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Ask HN: What Linux distro do you daily drive?

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11–20 of 53 posts

Re: Ask HN: What Linux distro do you daily drive?

#11
I'm usually running Debian everywhere, and currently running OpenMandriva on my desktop PC. I work in the refurb department of an e-waste recycling company, where I install Linux Mint on most of what I sell. (If it has a touchscreen, it gets Debian with KDE.)

Re: Ask HN: What Linux distro do you daily drive?

#12

I wouldn’t get too caught up on distros. So many people end up distro hopping for years and never settle. The grass is always greener somewhere else, or there is always something new to try. I’d just get one of the mainstream ones which will have the most community support available, and go with it. Ubuntu, Mint, or Fedora most likely. I’ve had good luck with OpenSuse in the past, but not too many people use Suse out…

That’s great advice the main distros tend to have tons of support for much longer and easier to maintain I’m sure. I currently have a Mac mini m4 so I’m thinking a similar sized box with an AMD setup inside, those small mini PCs.

Re: Ask HN: What Linux distro do you daily drive?

#13
post #5

I'm actually in the opposite position. I've used Linux for 10 years until I recently had to switch to Mac due to work. I started off in Ubuntu in 2016 and moved to Arch in 2018. I ran it until I started in a new job. One thing that Linux just gets right compared to macos and windows is the package managers. Brew is nice and all, but it's nothing compared to pacman/apt. I also miss it for the window managers. Coming f…

Thanks so much, yes I like how you can go to pacman/apt and boom everything is right there! Also I’ve become much more keyboard oriented in navigating and macOS just doesn’t have the same navigation as i3, hyprland, etc. It is intimidating a bit, but I haven’t really felt a challenge on the Mac/windows side for so long that I’m looking forward to it! Thank you.

Re: Ask HN: What Linux distro do you daily drive?

#15
post #2

Pop OS, combined with "Toshy" for using Mac keyboard shortcuts. I find this is a really comprehensive translation of Mac shortcuts, even cmd+shift+{} works for moving between tabs. I use my Keychron keyboard in Mac mode retaining all the same muscle memory. https://github.com/RedBearAK/toshy It was working quite perfectly with 22.04 but there are some caveats with the recent Pop OS "Cosmos" version, I can't find the…

I really like being able to map the Mac key bindings.

I run Zorin on an old Mac and I am pleased with it.

Re: Ask HN: What Linux distro do you daily drive?

#17

I was running Ubuntu everywhere until they started locking security updates behind a login. Now I’m Debian for servers and whatever comfortable Debian based user experience is popular for a laptop. I played with zorin recently. It was fun.

Yes Ubuntu felt very Windows-like to me. I’ve heard lots about Zorin, did you use that with KDE?

Re: Ask HN: What Linux distro do you daily drive?

#18
post #5

I'm actually in the opposite position. I've used Linux for 10 years until I recently had to switch to Mac due to work. I started off in Ubuntu in 2016 and moved to Arch in 2018. I ran it until I started in a new job. One thing that Linux just gets right compared to macos and windows is the package managers. Brew is nice and all, but it's nothing compared to pacman/apt. I also miss it for the window managers. Coming f…

Thanks so much, yes I like how you can go to pacman/apt and boom everything is right there! Also I’ve become much more keyboard oriented in navigating and macOS just doesn’t have the same navigation as i3, hyprland, etc. It is intimidating a bit, but I haven’t really felt a challenge on the Mac/windows side for so long that I’m looking forward to it! Thank you.

If you want a taste of i3/Hyprland you could try aerospace. It's lean, a bit clunky to use and lacks a lot of functionality, but it's the best mac option for a i3-style display manager on mac. I installed it day 1 of switching and I haven't looked back since. I'm thinking of maybe looking into adding some PRs or forking it to see if I can add some functionality to it

Re: Ask HN: What Linux distro do you daily drive?

#20
Aurora OS and Bazzite. Flathub crap happens, but I’ve never had so much confidence in my Linux machine. It has the windows or Mac quality that i can trust it to boot into a real desktop environment after any update. No more booting to a broken terminal session with no means of googling or real recovery
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