What Next After Ubuntu?

I live in a region with a lot of government contracting businesses, so Red Hat Enterprise Linux is something I have to maintain a working familiarity with.

However, I use Debian for all of my personal projects and infrastructure.

The reason? There's no for-profit corporate interest directly controlling the project. The project's organizational structure resembles a constitutional democracy:

https://www.debian.org/intro/organization

There is an incorporated entity in the United States to handle a number of intellectual property and financial concerns:

https://www.spi-inc.org/projects/debian/

However, it exists as a non-profit with a very narrowly defined, specific set of purposes:

https://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/certificate-of-incorporati...

Because of this, I feel like the Debian project has a good combination of people and resources, making it easy to rely on long-term, but without the for-profit corporate interests that may conflict with my own in the future.

- "something that will be stable and supported for the next twenty years"

Then the safest bet is to choose something that was popular and stable twenty years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect ("...the longer a period something has survived to exist or be used in the present, the longer its remaining life expectancy")

You *probably* just want Debian. There's many reasonable options but that one's the Schelling point for this question (I think).

edit: Here's the list of Slashdot linux threads from 2003. I think anything flamed in there that's still around is a Lindy candidate.

https://www.google.com/search?q=site:linux.slashdot.org/stor...

Red Hat for enterprise use, Fedora for personal desktop use. One of the largest communities you’ll find. If you want Debian based maybe just straight Debian.

The centos debacle was poorly handled but I think what red hat was /trying/ to do made sense. The community just wasn’t there to sustain it. Red Hat was paying to give away free RHEL basically lol. CentOS Stream should have just been called RHEL Stream. It’s basically RHEL minus minor bugs that would only effect small pools of people.

I’m glad Rocky and Alma sprung up and have budding communities though.

I've been running Debian stable on servers for like 8 years now.

Up until recently I had a server running Debian Jessie with 1,802 days of uptime. It served a decent amount of traffic. Services on there ran unattended for literally years and it was rock solid. I ended up decommissioning the server because for the same price I could get better hardware specs so I made a new server and put on Debian Bullseye (the latest stable release as of mid-2021).

With Docker being a thing now, Debian's older but more stable package versions for app level things (programming runtimes, databases, etc.) is less of an issue because you can run them in Docker. However you can get stable core system packages with Debian's impeccable track record. IMO I wouldn't run anything other than Debian on a server (including base Docker images).

For a personal distro, I think it gets more complicated. It's personal preference based on what you value. Using Debian's unstable channel could be an option for having the latest releases on things while still being stable even though it's labelled "unstable". Arch is another choice. There's many others.

I'm liking NixOS thus far. I've got it installed on my personal laptop. It's got some rough edges, but the benefits for me outweigh the downsides. I really like affordances like "nix-shell -p foo" to just run a shell with the "foo" command in it for one-off usages, instead of slowly accumulating installed apt packages that I forgot why I installed them.

Similarly, having any custom configuration inside of "configuration.nix" is way nicer to use than manually editing /etc/whatever.conf. I can have one place to store any custom hacks, with a nice comment as to why + git history.

I switched to Debian on servers & was impressed enough (previous experience with Ubuntu & RHEL) that I even went ahead & installed it on desktop. That was a mistake for a few reasons so I quickly switched away* on desktop but it's still my choice on servers, with a few caveats...

1. Snaps are infecting all distros, not just Ubuntu. This affects desktop more than servers, though LetsEncrypt/Certbot are major culprits on servers. I have managed to work around this on my debian servers with a combination of podman & certbot's dockerhub images but it's a sad state of affairs that such fuckery is needed.

2. Hardware support is the perennial issue on desktop & I was still getting hit by this in 2022 on Debian with AMD drivers & multi monitor/KVM support. This obviously isn't a worry on servers.

---

* fwiw I switched away from Debian on desktop to Gentoo, which I used to use years ago before getting a little fed up with compile times. Have found compile times to be absolutely miniscule on modern hw compared to what I remembered, & binary ebuilds much more plentiful than in the past too. Had always found it the most sane, stable & up-to-date distro in the past, with compile times really being the only downside, so would recommend for anyone looking to try out something new. Unlike Arch, Gentoo does a lot for you: it's really just the initial install that's a pain.

Look no further than Debian. After switching from Ubuntu I started to understand why people view Ubuntu as a bit dirty.

If you are comfortable with Ubuntu then perhaps Debian [1], the OS that Ubuntu was forked from would feel natural?

[1] - https://www.debian.org/

I dislike Ubuntu for the same reasons and I can recommend two paths:

For environments where you expect and appreciate stability- Debian. Hands down. Your initial feel is going to be like a leaner Ubuntu with a few extra steps (non free drivers or software). Very low learning curve.

