Hey fellow Linux enthusiasts! I’m curious to know if any of you use a less popular, obscure or exotic Linux distribution. What motivated you to choose that distribution over the more mainstream ones? I’d love to hear about your experiences and any unique features or benefits that drew you to your chosen distribution.
I use Ubuntu, which is apparently the least popular distro around.
I use Manjaro and based on the downvotes I received when mentioning it around here, I can assure that you are excused and you can give me this crown.
I understand the criticisms of manjaro, and don’t recommend it to people, but it seems to be the only distro to work with my hardware/software without issue. So for now, here I am.
Fantastic distro.
None of the criticisms people have against it affect me.
Lol same. When I installed Manjaro it was a popular choice, but in the past couple years sentiment has really turned against it. I haven’t experienced any of the problems people claim it has, so I can’t be arsed to distro hop again.
Exactly where I’m at. I’ve had no issues with it, I have my home computer all set up and customized over the last 3 years, I’m not doing that again just to say that I’m on a different distro unless something goes very wrong.
why not use rhino linux instead? ubuntu but rolling release
Not OP, but as someone using Ubuntu LTS releases on several systems, I can answer my reason: Having the latest & greatest release of all software available is neat, but sometimes the stability of knowing “nothing on my system changes in any significant way until I ask it to upgrade to the next LTS” is just more valuable.
My primary example is my work laptop: I use a fairly fixed set of tools and for the few places where I need up-to-date ones I can install them manually (they are often proprietary and/or not-quite established tools that aren’t available in most distros anyway).
A similar situation exists on my primary homelab server: it’s running Debian because all the “services” are running in docker containers anyway, so the primary job of the OS is to do its job and stay out of my way. Upgrading various system components at essentially random times runs counter to that goal.
Yeah, I use Ubuntu LTS on my server because updates make me nervous. I can’t just update it all willy-nilly. If something goes wrong during an update, I must stop what I’m doing and get it up ASAP.
A few months ago I accidentally deleted grub the morning before I went to an all day concert, and I had lots of unhappy people that were using services that I host. Luckily that was an easy fix.
My laptop, though? I use Opensuse Tumbleweed. I’m fine with the rolling release for my laptop. Just not my server.
I use Ubuntu, it’s the default for ROS. I tried debian but the instructions didn’t work instantly so I just as quickly gave up and went back to Ubuntu since I was busy. Lol.
I use UWUntu
I’d be more interested in what obscure text editors, window managers, etc people were using regardless of distro. Distro in my mind is about software release and install philosophy, any distribution that comes with a lot of preinstalled software is generally built on the back of a more skeletal distribution, and is interesting mostly for what software choices it makes.
You do have a point but distributions are not just about the package software. They are also about user experiences, workflows and aesthetics.
That’s the WM or DE plus the individual programs. An i3 install with the same dofiles will have the same aesthetics on each distro.
I used LeftWM for a while, it’s a window manager built in rust. One of the cool things about it was its themes functionality. You put all your dot files in a particular directory for things like your bar, and then you can save and switch multiple themes with a short command. Had some interesting community ones too like one based on the Star Trek TNG computer terminals. Ended up moving away from it after a while because it just didn’t quite feel polished enough for a daily deiver yet and I got a little tired of the constant tweaking
I just installed Linux two nights ago! I tried Mint but it wouldn’t install because of RST being enabled. I didn’t feel comfortable trying to disable it, I was afraid I’d break something. I installed OpenSuse Tumbleweed and it went smoothly! It’s been fun being on linux. I customized the theme, downloaded some updates and got Steam working. My only issue is booting into it. I have to boot into windows, restart holding shift and then boot to USB SSD from there. My next goal is getting a boot screen that will allow me to pick Linux or Windows drive.
Good for you. Happy to see a new user. Good luck on your Linux journey. And remember if someone recommends you remove the french language pack don’t do it.
Tumbleweed is great for ancient devices, too. Even Arch doesn’t officially support 32bit systems anymore, but OpenSuse still does
Do you have fast boot enabled in Windows? Every Linux distribution I’ve tried installs grub or systemd-boot by default, so not having a boot selection screen is odd.
Sounds like a bios issue, you need to set USB devices to have a higher priority than your internals,. You can probably access your bios settings by pressing something like F10-12 on boot, usually there is a splash screen that tells you what to press.
NixOS for declarative system configuration.
Nix is definitely gaining popularity quick too
Does Gentoo count?
