slackware, SCO Linux, Mandrake/Mandriva, Gentoo, RedHat, and SUSE.
When XWindows first appeared on Linux modelines had to be calculated using a ruler for screen measurements, the monitor specs and a pocket calculator, then fiddle with the numbers to get a proper display.
Worked with Linux on SPARC and Mainframes, Solaris on SPARC and X86, IBM AIX, OS2 and FreeBSD.
If it’s NIX, I am happy with it period, so I can’t fault any distro, they’re all luxury compared to the beginnings.
I love Korora (based on Fedora, of course). I have tried many others (hoping like a March Hare). I always end up with Korora and using Gnome 3.
I switched to Slackware shortly after Soft Landing Systems folded their tent. I had been running SLS 1.02 prior to that. I have tried a few other distributions, and used both Red Hat and CentOS servers at work. But nothing I have seen is as easy to set up and maintain as Slackware has been. I currently have two servers and three workstations running it.
I use Ubuntu (Unity and Gnome 3 legacy), Linux Mint (Cinnamon), Ubuntu Studio (XFCE), it depends on what I’m using the computer for. But my main laptop is running Ubuntu Unity.
I use PCLinuxOS mainly.
I started with them about 8 years ago and don’t see myself changing soon.
The major reason is the forum. Whenever and whatever I ask, I always get an immediate reply.
I have 2 desktops and 2 laptops running various flavors of PCLinuxOS.
I have 4 physical systems. 2 run mythbuntu, 1 Mint, 1 SalentOS.
Note that a tally of only which distro we each use most often won’t reflect the number of linux installs because many of us have n>1 system. So you might need to multiply the total(s) by 2-4 to better estimate the actual # installs. Maybe a more direct survey of “how many linux installations do you have?” would be helpful. (excluding VM)
Linux Mint
1. I don’t like Unity
2. After install, it is 100% useable. I can install Mint on a new users PC, and rarely get questions about how to use it.
I use linux mint 17.1 KDE on my primary desktop and laptop. I came from using opensuse after about 10 years of usage but was tired of issues finding software and certain packages not working right after being installed….so far linux mint has been serving my purposes. I have some older hardware and after trying several distro’s such as Linux Mint xfce and LXDE/LXLE I ended up running Bodhi 3.0 on them which is based on Ubuntu 14.04 but uses the Enlightenment desktop. Enlightenment performs out of this world on hardware as old as pentiums with 512mb of memory where it’s much slower on lxde/lxle and linux mint xfce. The new LXQT uses more memory than LXDE and XFCE also appears to be growing in memory usage so Bodhi to me is the clear winner.
I wonder why these are always radio buttons instead of checkboxes. I have 3 laptops that run a mix of Slackware, Deepin, Mint Cinnamon and Mint Xfce – Slackware for my little on-the-go x60, Slackware (for me) and Mint Cinnamon (for my wife) on my T60, and Deepin (because it is pretty) and Mint Xfce on an HP I inherited. I would be sorry to without any one of them.
openSuse for desktop and SLES for server – simply the best to me.
4 years of Slackware and another 7 years of Ubuntu/Mint/Debian in the past.
Why I chose this particular distro?
Well, my reasons – I always prefer the top hierarchy distros – the independent ones. I dislike the repackaged distros with next to nothing added value that live on the top of these.
As for my current choice of openSuse – the reason is the integration and stability it provides, And its support by enterprise.
I use Arch but also, almost as much, PeppermintOS. A great little distro that is fast, light on resources and easily customized.
I use Bodhi on more powerful Pc’s and LXLE (Lubuntu spin) on older hardware. Bodhi is fast, eye catching, and very configurable. LXLE is fast and simple and loaded with very useful software.
Funtoo (a Gentoo variant maintained by Daniel Robbins).
After a huge amount of distro-hopping, I settled on Debian Sid, until its switch to systemd.
I then went (back) to Gentoo, then tried Funtoo and stayed happily there.
