If you have been using Linux for +10 years, what are you using now?
Been using Linux for over a decade, and last few years Ubuntu (on desktops/laptops), plus Debian on servers, but been looking to switch to something less “Canonical”-y for a long time (since the Amazon search fiasco, pretty much).
Appreciate recommendations or just an interesting discussion about people’s experiences, there are no wrong answers.
Edit: Thanks for the lots of interesting answers and discussions. I will try a few of the suggestions in a VM.
Nixos, meaning to try Gnuix but I got projects to finish!
I am using Unix/Linux for over thirty years now, and the older I get, the more I like it simple.
Debian with Arch in a VM, and Guix as extra package manager on top of both for programming projects. I use Debian for stable stuff and Arch for new stuff.
Stumpwm as manual tiling window manager, or i3wm, or Sway if the first is not available. Somtimes GNOME.
Emacs with language server (lsp-mode) for programming. Vim frequently at work for embedded tasks.
Gollum wiki or Zim wiki for knowledge management.
A little surprised you don’t use EXWM or org mode.
started with the classics, moved to Arch, then now I’m moving to nixos.
I’m just starting to rebuild my home server in NixOS… mainly because I do things on my server only once in a while and things are breaking and I forget where stuff is.
Like I discovered fail to ban stopped working some time ago, and I’ve been running raw since then.
With Nix I plan to manage both os and containers in one go, so that I can have the whole system in a couple of files
debian with mate
GNOME OS
it’s technically not for everyday use, but it has been simple and trouble free for me.
I’ve been fully daily driving Linux for about 15 years now, and for me it’s almost all Arch now.
I started out distro-hopping between Debian, Mint, Ubuntu, Slack, etc, but once I found Arch (and spent two weeks getting it installed, booted, and customized exactly to my liking) I was finally at home.
I know the meme. I’m not here to claim superiority, or diminish the value of other perfectly good distros. I love Debian, I love Void, Ubuntu can die in a fire, etc.
What I love about Arch is the lack of bloat. You get precisely what you ask for, no more, no less. You can legitimately run htop and recognize literally every program, and know if something’s wrong immediately.
Every one of my Arch boxes is a perfect little snowflake, suited to exactly the task(s) I built it for. And if there was anything I had to learn or configure along the way? That’s just the journey, man.
I have been eyeballing NixOS though…
I just used NixOS daily for maybe a month? I really love how it’s designed, but I had to give up because there were just so many small fixes I had to do and I found myself banging my head against the wall when I couldn’t build something that depended on python-tk. You will see this criticism around a lot, but the documentation just isn’t there yet. If you try to search for a fix, the packages have changed how they’re configured since a solution was posted or they depend on a Nix flake which 50% of searches say not to use because it’s experimental and 50% are all in on flakes.
I have since moved back to Arch, but I’ve started to use the nix package manager for some cases since you can on-demand non-permanently install a package.
Same, with one exception I don’t really like Debian. Ubuntu, I’m surprised it’s still around. I wonder who uses it, especially on a server.
I’m eyeballing NixOS. And Gentoo too. And I’m looking for excuse to try FreeBSD.
You’re surprised the most popular desktop distro is still around?
I’m surprised this shite is the most popular distro, let’s start with that.
Really? They did a ton of work to make Linux accessible to the masses, have an active and helpful community to help out if you get stuck, works really well out of the box on most hardware and you’re pretty much guaranteed there’s going to be a compatible deb available for it if you’re looking for software outside normal repos. Seems like a no brainer tbh.
You’re correct, if that’s true. I wasn’t following them since almost twenty years ago. They were great at the time, all these free CDs you could get, I’ve ordered some as a kid and they really arrived, that was magic. I have some gratitude for that.
What I don’t like is quite a number of very questionable decisions they made over these years after. That’s why I am surprised someone thinks they are a great distro. You want Deb, why not go with Debian? Especially on a server. I truly have no idea who are the people who install Ubuntu on a server.
In my experience, Fedora just works. And hence, I recommend it to everyone. Ubuntu, not. Snap alone made me not considering it ever again.
NixOS so I can keep my config in git. I have a single nix config for all my machines (desktop, laptop and server) so I can share configuration between them. I use it to configure both my system and my user config, my dotfiles, with home-manager. Even my neovim config is in nix thanks to nixvim.
I don’t think I could go back now. It can be a bit of a pain from time to time and the learning curve is steep but it has so many advantages. Being able to rollback between config versions (called generations), having a consistent config between my machines, having it all in version control… The repo have so many packages and when there is a module it’s really easy to add a service. Writing new packages (derivations) and modules is also not that hard. It can be as simple as calling nix-init.
Had my main ssd fail on me a few month back and it was very simple to just replay the config and just get everything working as before. I only had to do the partitioning by hand (it can be done by nix but I’ve not gotten around to it yet). That’s why I only backup data and home partitions, not system partitions.
I was messing with the NixOS system config in weird ways and accidentally bricked it a few times, but I just booted into a previous configuration and fixed it. Whereas with Arch you would be fucked and have to pull out a rescue disk.
You just need to be careful not breaking your bootloader, but on the other side this is fixable too with a live environment
debian since forever. no reason to switch yet.
The answer is Debian like crabs on a long enough timeline it will eventually become Debian. - Linux user for 27 years
Debian. I like my computer to work.
Arch on my personal machines, Debian on my servers.
Debian and alpine. Coming up on 27 years of linux for me.
I used a linux desktop for a few years back in 08-09, started on ubuntu then got on the Gentooooooooooo bandwagon. (Went back to Windows after this due to college + games, naturally)
Ever since then, I just use stable LTS versions of either debian or ubuntu for server applications. Recently changed back to Linux on desktop and went with CachyOS, it’s been super solid.
Nix for home server Cachy OS for daily driver I was using gentoo+openRC and later gentoo+runit before coming to nix os. But still I love arch based cachy and gentoo over nix
