The best linux operating systems ?

[Touko White]

Technically no, but there are distributions that do things better. Of course casual users aren't going to care about my Ubuntu rant because Ubuntu isn't meant for experienced users per se. There are power users like me that take pride in compiling their own kernel from scratch, and then there are the regulars that just want something that works out of the box. However, I also feel it necessary to educate these people to a certain degree. It is possible to install a "it just works" distribution that isn't terrible. For new users I highly recommend BunsenLabs Linux (formerly Crunchbang) which is a user friendly version of Debian that comes with a nifty Openbox environment preconfigured for the most novice of users. It still retains the Debian codebase but even your grandmother could use it and it'll run on a potato from 1998.

By 'potato from 1998' do you mean a bad computer from the time or any computer from the time?

Also, Ubuntu is bleh to be honest. It's easy to set up but the fact it is rather backed by a commercial organisation irks me, I've also heard about spying on users...

Anyway on this subject (best Linux distros) Solus 3 is out and it is really awesome!

 

[gnmmarechal]

I tend to use Debian-based distros.

Sent from my cave of despair where I don't stalk Seriel

 

[matpower]

Are the Ubuntu LTS releases generally not using more up to date software then the Debian stable branches? I always believed the Ubuntu LTS releases pulled from the Debian Testing branch and then built their own stable releases from that. Giving you a good balance of stability and more updated software compared to the Debian stable releases, for example PHP, MySQL and Apache.

Canonical we're very quick at releasing a patch for Dirty COW, by the time i'd read about it a patch had been pushed out.

I certainly don't claim to be a Linux power user by any means. However i've generally found Ubuntu Server (LTS) to be a good tool for what I need it to do with the time I can dedicate to it.

Kinda, until 2018, Debian Stable "Stretch" is newer than Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, then Ubuntu LTS is newer, until the next release of Debian Stable, since they share the same 2 year cycle, it keeps this little loop of Debian -> Ubuntu LTS -> Debian -> ...

Plus Debian has backports and its arch support beats the shit out of Ubuntu.

 

[VinsCool]

Solus 3 is fantastic so far!

It's also the very first distro to work out of the box on my laptop. @Lilith Valentine could confirm, this machine is a huge pain in the ass when you want to use Linux on it.

 

[Piluvr]

Ubuntu, or Arch, but ONLY with the Budgie desktop. You cannot beat Budgie.

 

[VinsCool]

Ubuntu, or Arch, but ONLY with the Budgie desktop. You cannot beat Budgie.

Budgie is amazing. I really like Cinnamon though.

 

[Deleted User]

Dunno how anybody in the world could like Cinnamon. It looks like a sodomized KDE desktop.

But Budgie is amazing and you should use it on Solus, Arch, anything.

BUDGIE 10.4 ON ARCH WHEN

 

[VinsCool]

Dunno how anybody in the world could like Cinnamon. It looks like a sodomized KDE desktop.

But Budgie is amazing and you should use it on Solus, Arch, anything.

BUDGIE 10.4 ON ARCH WHEN

I dunno man. Maybe it's the Windows User in me that makes me say that. It's just intuitive to use, familiar, and very customisable.
My current Cinnamon setup is incredibly sexy and smooth to use, too.

 

[Kioku]

Dunno how anybody in the world could like Cinnamon. It looks like a sodomized KDE desktop.

But Budgie is amazing and you should use it on Solus, Arch, anything.

BUDGIE 10.4 ON ARCH WHEN

Cinnamon just works. It's the desktop I used when I had Mint.

 

[Deleted User]

I dunno man. Maybe it's the Windows User in me that makes me say that. It's just intuitive to use, familiar, and very customisable.
My current Cinnamon setup is incredibly sexy and smooth to use, too.

I agree, your cinnamon looks really nice, default cinnamon just looks like a toy to me. I don't know how to explain it.