I’m now (slowly and lazily) in the process of building a Linux From Scratch system.
I’ll use any Linux that works immediately after installation, and yes I’ve found some that don’t. If I have a serious task I’ll rely on Debian for a server and Mint for a workstation.
I have two computers which run linux.
On my work computer, I use Ubuntu with the Unity desktop. I use it because of its stability and ease of use. It also has tons of software in its repos.
At home, I have my “play” computer, which runs Arch w/ Cinnamon. I break it often- not because Arch is unstable, but because I am always experimenting and tweaking it. I love Arch as a learning tool and helping me learn Linux better. Arch also seems much, much faster.
Mint 17 KDE for my daily driver, which I don’t experiment on. Kubuntu 15.04 on laptop for testing KDE5, Debian for servers, Lubuntu for low powered boxes. Raspbian on the pi’s. Vector Linux for serious tinkering.
Hi,
For several years now i use ArchLinux. I know, you will say – “it’s a rolling realease and thus unstable, prone to breaking …”, but i must say that over these 5 or so years i havent encountered any serious stability issues. Of course, i encountered some bugs and had to downgrade the package. But this also happended to me when i was on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, Debian …
For me, ArchLinux is also a distro which convinced me to stop distro hopping. Thanky you Arch 🙂
I have used RedHat/CentOS/SLES/RHEL/openSuSE for years. I like openSuSE for my own use. This distribution has very capable admin tools for almost any situation, either Desktop or Server,
for any Hardware, System reconfiguration or Software Updates.
At home I use Fedora/Mate and Centos.
At work i use Redhat.
I have tried various others SLS Slackware Mint.
They’re all good, but I always end up coming back to Fedora.
Not sure if I can name why, I guess its just that I like the way things work. Although I would like to replace systemd, but nothings perfect.
I use openSUSE at ~10 machines at home, because it is solid, user friendly, has excellent KDE- and true long-term-support (evergreen).
More, the build environment (buildservice and studio) are unmatched in the Linux-world.
So, IMHO openSUSE is truly the leading edge.
I’d like to make a request here: give us more than one choice in this poll because many Linux users including myself are using more than one distro on a daily basis. So restricting us to one single choice does not do justice to all the distros that we are using and that serving us very well. For instance, I voted Ubuntu but I also want to vote OpenSUSE, Bodhi Linux and Cruchbang as they are equally important for me, and I use them to accomplish the same number of tasks.
Mint 17.1 because I can’t stand the Unity desktop. Ubuntu MATE is very similar to Mint but Mint works fine for me…
I use Kubuntu for KDE with the juicy convenience of Ubuntu’s app repo. KDE 5 is the best desktop ever made. Also using bodhi on my tablets
Debian + Cinnamon desktop environment…the best!
slackware64-14.1
Ubuntu, for its stability. But we only test on it, all our dev boxes and servers run FreeBSD or OS X
I use Arch because I got tired of upgrading. Just install once and you’re good to go for the life of your machine.
I am a Fedora guy, the first time of using free software was with Red Hat7, then I used Fedora 3.
I used Slackware, Debian, CentOS on my way, but every time I return back to Fedora.
Fedora with KDE/XFCE gives you a good stability and the updated packages.
There is something special in Fedora, like ‘yum, rpm, fast, beauty’ I don’t know really, but it’s my love.
I went with Mint, after trying Fedora, Ubuntu, and OpenSuse. mainly because I kept running into things I detested about the desktop environments on the low end machines I was using at the time. Gnome 3 on a PIII was a nightmare. Unity wasn’t much better, and while KDE worked, it was S-L-O-W whenever I wanted something to pick up move, which was always. About the only time I managed to get a decent GUI was when Fedora dumped me into “Fall Back” mode. I decided that if I’m going to be relegated to the older version of Gnome for a desktop, I might as well get a version that is being actively updated. The choice was then between Mate and Cinnamon. After playing with both, I decided I preferred Cinnamon, and I’ve stuck with it for 2 years now.
