Been a relatively new user on Mint 21 Cinnamon and I'm absolutely loving it. It's a great distro if you're coming from Windows and just want to get things done

As a business user; SUSE (in various forms) as I actually have to get work done and not waste my time. For someone to say they really don't have anything bad to say about a Linux distribution and has no problems is high praise in case you're looking to actually no waste time on trivial issues.

Gentoo isn't about minimal installs, compiling kernels, or 'being special'. Gentoo is about choice, and building the ideal system for you. It can be as stable as Debian, as bleeding edge as Arch, or a million things in between. It can literally mimic any distro out there, or be something totally unique. It's amazing.

I like Fedora and as long as Red Hat doesn't do stupid decisions there i'll stay. When test repo is added it's nearly as up to date as Arch (kernel, firmware, mesa).

I went with LMDE6. It seems to run so much better than standard mint for my use case (Music Production, Light Gaming) on my workhorse laptop. It takes a tiny bit more know how to setup as the Ubuntu Mint seems to have a bit more compatibility as far as drivers and hardware is concerned but after a bit of work, it's definitely snappier and I have less latency for recording overall, plus with Debian as the base it's super stable and feels so much lighter. It's great, I do 98% of my stuff in LMDE6 now.

SuSE tumbleweed is my favourite distro again :) took 20+ years for me to return to it. SuSE + Wayland + Hyprland it's a win

I've had Gentoo on my server over a decade and I never had to reinstall it. Only had to do new install when I upgraded my server hardware since the old one was still using MBR disk layout. :D Funnily enough I never had these big security issues with openssl and the log4j and stuff what were "big news", since I had a choice on choosing what packets to use on my headless home server. Also there are sysadmin kernels these days so don't even have to compile your kernels. On the plus side you don't have the instability of systemd, so the server usually had couple of years of uptimes with just emerge sync and update being done on the fly. It's not for the average Joe that's for sure but it does have it's uses, and for me I have no use get other distros, If I have time to set it up.

I started with Linux Mint back in... 2016 or 2017, I forget the details. It works very well so I have never had a reason to hop to anything else. I leave the pleasures (and occasionally pains) of distro hopping to others.

My list is short: - Void, an independent rolling distribution that aims for stability, for those who want to control their own destiny completely. - For the desktop, openSUSE Aeon (formerly known as openSUSE MicroOS Desktop). I *love* the minimal OS core, using Distrobox for corralling all my apps and utils, the stability, the nicely done GNOME experience. It's at RC status (probably awaiting finishing all the name changes mostly) but is perfectly solid. It's just the cleanest and most sensible way to configure for personal desktops and get things done while still allowing power users to do anything they need, cleanly. - openSUSE MicroOS flavours for servers and special use cases I bet a year from now we'll all be talking about Aeon (and similar approaches aka Fedora Silverblue/uBlue/etc) a lot more.

Kde user here. Opensuse TW is my main distro, yast is still the best graphic installer. The second one is archlinux, 10 (maybe less) minutes and system is up and running. However, I still don't understand the plethora of distros out there. Nice video Titus, it made me smile. 💯

I started with Caldera OpenLinux 2.3 in 2002. I later dropped that when they morphed into SCO. Red Hat 9 was next. Dual booted Suse and Windows 2000(that was cool). Tried Mandrake, Ubuntu, and several others and settled on Slackware in 2004 until very recently. These days I like and use Void. It's an amazing distro with the runit init system. I haven't used Gentoo or LFS. I got CRUX installed up to the CLI. I highly recommend Void. I would enjoy your take on Void. :)

Thanks for being a man about RHEL. I use your tools too thx !

I have a personal bias but My list goes like 1. Opensuse tumbleweed; 2. archlinux 3. debian & fedora 4. Linux mint debian edition 5. Nixos (it is an awesome proiect but it doesnt caters me.

I can't speak much for Fedora, but Nobara I think is pretty great. It isn't too disconnected from Fedora, but does take over in terms of repos and such quite a bit. It's kind of akin to how Garuda is to Arch. It's also made by gloriouseggroll and is in my opinion probably one of if not the best distro for gaming out of the box. Especially if you are an Nvidia user!

