For desktop/home use, I've got to say my best experience was with CrunchBang Linux, now defunct, but I've ran everything from Fedora, RHEL, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Debian, Mint, Pop_Os, etc... Recently went down the Qubes rabbit-hole but my unfortunately it doesn't like my processor choice so I may have to save that for another day.

But I've come to find that you can't really beat just good ol' Debian. Stable, light. With XFCE (basic) or MATE (a bit polished), it looks good.

Server side of things, I used to be a CentOS man. Not sure what exactly prompted the change but the last five, six, seven years or so I think everything has been Debian or Ubuntu.

What about you?

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jack_walking wrote on December 17, 2020 at 11:23 AM

Sitting comfortably on Manjaro KDE Plasma at the moment.

Having replaced Kwin, default KDE window manager, whit i3wm, I got great experience both on laptop and on bigger screens.

Plus, not the pain of installing Arch but all the wisdom from ArchWiki and packages from the AUR.

rogerthat wrote on December 21, 2020 at 3:24 PM

KDE Plasma just makes everything look so nice. Before I was using Cinnamon, since installing KDE. I haven't looked back. Really enjoying the "Nordian-Gobal" with a few personal tweaks.

Rambler OP wrote on December 21, 2020 at 8:51 PM

I haven't tried KDE in probably ten years... I may have to try it again. Back then it was ahead of the curve in terms of looks, I think, but I found it really buggy.

I'm sure it's probably a better experience now though.

rogerthat wrote on December 24, 2020 at 10:14 AM

It has improved but there are still few small bugs here and there but I put that down to the fact I upgraded on top of cinnamon install instead of going fresh. Still worth the look.

pailaka wrote on December 17, 2020 at 9:52 PM

Crunchbang was my favorite 10 years ago. I tried the new version about a year ago, not sure why I gave it up. For servers its Debian.
For desktop I tried Qubes also recently, but it looked like a bit much for everyday use.
I've settled on Mint Cinnamon. Good so far, except fingerprint login is buggy.

dwarner5522 wrote on December 18, 2020 at 1:14 PM

I used to dual boot Ubuntu with Windows years ago. Nowadays though most of my computer use is on my work computer from home which has windows. So what I do is run a linux live boot of xubuntu on my work computer for personal use and use hard drives connected via usb. I've written bash scripts which auto configure it the way I want it during each live session. This way I don't have to worry about f'ing-up anything in windows and I don't get a call from the IT department the next day. The one down side of running xubuntu live though is that it doesn't come with nvidia drivers pre-loaded. The only linux distro I could find that has nvidia drivers pre-loaded to run on a live usb is PCLinux. PCLinux has a sweet looking KDE setup, but it uses RPM packages and is not really heavily supported so that's its downside. If I could just get a debian based distro with nvidia drivers pre-loaded it would be the perfect setup for me, but haven't had any luck finding one... arggghh!

RichardButte wrote on December 22, 2020 at 8:31 PM

Ubuntu base, vanilla GNOME Shell. I like it simple.

Wahaha wrote on January 15, 2021 at 6:02 PM

Currently it's Mint with a Mate-i3 combo. But I want to move over to Artix, so that's what's on my Laptop.

MasterDestroyer wrote on January 18, 2021 at 3:57 PM

arch and debian

my favorite distro that i don't use anymore is gobolinux

Kalchaya wrote on February 19, 2021 at 1:36 AM

I gave a test drive to around 20+ distros over the last couple years. Only ones I found usable for an XP Pro expat was MX Linux, Linux Mint, AntiX, Kodachi Linux, and Tails. My pick of the litter was MX Linux for install. Linux Mint, Kodachi and Tails for LiveCD use.

My upcoming move from XP Pro to a Win 7 Pro rig will have MX Linux on separate SSD. I will continue to use Linux Mint for online banking/shopping, and Kodachi or Tails to safari into the darkest darkness of the Darknet. MX Linux and Kodachi impresses me the most!

Rambler OP wrote on February 19, 2021 at 1:42 AM

XP Pro was the last MS OS I ran at home and honestly, loved it. I still probably have an old XP SP3 disk somewhere. Didn't know installs were still in use outside of POS systems and purpose built use cases in factories and industry running software that requires it.

May try MX Linux on an older laptop that I'd like to breathe new life into. I've heard good things about AntiX as well.

Kalchaya wrote on February 19, 2021 at 3:08 AM

Used OptiPlex PCs with XP Pro pre-installed and pre-activated are still available on eBay. Got my last/current one over three years ago, and it's still going strong. Unfortunately it's use for surfing is very limited by the last three remaining browsers, which is the only reason I'm in process of moving on to Win 7 Pro.

I am not a fan of Win 7, but I can put up with it for a year or two, til I teach myself Linux. My 'new' used PC is Dell Optiplex 7010 Mini-Tower, Quad Core i7 3770 (3.4GHz), 16GB DDR3 SDRAM, 1TB Hard Drive: Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. I had computer shop modify it. Mobile rack in the spare 5.25 bay which holds a SSD for MX Linux, and a regular hard disk for bare-metal/clone backups of Win 7.

AntiX is more on par with Linux Mint, both being slightly less intuitive than MX Linux, but I think AntiX is a smaller install than MX, so might be better for a laptop.

https://embeddedinventor.com/mx-linux-vs-antix-similarities-differences/

Toxicant wrote on December 17, 2020 at 2:00 PM (edited on December 17, 2020 at 2:22 PM)

Honestly I just like the layout of mint. It just hits something for me that I can't put my finger on.

Rambler OP wrote on December 17, 2020 at 2:06 PM

I run Mint on one of my machines and have for years. But somehow, over the course of time, my Linux machines start having weird dependency conflicts and issues and after 3-5 years it's time to backup the important stuff and start fresh. Sometimes that's easier than going down the rabbit hole of figuring out why "something that should work" doesn't work, haha.

I've gotten to that point on my Linux Mint machine and not sure what I'll replace it with. May just go raw Debian like I'm using now.

Toxicant wrote on December 17, 2020 at 2:21 PM

I feel like that is most PC's in general but then again I'm always installing/uninstalling one thing or another for whatever project I'm working on and some times just nuking my hard drive from orbit fixes my problems.

rianav_a wrote on December 23, 2020 at 1:39 PM (edited on December 23, 2020 at 1:40 PM)

If I make the time, my new year's resolution is to get a LinuxFromScratch box up and running. From a skim of the book, it seems a bit tedious tho.