If you don’t mind “staying on top of your OS and packages”, then I’d recommend Arch Linux for desktop (not server). There is never “end of support of any release” because it’s a rolling release distro. Do your updates regularly and you’ll be good to go. They have one of the best wiki in the Linux world and it’s a low maintenance distro once you set it all up. A bit steep learning curve at first but I’d argue that this learning is beneficial to general understanding of Linux.

I don't know if either Nix or Guix will be stable and supported for the next twenty years, but they probably won't be ruined by corporate interests. I've personally quite enjoyed learning about functional package management, where a package is seen as a pure function whose arguments are all its dependencies, the source, and the build tools. The output of the function are the binary artifacts.

It's a good idea, and if you like the idea of setting up your computers by programming in Scheme, Guix will be right up your alley.

Distrowatch carries on after all these years, and (at the least) gives a fairly good catalogue of Linux and BSD distro capabilities in textual and tabular format.

https://distrowatch.com/

Try some out as VMs before comitting to bare metal installs.

EDIT: I see that MX Linux continues to reside as the "top" distro according to that site's methodology. MX has been on top there for a very long time.

Debian Stable is your best bet here. It's run by community, evolves slowly and with a consensus (somewhat), and you can be involved in the process if you have the desire and patience.

I'm using it since 3.0 both on my desktop and infrastructure, and I'm pretty happy.

I once lost a Debian server in our system room. When we remembered that we have such machine, I just logged in and it installed all updates in between and was working without any problems. Just rebooted to get the new kernel, that's all.

For end user workstations, my favorite Linux distros have converged on either Pop!_OS or Arch Linux (and Manjaro).

Pop!_OS is a remarkably stable and usable Linux distro. At least from a UX and aesthetics standpoint I find it competitive with macOS (I am also a longtime mac user, though macOS has lost its edge in recent years on the UX front). Overall I would say it's my favorite Linux distro these days. I am a big fan of the Debian family of distros in general. I used Arch Linux for almost ten years before switching fully to Pop!_OS and I never had an update go pear-shaped. Rolling release with pacman is amazingly robust indeed. I would say it's my number two.

I was an Ubuntu user from version 7 to version 16. Two things did it in for me. The first one was when Canonical submarined Amazon search queries into the OS's search feature somewhere around version 12 or 13. The second problem I had was major version upgrades reliably crashed my workstations. Every single major version upgrade meant a Busybox prompt after rebooting. After a few too many of those headaches (frustrations with apt upgrades causing trouble aside), it got to the point where I'd just do a nuke and boot to upgrade major versions instead of doing it in situ. After that happened for the last time sometime around Ubuntu 16.10 I said enough and dropped it going fully over to Arch Linux until around 2020, when I switched to Pop!_OS for a change of pace. Pop!_OS major version transitions have never caused problems for me. Arch Linux obviously doesn't have a notion of versions to begin with being rolling release.

I also had issues with Ubuntu's snap Firefox. And I am also considering leaving (after almost 20 years).

My biggest issue was snaps taking huge amohnt of disk space. My 30GB system partition was running out of space. What I usually do is to move the big stuff to another disk and symlink to it. Moving snap directory this way caused mounting issues, Firefox was unable to download anything.

I switched to normal Firefox from apt (non-snap) and it works. I am considering Debian.

I think Ubuntu (like Mozilla) needs to realize who is their user base - increasingly conservative, occasionally tinkering, users. They need to be more careful with sweeping changes.

For what it's worth, I've been using SUSE, openSUSE, and currently tumbleweed personally as a daily driver on-and-off for ~19 years. Occasionally I hop over to Fedora and come back. I also run a couple public-facing servers on Linnode using Suse's Leap. I haven't had any major issues (some minor annoyances along the way of course), but the software is very up-to-date. I see that you're concerned about corporate control, maybe I've just been getting lucky. I don't have much experience with Debian, but have been experimenting with FreeBSD (has a non-profit registered in colorado[0]) and NixOS (has a non-profit registered in Netherlands[1]).

[0]: https://freebsdfoundation.org/legal/ [1]: https://nixos.org/community/

Honestly, if you want steady progress and consistency, if you want changes that are thought out, well reasoned, discussed and sensibly implemented, you should consider the BSDs.

Even ignoring the systemd stuff separating Linux from the rest of the world, there are just so many ways all these Linux distros are trying, often gratuitously, to differentiate themselves from each other. Often it's sloppy, and the end result is that it affects upgraders (long time users) much more than new people, because they're so focused on attracting new people and therefore test new installs so much.

A Linux admin from the '90s would be lost on a modern Linux distro. A BSD admin from the '90s would have plenty to learn, but most of it would still be quite usable.

Stable? Debian or Fedora.

