- Debian
- Ubuntu
- Linux Mint
- Arch
- Fedora
- NixOS
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voters
I’m interested which linux distro you guys use as a daily drive:)
I started off on Bazzite and found there were some things I wanted to do that I couldn’t because of Bazzite being immutable so went with Fedora as I had had a pretty good experience with Bazzite so thought I would get a similar experience with Fedora.
Bazzite was definitely more beginner friendly out of the box with everything just working while Fedora was by no means hard or broken I just had to do a little more (installs some codecs) to get it to the same as Bazzite was out of the box.
For a new person like myself I would have no problems recommending Bazzite as a daily driver for general computing (web, documents, videos and games).
I am running Ubuntu 26.04 on my primary desktop and Pop!OS on my laptop. I started with Raspian since a Pi5 was my first device I owned with Linux. My work initially gave me a test workstation with Mint installed, but I only used it for a week or so while I waited for my Pi to show up. I put a Ubuntu VM on my windows desktop at home pretty quickly and used WSL for a while too. I was able to get a old Intel MacBook running with Ubuntu for a while but could never get the sound running 100% of the time. Once I had my Framework 13 laptop I ran Fedora on it before moving to Pop!OS. The main reason I choose Ubuntu is that I was having an issue with my Fedora and KDEPlasma freezing after installing my ARC GPU. Once I updated to Ubuntu 26.04, all the issues went away with my ARC GPU.
Hi Peoples.
Windows user for 40ish years. Linux convert for almost 1 year.
Systems:
- MB: Asus ROG Strix B450-F Gaming
CPU: Ryzen 5 2600x
RAM: 32GB
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 950
NIC: ASUSTec 1GB
NVME: 1TB Intel
Display: dual monitors
OS: Linux Mint 22.3
- MB: ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming
CPU: 7thGen Intel i5-6600K
SSD: 250GB Kingston
RAM: 16GB
NIC: Intel IGB
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 950
OS: none yet
- MB: HP 2AFA 27-k119 27: All-in-One from 2015
CPU: Intel Core i7-4765T
RAM: 12GB
GPU: 4thGen IGU Intel Xeon E3-1200
GPU: NVIDIA GT 730M Kepler
NIC Broadcom 1GB
HDD: 1TB Seagate
Display:27" touchscreen
OS: Linux Mint 22.3
- MB: Samsung Laptop 700Z5C-S01 from 2012
CPU: Intel Core i7-3615QM
RAM: 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz
GPU: NVIDIA GT640M
NIC: 1GB
SSD: 500GB Samsung
Display:15" laptop
OS: Zorin OS_18
EXTRAS (currently in the Ryzen system#1)
NIC: Realtek RTL8125 2.5GB
HDD: 10TB WD RED (Brand new)
HDD: 4TB WD (3TB Videos and pictures)
HDD: 1TB SAMSUNG
HDD: 1TB USB SAMSUNG
-
I have had a lot of fun setting up these systems and using LLM Anthropic and Gemini to help with problems and provide step by step solutions. I have gotten STEAM set up on 2 of the systems. I have been able to get Truecrypt, and VPN-UNLIMITED set up and working. I have gotten my 2 Google Drives set up in the file manager. I have gotten the 27" all-in-one touchscreen set up and working along with it’s Beats audio. AI was a tremendous help in all of this.
I am gathering the courage to set up System 2 with a lot of the EXTRAS, as a home server that will run
-
Docker
-
Jellyfin
-
possible CASAOS
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pihole
-
Immach
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fileserver for home network file sharing and backups of 7 systems we have currently running
Looking forward to the experience
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Main gaming system, cachyos debloated. reason, arch base always updated cleanish base good for gaming and productivity
Laptop, vanilla arch. reason, extremely debloated for gaming and work, to have the least number of packages on it. AUR usage limited to 2-3 packages
servers, hexos(truenas) on dell r720 handles bulk storage VM hosts and containers
proxmox cluster, 3x ussf lenovo/dell pcs for running critical containers as well as testing out new VMS before they need more powerful hardware
media pc, debian stable with realtime kernel. running mostly flatpaks. reason the stability of debian, with a frequently updated kernel and packages keeps the system as stable as possible with having all programs up to date
CachyOS has been a daily driver for my desktop for a while now and I use it other than just to game such as making music, use Blender, OBS for recording, etc. I have OnlyOffice for course notes and for my resume.
