What linux distributions is everyone using?

[nctnico]

I have a fairly elaborate home network of computers.  Two servers running Ubuntu acting as nfs and samba storages (one backs up the other), Windows 10, and 11 workstations, Mac workstations, and Linux workstations. 

My question is about Linux.  Ubuntu used to be small and nimble.  But I'm not so sure about the latest version, 22.0.4.  It seems bloated, and I am even having stability issues.  Samba disconnects periodically and randomly.  ntp service fed by gpsd simply doesn't recognize the GPS device (worked on 20.0.4).  Plainly put, it feels it's coming closer to how Windows used to be.

I'm not trying to find the best, as it really is a matter of opinion and use case.  But I am curious what Linux distributions everyone is using for server and workstation duties.  Would guys mind sharing that information with short descriptions on why?

That is one question with a million answers. If you are already familiar with Ubuntu, then Debian is a logical choice because the package system is the same. Basically Ubuntu tries to have the latest & greatest which might be broken. Debian OTOH tends to lag behind due to thourough testing but what is there, works. I have been using Debian for 25 years or so.

[JeremyC]

Every day use: Debian (SLS  -> Slackware -> Debian).
Clients site: Oracle Linux (Free!)

[Whales]

For family: Linux mint.  It's basically Ubuntu minus the crapware (I think it uses the same mirrors too).  I have been running them on it happily since at least 2017.  The default Cinnamon desktop is traditional and well behaved.

For personal devices: Void linux.  I used to use Arch many years back, but systemd bit me too many times and Void's runit implementation is very simple (much simpler than systemd unit files and definitely better than traditional initscript messes).

For servers: varies, a bit of everything.  If it's in an existing environment then I copy the distro choice of its comrades.  For small or high-reliability stuff I use Alpine (it's ability to store changes to disk in RAM and only have them committed manually is magic) and for routers typically Openwrt (comes with a convenient GUI and firewall ruleset system).

[JohanH]

Started with Redhat before Fedora was even born. Been using Fedora ever since on desktops. Debian and Redhat varieties on servers.

[DiTBho]

distro made yourself: anyone?

[Nominal Animal]

distro made yourself: anyone?

I did it for a few years about two decades ago for some servers I maintained, during which I was somewhat active at Linux From Scratch and Beyond LFS.

It's too much effort for anything besides dedicated appliances or one-off purposes (like learning how to do it).

Even most dedicated appliances are better off built on top of minimal Debian or OpenWRT, rather than building all of it from pure sources.  That way you can leverage the know-how of others, and can find out about fixes and bugs before they bite you.

[DiTBho]

That way you can leverage the know-how of others, and can find out about fixes and bugs before they bite you.

edit: better quote
from things like Yocto, meta-builders

[bsfeechannel]

I did it for a few years about two decades ago for some servers I maintained, during which I was somewhat active at Linux From Scratch and Beyond LFS.

I've always suspected that you're Linus Torvalds in disguise.

[Nominal Animal]

I did it for a few years about two decades ago for some servers I maintained, during which I was somewhat active at Linux From Scratch and Beyond LFS.

I've always suspected that you're Linus Torvalds in disguise.

Nope.  Although the early time scale matches, I was in the Physics department; Linus was in the Computer Science department, or "käpistely".  I did meet him a couple of times.

[Siwastaja]

Mint xfce has served me well for almost a decade.

[SiliconWizard]

I did it for a few years about two decades ago for some servers I maintained, during which I was somewhat active at Linux From Scratch and Beyond LFS.

I've always suspected that you're Linus Torvalds in disguise.

Nope.  Although the early time scale matches, I was in the Physics department; Linus was in the Computer Science department, or "käpistely".  I did meet him a couple of times.

Thanks, I learned a finnish word today. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/k%C3%A4pistely

[mwb1100]

Moved to Mint when Ubuntu made Unity the default desktop.  I've never seen a reason to move back.  Since Mint is based on Ubuntu nearly all of the huge trove of troubleshooting help on the web that targets Ubuntu applies just was well to Mint.

[themadhippy]

yet another ubuntu user here,been using it as my main os  since it was a hedgehog

Ubuntu made Unity the default desktop

came close to changing,but found how to restore the calmness of the classic look so stuck with it.

[sokoloff]

distro made yourself: anyone?

I threatened a security team with that as a response when they said
"You MUST apply all patches [not just all security patches] that your OS vendor publishes within X days of them being published".
"OK, I SHALL become my own OS vendor and I assure you that I will apply all patches that the vendor of my OS publishes in an incredibly timely fashion..."

[golden_labels]

And they did not report you for that kind of an answer? Just silently accepted it? I must admit somebody there is not doing their job right.

The reasons, all patches must be applied, are:

• The vulnerability may be published not under the full disclosure, but responsible disclosure regime, in which case the patch is not released as a security fix. Even worse, some software vendors mislead the users and never reveal critical security vulnerabilities. Of course one may argue it would be best to avoid such companies, but there is no way to identify them until they are caught lying.
• Non-security patches may inadvertently fix vulnerabilities, leading to the latter never being announced in the first place. In a similar fashion, security patches may assume presence of a non-security patch.

That of course applies to users, not actual projects maintaining distros. But it’s clear from your statement, you are the former.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Ed is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.

[DrGeoff]

distro made yourself: anyone?