For an end-user machine, I've found that rolling release is much better than point release (much newer, less buggy/crashy -- paradoxically -- versions of software and GPU drivers). (Although, surprisingly, Fedora seems to have very fast package updates despite being a point release.) For rolling, Manjaro is my top pick. Arch is a close second, assuming you've mastered the arcane art of its installation.

You might be thinking, "But a fringe, rolling release distribution can't be as stable as Ubuntu, the de facto default point release distro that ostensibly claims 99% of Linux marketshare." You would be insane to not be thinking that. But I guess companies' potential for incompetence is even more insane since that's been the opposite of my experience. I've had less installation issues and crashes during daily use of Manjaro than on Ubuntu over the last few years, which really surprised me. It's like Ubuntu is decaying. Or maybe I just got bad RNG. Or maybe it's that program and DE devs are always working on the latest version of their software while older versions are an afterthought, so rolling distributions that keep you up to date with the latest versions seem stabler. :p

After a major Ubuntu version upgrade completely broke virtualization, I switched to OpenSUSE. It has a very professional feel and YaST is a great tool for (re)configuring the system without having to look up commandline specifics for every one-off action I wanted to perform. I use Leap for my work laptop and Tumbleweed for my home PC. Both are very stable.

I also use Manjaro on the side but for a rolling release it lags slightly behind OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. AUR provides a good supplement of software but more are providing alternatives via Flatpak nowadays. Fedora is a good choice too. I recommend trying all of these before making a decision.

Debian.

Anything that's not up to date enough, I install with Homebrew. I did not follow the drama but I know that there was a time when even Unstable was missing a recent version of Emacs. Homebrew has it on release day. With the combination of Debian stable and Homebrew, you get a stable core and the bleeding edge for the 3 pieces of software you actually care about. Perfect.

> stable and supported for the next twenty years, without being ruined by corporate interests

That exists only in your imagination, so, imagine whatever you like.

Sounds like you want Debian, but you might want to explore the disgruntled CentOS forks/replacements if you want the appearance of an enterprise distribution (that's what "stable and supported for the next twenty years" means) without the pesky problem of having to be aware that there is an enterprise driving it.

May as well look at FreeBSD while you're here, though.

I switched mostly to Manjaro a long time ago and I've only had a couple of issues with it, for whatever that's worth.

For a desktop, I've had a wonderful experience with Fedora Workstation. They're up-to-date while remaining stable, have a policy of working with upstream, and don't do any real customization to KDE/GNOME.

I am mildly peeved at the whole CentOS debacle but wouldn't mind running Fedora on a personal server.

Personal machines (workstations or servers) are very different to those you'd use in industry. I'll only comment on personal machines.

For home workstations, as an ex Ubuntu user, I like Manjaro (and the whole Arch ecosystem) A LOT. Fedora is pretty nice as a dev workstation also.

Mainstream: Fedora. It has been rock solid for me, while at the same time adopting the cutting edge of the Linux ecosystem (latest gcc, latest security stuff, etc.). Also a lot of exciting things happening, like Silverblue, CoreOS, OSTree, etc. For stuff that needs to be really stable, you can use RHEL or a derivative.

If you are willing to do something more alien: NixOS. But be aware that it can be a deep rabbit hole and time sink.

I have anecdotal evidence that many people moved from Debian to ArchLinix over the last 5..10 years.

ArchLinux is the unassuming kind of distro that gives way to upstream.

> I have been running Ubuntu on servers and desktops for around twenty years

If you have been running Ubuntu for that long, and don't have much experience with other distributions, the stable distribution you will probably feel the most comfortable with will be Debian. From an administration point of view, they are very similar; not only do both use dpkg and apt for package management, but also small things like details of the structure of the configuration in /etc are very similar. This is because Ubuntu started as, and still is, a derivative of the much older Debian distribution. The only thing you might miss would be Ubuntu-specific stuff like snaps; and you might also get a bit annoyed by Debian stable having older versions of packages than you might be used to (it's a slow-moving distribution, more similar to enterprise distributions like RHEL in that aspect).

On my servers I run FreeBSD. It’s stable and it will most likely continue to exist for decades to come unaffected by corporate interests, just like it has for ages so far.

I think Debian/Fedora(or RedHat if you're willing to pay) are fine on the enterprise side.

For personal use... I fell in love with Arch. Between the Arch User Repository (AUR) and the quick upgrades, I really struggle to use anything else these days.

Arch takes a bit more work to get online than some of the other distros, but I've been amazingly happy running it across all my personal machines (from desktops to laptops to servers to media machines) - It's a fantastic engine to build a machine around, but you will have to do a bit of building.

I've used Fedora for years as my desktop linux distro on my laptops and CentOS or RHEL for servers.

Fedora is the desktop focussed project which is upstream from the commercial RedHat Enterprise Linux, CentOS is the community distribution of RedHat Enterprise Linux.

