What distro are you running?

[Jazzy Vidalia]

For all you Linux users out there what distro(s) are you running and why?

These days I am all in on Debian 12. It's my long-time favorite distribution. Been running it consistently since Debian 8 when I switched around 2017 and I love it for that rock solid stability—no surprises, updates just work, everything is well documented with things like manpage requirements for every package, etc.

Debian is basically Ubuntu without the cruft. Maybe it is just my UNIX greybeard showing, but I mostly never cared too much for Ubuntu. A lot of the things that make it "simpler" or "easier" or added features were mostly bloat that got in the way or would come to bite me in the ass. In addition, I much prefer Flatpak to Snaps and such.

To keep up with newer software, I do use Flatpak as a supplement which provides all the software I do need these days outside of the repos and most everything I need these days is in the Gnome Software application.

And yes, I keep it simple with Gnome using the default theme which is honestly one of the best default themes ever created and the best modern default desktop theme, IMHO. Also, Gnome / GTK+ applications tend to have much better designs even if they are often simpler but most of the needed features for me are there. I find KDE / QT applications to be a bit crowded and they tend to want to throw everything at you, but I do give both desktops a shot every time I do a major upgrade.

As for the server here—of course it is running Debian on a LEMP stack.

[Drakocxjo]

I haven't run Linux in a while but fuck do I miss it. There was so much freedom to it all.

Its just so much harder to run games and shit on it though. Never mind VR.

I tried a bunch of distros, though I liked the ones where I could customize the design to a degree unheard of, I even made a LinuxFromScratch system and called it DragonDistro, to try and get the most customization possible. Most of my linux though was spent on Mint, with the KDE desktop (I like the wavy windows :3).

[MediaActivist]

I started out with computers late in life, back in the mid-late 90's, using Microsoft Windows, then by the 2000s switched to Mac OS. Then around 2010 got involved in trying to refurbish old computers and therefore got into Linux! I started out with Ubuntu, then Fedora, then ended up trying things like Elementary, Mint, and Manjaro, fell in love with the idea of Arch and eventually just used Arch itself.

Now to answer your question! (That was just for context!) I am now using Pop_OS! on laptop (eOS on mobile), just because I have come to need and want speedy simplicity, functionality, and a pretty GUI. And as you can tell, I just have to finally stop distro-hopping so much! There are so many wonderful distros, and for me, I respect the choice folks have when using any Linux distro, really; everyone has different needs and personal preferences.

[sextutorial2]

yea for me it's gotta be ubuntu
i'm not a linux type yk, like i can make my way around the cmd line fine, cd this ls that grep whatever but i just like how everything's packed in
like granted that shit runs slow asf on my celeron n3350 but it does the things i need it to do
barring that i also got slackware on my toughbook but i'm thinkin about switchin back to w2k cuz at least that shit supports wifi

[justnolan]

I use Linux less these days than I used to. Having kids that wanted to play things that didn’t work with WINE forced my hand years ago. These days I have a Debian install on WSL, and run a wireless raspbian storage/file server. I have lots of good experience with Debian systems and running it inside Windows (most often on my ARM based Galaxybook) gives me the tools I need when I want them and stays out of the way. Less mucking around with config files, more productivity overall.

[basakumeak]

i don't even know what to install right now

[Jazzy Vidalia]

As I mentioned before, several months ago I lost everything to a cascading failure while my backups were being performed. It sucked.

I used that moment to a do a bit of distro-hopping and while I love do love Debian and Fedora, I wanted to try one of those new immutable distros that have been the new hotness the last few years. After doing some reading and playing around with a couple the one I landed on was NixOS—a immutable distro that uses a configuration file to set up all of the the system level stuff.

Now, I was skeptical of how much I would like such a system. One of the cool things about Linux is how easy it is to tweak things, and while this added a layer to it, it also simplified so much. I still have the configuration I need and it's all in one place in a file (or set of files) I can manage using git. Make a mistake, I can use git to roll back my configs.

But it gets even better. NixOS is generative, meaning when you update it produces a new generation and the old generations still exist on your system until you remove them. Let's say something goes horribly wrong with an update and I can't reboot. I can simply boot into the previous generation when I restart and have a working system. Updated and a program isn't working but was before? Same thing. Stable almost never breaks so I've only ever had a few issues where the mistake was on me and my configs.

If you are looking for a rock-solid system and are a set and forget it kinda person that wants to be able to just turn their computer on and use it, NixOS might just be what you are looking for if you don't mind the learning curve.

The only thing I do wish was better was the documentation. It sucks. You often have to look six different places for certain things. It is definitely not something geared towards the layman. The good news is that there's a Live CD you can install from.

After trying it, I honestly can't go back to imperative distros because once you have those configs you can just back them up and you're ready to redeploy with minimum effort because you've done the work. All you have to do is string things together on the system you want to use, run the install command, take a shit, and reboot.

[kara]

Right now i am using devuan. But after libreboot i plan to switch to dual boot of Hyperbola and OpenBSD

[Jazzy Vidalia]

OpenBSD is pretty sick. I really like the BSDs but application support being what it and and me being a gamer, I am afraid I am parted from one of my first computing loves and my first taste of UNIX, FreeBSD.

If you can use them, the BSDs are excellent for what they are and the Big 3 are all well documented and as far as pure UNIX systems go, easy to use.

Always cool to meet another BSD user. I had a copy on an extra hard drive we connected to the family computer. We're talking really old late 80's hardware (some souped up Arche Rival 386 model) using a very early FreeBSD release. The other drive had Windows 3.11 + DOS 5?, iirc. Today, it would be a shitbox, but that thing got a lot of usage even up into the early 2000s.

[kara]

I mean my first experience with BSD systems were in FreeBSD running on a RPI4 8g. I had to use it for 3 months without any graphical user interface and purely on terminals. I mean like fully first experience where i was daily driving other than servers and such. The simplicity and the speed made me appreciate the "KISS" philosophy. I am excited to run hyperbola linux/BSD and try to improve the project. Even tho i don't know how to program. I will probably try to port the programs i use in my school and such. I haven't used NetBSD in my life but i keep hearing good stuff about it. However oBSD and fBSD is fucking nice and i would use it more if it didn't have problems with certain hardware.

Either way when are we getting the lunarpunk.town OS/distro/BSD(?)