Ubuntu.It' went from a great beginner distro to a dumpster fire filled with snaps and telemetry.
Ubuntu - It was my first distro and I loved it for many years after 6.06. However, it slowly shifted from a very community focused distro ("Linux for human beings" was the original slogan) to a very corporate distro with lots of in-house bullshit, CLAs, and partially-closed projects that seems to focus on profit and business over actual human beings. I correlate this move to around the time when it became purple rather than brown. Snap sucks, Mir sucks, Unity sucks, integrating Amazon and music store paid bullshit sucks. Just no. Move to Debian.
Manjaro - It's Arch, but with incompetence!
Red Hat - Do you enjoy paying licensing fees for a Linux distro that very likely violates the open source licenses it uses? RHEL is for you! Just remember not to share the code! Sharing is most certainly NOT caring!
Ubuntu, because of their shenanigans with ads in the OS, forcing snap and just generally demonstrating disdain for their userbase.
Manjaro for their office suite debacle, and general instability.
RHEL for their recent attempts to subvert GPL.
Debian because packages are never, ever, ever up to date.
Gentoo because any sane person would get sick of compiling.
Ubuntu: broke my LTS 20 by upgrading to LTS 22, pushes snaps and other ridiculous things over the years while offering relatively little value these days
ZorinOS, had lots of problems with it right out of the box that weren't present on any other mainstream distros I tried on the same hardware.
I didn′t like the look and feel either. For a distro that has a paid version, I would expect a very polished a premium feeling experience, but I didn't get that compared to all the mainstream free distros.
It was ultimately a dissapointing experience all around.
This is gonna be an unpopular opinion, but Linux mint. It's great if you're just getting into Linux, it's absolutely terrible when you know what you're doing in Linux. The old package base and kernel just kills me sometimes. I get they want a stable base and use the lts versions of Ubuntu, but my goodness it's always so far behind it's not even worth using if you're on AMD. Thankfully they've realized this after so many years and are releasing an EDGE iso with updated packages and kernel and LMDE is getting a version upgrade.
Red Star OS, a little too much spyware.
I've had nothing but problems with Ubuntu. There's always some random crash that I don't know what it is but I get a pop up. Sometimes you think you're installing from apt but it secretly is running snap commands.
The OS should never hide things from me. I'm the user and I'm root.
If I wanted an operating system to be sneaky and do things behind my back I'll go to Windows.
I used Ubuntu for years, but the forcing of snap really killed it for me.
Ubuntu used to be synonymous with stability and compatibility. It was always a little bloated and slower than a bunch of others. But that was the price for stability....
It is probably still stable but compatibility has taken a back seat. This is what really annoyed me enough to switch.
I'm on Mint now, it is really nice. Flatpak is much better than Snap, my only real issue is the MASSIVE size of flatpak downloads.
Anything that includes more software than necessary for the system I want. If I need Steam, I'm gonna install it myself.
That's why I don't run one of those many downstream distros that mainly change appearances or improve little things like GUI driver managers etc. For some people that's the reason to use those distros, I might just to look how they achieve the particular feature (e.g. skin, config).
But in general there aren't really distros I don't like, but many which I prefer. Debian, Fedora, Arch, NixOS are all great, especially the more community run distros.
Out of all the distros that I've tried, probably Manjaro. The distro itself is ok, I don't like how kind of bloated the default installation is, but it's not too bad.
However what really pisses me off,among their numerous other controversies, was when they replaced perfectly functional open source apps with proprietary ones...twice. Though the former has since been reversed.
Redhat. Wouldn't touch it at this point. All of my servers are Debian.
Manjaro. Team is really sketch.
For me, it's Ubuntu as well. Canonical continuously integrates stuff to make the whole distribution more complex and hard to maintain. Without going into much detail, Ubuntu always tries to do things where there is a good standardized way different. Why the heck do we need yet another containerized GUI application environment (I'm looking at you, Snap!); Why do you develop
lxd, when there issystemd-nspawn,dockerandpodman?!No longer using Ubuntu at all because they force snaps down your throat. While I do like snaps on the server environment, (I think a lot of the haters out there don't see how nice they are on servers), I prefer to use Debian and then to just install snapd on my terms.
A question that begs for a hot take. I love it! Manjaro has always made zero sense to me. The power of Arch is in its rolling release cycle and your ability to customize it from the ground up. Both of which you lose when you downloads someone mix of Arch. It always seemed like a flavor for people who want to run Arch but just don't have the ability to read the documentation to actually run it.
Arch
(I use Arch btw)
For me it's Ubuntu. Whenever I tried it it was buggy and crashing. It kinda feels like Windows of GNU+Linux.