This is a great, stable, and feature rich ecosystem that contributes a lot of innovation to opensource projects and upstream back to Linux, it has a strong community and has a long track record stretching back more than 20 years.

I switched from CentOS/RHEL to Ubuntu on my servers a couple years ago

While it was a little jarring to have things named and located differently (not much different, but different none-the-less), I was basically "Ubuntufied" within a couple weeks

20 years ago I ran SuSE almost exclusively

Prior I had Slackware (which is still around, and distinctly non "corporate"), RedHat, Mandrake, and a couple others

You wanting to avoid "being ruined by corporate interests" is likely impossible - unless you go with a single BDFL distro like Slackware

Ubuntu is "corporate"

RedHat is "corporate"

SLES is "corporate"

Debian is "corporate" (not as in a commercial entity, but definitely have their own very tight community (ie "corporate") rules as to the "right" and "wrong" ways of doing things)

I'm curious as to why you think Ubuntu (or Red Hat, or any of a number of other distros) which have been around "a long time" won't continue to be around for "a long time"?

Ubuntu's 18

Debian's 29

Red Hat is 30

Suse is 31

...what are you looking for, exactly, that you think isn't handled well-enough by the "big guys"?

I remember when I had fun using Ubuntu. My main concern (and joy) back then was enabling wobbly windows.

What about now? The commercialization leaks through more and more every year. The Ubuntu logo is becoming as misleading as the OpenAI name, instead of the Kumbaya i thought it to represent, it's quickly becoming just another piece of spyware.

There is no way to create an empty file with a right click without googling and going through some bullshit first. I can't even drag and drop files and directories from the desktop straight to the file explorer. Who the hell thought that downgrading functionality was a good idea?

The "touchpadization" of the UI sucks. There is no way to configure how background images are displayed. Too much more bullshit every time that I have postponed the next upgrade out of fear it'll become even worse. So yes, I'm ready to change to something better too.

Linux Mint has a good level of insulation from nonsense like Snaps while preserving compatibility.

Fedora seems to be gaining ground, and also all the innovation in Linux is pushed by the Red Hat people, and Fedora gets it way sooner. Although Ubuntu derivatives still seem to be the standard for home users who don't do Arch.

It’s unclear to me what’s exactly wrong with Ubuntu. Can you please give some more explanations on what you mean with “ruined by corporate interests” or “snap”?

Why do people say it’s not pure? How does it affect me? So far everything seems nicely enough documented and works mostly conveniently out of the box.

On freebsd on my laptop for more or less one year; from this short experience, I would recommend it for anyone looking for a stable and reliable system. Never used on servers yet but it has nothing to prove there, already used by the biggest.

NixOS stable or good ol Debian stable. Both are smooth, but NixOS is just such a joy to configure with generic hardware and software configurations, yet you don't get the feel that everything has to be manual like on Gentoo or Arch.

I've been running FreeBSD for all my production stuff for 20+ years. Works great, stable, consistent, reliable. Give it a try.

Void linux. For personal use, I switched to it couple of years ago after I had some weird issues on Ubuntu. Very stable, everything works as expected: the OS is just there in the background, almost unnoticed, as an OS should be.

I do not know what a "Pro agenda means", but you looking for a Linux ? To me the kernel itself is highly "corporatized".

So, I would try OpenBSD or maybe FreeBSD. Note, for OpenBSD, Nvidia Graphics are a no-go.

My experience with Linux enterprise deployments is not as thorough as using it for desktop & debug environments (every Linux is pretty much same for debug environment if you can handle package update nightmare), I use Arch btw :-)

For production, take a look at SUSE (3 production servers with no hiccups, good support and no particular weird design decisions), CentOS stream after RHEL debacle (have 1 deployment on client request, no complaints or production issues so far), and of course the good old Debian if you want familiar things with Ubuntu

For what it's worth, I was expecting this to be mostly about desktops. Presently I'll throw some love to MX Linux, which appears to be a good example for "Just works."

Broadly, this is feeling more and more like a cycle that one can figure out how to "ride?" As, before for me it has been e.g. Lubuntu, Xubuntu, LXLE, etc. Basically something like "find something Debian-ish" that there's a little bit of, but not TOO much, new energy by people who just want something simple.