These polls are meaningless, and your poll is particularly useless because it doesn’t account for numbers of machines and mixed distributions. For example I have the following systems
1 workstation, Fedora 21
1 netbook, Fedora 21,
6 servers, Scientific Linux 6.6
1 server, Scientific Linux 7.0
1 server, Fedora 21
The distros could get accurate numbers if they wanted to, not from downloads which are useless but from their update servers. All they would have to do is have each machine identify itself uniquely, probably from the MACID for eth0, to a central server whenever it’s doing an update. The actual updates come from mirrors, but the updater has to get the mirror list from soemwhere, where it requests that the server could count it. As long as there is a unique identifier repeated updates souldn’t screw the results.
Linux Mint – Cinnamon Edition.
If you haven’t tried it then please do… for me, it is simply the best; rock solid and does everything I ask it to. Currently running version 17.1
Debian for many years but now Fedora where the innovation is: systemd and friends, Gnome sandboxed applications, Wayland, etc.
Respect to Arch too: best documentation in the Linux world.
I run Debian everywhere, in my desktop together with Cinnamon. Debian is stable, widely supported and its a rolling distro, so you install once and never have to care about formatting again..amazing!
I’m convinced that the GUI is the distro. For the record I use Fedora with Cinnamon. I like the rapid release thing, but tire easily from constantly needing to install a “new” distro every 6 months. I like RPM but I like the idea of software makers not having to learn 5 different ways of packaging their software for every stupid cult-driven ideal that Linux has become. So if RPM and APT and PACMAN and whoever else got together and said, lets come up with ONE WAY to install software, I’ll use APT, PAC, or CHICKEN for all that it really matters. Stupidity. We are our own worst enemies.
Similarly, if Fedora said screw you guys, Gnome is the only GUI we’re going to support, because PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS and unable to become “distracted” by their own environment. (Seriously, how “shiny objects” stupid are people to believe that their environments are too distracting, so they remove everything that was useful). I could easily move over to MINT/CINNAMON. I don’t really care.
All this division is what keeps global adoption of Linux. It’s like everything that is awesome about Linux is why it sucks!
User experience IS the GUI. If your concerns are systemd vs init or RPM vs APT, you all need to get in a big room and watch each other masturbate. Because that’s exactly how much those arguments really mean. If systemd doesn’t work, then FIX IT! This shit is all open source. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
So again, GUI is the distro, everything else is just masturbation.
I’m using MX because I used to use Mepis and I like the community.
To those complaining that they can’t choose more than one, the poll asks which one you use most often.
I’m puzzled by the people who choose distro X because they don’t like something about distro Y. For instance, they use Mint because they don’t like Unity. ???
The survey as it is remains interesting, but I agree that many of us who read this page are likely to use more than one distro and use them for different purposes. Of course, that itself is one of the virtues of Linux.
At the moment I use Mint / Cinnamon for my desktops and CentOS on my servers, I carry a customized version of Puppy on a tiny USB drive on my keyring for travel and troubleshooting. I use AVLinux for my music editing and production box. All of them are my “favorites” for different contexts.
BTW, since there is a category “other,” it would be nice to see how it’s doing in the results. I guess I could add up the others and subtract from 100.
I like Debian based, but polished up distros.
1 raspberry Pi with Rasbian
1 old laptop for banking running Anti-X 13
1 dual core with Mepis 12 beta-fully updated, too bad Warren is not finishing this, as a beta, it is more stable than most releases. (But now getting a bit dated)
1 quad core with MX-14.3
1 octo core super computer dual boots Mepis 12 beta and MX-14.
The Mepis now also MX forums are great, good support, good updated packages in the community repo, all for a solid debian based (stable) distro.
