What is your favorite Linux distro?

Question

Your favorite linux distro why and how often do you change distros?

Answer 1

I am a Linux professional. I only use enterprise, or carrier grade Linux. That is why my favorites are Centos, and WindRiver.



I have dozens of servers running Centos and Redhat.

Answer 2

Archlinux. I don't change distros often at all. Archlinux is a rolling release; this means that archlinux is always the current version. Yes, it's true, most software for linux is released in deb form...however archlinux has several tools (written by people that actually know how to use linux!) to combat this; one of witch is yaourt.



I also like archlinux's minimalistic design. If you don't need it, it ain't there. This means that when a person installs it, there is no GUI by default. Wireless drivers are often kept to whatever is in the kernel (I had to download an ndiswrapper package and use that to get the actual firmware for my wireless card).



I have used several linux distros fedora 16 (whichever version was dedicated to Dennis Ritchie), Ubuntu (several versions), Linux Mint/LMDE, Debian, Mandriva, OpenSuse and several others. I did like several parts about every one of them (Esp the bleeding edge software of Ubuntu, and it's use of PPAs), but overall I've had several problems with each that were not "fixable". A good example of this is when I tried to install the flashwrapper package on fedora 16, doing so actually broke the system to where flash was completely uninstallable...and after several hours of googling, irc chat, and forums the only known solution was to reinstall...well, then it happened again.



The best reason to use arch is the documentation. If a package is supported directly by the arch maintainers, then it's on the wikipage. The support is also awesome on the forums, but I have only seldom had to start a new thread (I believe I only had to do this one time).

Answer 3

I use Linux mostly for work, so my opinion is more biased to work situation.

When I use a Linux Distro, what I need are:

1. easy to install

2. easy to maintain

3. easy to add software

4. can do many things auto-magically

5. easy to connect with other peripherals and gadgets



So with that in mind in the beginning I use OpenSuse, for quite sometime this was my choice of Distro. It's good, stable, easy to use.



But after a while, I went with Mint Debian. It is even easier to use, and I like it because it can do a roll-up update. Meaning that I can update through the latest version incrementally, through downloading. So i don't have to install new version from a CD.



And the latest i use is Ubuntu LTS. It is very easy to use, very easy to maintain, and has many prepackaged software. I can install Microsoft Office (I need Excel for my large worksheet, and nothing can beat Excel when you have so many worksheet with so many cross-reference formulas) much more easily on Ubuntu, than on another distro. It's really stable. i know that there is a learning curve with the UI, but after playing with it for a while, it is actually the faster way to work with, and efficient.

Answer 4

Slackware. I've used RedHat, but RedHat is a "controlled experience" type of distro - you do things the RedHat way. Ubuntu was a joke. Suse was usable. Debian was acceptable. Vector was limited. Plop is great for rescue disks.



But Slackware gave me the most flexibility, and it is rock solid stable. I use it for workstations and servers.

Answer 5

Debian Stable without X window system for HTTP server. Its softwares are quite old but quite stable and update of packages is minimal. Best features for servers.