it's a very subjective question, depending on stuff like how much you care to update the system, but I'd say:

you might like https://mxlinux.org/ which has seen growing popularity, it's based on debian stable, but with more up to date software, and ability to use newer kernels in case you need better hardware support for very new hardware

you might also just run normal debian, if you don't care for latest versions of everything... Debian is what Ubuntu is based on, and Ubuntu is very close copy of Debian, except Debian's release cycles are very long, so you'll be running on old software all the time, if you choose debian's stable branch...Ubuntu picks packages from debian's Testing branch, verifies it's good enough, and pushes them to ubuntu users, while debian stable is trying to be "super ultra mega stable", so it takes a loong time until everything's sufficiently tested...but using debian's testing branch is pretty fine (unstable is often fine, but might break sometimes)

and another contender: I feel like OpenSUSE is criminally underrated... as they get their money from the enterprise side of things (paid support for linux servers, etc, much like red hat and others), they don't have any reason to mess with what works, and they've been around for like, over a decade also, I forget how long, but a looong time... it would be a bit different, though, using RPMs instead of DEBs, and such, but one very useful feature is, they have builtin YaST control panel which allows you to, either GUI or TUI interface, do a lot of common tasks, without having...

You seem to want the real thing, that is, Debian.

However, if you need something really small and fast, mostly for VMs or servers, although it can also be turned int a full fledged, still very resource efficient desktop, take also a look at Alpine Linux. Musl makes all the difference there.

Then, should someone with no prior Linux experience ask you to install a desktop for them, I would go with Manjaro, which to me is the most straightforward, while still not bloated, for new users.

NixOS. Declarative config, so easy to reproduce, very easy to create a custom iso, nothing like preseed/kickstart nightmare.

Nix language is as (in)digestible as haskell, Guix System so might be a wiser choice, but unfortunately it's development is too steered toward HPC/academic usages that miss some things to be ready IMO for servers and desktops in a generic computing environment, unfortunately.

In 2023 NO CLASSIC distro or OS is wise IMVHO.

I’ve been using Arch Linux for several years now. It has a rich ecosystem of packages, a wiki for many aspects of the system (you might be using the wiki even if you came from another distribution), and AUR fills the hole for whatever packages not included in the official repo. All packages are kept up to date, so it’s great for personal usage where latest packages are preferred over stable packages.

I just recently decided I’ll be switching all my desktop computing to fedora.

The xfce spin is okay, everything i need is in the repo and for everything else there’s flatpak.

F@@k snap.

I will never understand why people prefer debian's old packages. When I was using it I constantly was looking for features in newer versions because they actually are useful and made things things possible which where not easily before. Also installing anything out of tree is just a huge mess. Also when you are on testing things would fall apart almost every week.

I have been liking Pop[1] on desktop, it's pretty functional out of the box, doesn't stuff snaps down your throat (but makes them, and Flatpak, possible if that's your thing). On servers Debian is familiar-feeling but more straightforward for me.

1: https://pop.system76.com/

I've just got this one

________________________________________

  root@ansible:~# apt full-upgrade
  Reading package lists... Done
  Building dependency tree... Done
  Reading state information... Done
  Calculating upgrade... Done

The following security updates require Ubuntu Pro with 'esm-apps' enabled:

  imagemagick ansible libopenexr25 libmagickcore-6.q16-6-extra
  libmagickwand-6.q16-6 imagemagick-6.q16 libmagickcore-6.q16-6
  imagemagick-6-common

  Learn more about Ubuntu Pro at https://ubuntu.com/pro
  The following packages have been kept back:
  python3-software-properties software-properties-common update-notifier-common
  0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded.

________________________________________

and to have those security upgrades I see I have to pay 500$ per year!!!!

wtf!

I'm going to remove all my comments from ubuntu help

I'm going to slightly subvert the spirit of your question, because I think this is exactly what you referred to when you said "ruined by corporate interests", but Fedora Desktop would be my go-to Ubuntu replacement. Red Hat are very hands-off (I really don't think the analogy of it being a testbed for RHEL is accurate) and the stability is excellent. Additionally, SELinux is preconfigured, and flatpaks allow a very basic sandbox implementation via GUI (though it is far from perfect).

OTOH, if you don't give a shit about security (SELinux and AppArmor in particular) then try NixOS. Extremely powerful, idempotent system config. You can do Gnu Guix if you prefer but I have yet to be convinced by the Guix crowd it is superior, and since it has less apps I'm generally Nix-oriented.

I would suggest Debian (for ease of migration) or Red Hat Linux (for industries that are heavily regulated by compliance).

However, with Red Hat you will most likely run into the "corporate interests" factor again.

Maybe you can think of a medium-term and a long-term solution. Begin with Debian, and then look into the feasibility of using FreeBSD. That powers some of the largest services, such as Netflix and Whatsapp.

However, FreeBSD does not use Bash but tsch, so you will want to ease the migration and administrative pains by looking into transitioning any OPS scripts and the like, but FreeBSD does provide a package management solution that holds it ground against apt/aptitude.

This is by no means a comprehensive comparison, just a few insights that might serve as starting points.

Slackware 14.0 was released in 2012.