Absolutely love Fedora; this distro has not let me down for years. This is an OS for working, as a professional, as a simple user. Very surprised that Fedora (not RHEL) didn't make this list. And, in general, Linux is harmed by the toxicity of the community regarding the choice of distribution.

Different strokes for different folks. I'm happy with Fedora, it's been my daily driver for 4 years or so. No stability issues, makes me happy to use it, everything seems new and it just works. I have a Tumbleweed install that I boot into on weekends for the fun of it, and I'm really impressed. I also have a Debian 12 install that I really don't like but I keep around because I want to keep my toes in the Debian water. Frankly it's only 6 months from release and I'm already running into issues with software not building because of outdated dependencies. That and the old Gnome kinda grates on me after being in Fedora all day. I had a Mint Cinnamon install around also and was impressed. That would definitely be my recommendation for anyone new, or for an install for my parents to use.

I tried all of those linux you mention and they are great.. but I always go back to the only Mandriva Fork that keeps all Mandriva idea. Unfortunately Mageia Devs don´t promote it as they should but Mageia 9 is rock solid. I use it for gaming, virtualization, packaging and some programing. It works great with my Nvidia hardware and AMD. All devs are great people and work hard to keep it as stable as possible. I have 4 servers working with mageia with no problems at all.

I agree, Ubuntu felt a bit sluggish last time I tried. Debian>Arch>Arco>Mint. Would be willing to try Nobara, nuked Fedora thinking I might try that instead. Mint is okay, just have had weird issues with it nuking it's bootloader. I feel Debian is super stable which is what I'm looking forward to. I would be interested to try LMDE also.

I tried debian 12 last week and for whatever reason it was fine on first boot but after I updated it wouldn't see any wifi networks and I had no audio. The wifi issue went away when I downgraded the kernel but the audio issue remained. I ended up going with EndeavorOS in the end. Loving it so far.

loving life over here on arch still. some day I'm gonna go gentoo and also try rolling Debian

Gentoo was my first distribution. :) It took a long time to compile KDE on a pentium 3. :D

Catching. up on your vids. I started following you in the 2016 timeframe. One of the first vids you said pick one and make it your own. At the time I was distro hopping for the sake of distro hopping. Picked one, modified it for my own liking and needs and still there. and using and modifying as needed. Distro hopping is fine for those who like it (free country) or use to make income content. Just not for me. Having said -- THANKS! Good vid. I look forward to the next iteration.

For me i love the out of the box experience provided by the pop os and i love the modified gnome they ship the distro with.Also, I am eagerly waiting for system76 to release their new cosmic desktop environment

I've actually daily driven Gentoo and didn't mind it at all. Wouldn't probably pick it for work, but its really not that bad.

Over the years I've tried a handful of distros but my "steady" has been Tumbleweed. I've kept that on one system for many years and, for a rolling distribution it has been remarkably stable. K/ubuntu is another I keep trying but so far can't fathom why it is so popular.

I agree with your opinion on the Red Hat debacle, the politics surrounding the RHEL based distros still kind of disappoints me, but this is why I now have Debian on my servers, and Debian on my laptop as well. It's still rock solid, and although it took a lot of work hours to migrate all of the servers away from RHEL, in my opinion it is worthwhile.

Thanks for making this. Can you comment (or make a vid) on the yum package manager vs apt in 2023? I recently came back to Linux (after 20 years) and went directly to fedora because I always trusted RPM vs .deb for avoiding dependency hell. My limited understanding is that yum still prioritizes stable updates. Is that not really true anymore? Did flatpak make this conversation obsolete? Etc

The funny thing is that when I tried Debian 12, I apparently got a bad live image and couldn't update anything, I think due to messed up package dependencies. When I tried to fix it, I borked the whole thing and it wouldn't boot. So my first experience with the rock solid distro was pretty underwhelming... back to Fedora I went.

I have been bouncing around in VMs trying different distros. Some seem to have issues installing in a box on MacOS but they install in the win10 dual boot so who knows. Mint or LMDE for a Cinnamon desktop and a variety of options for KDE. EndeavourOS, Fedora, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed have been my favorite so far for that DE. I have a couple of old computers that I will likely be installing Linux one so I imagine one of these will be how I go. I put LMDE 6 on my MIL 12 yr old Dell along with a few hardware upgrades. More than what she needs. Oddly enough, Debian is one of the OSes that refused to even boot off the iso in Vbox. Already have a Debian base in LMDE tho so I’m fine w that.

