Re:Ask HN: What is your favorite Linux distro and why?
by akulbe on Monday February 17, 2014 @07:55PM
(#7255605)
Ubuntu. Hands down.
None of them are perfect, but my experience with Ubuntu is that it is hands down, the most desktop-friendly distro out there.
On the other hand, the "RPM hell" that is rumored to be gone in RPM-based distros, is still alive and well. I had a STABLE server-based distro warn me that packages were broken, and there were unresolvable dependencies. This was with a very vanilla install, and no extra repos. Needless to say, it scared me away from RPM-based distros for the foreseeable future.
Is Ubuntu problem-free? Certainly not. However, when I have encountered the occasional issue, there have been workarounds.
The other thing is... if someone is making a Linux version of their app, everyone and their uncle is providing .deb packages. There's a LOT of momentum behind it. So... if I'm going to go off the beaten path of OS X and (heaven forbid) Windows... Ubuntu is the most painless.
Another reason I like Ubuntu so much is its polish. It looks more polished than any distro I've used, to date.
I hear they may do some patching with their fonts, and some other magic under the hood.
I like Arch Linux, as well. If I could get Ubuntu's polish on Arch, it would be a perfect world. :)
None of them are perfect, but my experience with Ubuntu is that it is hands down, the most desktop-friendly distro out there.
On the other hand, the "RPM hell" that is rumored to be gone in RPM-based distros, is still alive and well. I had a STABLE server-based distro warn me that packages were broken, and there were unresolvable dependencies. This was with a very vanilla install, and no extra repos. Needless to say, it scared me away from RPM-based distros for the foreseeable future.
Is Ubuntu problem-free? Certainly not. However, when I have encountered the occasional issue, there have been workarounds.
The other thing is... if someone is making a Linux version of their app, everyone and their uncle is providing .deb packages. There's a LOT of momentum behind it. So... if I'm going to go off the beaten path of OS X and (heaven forbid) Windows... Ubuntu is the most painless.
Another reason I like Ubuntu so much is its polish. It looks more polished than any distro I've used, to date.
I hear they may do some patching with their fonts, and some other magic under the hood.
I like Arch Linux, as well. If I could get Ubuntu's polish on Arch, it would be a perfect world. :)