It’s not that unpopular. I chose it because it is very powerful. It really makes use of every Linux power there is. It makes solving problems yourself much easier, and customization is big.
Gentoo master race! :-D
I switched to NixOS almost two years ago, and it’s really nice being able to define my whole system in a single set of config files. If my hard drive dies or I switch computers, I can just reinstall NixOS using my config files and everything will be set up the exact same way. It’s extremely solid and I don’t need to baby my system because if it breaks I can just reinstall everything back to normal.
And I can share parts of the config between devices, so when I change my Neovim or VSCodium configs using Home-Manager it gets synced to my other devices, as well as being saved as part of my NixOS config files.
+1 for Nix. In my case I switched from Opensuse Tumbleweed to NixOS about a year ago. Before NixOS I had spent years distro-hopping fairly regularly just in an effort to find something that was atleast moderately simple to setup/troubleshoot, (I’m no developer, and my Linux technical expertise really only covers the basics) and that would be resilient to the careless tinkering I tended to do in general.
Using NixOS on a daily basis has been a complete pleasure. After experiencing the sane-ness of a declarative system I’ll never go back. As of late, NixOS seems to have been growing steadily in popularity, although most of its userbase are experienced developers, businesses, and almost no Linux beginners. This is understandable given its current state and reputation as an advanced distro, but I am of the opinion that–if a GUI software store for nixpkgs and a GUI program for editing the system’s configuration options were developed–NixOS could quickly become one of the most desktop user-friendly distros available given its underlying immutability and unrivalled stability in general.
I don’t understand how tinkering proofness achieved through learning “Nix syntax” is any better for the average joe compared to a the default settings of tumbleweed including snapper.
NixOS has snapshots built in as well but I’ve never had to actually use them to recover anything because Nix packages are built in isolation from one another, and their dependencies are declared, so packages can’t break each other when installing or upgrading them.
NixOS is also an immutable distro, which prevents accidental bad changes to the system. Tumbleweed is very friendly and stable compared to many other distros out there, but it’s still vulnerable to accidental breakage in the same ways most other distros are. I think the cherry on top for the average joe using Nix compared to OpenSUSE, however, is just the fact that the Nixpkgs repository absolutely dwarfs OpenSUSE’s.
Luckily, if you prefer to stick with whatever distro you’re running already, but want the power of the Nix package manager, you can get the best of both worlds and install just Nix (without NixOS) on any distro.
Im still toying with the idea of nix (using Fedora rn) but I don’t code at all rn and don’t need to rebuild my system all the time so I think it’s pointless
I use Void Linux. I switched from Arch btw because I liked their package manager, was curious about their init system runit, and still wanted a rolling release. I’ve used it for a little over a year now and overall I’ve been happy.
I was the same but in 2017. Six years later and I’m still using the same Void install. There’s simply no reason for me to switch, it’s perfect and I have my system tailored exactly to my liking at this point.
voidlinux on my laptop (from Fedora) - why? I wanted to see what a systemd-less distro was like nowadays. I have used Linux since 1992 and Unix since 1984 so I’m used to SysVinit. What I find with voidlinux is a system I can understand easily - not that I struggle with systemd, but I felt there was just so much happening under the hood, just too clever by half. If I wanted MacOS, I’d have bought an Apple.
The packaging system on voidlinux is sooooo much faster than fedora. The really weird thing is that my battery life almost doubled. I can’t explain it except to say that the laptop is much calmer than under fedora, which seems to run the fan constantly. Same workload, CPU governers, powertop tweaks etc etc - but battery life almost doubled.
The one downside is a smaller array of packages in the repositories. But since I’m happy installing from source for those few corner cases, it’s no biggie.
I’ve left fedora on my media/file server for now as I still do some fedora packaging (mainly for sway related packages).
Void is just soo good.
- Runit is super simple and makes sense to me. - I get to build the distro the way I want it.
- I’ve learned a ton about the inner workings of Linux using Void for the last 3 years.
- You’re right about packages, but I’ve not had issues as I’ve found flatpacks or appimages for anything not offered.
- Xbps has spoiled me. I HATE using almost every other package manager. They’re all so slow and cumbersome.
I LOVE void, while I did need to do a bit more research at times, I felt like it taught me more about how an OS functions. The first time I made my own unit script was also super satisfying.
i distrohopped a lot until i landed on Void, then i just stayed because it does everything i need, it’s fast, understandable, easily tweakable, and rock solid
Sounds like some sort of weird bug under Fedora, given the huge difference.
