Which Linux distro is most stable for daily use?

For all the experienced Linux users out there, which Linux has been the most stable and caused the least headaches for you?

Best if you have worked with multiple distros and could share a comparison based on personal experience.

Comments

[Chittoji Murali Sree Krishna]

Distros in Linux have there own characteristics

Debian - the most stable ,for apps some stuff might get in repositories & rest you have to use snapshots kind of stuff, suitable for beginners.

Arch - the rolling release, you can find almost any software in AUR(arch user repository), this is the only distro which don't have versions, it upgrades entire system even the Linux with a single command.

Redhat enterprise Linux, this is mostly used for server side.

I use Vanilla Arch as my daily driver it is really fast and good I can boot up my system in less than 18 sec on hdd, and for software there are hell of a repositories, aur will definitely find that software and community is so big, and finally the great arch wiki, most of the Linux users always bookmark it for a reference.

[Nilkun]

The Arch wiki was the one single thing that turned me into an Arch fanatic. It is truly amazing.

[Madza]

I did a discussion like half a year ago on the best docs and the Arch wiki came up on top voted by users 😉👍

[Chittoji Murali Sree Krishna]

Sorry for not giving full depth info at the Start:

1. i've started my linux journey with linuxMint, after using it for a while few people suggested me to use ubuntu or kubuntu(kde version of ubuntu), then i installed ubuntu well i felt its better than linuxMint but at the end both are from same Debian, but which have different UI and uses same package manager apt Debians have few packages in repositories and app store, rest we have to download from official website and make them executable these files will have .deb or .sh extensions, or you have to use snap store, But what people love is the stability it gives and few like the UI of it, Installing these will be bit easy because they come with GUI installer, but later using them is bit of a task, and after some time you have to reinstall the entire system if you want step up to the newest software, these upgrades will be like Point to Point release, You can have upgrades like basic stuff, it depends upto the provider, but for the base upgrade you have to wait till the next update comes for example: if you installed Ubuntu13 you have to wait till next next ubuntu upgrade for entire base upgrade, This is main reason for its stability, and they give five years time period , they wont release any new software untill unless they test it.

   Then after using the ubuntu for a while, i liked it but later i got issues with software installation and stuff, and wont let me todo anything rather giving me a task searching & downloading the proper software is one task, and installing it is an other task,

2. Then later in one youtuber suggested me for opensuse i tried installing opensuse but failed with errors, so i left it without installing

3. After sometime Another Youtuber suggested for going with manjaro, this was my first arch distro, This is Having GUI installer like ubuntu, linux mint, opensuse but it is also same as them when it comes to base upgrade as Point to Point release, but this can upgrade most of the stuff like vanilla arch, this is having the best package manager pacman and can also install AUR(arch user repository), with this i used download software on ease and when i got i use arch wiki for debugging,

4. Then Later Garuda Linux came into the scene and its like heavily customized arch Distro, which also compatable for gaming, but i wont recommend gamin in linux, but this is heavy as hell

5. After using it for a while i came to know about the Vanilla Arch, this is probably only thing which will greet with a terminal for the installation, you have to build everything from scratch, there are all types of filesystem which we can install, at first i used EXT4 its a good filesystem, but later i got to know about BTRFS which also known as ButterFS, with this filesystem i can create my system image snapshots, so when ever i get into issues on new app grades i can go back easily, this is so minimal that it rocks Speed even on HDD, but as usual HDD is slow leave it aside, And the updates will be almost everyday bcz its an complete rolling release distro, Vanilla Arch will not have any kind of unnessary apps or stuff just we download whatever we required, These were the reasons for me to Fel in love with this distro, after using Vanilla Arch i am unable think of Going back to Ubuntu or other distros, I Agree installation is a pain but later rest all works as smooth as butter, if you guys intrested in installing Vanilla arch i might with those commands

and here are distros i have used and my experience is not as much other Linux Gaints but i can help a bit about these

[Madza]

That's for the insight 🙏❤
Really valuable and was interesting to read 😉

[Chittoji Murali Sree Krishna]

Thanks, but my english skills are poor 😞

[Madza]

They are alright, no worries 😉👌

[Madza]

Thanks for the insight 😉👍
Really useful info 😉

[Pontakorn Paesaeng]

Pop OS / Ubuntu is quite stable. If you desire more stability, Debian would be better choice.

If you like to config and customize, Arch Linux is great for you. It's stable and have useful wiki and AUR.

[David Aldridge]

I found that switching my Pop OS/Ubuntu to KDE instead of Gnome made it much more usable.

[Pontakorn Paesaeng]

Great. I use BSPWM because I have potato computer. I actually want to use i3-gaps but installation is difficult. I either need to download from PPA which can be outdated or dangerous or compile it myself which can lead to difficulty to upgrade.

[dastasoft]

In my case Linux Mint, for daily usage, programming and even some gaming I had 0 problems, its the first distro that when for any reason I had to deal with Windows again I felt the need to quickly return to Mint, with other distros Windows can seduce me with some confort/simple workflows.

[Gavin Murambadoro]

I have hopped a lot and i also feel at home with linix mint. It fits perfectly in my workflow and is very stable

[Nilkun]

I love Arch Linux, and have been using it for years. The only issue is that I have to update/reinstall my graphics driver manually every once in a while, or X won't start. (I have a very old nvidia card)

[PiFlUn]

I have a new one and it's still the case 🤷‍♂️

[Filip Todic]

Fedora, by far. Honestly, there is no hassle at all.