I did some sysadmin work and a lot of daily driving on RHEL servers and desktops. It's okay. I didn't have problems with how it's set up, but vs something like (open)SUSE, it's just lacking a lot of tooling that makes things comfortable.

Enjoying your say on Distros... Could you also discuss on, Window is lately copying all of KDE desktops features and still cannot match KDE and why there is no Distro with KDE desktop as their main desktop like Gnome is favoured. KDE than spins why ?.

I like Kali for random CTF events and stuff like that. It's a quick and easy way to get all the stuff I might need, and then just wipe everything when it's done!

Not a big Linux user but enjoy testing out distributions. I have Ubuntu on my Ras Pi 400, Lbuntu on an old HP Desktop and Peppermint OS on an old Acer laptop.

Chris you really need to try Void, it's such a fast, lightweight, no frills, stable distro, used it for the past year and have had no problems with it at all, I even do some gaming on it, been running the new Path of Exile patch on it, it's so smooth and my pc isn't even that good.

Hi Chris I'm a Brazilian guy on my 56yo, on my first steps on Odin Project so... a complete newbie. This channel is a must. Thanks a lot. I've been searching how to install LATEST gnome on Debian 12, and it seems I have to change do Unstable, SID ou something like that. Would you mind to make a video about it. I really believe Debian is better than Ubuntu , but I also believe it's nice to have latest somethings, like Gnome, without breaking Debian stability. Another suggestion: I simply don't get how to install MANUALLY, after install ZSH or other alike. There is always something like Oh My something... I want to undertand, and do it manually. Any insights, please?

We run Rocky for our server, no problems whatsoever. I generally use Linux Mint, and since I don't run the bleeding-edge, it's perfect and stable.

Nice info, thanks :)

Just upgraded my debian NFS nas from buster to bullseye, smooth as butter. I also have been playing with openbsd on my laptop for a while; too bad it feels kind of sluggish (I secretly also miss Bluetooth). Thinking about just slapping Debian or devuan on all my machines and just forgetting about them. Artix was fun, but I got annoyed specifying the init system I was using everytime I went to download a package that also needed a corresponding service script.

Thoughts on Zori. & ElementaryOS?

Debian looks almost ideal for me, but I tend to prefer newer packages and DE releases while Debian usually prioritizes stability. Is the best solution a different distro, or is just changing the sources sufficient? Heard one can easily change to their testing branch from a terminal, but no idea if that's notably less stable than OpenSuse Tumbleweed or anything else that uses newer packages

Currently running Debian 12 (KDE Plasma) on my 2013 desktop PC (Asus X79-Deluxe, Xeon E5-2667 v2, Nvidia 1080 Ti) and on a 2019 laptop (Core i7-9750H, Nvidia RTX 2070), and Linux Mint Debian Edition (Cinnamon) on a 2011 Asus Eee PC 1215B netbook (AMD E-450 APU, Radeon HD 6310).

Try Alpine, I think that for Kiosk usage or container specific tasks It's really good

Glad to see Gentoo here at the top :)

Linux mint.. The best Linux for everyone easy to install and smooth

Debian is the best overall. Widest appeal and range of use cases, very stable and well maintained, been around for ages. Arch, Fedora and Gentoo are good for some specific uses. Mint Debian Edition is the best for beginners.

Yesterday I wiped my windows 10 and installed linux mint. Best distro so far

We'll, Kali has that windows mode for red teaming. Plus there's a wsl version as well.

I have actually been enjoying my time on Manjaro these days. Although slackware has always held a place in my heart. I just wish it was frequently updated.

I ran Gentoo for about 15 years, from about 2003 until 2018. I haven't used it in a few years, and I've heard they are affected due to a lack active maintainers but I do miss it a bit. I certainly prefer it to Arch, as it was a lot more stable.

Before I even watch this, I already know for some reason you decided to light the Internet ablaze with this video.

I tried Arch as noob and failed miserably. So Mint makes me feel like I do nto even have OS. Love it.

11:40 I'm using the 6.6.7 Linux Kernel, although I use the Zen Kernel.

what do you prefer between Almalinux and Rocky Linux ?