Void here too. I was mostly Solaris & OpenBSD for many years, Void is the first linux I’m happy to run on my main machines.
I realized I was going to be comfortable with Void when I saw in the docs that to config the network you just “put the commands in rc.local”. Ha ha. Yes, that’s how you’d do it in 7th Edition Unix! Back to the basics.
What made you go away from OpenBSD? Really curious, did you actually use it as a desktop system?
Yes, although the thing on my desk is just an x-term & media player, so “desktop system” doesn’t mean that much…
Mostly video performance (1080 vid stuttered badly, while it plays fine on the same machine under linux.) & compatability. (Not that I want to run a browser on my x-term, but it would be nice to have as a fallback option. Can’t install anything recent.) Oh, and extended attributes in the filesystem. I REALLY like being able to add name=val tags to a file. It’s immensely useful. That might be my favorite feature of linux? Funny.
Also, I was in the midst of switching from Solaris to Linux on my server, so it just seemed like a good idea to run the same OS on the desktop.
Very well written. Makes me wanna try out void again (although I am very fine with debian)
I consider it too from Artix. I heard it has lots of (often broken) AUR packages in the repo?
Guix, because I love nix but love lisp even more
Always great to see a fellow Guix user!
I don’t know if openSUSE Tumbleweed counts as a less popular distro but it’s certainly underrated. I chose it with a roll of the dice and stayed because it’s bloody good.
My first Linux distro was SuSE 7.x, just because we had an installation box in the high school library. 8 CDs to install packages from etc. Funny stuff.
Then I played with Gentoo & Debian for a couple of years, but went back to openSuSE once I started my first real job. We had to use it because we needed a Red Hat compatible and enterprise ready Linux. And I am using openSuSE to this day if I have a choice. Everything works, if I quickly need something YaST can configure a lot of shit and is just super user-friendly.
But I recommend Leap for day-to-day work, Tumbleweed with its rolling updates keeps updating almost 24/7.
I’m curious if anyone dailies Alpine for desktop use. (I don’t.)
Saw at least 2 people who do in the comments.
I have before. I liked it broadly, but could not fix issues with artifacting while playing video in Firefox. It’s a small issue, but enough to make me go back to Arch and/or Debian.
NixOS. Nothing better for a server
Nix confuses my monkey brain but every once and I while I try it again. One day it’ll click for me
The way I can dumb it down the most without being too wrong…
With most other distros (imperative) things are installed and configured in a way where you have to follow the recipe with all the steps to get to the end result - run installers, or do things manually or write/run scripts, tweak config files, etc.
The Nix/NixOS way is declarative, more akin to an ingredient list, a description of what your system should look like. Nix takes care of doing the legwork. The same config should always build the same system.
My ELI5 way of understanding it is:
With Nix you write a checklist and it just does what you tell it to, settings, drivers, packages, apps, etc.
Other distros are like doing all the things yourself. You’ll never do it exactly the same twice.
I’ve read that a lot and I always think I understand it until it’s time to put it into practice
Declarative vs. imperative does require a large paradigm shift for sure. I’ve used some of these provisioning tools before, but I’m still very much a noob with NixOS. They go further than what I said, they have their own abstractions on top.
You and me both
Can’t believe I’m the first one to come in with Guix System!! I like it because, just like NixOS, it’s immutable, declarative and pure. I also dig that everything is written in Guile Scheme, a full-fat programming language. You don’t need to know the language exhaustively to get started. There’s some wonderful folks in the community though it’s a bit spread out since not everyone wants to chat on IRC and mailing lists.
The Guix sublemmy.
I guess SteamOS? It’s immutable and… well runs on the SteamDeck which is pretty cool. I use it to play, obviously, but also to work. Love it.
Happy SteamOS / SteamDeck user here, too. SteamOS would be mainstream in my book. (Nonetheless, Valve did a great job with it, never experienced any problems with it and everything just works.)
Not to diminish what Valve has achieved there (it’s an amazing PC/console hybrid, love mine).
But a smooth experience without any hitches is much easier to achieve when your hardware variation basically boils down to “how big is the SSD”. The fact that all Steamdecks run the same hardware helps keep things simple.
I guess that’s also the reason why they are not (yet?) pushing the new SteamOS as a general-purpose distribution for everyone to use. Doing that would/will require much more manpower.
Good point and I agree 100%.
Funnily enough, I am looking forward to the Apple silicon distributions from Fedora etc., because the lack of hardware variation in the Apple ecosystem helps here, too. :-)