About Manjaro, I like it. I kinda feel sad seeing Manjaro get so much hate. The only thing I disliked was the accidental DDoS of AUR. But so far it's been working relatively well for me. I use Manjaro with Plasma.
And my favorite is Linux Mint. It just works, and it does so reliably. Also the Linux Mint community is really nice.
As such, I donated to Manjaro, Arch, and Linux Mint. Not much, but at least something.
I don't like Canonical and Red Hat, so I wouldn't use their distros out of principle. On top of that, I don't like Snaps, and Ubuntu's customizations done to GNOME.
From Fedora, I don't like Calamares. The rest is great.
Manjaro doesn't play nice with either upstream nor downstream and has GTK apps that don't follow GNOME's design guidelines, this last point also applies to Endeavor OS.
Vanilla OS is unusable for me, AB Root is hard, and I can't follow any online guides, tutorials or scripts. But their UX/UI is drool worthy. Blend OS has Waydroid out of the box but it's immutability is hard for me.
Debian is awesome but I don't like it for my work / gaming rig. Old kernel and packages. Best ever for servers.
All Ubuntu derivatives are old for me, so no. But I liked Zorin the best.
Deepin, I'm afraid of Chinese gov backdoors. Most probably paranoia.
I settled on Crystal Linux (arch based), has the nicest UI but they don't provide a GUI for package management, and they have handled their repos irresponsibly. It's more of a hobby distro, but a beautiful one.
I don't particularly like Arch.
I don't actually have a problem with it in general or its users. Wiki is helpful for almost everyone, regardless of distro (except maybe Nix and some immutables, where some things can be a bit different).
It's actually a tremendously important distro, and it, Debian, and Gentoo are the distros I know that if they disappear, Linux is either dead or very close to it.
Still, I find Arch to be... I don't know. I think this is actually about to be a very unpopular opinion, but I don't like Pacman at all, and that's probably the source of my issues with it. Its syntax annoys me and I use the terminal for package management so I'd have to be using it all the time.
I think maybe I'm just too used to APT. The same way Arch users find Pacman intuitive, that's how I feel about APT. I can use DNF and Zypper fine, but I'll still prefer APT to them as well. It just feels like "home", if that makes sense. (Nala and aptitude are both nice frontends to it as well.)
I also don't like having to rely on AUR for third party packages. That actually goes for every distro. Do not like third party packages or repos. Sometimes it's necessary, but I keep it to absolute minimum and find Debian has most of what I need. If not, Flatpak. If not Flatpak, source.
Another reason is that I think I prefer regular releases to rolling. I can go rolling if I need to, but I like just having something that doesn't surprise me with a shit ton of updates every day. Well, not surprise me as it's expected, but too many can be quite overwhelming sometimes.
Just personal preference, I guess. Nothing at all wrong with rolling, it's fantastic for a lot of purposes, just not mine.
I thought Linux was about choice
http://www.islinuxaboutchoice.com/
[Edit] Sorry I've just picked up Sync and the UI has apparently confused me. I was trying to respond to this comment.
https://lemmy.world/comment/2287892
But I guess I messed up.
Of all the main stream distros, I never liked Arch. I've been a big fan of and have used Debian and Fedora for years for different uses, I love all the work openSuse does for their GUI configuration, and I respect Slackware and Gentoo for what they are, though I've never use them myself.
Arch always gave me the impression that its fiddly, fragile, and highly opinionated. I think the AUR is a bandaid; its explicitly not supported, yet everyone says its the best reason to use Arch. If I want packages built from source, it just seems that Gentoo does it native to the whole OS and package manager. Nix does too. If I wanted closed-source binaries, flatpak seems like the way the ecosystem is moving and is pretty seemless for my uses. Keeping them with static libraries independent of the OS makes sense to me for something like Spotify, especially since disk space concerns are irrelevant to me.
Opinions on and around Arch are everywhere, both good and bad. I just have never found a situation where I see any benefit to using Arch over Debian for its stability, Alpine for its size, Gentoo for its source building support, or Nix for its declarative approach. So I have grown to loathe its atmosphere.
OpenSUSE, mostly because they differ too much from other distros, often even without any (obvious) advantages.
For example a lot of file paths (config files and such) are different, and when being used to other distros (or just following a guide from the internet) it takes longer to find it (I know there is Yast but I'm not a huge fan of that tool either)
Also, Manjaro
CentOS. We were stuck on an old version at work. The OS is already designed to use old packages for security/stability, so imagine how outdated they are on an old version. It was a nightmare getting new software running on it. That coupled with the other news surrounding CentOS and RHEL, I'm not touching those anymore w a 10 foot pole. I wish it just crumbles and Debian takes over. I have had amazing success with like 20 years on Debian and it just gets better and better.
