Linux

Debian (stable)

Stable, secure, it just works, has one of the, if not THE largest software package repo of all Linux distros, has lots of third party support for proprietary software and drivers that are available as .deb files or through official PPAs. It also is not backed by any corporation, but is a community developed distro. You can install it on pretty much everything.

The only downside I would say is their shift into using Systemd. They shouldn't have done that. It was forced through undemocratically and I think that was a big mistake, even though they are trying to limit software dependencies to it. There's a fork called Devuan that I've been considering where you can pick your init system. (SysVinit/runit, etc) I honestly miss SysVinit. It was simple, easy to understand and easy to maintain.

I use Arch, btw, but I don't consider it the best (yes I do.) I could easily transition to Fedora, for example (I would never do that,) and be completely happy (I would rather continually hit my head with the metal stapler gun on my desk.)

Does what I want and gets out of my way.

CachyOS with NiriWM. Cachy is Arch with none of the install drama. The performance tuning makes it blazing fast on older hardware. Installs with no bloat.

Niri is superior to Hyprland in my opinion because it's a scrolling tiling WM that is super intuitive and fast.

For server workloads, however, not much beats pure Debian. It's stable, well supported, and has a huge package library.

Hannah Montana Linux

Using Linux is not a dick measuring contest (and man I hate these threads asking "why is your distro the best?" - it feels like trolling and sowing division and grief to me. A bit like asking a mother "What is your favorite child?".)

Because it was my first distro that got me away from Windows. And yes, it's Mint.

I do not consider Arch the best. Artix is better because is is systemd-free. I have not switched yet.

Mint is Ubuntu minus everything that makes Ubuntu annoying. That's why I like it.

I considered to go back to Debian but... eh, I'm too old and impatient for that. Nowadays I mostly want things that work out of the box.

NixOS. My entire config is source-controlled and I can easily roll back to a previous boot image if something breaks like cough Nvidia drivers. I also use it for my home router and all self-hosted services.

i personally really love devuan! i liked void linux but now i needed a stable distro and devuan was exactly what i needed + it doens't has systemd so this is a plus for me :)

For a long time I considered Gentoo the best, because I know my things around there. A month ago I said goodbye to my last Gentoo installation in favour for Debian trixie (the next stable release). Gentoo was too time consuming despite the binary repo.

If it would be my job to maintain a Gentoo system I would gladly accept, but there should be a need for it by the users. Otherwise I would just recommend Debian stable or Fedora.

My favourite is Debian over Fedora, because I often don't need the latest versions of a software. And there is flatpak.

It works, has the packages I need and they are up-to-date

You mean my distros?

Different distros are the best for different purposes.

My Fedora is the best for my laptop because it just works and all the hardware is supported.

My Arch is the best because it's a super fine tuned setup that prevents distractions and doesn't waste memory or CPU doing things I don't care about.

My mint is the best because it's simple, stable, beautiful out of the box.

My debian is the best because servers are no nonsense.

My puppy Linux was the best when I was a developer for the distro because it was the smallest lightest and fastest distro I've ever used.

Etc.

i'm using Alpine, but I'm not considering it as the best. It's minimal, no bloat and doing all what I want.

Can't say it's the best, but I love Alpine. It's light, fast, versatile and easy to use, runs on anything, and despite it being used mostly in containers and VMs, it makes for a great desktop distro aswell. :)

I get to say "I use arch btw" :P

I slightly regret switching one of my development machines from Manjaro to EndeavourOS. At the time, I needed to test an app I was writing with ffmpeg v8.0 and Manjaro was not going to have that for quite some time. I tried the AUR package but it didn't work and I had to back it out.

EndeavourOS is absolutely great. I literally am not aware of a single flaw in it. My regret, infinitesimal as it is, is based on being so close to upstream projects. I would far, far rather have a stabilized distro.

My Manjaro machine, for example, has a perfect KDE right now. My EndeavourOS requires directory renaming 2 to 4 times to get it to stick. I know that's not EndeavourOS. It's KDE but I vastly prefer a distro with some quality control.

Meanwhile, Manjaro turned into a dumpster fire so there's no point going back. I do have one machine on Manjaro and it's running fine, taking the extremely occasional update. I may go to Fedora LXQt spin but EndeavourOS is great, except for the Dolphin issue. They may have fixed it by now but I'm too scared to take any updates in case it gets worse.

Ubuntu because you literally need zero setup and customization to get going after a fresh install. Everything is silently built in and everything just works.

Bazzite just works, it runs every game I have with zero fuss, it's easy to run Windows programs / emulators / local LLMs, AND it's basically unbreakable.

Mint baby, it just works.

Because I like compiling everything from source for a 0.2% speed improvement

Because I can hit "next" a couple of time and have a working install

I've been enjoying EndeavourOS over the past three years. It works wonderfully out of the box at default settings, and was really easy for me to use and set up to my liking with minimal know-how needed.

It also works really well on the variety of machines I have in my home. My desktop, modded Chromebook, and my husband's laptop.

It's allowed me to get more familiar and confident with the command line, and enough so that I've switched to Sway from XFCE (and previously KDE).

Void made Linux fun again for me. It gets so much right with the rolling release model.

I've been running Ubuntu Studio for almost a decade, but I'm pretty fed up with it. Maybe I'll switch to Arch. I dunno. Having a turnkey media production distribution was handy. It did audio well. But with pipewire, that seems redundant now.

I use Arch since approximately 2006 or so. I like its stability (yes!), performance, rapid updates and technical simplicity. It never stands in my way and it's fairly simple to understand, administer and modify. It's probably the most convenient OS I've ever used - sure it takes time/effort to set it up but once you're past that it's smooth sailing. It also doesn't change dramatically over the years (it doesn't need to) so it's easy to keep up with its development. Plus, I have a custom setup script for it that installs and sets up all of the basics, so if I ever need to reinstall, I'm not starting from zero.

I am eyeing NixOS as "the next step" but didn't yet experiment with it too much. Arch is just too comfy to use and the advantages that NixOS brings aren't yet significant enough for me to make any kind of switch to it, but I consider NIxOS (as well as its related technologies like the Nix package manager) to be the most interesting and most advanced things in the Linux world currently.

If you're reading this as a newbie Linux user: probably don't use any of the two mentioned above (yet). They're not considered entry-level stuff, unless you're interested in learning low-level (as in: highly technical) Linux stuff from the start already. NixOS/Nix in particular is fairly complex and can be a challenge even for veteran Linux admins/users to fully understand and utilize well. Start your journey with more common desktop distros like Mint, Fedora, Kubuntu.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_is_the_best