I've been daily driving Gentoo since 2004. From very light custom desktops to full plasma on modern hardware. I have tried other distros but they feel inferior. I guess the best distro is the one you use the most.

I always wanted to use fedora but could never get on with it, started on mint many years ago now I run kde arch so all good. I laughed when you talked about gentoo 😁

Wasnt original Chrome Os built on Gentoo like circa 2011 2012ish?

I love debian. But I daily drive pop_os. It stinks of Ubuntu, but the devs are doing a great job. And it's a lot more up to date compared to Ubuntu. Being on the 6.6.6 kernel on an Ubuntu based distro is pretty great. When the update dropped there was a brief moment when my arch laptop and my pop_os PC were basically on the same kernel version. That doesn't happen often, if at all.

Hi, I wanted to get into linux,geeting confused about a good distro to start with, so that i won't get any limitation in application availability. Which would be a good one to start. I am transitioning from windows. (Would also prefer If it looks decent😅) , I was going to go with ubantu but after this, not sure

I agree with arch, tried to install it once I kinda screwed up in the boot config(I think?), moved on for a bit, might revisit it when I am bored. I am a noob and it's painful :((

Not directly in the list, but I'm glad to hear you mention PoPOS.

is debian still hard for nvidia drivers?

Small patch on Debian today update on my Dell laptop would not let me login to my user account and won't let me change the password thru Root either, so usb time again clean install with live kde.

I started off on Red Hat 6 back in the days when i was 6 years old.

I'm surprised about Debian. I ran into an install bug where it installs to the wrong drive which overwrote my storage drive. It wasn't till later while watching a Switched To Linux video about LMDE that I even found out it was a Debian bug. Virtually nobody in the KZfaq space mentioned it (that I watch). Such a deal breaker not being on everyone's radar is strange. They must have fixed it and changed their ISOs as I re-downloaded it and had a successful install.

Love Arch it's extremely fast, everything opens instantly like im time traveling, always being updated nearly daily. Im dual boot with a stripped down Windows 11 custom install with no start up apps enabled and Arch is MUCH faster starting up too, about 2 seconds vs Windows 11's 20 seconds.

After 17 years of using Linux as a daily driver and a long time with debian and arch I am now happy with Fedora. Fedora combines rolling release with point release, is upstream and innovative and pushes linux and free software to next levels. (Red Hat is one of the biggest linux and open source contributors on the world). 😊

I've been using POP OS for almost a month now. I really love this one. I hate gnome so i changed to KDE and also swapped out for the XanMod kernal. Solid for what I use it for now.

I like how you're still on Thorium

No Fedora? I don't use it but it seems to come highly recommended

Kali for me is for what it's meant. A pen-testing environment being carried around on a usb stick. I have had issues with parrot every time I wanted to try it on my laptop.

I committed heresy by changing Linux Mint layout into Windows 10 theme, just for the sake of my mother. She used to hate Linux (technically still does) as it looks so alien to her, so I used my brilliant penguin mind to trick her by disguising the Mint Layout into Windows 10 layout. She was quite shocked how well Linux errrr... I mean, Windows suddenly performs. Poor soul fell for my witchery like an unaware child that gets his/her medicine wrapped in something delicious. Kekeke

I have used several distros from first starting to use Linux back in 2012. Ubuntu was first, then Mint, MXLinux, Manjaro, back to Ubuntu and also Zorin. For new comers, I would recommend Zorin. There are a lot of things like getting a printer set up that are automatic with Zorin and not with Ubuntu. At least, not in my experience. However, one uses a particular distro to better fit their needs, not to be popular. I am dual booting Zorin on an external drive with Windows. Have Ubuntu running on a VM on another computer with Windows 11. I like Manjaro and Garuda, but right now they are too much for the external drive combo I have with the old computer I am dual booting from. I am getting my husband in to Linux and the Ubuntu layout he does not like so we will be installing Zorin. The good thing is for him to get familiar the concept of Linux and then pick the distro he is most comfortable with that is better for his needs. Thank you for all the informative videos you do.

I would love to use my 3 old laptop with a linux distro. im between Mint Arch or Debian... :) probably need to try them all

Great thoughts as usual Chris thanks for sharing!

