If you had to pick one distro to use for the next five years, what would it be? Bleeding edge / stable? Rolling / periodic?
What would you prioritise and why?
Debian stable. It just works.
Depends on what I’m doing.
Workstation or server will be Debian. Personal devices are either Debian or Arch.
I’d prioritize Debian if I could only pick one for all options.
Don’t forget debian on phones (mobian), debian on embedded devices (armbian or even pure debian), debian on gaming machines and debian on vms running on debian hosts
Debian or ubuntu on my server/docker image. Maybe alpine for docker.
EndeavourOS on my desktop/laptop.
Server or workstation?
Let’s say workstation.
I installed Pop!_OS on a Thinkpad in 2020 and have been using that install as my daily driver without issue. That includes multiple LTS release upgrades. The key is to stick with LTS releases. It’s boring because you do not get the latest and greatest features, but the payoff is rock solid stability.
EDIT: As far as distros, I stick with Pop!_OS for myself, Linux Mint for my wife (we’re both IT professionals), and LMDE for my servers.
Well, I’ve been using Ubuntu for the last 20 years (god, it hurts to say that) and only started playing with NixOS, 3 years ago.
Between the two I like NixOS better, but if I had to choose only one it would probably be Ubuntu. When things break, I know how to fix it. Usually without having to spend 2 hours of reading and trying to understand the documentation.
For my desktop: openSUSE Tumbleweed/Slowroll. I like to keep my desktop as up-to-date as possible, and openSUSE is pretty good. Sure, there’s the occasional udev update that breaks inputs in the desktop environment, but that’s the other side of the coin.
For my laptop and other uses: Debian. The old reliable doesn’t mind if I don’t update as often, and unlike rolling releases, updates aren’t wont to break anything. In a pinch I could use it on the desktop too.
I’ve tried just about every distro over the past decade, and I always come back to Ubuntu. It commands the largest share of the Linux market by a large margin, especially when you consider its derivative distributions like Mint and PopOS. It also has excellent support from hardware vendors, specifically NVIDIA in my case.
Last year I would have said Arch. I have been running it for over 15 years with some small breaks to try stuff, or with some machines that have company issued OS. But I have been toying with NixOS, and honestly I’m loving it. If I had to choose only one and couldn’t change it it would have to be Arch, I know I can get 5 years with it easily, but if I was setting a new system today it would almost assuredly be NixOS, I might regret that 3 years down the line when there’s something I can’t get to work, but the more I play around, the less likely I think that would be, and the more comfortable I feel that I will eventually migrate to NixOS fulltime
If I had to limit myself to one distro for all tasks, can’t go wrong with Debian.
I once waited a whole year for debian to ship the next version to get an update for an app that had a bug, that was already fixed upstream.
Every day I would open the app and experience the bug.
Anger, frustration, shaking the mouse.
Every.
Fucking.
Day.
I would go with (semi)rolling, either openSUSE Tumbleweed/Slowroll or Fedora. I prioritize fast updating distros because they are better for security (many vulnerabilities go unnoticed because the full scope isnt understood and they are deemed normal bugs), and (unlike Windows) updates on Linux are a good thing, bring new features, crash/bug fixes, and optimizations.
Fedora is very popular, has wide software support, and is very stable. openSUSE is also still pretty popular, (even its rolling edition) is quite stable as well, has good software support, and YaST allows you to do graphical administration on your system. Both take security seriously and use SELinux for security policies.
If you care about security, use Brace for automatic system hardening. It has been developed for years by the former DivestOS dev Tavi, supporting many distros.
After 20 years of Gentoo, I don’t see myself switching in the next five. Comfortable, capable, flexible.
18 years here (started 2008, god, has it really been that long?). And I only had to reinstall once in that time (my own fault). Even new systems are just installed from snapshots of my existing systems.
It’s really low maintenance once it’s set up. It almost never breaks, and for breaking changes you get news through the package manager months in advance, and if you actually need to fix something it’s always possible (easy downgrades, deploying of patches, etc.). I’m also using some Arch and Ubuntu on the side and stability doesn’t even compare.
I asked myself this exact question back in 2020 and chose Arch. At the time I had been using Fedora since 2017. What I ultimately wanted was a system I could install once and continually evolve rather than replace. Several years on, I’m still running that same installation and it has never given me a reason to reconsider…
Debian testing, then upgrade it as they make major releases. I have yet to have a single Debian upgrade go wrong on Desktop or Server. It is basically magic.
Void. Second choice, debian.
Debian is kind of too big to fail. Maybe NixOS if you want something that will almost certainly gain popularity in the future.
Don’t think though that distros are the layer which you want to look at. Lots of stuff happens at the level of DEs, drivers and individual apps, which sure is preconditioned by the distro you choose but at the same time not that strict of a thing. You can get anything working provided you have the time.
x11 is still in its last round before retirement it seems, using Wayland is going to future proof what you’ve got majorly.
My 2c. Feel free to critique.