Last update was on January 19, 2023, a security update on sudo. Check for yourself:

http://slackware.uk/slackware/slackware-14.0/ChangeLog.txt

I think Pop_OS! is also a good choice if you want it only the the desktop and not servers.

They are doing a great work with their shell on top of Gnome and their own DE is on the way. Even though they are a company, they take the community seriously.

I can't wait to have a DE with screen independent workspaces.

Valve's reliance on arch means I think it will continue to see interest and active development

You could give Linux Mint a try for desktop. With the regular edition you should get pretty much what Ubuntu offers, with fewer "anti-features".

There is also a Debian-based Linux Mint (LMDE) which might be preferred to regular Debian for desktop use.

It seems most people agree that the snap is a good idea, but not well implemented. I for one use snap packages when they are available for better security, because, if there is a vulnerability, say in Firefox, the malware will be jailed in its container. That’s one more layer. Sandboxing is desperately needed in desktop operating systems.

Another advantage that is portability. Snap export nextcloud and import somewhere else!

Sure, snaps are slower, and take some space, but with todays CPUs and storage, that’s not a dealbreaker. BTW, if you don’t like snap, you just remove it. What else would be the problem?

Check out also Pop!_OS based upon Ubuntu. Ubuntu itself has excellent hardware support.

I have about the same feeling. Leaning towards Debian. My infra allows automatic build / deploy on dedicated servers and I made sure that it works on Ubuntu, Debian, Arch and Mint. Not looking forward to Arch for production obviously.

I have been using Linux since the late 90s, and honestly, there's no correct answer. I use AlmaLinux for serious stuff. I use Intel's Clear Linux on my workstation. I use Slackware for hobbyist stuff.

In your case, I would suggest taking a serious look at Debian since you're already using it via Ubuntu. While I do not care for rule by committee, Debian has a rather good track record. You may also want to look at Pop! OS

https://pop.system76.com/

Beyond Debian and Pop!, Arch is quite common. I never cared for it personally, but many people (and many whom I respect) love it.

NixOS is by far the best choice if you want an os to learn for the next 20 years.

I had a similar problem back around 2015 when I could not dist upgrade the UbuntuGNOME I was using. Switched to Arch, which was painful to install (remember LFS?) but never regretted switching to it.

For customers I still recommend going for RedHat or Debian though, because the LTS support is great and the distros keeps working and is really low in maintenance overhead.

Whereas on Arch you always can fix it, but when it breaks you can't do that on a server without a terminal/monitor/keyboard, so I wouldn't recommend running it on server infrastructure if it's the host system.

Using Nobara (AKA a copy of glorious eggroll’s hard disk - jk!) which is Fedora based with tons of kernel patches and packages for the new gaming and video editing stuff. Really good stuff. Things like steam being able to use rumble on xone which never worked to me basically works out of the box.

On my servers I use manjaro, not a personal choice but because those are Pine based hardware and it seems manjaro-arm has been very well maintained. The actual software is being run from LXC containers which are mostly alpine and ubuntu.

As personal/work OS, I ran Fedora for eons and then I moved to Pop which was great. However, while waiting for next iteration (22.10 omitted), I briefly distro hopper again. Fedora, fine but I had various dmaller issues that I knew I wouldn't on debian/pop. Tried Alma, but same thing. In the end I defaulted to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS + Lambda Stack. So far so good, albeit a bit boring which is fine in my book. I'll see where Pop and Alma go next. Watching those two basically, until then - Ubuntu+Lambda.

Keep running Ubuntu for servers, even consider using Pro if pricing is suitable for your use case. 10 years of support is pretty good these days. As for desktop: Arch Linux if you like tinkering and need "bleeding edge" software; use Fedora Linux, if you want to be on "leading edge", and want system that you install and it just works; Debian for something more stable. Linux Mint is decent too, but their plan for Wayland is not known yet, if that's something that important for you.

Fedora - stable and predictable. A perfect distro for home\work PC.

Meh. I'm going back to bsd. Though I have to admit, the ease of configuring 3rd party proprietary drivers has sort of delayed my departure from ubuntu.

I'm real close to throwing out my Intel NUC + Ubuntu and starting from scratch. It's just too unstable. I tried going back to SuSE, but alas, it's everything I don't care for in ubuntu, only with different minor nits. Maybe RYO leenucks where I build all my tools from scratch.

I've moved to Fedora for desktop use in the last little bit. It's been quite nice, I have to say! My server stock is a bit all over the place at the moment, as I'm experimenting with a few things. I've got:

* Ubuntu 22.04

* Debian Bullseye

* Oracle Linux 8 (This was more accidental than anything...)

* Armbian

I haven't settled on where I'll be going but I think in the end I'll mostly be moving towards Fedora for everything. Their server OS is pretty nice too!