I’m still using Arch on desktop/laptops and debian on servers.
I do like hearing what others are using and why.
What do you self host and why did you choose arch and debian?
Ok the easy question first. I run debian on my servers because of, well, I may take some heat from saying this, but it is what it is. I run debian because of how Redhat treated the open-source community when they ended CentOS 7 support. Redhat turned me into a Linux snob of sorts by reminding me why I like Linux so much, and, that is because of the motto “For the community, by the community”. So, from dealing with Redhat, I’ve chosen to stay away, as much as possible, from distros, directly owned and/or heavily influenced by corporate entities.
For me, that means Arch on the desktop and Debian on servers. There’s actually a bit more as to why I chose Arch on the desktop, but I’ll try to keep this short.
Now, what do I self-host?
All running in docker compose:
Homepage - The entry point to my homelab
NGINX proxy manager - Reverse proxy manager
Netbox - DCIM & IPAM
Pi-hole - for local DNS mgmt
Beszel - for docking monitor & docker host monitoring
Dockhand - Docker container mgmt (replacement for Portainer)
Grafana - Monitoring & observability
Loki - Centralized log mgmt & observability
Alloy - Running outside of docker. I use Alloy because pulls logs, metrics, and traces via a single agent. I feeds metrics into Prometheus
Prometheus - time-series monitoring database
Mikrodash - Mikrotik RouterOS monitoring dashboard
Uptime-Kuma - Some host monitoring (ping) & URL monitoring
Glance - Linked from Homepage. I use glance as a RSS feed (web feeds, gitlab/github, & videos feeds
Crowdsec - LAPI, meaning I host the Crowdsec console locally instead of own their cloud
ntopng - One of my favorite open-source apps. Network observability on steroids
LibreNMS - Network/SNMP monitoring. I really like the live dashboards that show real-time bandwidth consumption
Wazuh - SIEM & XDR, another one of my favorite (on-steroids) open-source apps
Ansible-Semaphore - I am slowly moving away from ansible (too close to Redhat)
Other apps I don’t currently have running, but I run as needed:
TP-Link Omada controller
Unifi Network controller
I’ve used some of these apps for years, others, like Wazuh, I just recently stood up and I am still learning. Who am I kidding, the whole homelab is a learning environment.
If you work in IT and don’t have a homelab, why?
To got back and answer the “why Arch” question:
Several years ago I distro hopped alot. I really liked discovering what was new in Linux tech and which distro’s were embracing the new tech. Well, I quickly learned that Arch (usually) implements the new tech first.
I ended up on Garuda Linux (years ago) and what I learned then was the Garuda used BTRFS, which I was familiar with, but what Garuda showed me was the integration of BTRFS with pacman. On Garuda, every time you run pacman updates, a snapshot is created. Also, Garuda uses grub-btrfs, so the snapshoots are in the grub boot menu. This makes it very easy to back out of a configuration change and/or a bad update, should that every occur. I also learned about the Linux ZEN kernel (and later the garuda kernel), which are performance oriented (I game on Garuda). I also learned about ZRAM.
I really like the Garuda defaults in the base install. So much less post-install changes to make.
I am a minimalist, but I’ve grown tired of constantly having to manage gnome shell scripts just to see them break after every major gnome update. So, I use the cosmic desktop now. Is it perfect for me, no, but it’s close enough. Before you ask, yes, I am aware that I am using an open-source desktop manager tied very closely to a corporate entity.
With all of that being said, I am no Linux expert. Not by a long shot, but I do know my away around a Linux system and I like to “Learn Linux” the hard way. For me, that usually means learning from the terminal first, then moving to GUI front ends. This way I can actually troubleshoot when I need to.
I use Mint because I have been helping a guy to install Mint on old laptops that are donated to disadvantage people in the US and other countries through Catholic charities.
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It’s nice to see that Linux won against Windows:)
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