Red Hat for obvious reasons. Used to run and recommend CentOS before all the fuckery.
Easily manjaro, so many headaches
Sorry mate. I love them all! All free software, especially GPL-based but still have high appreciation for the BSDs as well. Even Red Hat that has messed everything up recently, has a soft spot in my heart, with Fedora being the first distro I really enjoyed Linux in 2003 (very first Fedora Core). However, IBM/RedHat make a real effort to become the one and only distro that I may list here.
Manjaro got me unironically back to windows
update: thanks to archcraft i'm back on the linux train
Using arch but honestly. I don't "like" any of them. Every distro I've ever used has required more setup and maintenance than I would have liked.
I really just want a system that doesn't bork itself on updates and let's me install whatever software I want. You would think that wouldn't be so impossible to find.
I don't like anything Debian based. The package manager always sits at the core of the experience, and it's just a horrible experience. With a bit of manual intervention, you can upgrade an Arch install from 10 years ago. I've never managed to update any Debian based distribution from the previous release. That aside, a lot of what I do relies on newest packages, and having something that's 5 years out of date just isn't for me
Arch and any arch based distro. It's overused, deb is better and the absolute chads will always be distros like NixOS or Guix System. There is no use for an unstable, beginner-unfriendly, distro where you constantly encounter dependency hell.
Of course I'm just being edgy, every Linux Distro is good for the sole fact of it not being Windows.
Well, Ubuntu. I've been skeptical of it from the beginning, but I did use it on and off in the 00's. Canonical has since gone out of their way to make sure I won't install their shit on my computers.
Recent developments have also somewhat soured me on Fedora.
Android. Google doesnt invest anything in AOSP it seems, GrapheneOS is the only really well made Distro.
Androids security model is a joke as every phone is bloated with malware that has full access over everything.
Banking apps need Google, map apps need Google.
There is no split screen in AOSP since forever.
No tools on the lockscreen. I am not talking about crazy ios like tools that are basically a seperate OS, its still a lockscreen. But camera and torch?
So many restrictions. RootlessJamesDSP is a good example of crazy workarounds that still dont work in the end. No FOSS appstore with autoupdates is also a pain.
Gentoo. I just found it a pain, from spending forever figuring why nothing would work only to realise I hadn't enabled some kernel module for my SSD to updates taking forever and completely annihilating my battery if on battery power, it just felt like more work than it was worth.
Every distribution offers different things. I like debian sid for the simplicity and general software availability, but APT is something i still consider a bit clunky. I like arch because of its barebones philosophy - arch wiki helped me a lot learn about linux. I like gentoo - the wiki is awesome and portage is a great package manager. It was the first time I saw how the linux kernel gets compiled. It makes you appreciate all the work the devs do. I now read the title and you ask for the opposite. But someone might find these bad, so i will post it as-is
Ubuntu. Pretty sure you already have an idea why. Lol.
OpenSUSE. I've always had issues trying to use it, from zypper to updates to bootloops. It's also sluggish compared to other distros (yes, same DEs usually) on my laptop. I've tried at least 3x trying to get why a lot of people love it. It's just not for me.
I've never tried Manjaro yet, but coming from Arch and EOS I don't think I ever will.
Manjaro because in the few months I've used it, it happened twice that my system didn't boot anymore after I updated it. The second time I didn't reinstall but installed EndeavourOS instead. Been using that for like 2 years and never had that issue again.
For beginners, and rolling distribution. A beginner should start with something that doesn't break while you don't understand if it's your or the shiny new program that broke the system. But then, I have been using Debian for more that 20 years. For me it's a tool, not a game.
Permanently Deleted
I'm noy going to say I dislike it, but I don't see the point in a source based distro like Gentoo anymore.
I learned a lot from using Gentoo when I was just getting into Linux 20 years ago, but now looking back on it, why would I want to juggle with everyones build systems and compiler flags? Especially now hardware is so homogenous.
Manjaro is the one that has caused me the most pain and suffering.
Fuck Ubuntu. Buggy as shit updates, forced snaps, always had problems whenever I was forced to use it, which I've never had again when I switched to Debian.
Debian >>>>>> Ubuntu
Ubuntu. Package organization is annoying, versions are out of date, managing multiple versions isn't consistent, and distro upgrades always have unintended consequences. Often ones that aren't easy to figure out. Their reputation for being beginner friendly should have died around a decade ago.
