Favorite flavor of Linux?

[Smokey]

What's your favorite Linux distro? What desktop environemnt do you prefer?

I really like Linux Mint. I've used GNOME and KDE for enviornments, I find those to be the easiest to use personally. What do you like to use when it comes to Linux?

 

[NeoMetallix]

I have only used Ubuntu and Minto for the main distros and I prefer Mint.

I've also used Whonix and Tails but those aren't everyday drivers.

 

[Tracy]

Depends on what I need it for.
For a server? Rocky Linux or Alma Linux.
For a Windows replacement, depends on the hardware.
If it supports it I like Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Fedora Workstation, Ubuntu Budgie and SUSE Linux.
Now if you have older 32 bit hardware, it is now harder to find a distro that supports it.
On my EEEPc and similar that use old Atom procesors, I usually run Peppermint OS. They are one of the few that still offer a 32 bit version of more recent stuff.
When I had more time I used to grab various distributions and play with them. That's why I still have a Linux related domain registered (but am probably going to let it lapse as I don't have time to run a site on it along with all the other irons in the fire I have).

The software I use for my astrophotography is Linux based, It's basically kubuntu using a KDE desktop. The Raspberry Pi version of it uses xfce.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I'm currently using Linux Mint. I've used Lubuntu a little bit in the past and Mint is based on Ubuntu. I'm pretty much a Linux n00b so I went with a flavor that is more user friendly. The only issue I'm having so far is getting the proper Nvidia drivers for my graphics card, and I'm guessing it's because secure boot is enabled on my computer's bios. I need to figure out how to get into the main bios screen and see if I'm able to turn that off. If I just use the open source drivers, it displays properly. If I try the recommended one, it doesn't fully install the drivers upon boot since it doesn't prompt me to enter my password since I'm installing third party drivers. I'm going to have to hit up the Linux Mint forums when I get a chance.

 

[Tracy]

It doesn't fully install the drivers upon boot since it doesn't prompt me to enter my password since I'm installing third party drivers. I'm going to have to hit up the Linux Mint forums when I get a chance.

If you can download the drivers direct to your drive, you should be able to sudo su and then have full root access and then change into the directory that the file you download is.

To do that, open a terminal session and if you can get the URL to the driver download you can use wget url_path_to_download and it should download it. You may be able to do a cut/paste of the URL.
If the file is a standard .DEB file then installation is easy.
Then do apt-get install ./<your_package_name_here> and hit enter and it should install with root priviliges.
If that doesn't work, then you have other issues present like it needing some dependencies that are not preset. If that is the case, it should tell you.

 

[Ravenfreak]

If you can download the drivers direct to your drive, you should be able to sudo su and then have full root access and then change into the directory that the file you download is.

To do that, open a terminal session and if you can get the URL to the driver download you can use wget url_path_to_download and it should download it. You may be able to do a cut/paste of the URL.
If the file is a standard .DEB file then installation is easy.
Then do apt-get install ./<your_package_name_here> and hit enter and it should install with root priviliges.
If that doesn't work, then you have other issues present like it needing some dependencies that are not preset. If that is the case, it should tell you.

I got it to work finally, thanks for your response though! I followed a guide after installing the recommended driver, rebooted the computer and it's working. Browsing this website and others is much smoother now with the proper drivers. I know things would be much snappier if I had installed Linux on a SSD, rather than a hard drive, but I didn't feel like dual booting my SSD with Windows 11 installed.

 

[desbest]

My favourite is Linux Mint.

For those who've never used Linux, here's my one sentence review of all the linux distros, ahem, distributions.

I've never used Mandriva so I can't comment on that.

When I was a child, most Linux distributions was just "someone else's linux except a handful of tweaks" but as linux had matured (I hope) most of those distributions got defunct or discontinued, as it was easier for regular users, tweakers and modders to be changing various settings and "under the hood" things, in a way so that creating a new linux distro wasn't needed any more.

Pivoting from the home market to servers and enterprise

• Ubuntu
• Fedora
• Red Hat
• OpenSUSE

My one sentence review

• Fedora - By using GNOME as a desktop environment, it is a step backwards as GNOME 3 is worse than GNOME 2. The problem isn't the kiddish Fisher-Price design, it's that you've removed the customisability, flexibility and exploration, as by using excessive abstraction, the information we're accustomed to seeing as modders and tweakers, is newly gone, so remember that we don't like things dumbed down like Mac and iTunes users, we like to see what's going on with our devices as it does it, for howlever long or current it did it.
• Element OS - Ditto.....kiddish.....see above....trying to be like the mac
• Zorin OS - Ditto.....kiddish.....see above....trying to be like the mac
• Pop OS - Ditto.....kiddish.....see above....trying to be like the mac
• Arch - For those who love modding more than the typical modder, as it's heavy on the command line
• CentOS - Newly deprecated but it's designed for servers
• Debian - It's designed for servers wanting stability between software upgrades and Long Term Support (LTS) as every package in its official Debian package manager, cannot be updated for 5 years, once the version number is updated there (unless there's a security vulnerability obviously)

Why do I prefer Linux Mint to Ubuntu?

It appears to be that the modus operandi of Ubuntu is to be a CLOSET open source purist, despite them allowing me to download propretiary NVidia and Intel graphics card drivers in their repository manager. Or so it seems! When I installed Flash Player in Firefox and watched a youtube video, of all websites, it kept being choppy and jumping and the official forum and Stack Exchange couldn't help me. I then switched to Linux Mint and the issue was gone and when I got a glitch watching videos in VLC, let alone Youtube, the Linux Mint helped me change some settings in how to fix it and they gave me soem CLOSED source software that was in the Linux Mint software repository that wasn't available in the Ubuntu repository.

Why is Ubuntu trying to impose their open source purist philosophy on me? I do music production and web design so as someone who uses creative software with lots of plugins and sometimes plugins connected to other plugins, I can't really have bugs, freezes and glitches in the host software and plugin software, can I?

I then noticed that under Linux Mint, the sound quality was much better when recording my microphone into Audacity and the delay between recording and the sound appearing on the screen, was gone.

Forget convention over configuation (like rails framework), I'm all about toolsets over toolkits (like lua).

Also the MATE and Cinnamon desktop environment, is much better than GNOME 3 and it's actively developed too. Cinnamon is a spiritual successor of GNOME 2 as the way it should of been succeeded whereas MATE went in their own crazy unique direction.

 

[Cory]

I've never used any flavor of Linux until yesterday when I installed Linux on my Chromebook to try and play Steam games. I was successful in installing Steam, but my external hard drive wouldn't link up to my computer, so I gave up on trying to play Steam on my Chromebook.