I use Linux on my laptops, and would like to full transfer from windows, but I keep wondering about day to day security with things such as banking app's and being safe online. I'm looking at Debian at the moment, but people keep recommending ubuntu and linux mint (and similar). Any thoughts on this?

I tried all these distros there for many years and the Fedora was the best one still... I never had any problems, in the past I used to have problems installing amd drivers, but since the AMDGPU drivers in kernel, never had any problems anymore..

Moved from MX KDE back to Mint MATE. MX has some great backup tools, but it isn't a newbie's distro (and they say this so no hate here). Had a few odd issues in MX that just made me leery of staying with it. Mint has user tools Debian lacks and is more daily-nonubergeek-user-friendly than Debian. But screen scaling and older eyes are pushing me towards Win7 to see what it would do on a 1920 x 1080 16:9 laptop screen.

Which distro do you recommend for someone new to Linux? grew up using only mac and windows

Despite your experience with Red Hat Linux, would you recommend Fedora?

Love De 5:43 bian, Got to try LMDE.

Game developer here. I am happy with Fedora

couldn't be more on point on kali and especially gentoo 😂

I want to switch to Linux but Iam worried about h/w compatibility. My spec's: 13700k, asus z790 prime wifi mb, gigabyte 4080, 4tb gen 4 nvme, 2 tb gen 3 nvme. I was thinking of Zorin 17 but im open to anything that will work. use case: gaming, video and photo editing. Iam also teaching 2 young grandchildren so if i have to do too much trouble shooting Iam afraid they will become disinterested. Thank for any advice you could offer.

Redhat is almost ubiquitous still in enterprise but even with open shift, they seem to be fading. Im not sure theyll do anything but decline with all the containerization stuff becoming more popular and evolving.

Arch and Debian are all I need. Depending on the computer and how I use it.

How about Void Linux?

I use NixOS btw

Personally would like to use Linux Mint but I can't stop screen tearing when gaming in X11 for the life of me. If I do move to linux on my gaming PC I'm going to probably use Arch or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.

Been running Kali as a vm in a window host since 2017, and its the only linux that i use. The reason why is that everything that i need is already installed and they just work. I rather spent my time working on my assessment or CTF than spending 2-3 hours working on errors like python dependency from my tools. I remember pre 2020, there were a bunch of stories where people upgrade their kali right before or during their oscp/ecppt exam and everything breaks. I aint leet enough to put all of this stuff on ubuntu and relive those days lol.

Thank You.

For me, Debian and FreeBSD on servers; LMDE on the desktop. Maybe next time I install a desktop I will go with regular Debian. While I know how to play around with operating systems, I mostly don't.

When it comes to best distros, there's no good way to define it. Are you looking at the best one to learn on? The best one for doing production work? The best one for gaming/home use? The best one at being "universal" and can be used for a wide variety of tasks from IT stuff, to power user stuff, to home use stuff? Etc. Even when you pick a focus like the best one to learn on, you may have different opinions if you're looking to learn it from a general user or gaming focused vs one for learning about cyber security, system administration, networking, aka the IT stuff.

Tried mint ling back, did not like that on browser they push their spinsored search engine, and some of the updates were unreliable, hard to beat Debian updates and full upgrades! 😅

been playing with garuda (arch based) for the past few years now. stable and reliable to boot....

Debian, Arch, Slackware. These are my top 3. It all depends on whether the computer in question is used alot or not. So my Gaming desktop runs Arch, and my laptop runs Slackware. My wife her PC runs Debian because she just needs it to work. She doesn't care about the latest and greatest.

For me: 1. Kubuntu 2. Ubuntu 3. Mint 4. Debian for desktops and 1. Debian 2. Ubuntu for servers.

About Gentoo: Or use it if you have way too many threads available. One can't have too much fun setting up a Threadripper desktop with 1/4 TB memory and building everything from source. Not ideal for laptops though. Imagine updating firefox on a laptop running on battery power.

I got all working on POP Os ( Houdini, Nuke, and other apps ) , so I am quite comfortable on it, but I will keep that disk safe, and try some else ..Probably Deb, let's see what I end breaking ..LOL

I think Debian unstable and experimental are good alternatives to arch.

For beginners Linux Mint is the very best, period.