> without being ruined by corporate interests

I cannot begin to address the issue of "agendae" of various Linux and BSD distro builders, as any number of disagreements have arisen about almost any of them for many reasons (i.e. systemd, dbus, proprietary software, personality differences, etc. etc.)

I'll just add that if you have time, set up several Linux and/or BSD OSes in VMs and take them each for a spin to find what suits you.

I've used Fedora for years as my desktop linux distro on my laptops and CentOS or RHEL for servers.

Fedora is the desktop focussed project which is upstream from the commercial RedHat Enterprise Linux, CentOS is the community distribution of RedHat Enterprise Linux.

This is a great, stable, and feature rich ecosystem that contributes a lot to opensource and upstream back to Linux and has a long track record stretching back more than 20 years.

I used to like Ubuntu, but gave up on it for similar reasons. I have an old machine, so I find Ubuntu too bloated. I've been on Debian Stable for a few years now, using MATE. It's fuss-free. I don't find the software too old, but I use a few bits that I've compiled myself. Linux Mint has a good reputation, so I would consider that if I was thinking of moving away from Debian.

I switched to Fedora once the snap-pushing started getting too annoying. It works well, packages are up to date and not modified from upstream.

I’m slowly gravitating to that, although I mostly deploy my servers as usual and remove snapd. My breaking point was being forced to install Firefox via snap.

Anything with a GUI now runs Fedora (which can be annoying sometimes because it feels unfinished, but largely works), and I’m using Debian for other things.

2 options: 1) gentoo 2) FreeBSD

Which of those you choose depends on your needs. I’d try FreeBSD first, and if you find it lacking then I’d go for gentoo. BSD seems like a well kept secret, but it won’t work for everyone. They do have stellar docs and a friendly community, buts it’s not ubuntu.

For me it was Archlinux. Listen Ubuntu. You rely on third party packages and don't really mind to fix them, just bounce users upstream. Yes, you are based upon Debian. You cannot fix "their" bugs. You should, instead, because those are your users'.

Archlinux is far from perfect, but nearer than you, Ubuntu.

Try building a Linux system from scratch! It won't be as functional immediately, but you'll learn a lot.

I always had bad experiences with Ubuntu upgrades to the next major version.

Distros with rolling releases seem to do much better.

Linux Mint is the next easiest step from Ubuntu.

Then Debian.

If you want to learn more, try Arch.

If you want to try something avant garde, maybe Guix or NixOS.

Nitpicking: Not for 20 years, but for 18.5 years at most - Warty Warthog, 4.10, came out in October 2004.

I’ve been an Ubuntu user for a long time, but I’m moving to Fedora for my laptops and CentOS Stream for my servers. Canonical was great and added a lot of nice things to Ubuntu and contributes a lot with upstream Debian, but my patience with things like snaps has limits.

> breaking apt upgrades on 20.04 LTS

Could you be more specific? I upgraded from 20.04 to 22.04 without any issues.

Just putting in two cents for OpenSUSE. They have one of the best rolling release distros along with regular releases. I used it for a while after Manjaro ate itself. It’s been around almost as long as RedHat so they’ve managed to survive.

RHEL/Rocky for server / Enterprise.

Debian is another option that I also use for my personal workstation. Debian is nice in that there won't be any crazy profit driven decisions. It is super stable. I think it is a much saner option than Ubuntu.

Gentoo solved literally all my problems with Ubuntu. There's a bit of a learning curve to use it properly on a server farm, but it's worth it, especially if you have any even slightly atypical performance constraints.

Debian.

From Debian we came and to Debian we will return. It "just works" without any corporate plans which need to be implemented and for which users are to be used as pawns in the chess game of market domination.

I'm going to throw my hat in the Debian ring like a lot of other comments. The whole snap thing annoyed me too. I use Debian solely on Desktops now I do have some Ubuntu servers but slowly moving what I can to Debian.

Another vote for Debian. Depending on the workload, FreeBSD is excellent as well.

NixOS.

Not going back to imperative, none atomic updates aka I don't know what is configured on this machine or it just broke completely apart in the middle of the update and I need to clean up the mess right now.

An alternative to Ubuntu will emerge when competent people have reached the limit of their patience. Personally, I am more and more tempted by Debian. Ubuntu has become a dangerous tool.

Debian. It's what Ubuntu uses under the hood (as you very likely know) so the transition will be smooth. For the GUI, my absolute favorite is i3wm. But LXDE is more user-friendly.

I was a similar situation, and was distro hopping for a while. I ended up running Debian on most of my systems. Testing with KDE for desktop, and stable on servers.

A lot of people mentioning Debian. Great distro. If you're comfortable with Debian, you might as well check out Arch too. Can't go wrong with either one.

Because of this thread, I switched back to Debian on my laptop after 8 years on Ubuntu, and everything works nicely. Thanks HN!