Linux Mint LTS on most computers, but have Cent0S on the home data server, and Fedora 21 on my test box. Plus a bunch of Raspberry PIs with Raspbarrian…. That said, I chose Linux Mint LTS for two reasons. 1) Everything works out of the box. No codecs to load, etc. 2) Being LTS, I don’t have to re-install every 6 months….
I didn’t choose Linux.
FreeBSD chose me.
Kubuntu – so I don’t have to deal with Unity.
I tried and used many distributions in the past, Ubuntu, CentOS, Arch, OpenSUSE.
Eventually settled down and went for Gentoo on laptop/PCs and Debian (stable) for servers.
Yes, polls like this are meaningless unless you have many thousand responses, and account for desktop or server use, as well as number of machines and distros used.
Also, in public polling, there is always going to be a certain amount of over-representation from distros with more enthusiastic users, and under representation of others.
NixOS has a completely declarative approach to configuration management. You use just 1 file to descibe your system. NixOS has atomic upgrades and rollbacks.
It takes some time to get used to it, but once you understand you won’t go back.
So many distros to choose from.
I’ve started with Suse, fell in love with Arch down the line, started using fedora to get familiar with red hat..always hated ubuntu with a passion, had a short love story with mandriva until it died.
Opensuse will always remain for me the model of what an OS MUST be. for general purpose. There is nothing like Yast. You can give me 100 examples, Yast is the setup tool to rule them all.!!
Arch is just pure fun. Once you go arch, … well you know the rest.
Fedora is my 3rd choice for it’s closeness to RedHat.. it’s quite stable for a bleeding edge distro.. that’s the only thing I can say about it. it doesn’t do anything special.
After experimenting with suse, centos and mandriva i came back to the ubuntu lts… just install the base text system and customize my build around xfce.
Arch Linux, because:
1. Best documentation I’ve seen for any distro
2. Large number of extremely knowledgeable users
3. Rolling release means I never have to reinstall
4. Pacman makes managing and creating packages easy
I’m not crazy about being bleeding edge, but that is a small price to pay when I consider the above. One might suggest a semi-rolling Arch derivative (e.g., Manjaro) to avoid being on the bleeding edge, but I don’t want to give up benefits 1 & 2.
I have started with Ubuntu 8.04 and never left the Ubuntu branch. It has the better community to solve any hardware drivers problems and software troubleshoting. The howto tutorials let me run my own server, connect me to the job network, my Nexus 7 tablet and also navigate itno my iPhone which I think it was impossible. Certainly it is user friendly and many of my collegues ask let me install Ubuntu either at work or their personal laptops.
Ubuntu Mate, i use it in work and cant risk experiments.If it didnt make it as official i would use something from the Ubuntu family.
Lately I guess I’ve used Ubuntu Studio the most (Xfce based).
Of course I also use other distributions, like Xubuntu, Debian, LXLE, and Salix Fluxbox.
I use windows 10 , better than any linux distro. linux sucks bug time
archuser is merely a troll. Don’t feed him — that’s what he wants.
Ubuntu 14.04 + Gnome. It is stable, works fine on my UEFI laptop and I prefer the LTS-versions. I really love Debian and used it for some years on my previous laptop and I just started to experiment with Fedora Server to improve my Linux knowlegde. The beauty of Linux is to have this rich variety of choice.
openSUSE because, when I moved full-time to Linux in 2001 or 2, SuSE was more problem-free for me than RedHat or the other two distros, now deceased, that I tried.
I’ve learnt how to drive openSUSE – it’s a smooth, classy ride – and don’t want a less interesting or or more obviously user-friendly distro (though I can see that Mint is an excellent option for other general users new to Linux).
openSUSE is well-supported by the development community and has YAST and zypper. The support forums seem to be run by mature, polite people who genuinely want to help.
Nobody has mentioned aesthetic qualities. KDE on openSUSE is a satisfyingly configurable and powerful interface.
Fedora with XFCE and Compiz on top primarily because I manage Red Hat systems(hundreds of them). Its a solid distribution from a solid group backed by the best GNU/Linux based corporation on earth. A corporation that has given more back to the GNU/Linux community only second to the community itself.