1. The installation is pretty straightforward. It has a nice GUI, and you create your user account after a restart.
2. Upgrades are not much different than regular updates. It doesn't require any further configuration and breakages are extremely rare. I usually wait for about 2-3 weeks after a new version is released to upgrade, and in 7 years I've had only one "breakage" (openssl wasn't compatible with the company's network ocnfiguration, which was fixed in a couple of days).
3. Most of the libraries you need can be found in the official repositories. If on the other hand you need something that Fedora doesn't keep in its official repositories, there always RPMFusion. 9 times out of 10, these two fulfill all your needs. There are also COPR repositories, similar to Ubuntu's PPA repositories.
4. The Fedora Workstation uses Gnome by default, but there are other UIs available, called Spins

It's low maintenance and stable. Ideal if you need an OS that works in the long-term, doesn't require any tinkering, and doesn't get in your way with various "gotchas".

[Heiker]

For me is Debian. I have written about my experience with it in the past, so i'll post that.

Short version: Once you have it configured and have everything working, you can even forget you're running Debian. To get the latest versions of some cli tools I use homebrew.

The full story:

Heiker • Sep 25 '20

I'm using Debian stable. I heard that debian was a "rock solid distro that requires very little maintenance" so I decided to try it.

Everything I needed for web development was available to me in the official repositories, that was a nice surprise. Is not the latest version but they work well for my purposes. Now, even though I had no need to look for alternative ways of installing software, someone reminded me that homebrew also works on linux (with some limitations) so I tried that. I took a look at the available packages and saw a great deal of tools I wanted. I'm happy to report that now I have a stable "base system" in the version that just works and I have my non-essential tools in their latest version. Consider me a happy debian user.

Hardware. Currently using a 9 years old desktop PC:
CPU: Intel i3-2120 (4) @ 3.300GHz
RAM: 8GB

The package manager. apt is nice and all but the interface it's still too complex, like when you want to remove (really remove) something you need to do this.

sudo apt purge <packagename> && sudo apt autoremove

Why, apt? Just... why?

Anyway, I made wrapper script around the most common commands to simplify that sort of deal. Now I can write commands like this.

pc install ...
pc remove ...
pc upgrade

I like it.

The desktop environment. I chose LXDE. I know I can run GNOME or KDE just fine but it doesn't feel right.

The good things about LXDE:

• It's lightweight on your resources. On a fresh install it consumes 313 MB of RAM. Considering this is a fully functional desktop environment that's pretty low.

• It's flexible. You can use it like a traditional window manager with floating windows where you do everything with the mouse. But it can also be very keyboard driven, you can focus, move, resize your windows with keyboard shortcuts and if you know what your doing you can even get some pseudo-tiling features. It uses openbox as a window manager, anything crazy that openbox can do you can probably do it in LXDE.

• You don't have to touch a single config file if you don't want to. If something can be changed there is probably a GUI app that can help you with that.

What's the catch?

• The default settings are just horrible. But that can be changed and it can look good.

• Development is pretty much dead. Everything seems to indicate that LXQt is the spiritual successor of LXDE.

[Madza]

Thanks a lot for sharing 😉
Insightful embedded comment as well 👍

[Prathamesh Mali]

I started with ubuntu used it for a while then in June 2020 I started using popOs its very stable and better than ubuntu hi wise and other things considered. But it's also an ubuntu based Distros there's nothing bad about debian based Distros but they are very bloated so I searched for minimal linux Distros and then I've found out about manajro i3 community version and its hella confusing at the start when I started using it in vm but in November 2020 I decided to dive into manajro i3 version, basically it's an arch based distro the aur is just amazing you can build the software from source just using makepkg -si , it's great learning experience I learner how to maintain an arch sysytem while using this distro then in 2021 I switched to archlabs it's the closest to arch or vanilla arch it's vary minimal only uses below 500mb of ram when booted up I feel that if you can start with manjaro (kde versions) it's beautiful and stable and youll also get a chance to use arch based distro which is less intimidating. Learn your way though pacman and other things learn about window managers like i3 openbox then switch to a minimal distro. Watch distrotube and lukesmiths youtube channel for recommendations.

[Madza]

Thanks for the insight! 🙏❤

[Matt Ryan]

Debian and Ubuntu are a good choice for a stable Linux distro for daily use. Arch is stable and also much more customizable.

Mint is a good choice for a newcomer, it is Ubuntu-based, very stable and user friendly.

If you are looking for a distro not based on Debian, Fedora is a great choice. It is great to familiarize a user with RedHat and CentOS, and is quite popular. Apparently Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, uses Fedora daily.

[Oleksandr Romaniuk]

I use Pop!_OS, it's Ubuntu-based distro from company, that made linux-powered computers.
I really love PopOS. I have much troubles on Ubuntu with wi-fi, some keys, snaps, but when I move to pop_os I forget about all this bad staff. And if you don't like snaps - pop_os have flatpak support build-in store app. So, you must try Pop!_OS.

[Risee Kumar Thakur]

I would recommend Ubuntu LTS or Pop!_OS, either way both are the same but I personally like Pop!_OS. The reason why I mentioned Debian distro because even if you run into any trouble it'll easier for you to fix, having a large user base and also their docs are pretty easy to follow.