I moved to Debian after getting fed up with the fact that I had to upgrade the server on almost daily/weekly basis. Couldn't be happier!

> ... breaking apt upgrades on 20.04 LTS in order to push their Pro agenda

I'm running 20.04, and this is news to me. What is the nature of the breakage?

Have a look at FreeBSD. The documentation and the fact userland and kernel are developed and released together changed my whole admin experience.

I like debian for servers and Mint for desktop

Red Hat for production. Centos for personal. Actually also install Snapd for those few sod apps that need frequent updates.

I don't see the problem with snaps. They just work for me. Firefox snap is very fast and don't have issues.

I use Debian for my personal workstation. I can’t get basic shit like Bluetooth to work but that’s all right lol.

Do you have any issues with Debian. It is very stable and is the base for Ubuntu and many other os’s.

Debian. It's always been Debian.

I run my personal servers on Debian and OpenBSD. My OpenBSD machine just hit 12 years of uptime.

If you want control and trust into the system, you're choosing between Arch and Nix

Debian was always a solid choice I ultimately ended up with in the last two decades.

Gentoo, no I'm serious.

Arch Linux

To add to the noise: I like pop os. It's been a great desktop distro

Red Hat for work debian for my rpi and personal cloud services

Why Ubuntu in the first place, when there's Debian?

What about Linux Mint?

PopOS for desktop? i think debian for server?

ChromeOS is the future of general purpose computers IMO. Browsers only get more capable, other OS’s continue to bloat, and it’s fundamentally easier to run securely.

Just skip to the end and use MacOS.

Debian or RHEL for the server

Fedora for the desktop.

Arch, Gentoo

You could try NixOS if stability is that important. It requires time investment, but it saves time too.

I'm going to bet that whatever you choose, you'll be using Ubuntu in six month's time.

i use alpine linux on my servers. it's actually quite good.

Debian for server

PopOS for everyday use

Hannah Montana Linux

fedora/centos

75 6 de j'y

OpenSuse Leap

Fedora?

Debian.

NixOS

Kubuntu.

macOS has been breaking my heart lately. Some of it is a consequence of being on ARM instead of x86, but some of it is the OS- for example, I don’t have to tell this group Docker on macOS is the worst (versus Linux and Windows). The theory behind getting a Mac is that it lasts ~5 years before I really feel the need to buy another Mac, but this time, my 2020 M1 MacBook has only made it about 2 years before I’m now trying to unload it. 16GB just isn’t enough for Docker and the IDEs and other apps I have running. It sucks because I followed the “max out the Mac because you can’t upgrade later” rule. 16GB was as high as I could go, and hell 16GB was enough for my 2015 Intel MacBook.

Anyway, because of the above and the lack of Nvidia/CUDA support for ML/NLP stuff that I do for work, I built a desktop and run Linux on it. I’ve been jumping around distros over the last few months and here’s what I’ve learned:

Ubuntu Desktop has always been on the buggy side for me, going all the way back to 10.04 LTS. I guess taking Debian and GNOME and plastering your own brand on top will do that. The most-stable desktop experience has been Fedora Workstation, which uses pure GNOME as the desktop environment. I wanted a distro with a stable desktop environment (most of my woes pertain to having a 5K display), that supports fractional scaling (200% is too big for a 4K/5K display IMO), and runs all the stuff I want to run. Also rolling release would be nice, because I’m tired of running into issues where a guide I’m following works for Ubuntu 20.04 but not 21.04 for example, or a package (like AWS VPN Client) is made for 20.04 but doesn’t work out of the box with any newer version of Ubuntu.

So brass tacks, stable (and modern-looking) desktop environment out of the box, plus rolling release = Manjaro (Arch) and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, both with KDE Plasma. There are other distros that meet this criteria, but they’re niche or having been around for very long.

I’ve had a good experience with both Manjaro and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, but OpenSUSE had some annoying UI bugs that I don’t experience with Manjaro, so… I’m just sticking with Manjaro + KDE Plasma.

The only downside is that as packages go, everyone makes DEBs but Arch you’ll often have to download a DEB or RPM and convert it and hope it works without any further action on your part. This also means that you can’t have apps auto-update like those that live in APT or Yum. Arch’s AUR technically supports updating the apps you have installed, however for unofficial packages (eg those that someone just converted from DEB or RPM and uploaded to AUR), you’ll be left behind the latest version until someone/the maintainer of that package in AUR manually updates it with the new DEB/RPM they converted for AUR. I think this is an acceptable trade off considering I’m free from Ubuntu and get a rolling release for the OS/desktop environment. Heck, what’s the point in having your apps auto-upgrade if the OS and DE only get updates a couple times a year?

Debian (server, workstation), Archlinux, Manjaro (desktop)