Im all for speed and can not stand useless and meaningless special effects ,well, except for transparency that is.On my main computer i have both elemantary and my beloved peppermint which offer only one special effect..TRANSPARENCY!For years now i have been searching for an os for my old pentium 4 3.oo with 512 meg of memory.I tried every so called light solution but failed miserably.Peepermint was slowish ,Bodhi is a joke and the mother of uglyness and confusion.But 2 days ago…BINGO!LXPUP MADE A ROCKET OUT OF MY OLD CLUNKER.I mean multitasking with only 512 meg and no freakin slowdown!i must say that i am in awe.Sorry for my poor english.
There appears to be a sea-change with embedded HW platforms running non-traditional Linux like Ubuntu. Traditionally a custom Debian all built from source is now being replaced by minimal versions of desktop distros. Please consider “What Linux distro do you use most for embedded systems?”.
I tried Angstrom on Beaglebone until I ran into a problem that couldn’t be resolved, then I switched to Ubuntu.
Parallella-16 – Ubuntu from the manufacturer.
ODROID-X/-U3/-C1 – Ubuntu from hardkernel.com.
Raspberry Pi – Raspbian on the one I use in my standalone HiQSDR transceiver and IPfire on the one I use as a backup firewall.
I’ve distro hopped so much over the last ten years or so it’s dizzying. I don’t think I’ve met a distro I didn’t like really. I’m using Xubuntu at the moment just because I’m comfortable with APT and I’ve always liked the Ubuntu family of distros. A few months ago I installed Manjaro and really, really liked it. I’m thinking of returning to it the next time I hop. I use Linux mostly for entertainment and a hobby these days, so I try not to take it too seriously.
I’ve been using Mandrake since version 5.3 and moved over to Mageia after all the developers that were let go from mandriva started the project…to me mageia is everything mandriva was and more now that they aren’t being controlled by corporate whims and a PR department.
I chose Lubuntu 14.04 as I have 2 old laptops, an old iMac (trashed mac OS) and other desktop pc’s. I have set up ubuntu server headless on all the pc’s and Lubuntu with enlightenment for the laptops and iMac. Its stable, fast and meets all my development needs (I do Java/Web consulting). It proves that you dont need heavy hardware to do everyday tasks and even some heavy enterprise develeopment. Awesome stuff !!!.
openSUSE since 1996 (S.u.S.E Linux Version 4.3)
SuSE / openSUSE sins 2001. Tried Red Hat first and later Ubuntu/Kubuntu and others but.. Still using openSUSE.
Voted other PClinuxOS, but “other” doesn’t show in the results that I can see, anyway I voted because it’s a fabulous distro, NO systemd, the forum is very freindly to new and seasoned linux users alike, all problems usually have an answer within an hour or less. It’s a rolling distro that gets packages tested for days before hitting the main repos to minimise any problems, It’s fast and stable even on a 486 using a smaller DE/WM. Mostly I like it because it just works, rather boringly really 😀
@present_arms We’ll be tallying the “other” votes and including them in the results in our article to be published on Thursday after the voting has ended. 🙂
CentOS for the servers, Fedora for the office, KDE for the desktop.
I’ve been using opensuse since I started using desktop linux. Somewhere around 2000 or so. Before it was called opensuse, just SuSE. Probably before the distros above it on this list existed (certainly before I heard of them).
I’ve tried others over the years, but never past a test install. What keeps me coming back (really never leaving)? Yast. And KDE integration.
PCLinuxOS, I’ve been using it for eight and a half years and always has been very stable, it has a forum that makes you feel like family (of the good kind 🙂 ) the support from the community is fast and courteous, besides, how many developers goes to the forum to help users? not many. And the magazine, and the bunch of services free for user, all provided for members of the community.
A very good distro.
Debian; it is very stable and comes with a large repository.