 

[matpower]

BUDGIE 10.4 ON ARCH WHEN

So this is the power of Arch Linux...

Memeing aside, Budgie is solid, I tried it today with Solus 3 and found it very nice to use and to look at, sadly, it was dropping frames since I was using it on a Celeron J1800 (Baytrail tier), swapped it to Solus MATE and now my sister is using Linux, so far so good lol.

 

[VinsCool]

I agree, your cinnamon looks really nice, default cinnamon just looks like a toy to me. I don't know how to explain it.

Yeah, default is sorta ugly, but functional. I had to spend time to make it look good to my tastes. It was worth it, though.

 

[Plstic]

arch, gentoo, slackware, deuvuan. pretty much anything that doesn't use systemd. fuck poettering

 

[grossaffe]

There is no best. I'd choose one without systemd, though.

 

[VinsCool]

Sorry for my noobiness, but, what is Systemd?

 

[matpower]

arch, gentoo, slackware, deuvuan. pretty much anything that doesn't use systemd. fuck poettering

By refusing to use systemd with Arch, you'll find a bunch of annoying issues and no support from devs or the community ("The Arch Way" is literally a meme).
Still, I'm new to this whole init debate, is there a reason to hate systemd besides Poettering trying to make systemd an one size fits all and breaking compatibility with other Unixes? (Yeah, I dislike it a bit due to that, but it works well so far)

Sorry for my noobiness, but, what is Systemd?

The init(alization) system used by most major distros, it takes care of loading scripts, controlling the /dev/, login shells, logging, etc. (Yes, systemd is a special exception to this, most init systems only take care of loading stuff and scripts, and then handing over to other programs)

 

[VinsCool]

The init(alization) system used by most major distros, it takes care of loading scripts, controlling the /dev/, login shells, logging, etc. (Yes, systemd is a special exception to this, most init systems only take care of loading stuff and scripts, and then handing over to other programs)

What is bad about it? Again, sorry for my noobiness

 

[matpower]

What is bad about it? Again, sorry for my noobiness

People usually link this when they are talking why it is bad. Mostly going against the Unix Philosophy, invading userland and attaching itself into unrelated software (GNOME depends on systemd for example due to its control over login), breaking program compatibility with other Unixes, such as the *BSD family since it's Linux only, kinda buggy sometimes and Pottering wants to make it as important as Linux and GNU.

 

[grossaffe]

What is bad about it? Again, sorry for my noobiness

Well 'bad' is subjective. But for those of us who are against it, much of it comes down to the Unix philosophy, which can be mostly boiled down to "do one thing and do it well". The idea being that the Unix user-space modular allowing you to pick and choose what you want/need to suit your purposes. systemd is a monolithic entity that's trying to own the entire user space. It continually expands its tendrils into different parts of the user space absorbing them into itself and leaving two-way dependencies everywhere making it impossible to extricate. It is an init system, a login demon, logging, DNS resolver, udev, etc.. I think it is trying to expand into the bootloader which would put it before even the kernel. It also keeps trying to push its way into the kernel with a form of dbus (related note, Linus Torvalds banned one of systemd's principal developers from contributing to the kernel).

Less experienced Linux users probably won't care about or notice most of this, but its disturbing for the future of Linux that it could become entangled with such a monolith piece of software that it might never be able to free itself. And part of the big issue surrounding it is that it was pretty suddenly just hammered in everywhere by distro-maintainers without much discussion. The response from Poettering and company is generally "fork it" if you don't like what they're doing. Well that's exactly what's been happening. Debian was forked into Devuan to remove systemd, Arch was forked into Void, and Gentoo... well Gentoo's one of the few main distros that didn't shove systemd down our throats as it's all about customizing your machine; systemd is optional with them. Which is partially why gentoo is likely to become my next distro in the near future as I ween myself off of an older version of pre-systemd Ubuntu.

 

[matpower]

Void is not a fork of Arch, they have a few similarities, but that's as far as it goes.