Always. I don't like any of the bloated rubbish distros.

[DiTBho]

distro made yourself: anyone?

Always. I don't like any of the bloated rubbish distros.

What do you use as meta-builder? OE? Catalyst? Yocto? ...

[Warhawk]

I am happy user of MX linux.

[JohanH]

Ed is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.

[DrGeoff]

distro made yourself: anyone?

Always. I don't like any of the bloated rubbish distros.

What do you use as meta-builder? OE? Catalyst? Yocto? ...

None of these. I use the LFS build system to start the core build and then fork to my custom build about 3/4 through to include other tools and packages I require on hosts.
I have both BIOS boot systems for older devices and UEFI boot systems for the newer devices.

[sokoloff]

And they did not report you for that kind of an answer? Just silently accepted it? I must admit somebody there is not doing their job right.

This was in the context of debating what policy we should have. It resulted in an amicable change of policy as they realized they couldn’t define what an OS vendor was in the case of an open-source OS, which was my point. (This was an error stemming from a “there are only two vendors of OS” mindset, not an actual disagreement on whether one should apply patches.)

[audiotubes]

I have a fairly elaborate home network of computers.  Two servers running Ubuntu acting as nfs and samba storages (one backs up the other), Windows 10, and 11 workstations, Mac workstations, and Linux workstations. 

My question is about Linux.  Ubuntu used to be small and nimble.  But I'm not so sure about the latest version, 22.0.4.  It seems bloated, and I am even having stability issues.  Samba disconnects periodically and randomly.  ntp service fed by gpsd simply doesn't recognize the GPS device (worked on 20.0.4).  Plainly put, it feels it's coming closer to how Windows used to be.

I'm not trying to find the best, as it really is a matter of opinion and use case.  But I am curious what Linux distributions everyone is using for server and workstation duties.  Would guys mind sharing that information with short descriptions on why?

Thanks in advance.

TL;DR

Not Linux but:

Solaris 10 because of the ZFS filesystem (huge management feature set and top reliability), professional, complete doc and great compilers including Fortran.
NetBSD because it has the best package management system I have seen, and saved me a long time ago when a machine was dying and nothing else would run on it.
OpenBSD because it's thin, light, and the devs care about correctness and safety/security. Lots and lots of innovations.

Linux:

Slackware because it's a good blend of letting you set up your box how you want, giving you a fair shot at eliminating bloat, while also offering a lot of packages.
Fedora Workstation (with a bunch of package groups removed) since I got tired of playing home sysadmin. Works great, have never had a problem.

--

Longer version:

I have a bunch of boxes in two locations running various OS including some Linux.

Desktop machine has been Fedora for the last 4 or 5 years, before that I ran Slackware for 10 years or so. While I really liked that a couple of guys wrote packaging tools so I could make my own packages, it started to be too time-consuming and my priorities changed, so in the end I went with a packaged-managed distro (Fedora, as mentioned) and I'm completely happy with it. Nothing ever breaks. Also have a laptop from hell running Fedora. And I use Fedora for WSL on my Windows 10 Pro boxes. I don't like Windows, but WSL has made me dislike it a lot less... and I need Windows for work sometimes.

Main desktop lately has been Win 10 Pro. Without WSL I would not have done that.

I run OpenBSD on some Fuloong boxes which are file servers and emulation hosts.

I run FreeBSD on a Xeon box as a NAS, Samba, minidlna. I have another Xeon box running Fedora which I use as a backup box. Both of these boxes are also emulation hosts.

I have a bunch of Sun rack servers running Solaris 10, with S8 and S9 in zones. I have made accounts on these boxes available in the past for a couple of open source projects that I follow/followed.

I have DietPi on some RPI boxes, and NetBSD on Odroid.

Solaris 10 is my favorite do-everything OS, but for various reasons I don't use it as a desktop anymore although I did for a few years. 11 has been out for a long time, 10 isn't being developed anymore, the source for patches I had for S10 dried up. But and I haven't wanted to go to 11. Still useful as a server and development box but not a viable desktop choice unless you like hurting yourself. Sad, because S10 and CDE are so awesome, and nobody does ZFS like Sun did.

You could look into OpenBSD, NetBSD, or FreeBSD (in no particular order) if you would consider not using Linux. They're all perfectly good as desktops and servers, I'd choose FreeBSD if server use was more important than desktop, Net or Open if desktop was more important. Not that OpenBSD can't be used to make a great server, it certainly can. But ZFS is very important to me.

[DiTBho]

None of these. I use the LFS build system to start the core build and then fork to my custom build about 3/4 through to include other tools and packages I require on hosts.

do you use the Debian/Ubuntu package manager? PACman (Arch Linux), Portage(Gentoo), BitBake OE? ... or have you implemented your own package manager with a dependency resolver?

and do you use "recipes" and/or "ebuilds" from other distros?

I am going to replace "emerge" with something written in C, able to also use "recipes", and based on a true database.

# mypac
> db import /var/db/pkg
> db save

(how it will import from the Gentoo text-based packages database)

I don't like Python-based tools, and I need to support EAPI from 1 to 8. Two years ago Gentoo dropped all the support for EAPI<5.

[DiTBho]

I run OpenBSD on some Fuloong boxes which are file servers and emulation hosts.

oh, arch/mips/loongson64 -> ~MIPS64/LE