I used to use Suse for many years before, but often things stopped working after updates.
I also use Red Hat at work, but software choice is limited and often outdated. Installing some more exotic programs are often a pain in the ass.
I also tried:
Crunchbang – very nice
Fedora – seemed a bit unstable when I used it
Ubuntu – it felt a bit slow, but I also didn’t spend time to tune it
openSUSE 13.1 on desktop & laptop (been too busy to upgrade), 13.2 on multiple personal & family machines, Crunchbang & Mint in VM’s for testing. I’ve been using SuSE since 2003, RH for a few years before that and SLS before then, starting by displacing Win 3.1 in ’93.
Since 2000 I was using all kind of Suse distros and Debian just to find out if it could replace my windows machines at the workplace. I had to test a lot of distros before I understood that there were only 3 high rollers and all the rest are derivates of them. Just because I liked Novell from the NetWare products which I really loved still do actually I favored Suse above Debian and Red Hat. Still had to use Windows for a large amount of my work. Now for the last 5 years I only use OpenSuse Factory on my personal computer at working grounds I favor Debian for some reason and if I have to install Linux on a computer for somebody who is new to Linux I also favor Debian.
It’s not a “Linux distro” but I use OS X with brew, and a dozen or so FOSS apps (and some non-FOSS apps too).
After trying several distros (RedHat, Suse, Debian, Ubuntu, etc) I settled for LinuxMint. I have been using it since early 2007. It is stable and does what I need to do (office work, stats, web browsing, music, photo sorting, etc).
I have been using Debian since 2005. I had first started with stable distribution, but by 2006, I began using the Testing/Unstable distribution of Debian. Now, I had a stroke in 2011, and I still stayed with Debian, because… well… WiNdOwS sucks.
I started using Debian when it was still sort of hard to use, and the first reinstall was in 2010 when I bought a 64-bit computer and threw away my 32-bit computer.
I have had a second desktop in which I was doing some minor distro-hopping, but my main computer is still with Debian, even though it is using systemd with the testing distro…
I started with Ubuntu, then shifted to Mint (Cinnamon), and later turned back to Ubuntu again. Everything runs smoothly with Ubuntu. The community support is very good. And, what is important, there is no problem with dhe Unity UI for me. Thumbs up for Ubuntu.
I have been among the “enlightened” since ’08. Back then i began with Ubuntu, then Mint, then Debian, a brief stop at Elementary, then Sabayon and now Manjaro and Antergos, but for the purpose of the poll i will just list Manjaro. I have tried and used them all – i am at a place now where i no longer bother with ubuntu spins or deeply personal user specific releases, they are for someone but not me. I dislike Mint as it holds back, plays too safe for my liking and always seems to claim that it is “better than ubuntu” although is ubuntu based. Manjaro is rolling, arch based, i can live on the edge of kernel 3.19 or hang back with a LTS at 3.10 or 3.16 pick one. “Enjoy the Simplicity” where everything works as it should – i feel Manjaro is to Arch what Mint is to Debian – out of the box fully operational computing experience. I have been at this for 7years, so when there is a problem i almost look forward to it as there are so few nowadays. If you are a new user and run into something you cannot solve the Manjaro community is quite large and very supportive – your questions will be answered and not just sent a link to the arch wiki. We have come a long way.
I chose Manjaro Netbook edition simply because I found it the most natural distro adapted for my EeePC. It also had a smooth updating feature (rolling release) that gave me no problems whatsoever over 6 months. This was after distro hopping with Zorin OS, Ultimate Edition (Black Opal), Elementary OS on my office desktop and Puppy Linux on my EeePC. Manjaro Linux just works as a PC should without the BSOD issues that one faces ever so often with Windows operating systems.
Servers: OpenSUSE
Desktops: Mint
I voted OpenSUSE because I use it on more hardware.
OPENSUSE! IS EXCELLENCE!.
ROSA (Desktop Fresh KDE)