The only one that really pissed me off was a distro called biglinux. It's arch based and very popular in Brazil. It's actually very stable. Everything works great. It's got some nice features.
Butttt, it uses latte dock or panel (kde). They have built in presets for how to arrange the panels and what not. It's nice, however, I was trying to move some panels around from the base options and broke kde. I wasn't doing anything more than changing GUI settings and the whole desktop broke. I seriously don't understand.
Ubuntu: it's not bad, I just don't like canonical
Manjaro: it starts as arch but more user friendly (by being preconfigured), until it inevitably breaks (being arch) and you end up with a regular arch that you don't know how is configured
Elementary os: it's too elementary os
All those con distros that are just a bunch of reskinned free stuff ask you money for that. Like zorin os
Debian, as its so MANUAL. Upgrading by manually updating x times and then literally changing the repos manually in the sources list? Wtf? Without any documentation or automation??
QubesOS, as it probably doesnt run on any real hardware. Didnt get beyond a blackscreen, and also AMD consumer GPUs dont support accelerated VMs making it useless.
Ubuntu because its annoying, but unsnap fixes a lot and its actually okay, still outdated Kernel als a bit weird.
KDE Neon because I cant tolerate its not a workstation distro but want it to be one
Linux Mint. Its old, and always had weird crashes for me. Its kinda nice and easy, kinda weird and complicated to do certain things. Some packages dont run as its not Ubuntu. Would always choose any KDE Distro that is newer.
I was using Manjaro until the day my install started giving me problems.with dependencies and duplicated packages (?), so I went with Fedora and it's been smooth so far.
@vettnerk All linux Distros should take example from TROMJARO.
Any 10 or more year support distro because they increase the range of versions that stuff has to work with by 5 extra years and any knowledge I gain about those ancient versions will never be useful again. They also delay a lot of new features in protocols, file formats,... where a large majority of clients needs support before the next phase of introducing a feature can be started.
Manjaro is the one that has caused me the most pain and suffering.
Rocky and OL...
Just their approach aren't as good as Alma or CentOS as upstream. It's just my personal opinion...
I just don't like the CIQ narrative and Oracle that keep pushing Red Hat to corner...
Red Hat being dick because most of downstream being dick, especially CIQ/Rocky.. they steal about 30% of Red Hat contract, while offer cheaper package (quite a lot cheaper, and they don't even work on SIG like AlmaLinux Does), but using RHEL code, and just rebrand it as the best RHEL compatible, Rocky Linux.
OL is worst... Overprice Oracle DB, provide free OL, fork from Red Hat, and slap much higher cost until your company can't pay... well at least OL is honest than CIQ...
People need to see from Red Hat perspective regarding their dick move on exercising their GPLv2, and the upstream code still in git.centos.org. It depends now on downstream for repackage it. So it's still open source... and you can still have Rocky, Alma, OL, just you need to maintain the build pipeline...
And Rocky is broken on Old Thinkpad with 7 row keyboard. Alma, RHEL, and Fedora isn't.
I still can't find the cause, but end up using Fedora on most Thinkpad I have.
Other than that Is Ubuntu... It's... simpler to use, but when you deploy to production or Enterprise env... mostly sucks when they push broken update, and we need to rollback, it's not as simple as dnf history undo... it's also personal opinion, YMMV.
@vettnerk I don’t like Mint, because it looks ugly and dated. (But it is good that there is this distribution for all the boomers out there).
I don’t like arch, because what is the point, if you can use Fedora instead.
I don’t like Ubuntu, but the hate against it is much worse than the distribution itself.RebeccaBlackOS
Because I can only use it on Friday Friday!
base arch that isnt a distro from it the forums are elitist tot he point you should never bother the install instructions (before the installer they added only reluctantly) need a phd to understand its running on the worst parts of the KISS principle, its not simple to use, or simple to get around, it simply refuses to add any bells and whistles to make it easier to use
use endeavouros, arco, archlabs, reborn or any number of arch based distros, that way you get the aur, the good part of it
Elementary OS. They're trying to make a Mac clone but if you say so they get pissed off. Clearly in denial.
They charge for apps which was never the case in Linux before. Most of the apps are exclusive to elementary, which again is not the Linux way.
Many of the apps are designed exclusively for elementary. So they are bringing the Apple walled garden into Linux. We don't that sh1t here. There a reason many of us hate Apple and we don't need some moron who isn't even sure what gender he is, brining that crap here.
Go use Apple if you want no freedom but don't try make Linux into Apple.
arch, ubuntu, nix, manjaro, gentoo, debian, redhat, endevour, artix, mint, lfs, fedora, etc
